"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous.
Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror"
into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY
(Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS
(Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous.
Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror"
into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY
(Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS
(Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
"... I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc, etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies on them is a necessity. ..."
"... I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to do with the SIGINT Enabling Project. ..."
I was paranoid about the Roomba and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have
any connectivity, nor does it record anything.
Personal assistant connected to both the 'net and Large Corp? No. Way.
I'd wager that most people know that cell phones can track their
location, hoover up their personal info, record their conversations, etc,
etc but that doesn't stop most people from owning one anyway. The
populace has been convinced that owning the device that constantly spies
on them is a necessity.
Don't think learning that Echo is doing the same thing would deter
most people from using it. 'Convenience' and all
Fortunately, I can barely hear the person I'm talking to through my
smartphone, so I am not optimistic that it can actually hear me from
someplace else in the house, especially compared to someone's Echo I
have experience with. But point taken.
The microphoneS (often there is an extra mic to cancel ambient
noise) in a phone are exquisitely sensitive. The losses you're
hearing are those from crushing that comparatively high-fidelity
signal into a few thousand bits per second for transmission to/from
the base station.
I've often wondered whether the relatively high difficulty
in buying a smartphone with less than two cameras has something to
do with the SIGINT Enabling Project.
(Not that
I'm
foily )
Wonder if Mr. B gave Mr. T and all the other attendees an Echo at Mr.
T's tech summit. ATT and all the other big telcom players all said,
scout's honor, they don't listen in on their customer's phone calls, so
no worries because Fortune 500 companies are such ethical people. That
may even be technically true because the 3 letter agencies and their
minions (human or otherwise) are doing the actual listening. So if you
are too lazy to go to Amazon.com to delete your idle chit chat, I can
sell you a cloth to wipe it with (maybe I'll even list it on Amazon's
marketplace).
Developing nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar
signing deals for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt,
which agreed to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8
billion in weapons purchases.
Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing,
the total size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from
the 2014 total of $89 billion, the study found. Developing nations bought $65 billion
in weapons in 2015, substantially lower than the previous year's total of $79
billion.
The United States and France increased their overseas weapons sales in 2015, as
purchases of American weapons grew by around $4 billion and France's deals increased
by well over $9 billion.
The report, "
Conventional Arms
Transfers to Developing Nations, 2008-2015
," was prepared by the nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and delivered
to legislators last week. The annual review is considered the most comprehensive
assessment of global arms sales available in an unclassified form. The report adjusts
for inflation, so the sales totals are comparable year to year.
Fred C. Dobbs -> Peter K....
December 26, 2016 at 07:15 AM neopopulism: A cultural and political movement, mainly in Latin
American countries, distinct from twentieth-century populism in radically combining classically opposed
left-wing and right-wing attitudes and using electronic media as a means of dissemination. (Wiktionary)
Fred C. Dobbs -> Peter K....
December 26, 2016 at 07:15 AM neopopulism: A cultural and political movement, mainly in Latin
American countries, distinct from twentieth-century populism in radically combining classically opposed
left-wing and right-wing attitudes and using electronic media as a means of dissemination. (Wiktionary)
"You control the message, and the facts do not matter. "
Notable quotes:
"... That's funny. Neoliberals are closet Trotskyites and they will let you talk only is specially
designated reservations, which are irrelevant (or, more correctly, as long as they are irrelevant) for
swaying the public opinion. ..."
"... If you think they are for freedom of the press, you are simply delusional. They are for freedom
of the press for those who own it. ..."
"... Try to get dissenting views to MSM or academic magazines. Yes, they will not send you to GULAG,
but the problem is that ostracism works no less effectively. That the essence of "inverted totalitarism"
(another nickname for neoliberalism). You can substitute physical repression used in classic totalitarism
with indirect suppression of dissenting opinions with the same, or even better results. Note that even
the term "neoliberalism" is effectively censored and not used by MSM. ..."
"... And the resulting level of suppressing of opposition (which is the essence of censorship) is
on the level that would make the USSR censors blush. And if EconomistView gets too close to anti-neoliberal
platform it will instantly find itself in the lists like PropOrNot ..."
"Then of course, it is easy to attack the neoliberals, they'll actually let you talk."
That's funny. Neoliberals are closet Trotskyites and they will let you talk only is specially
designated reservations, which are irrelevant (or, more correctly, as long as they are irrelevant)
for swaying the public opinion.
They are all adamant neo-McCarthyists, if you wish and will label you Putin stooge in no time
[, if you try to escape the reservation].
If you think they are for freedom of the press, you are simply delusional. They are for
freedom of the press for those who own it.
Try to get dissenting views to MSM or academic magazines. Yes, they will not send you to
GULAG, but the problem is that ostracism works no less effectively. That the essence of "inverted
totalitarism" (another nickname for neoliberalism). You can substitute physical repression used
in classic totalitarism with indirect suppression of dissenting opinions with the same, or even
better results. Note that even the term "neoliberalism" is effectively censored and not used by
MSM.
See Sheldon Wolin writings about this.
And the resulting level of suppressing of opposition (which is the essence of censorship)
is on the level that would make the USSR censors blush. And if EconomistView gets too close to
anti-neoliberal platform it will instantly find itself in the lists like PropOrNot
(muckrock.com)
52
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @09:34PM
from the
actually-it's-108-years
dept.
"Over a century of fear and filing cabinets" at the FBI has been exposed
through six years of Freedom of Information Act requests. And now MuckRock
founder (and long-time Slashdot reader)
v3rgEz
writes:
MuckRock recently published its 100th look into
historical FBI files, and to celebrate they've also
compiled a timeline of the FBI's history
. It traces the rise and fall of J.
Edgar Hoover as well as some of the Bureau's more questionable investigations
into famous figures
ranging from Steve Jobs
to
Hannah Arendt
. Read the timeline, or browse through all of MuckRock's FBI
FOIA work.
The FBI interviewed 29 people about Steve Jobs (after he was appointed to the
President's Export Council in 1991), with several citing his "past drug use,"
and several individuals also saying Jobs would "distort reality."
"Trump_vs_deep_state ... is anything but populist":
Populism, Real and Phony, by Paul Krugman, NY Times : Authoritarians with an animus against
ethnic minorities are on the march across the Western world. ... But what should we call these
groups? Many reporters are using the term "populist," which seems both inadequate and misleading...,
are the other shared features of this movement - addiction to conspiracy theories, indifference
to the rule of law, a penchant for punishing critics - really captured by the "populist" label?
Still, the European members of this emerging alliance - an axis of evil? - have offered some real
benefits to workers. ... Trump_vs_deep_state is, however, different..., the emerging policy agenda is anything
but populist.
All indications are that we're looking at huge windfalls for billionaires combined with savage
cuts in programs that serve not just the poor but also the middle class. And the white working
class, which provided much of the 46 percent Trump vote share, is shaping up as the biggest loser.
...
Both his pick
as budget director and his choice to
head Health and Human Services want to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and privatize Medicare.
His
choice as labor secretary is a fast-food tycoon who has been a vociferous opponent both of
Obamacare and of minimum wage hikes. And House Republicans have already
submitted plans for drastic cuts in Social Security, including a sharp rise in the retirement
age. ...
In other words..., European populism is at least partly real, while Trumpist populism is turning
out to be entirely fake, a scam sold to working-class voters who are in for a rude awakening.
Will the new regime pay a political price?
Well, don't count on it..., you know that there will be huge efforts to shift the blame. These
will include claims that the collapse of health care is really President Obama's fault; claims
that the failure of alternatives is somehow the fault of recalcitrant Democrats; and an endless
series of attempts to distract the public.
Expect more Carrier-style stunts that don't actually help workers but dominate a news cycle. Expect
lots of fulmination against minorities. And it's worth remembering what authoritarian regimes
traditionally do to shift attention from failing policies, namely, find some foreigners to confront.
Maybe it will be a trade war with China, maybe something worse.
Opponents need to do all they can to defeat such strategies of distraction. Above all, they shouldn't
let themselves be sucked into cooperation that leaves them sharing part of the blame. The perpetrators
of this scam should be forced to own it.
It really depend on how the two sides play it out. You don't need to move the diehard sexists
and racists for things to change. But the Democrats need to have a Warren/Sanders attack team
ready on every single GOP "favor the rich and screw the rest" proposal. It would be rather easy
to get the press to pay attention to those two if they went to war with Trump/GOP. Their following
is sufficiently large to be a media market - so their comments would not be ignored. We also know
that at least Warren knows how to bait Trump into saying something stupid so you can get the kind
of firework that commercial media cannot ignore. The Dems need to learn how to bait the media
at least as effectively as Trump does.
When can we please start tuning Krugman down here? He aided and abetted the election disaster
by being one of the most prominent Very Serious People leading the offensive against Sanders and
promoting a fatally flawed candidate that was beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable,
self-inflicted, negative baggage.
He may make good points here after-the-fact, but they're all "duh!" level bits of analysis
at this stage. And the last thing I want to hear from any of the VSPs who piloted the train over
the cliff during this election season is b*tching about the mess at the bottom of the cliff.
Aren't there ANY other voices with some remaining shred of political credibility that can be
quoted here instead of the unabashed VSPs who helped elect trump?
Since I am only noting objection to one blogger who invested much of his personal credibility
into promoting a horrible leader, I don't see the relevance of your comment at all. I enjoy pretty
much every other blogger to which Thoma links.
My issue is with highlighting a crank whose writing has cratered over the last year. If a Trump
ripping is due (and it usually is), then I'm fine with it being a feature so long as it's written
by someone who isn't channeling Niall Ferguson and with the same degree of credibility as a political
"wonk".
I think a certain amount of self-criticism and introspection is warranted at this point, no? And,
I think, there is little question that the long-term coziness of the democratic party with high
finance and the PMIC played a major role in negative perceptions of HRC.
Although I did not vote for Clinton, if I had lived in a remotely competitive state I would
have certainly voted for her. To put this in perspective, my vote for Sanders was a very reluctant
vote and Clinton is the POTUS I despise the most (Trump will change this).
"beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable, self-inflicted, negative baggage."
Characterizing Clinton's electoral college defeat as being beaten resoundingly is exactly the
kind of irrational "bro" rhetoric that Krugman rightly criticized.
And I write this as someone who voted for Sanders and then Stein.
They're an angry lot.... and they, like the conservative "affinity fraudsters" that Krugman has
lambasted over the years, refuse to accept reality. Instead, they hunker down, shut out facts,
and surround themselves only with people and information that agrees with their flawed opinions.
All I hear from Paul -- and others -- sounds like ducking and weaving and back peddling -- in
a phrase: retreat-in-good-order to avoid defeat-in-detail.
How about a little aggression? Would it be too much to expect these top brains the potential
to rebuild labor union density (THE ONLY POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TISSUE OF THE AVERAGE PERSON)
at state by progressive state level.
NEVER HEAR OF IT -- NO OTHER PATH (and it looks to be multi-multi-path once you start looking
through all the angles.
I'm only beginning to sort all this out -- like the angle that any group disallowed of employee
status by the Trump NLRB (student teaching and research assistants?) immediately become eligible
for full state supported conduction of NLRB-like certification process. No preemption problem.
Preemption on closer exam may not be the barrier folks think. So, so much more federal preemption/supremacy
(not the same thing!) stuff to sort through -- another reason to put off posting the full comment.
Few weeks maybe.
Where I come from, the Bronx of the 50s-70s, everybody was different, so nobody was different,
so we had more fun with your differences.
We didn't have diversity; we had assimilation; everyone was the same.
Typical 60s high school chatter: How's an Italian like a crashing airplane? Guinea, Guinea,
Guinea: Whop!
How's an Irishman like a submarine under attack? Down the hatch; down the hatch; down the hatch!
In the movie The Wanderers, portraying the 1979 Bronx with more people of color, the high school
teasing is all: nigger, spic, kike! Too much for your non-real-melting pot ears.
:-)-
********************
Be more impressed by your (plural) interest in minority dignity if it obsessed on getting everyone
one the same ECONOMIC (!) level.
You rebuild union density or you do nothing! You do it at the state by progressive state level
or you do nothing! Are you academic progressives the slightest bit interested in doing just that?
How come you are not obsessed with re-unionization?
"Trump_vs_deep_state ... is anything but populist":
Populism, Real and Phony, by Paul Krugman, NY Times : Authoritarians with an animus against
ethnic minorities are on the march across the Western world. ... But what should we call these
groups? Many reporters are using the term "populist," which seems both inadequate and misleading...,
are the other shared features of this movement - addiction to conspiracy theories, indifference
to the rule of law, a penchant for punishing critics - really captured by the "populist" label?
Still, the European members of this emerging alliance - an axis of evil? - have offered some real
benefits to workers. ... Trump_vs_deep_state is, however, different..., the emerging policy agenda is anything
but populist.
All indications are that we're looking at huge windfalls for billionaires combined with savage
cuts in programs that serve not just the poor but also the middle class. And the white working
class, which provided much of the 46 percent Trump vote share, is shaping up as the biggest loser.
...
Both his pick
as budget director and his choice to
head Health and Human Services want to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and privatize Medicare.
His
choice as labor secretary is a fast-food tycoon who has been a vociferous opponent both of
Obamacare and of minimum wage hikes. And House Republicans have already
submitted plans for drastic cuts in Social Security, including a sharp rise in the retirement
age. ...
In other words..., European populism is at least partly real, while Trumpist populism is turning
out to be entirely fake, a scam sold to working-class voters who are in for a rude awakening.
Will the new regime pay a political price?
Well, don't count on it..., you know that there will be huge efforts to shift the blame. These
will include claims that the collapse of health care is really President Obama's fault; claims
that the failure of alternatives is somehow the fault of recalcitrant Democrats; and an endless
series of attempts to distract the public.
Expect more Carrier-style stunts that don't actually help workers but dominate a news cycle. Expect
lots of fulmination against minorities. And it's worth remembering what authoritarian regimes
traditionally do to shift attention from failing policies, namely, find some foreigners to confront.
Maybe it will be a trade war with China, maybe something worse.
Opponents need to do all they can to defeat such strategies of distraction. Above all, they shouldn't
let themselves be sucked into cooperation that leaves them sharing part of the blame. The perpetrators
of this scam should be forced to own it.
It really depend on how the two sides play it out. You don't need to move the diehard sexists
and racists for things to change. But the Democrats need to have a Warren/Sanders attack team
ready on every single GOP "favor the rich and screw the rest" proposal. It would be rather easy
to get the press to pay attention to those two if they went to war with Trump/GOP. Their following
is sufficiently large to be a media market - so their comments would not be ignored. We also know
that at least Warren knows how to bait Trump into saying something stupid so you can get the kind
of firework that commercial media cannot ignore. The Dems need to learn how to bait the media
at least as effectively as Trump does.
When can we please start tuning Krugman down here? He aided and abetted the election disaster
by being one of the most prominent Very Serious People leading the offensive against Sanders and
promoting a fatally flawed candidate that was beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable,
self-inflicted, negative baggage.
He may make good points here after-the-fact, but they're all "duh!" level bits of analysis
at this stage. And the last thing I want to hear from any of the VSPs who piloted the train over
the cliff during this election season is b*tching about the mess at the bottom of the cliff.
Aren't there ANY other voices with some remaining shred of political credibility that can be
quoted here instead of the unabashed VSPs who helped elect trump?
Since I am only noting objection to one blogger who invested much of his personal credibility
into promoting a horrible leader, I don't see the relevance of your comment at all. I enjoy pretty
much every other blogger to which Thoma links.
My issue is with highlighting a crank whose writing has cratered over the last year. If a Trump
ripping is due (and it usually is), then I'm fine with it being a feature so long as it's written
by someone who isn't channeling Niall Ferguson and with the same degree of credibility as a political
"wonk".
I think a certain amount of self-criticism and introspection is warranted at this point, no? And,
I think, there is little question that the long-term coziness of the democratic party with high
finance and the PMIC played a major role in negative perceptions of HRC.
Although I did not vote for Clinton, if I had lived in a remotely competitive state I would
have certainly voted for her. To put this in perspective, my vote for Sanders was a very reluctant
vote and Clinton is the POTUS I despise the most (Trump will change this).
"beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable, self-inflicted, negative baggage."
Characterizing Clinton's electoral college defeat as being beaten resoundingly is exactly the
kind of irrational "bro" rhetoric that Krugman rightly criticized.
And I write this as someone who voted for Sanders and then Stein.
They're an angry lot.... and they, like the conservative "affinity fraudsters" that Krugman has
lambasted over the years, refuse to accept reality. Instead, they hunker down, shut out facts,
and surround themselves only with people and information that agrees with their flawed opinions.
All I hear from Paul -- and others -- sounds like ducking and weaving and back peddling -- in
a phrase: retreat-in-good-order to avoid defeat-in-detail.
How about a little aggression? Would it be too much to expect these top brains the potential
to rebuild labor union density (THE ONLY POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TISSUE OF THE AVERAGE PERSON)
at state by progressive state level.
NEVER HEAR OF IT -- NO OTHER PATH (and it looks to be multi-multi-path once you start looking
through all the angles.
I'm only beginning to sort all this out -- like the angle that any group disallowed of employee
status by the Trump NLRB (student teaching and research assistants?) immediately become eligible
for full state supported conduction of NLRB-like certification process. No preemption problem.
Preemption on closer exam may not be the barrier folks think. So, so much more federal preemption/supremacy
(not the same thing!) stuff to sort through -- another reason to put off posting the full comment.
Few weeks maybe.
Where I come from, the Bronx of the 50s-70s, everybody was different, so nobody was different,
so we had more fun with your differences.
We didn't have diversity; we had assimilation; everyone was the same.
Typical 60s high school chatter: How's an Italian like a crashing airplane? Guinea, Guinea,
Guinea: Whop!
How's an Irishman like a submarine under attack? Down the hatch; down the hatch; down the hatch!
In the movie The Wanderers, portraying the 1979 Bronx with more people of color, the high school
teasing is all: nigger, spic, kike! Too much for your non-real-melting pot ears.
:-)-
********************
Be more impressed by your (plural) interest in minority dignity if it obsessed on getting everyone
one the same ECONOMIC (!) level.
You rebuild union density or you do nothing! You do it at the state by progressive state level
or you do nothing! Are you academic progressives the slightest bit interested in doing just that?
How come you are not obsessed with re-unionization?
The first several months of a new administration are inevitably seen as an opening for
those who hope to influence the White House over the next four years. The Senate Ukraine
Caucus-a bipartisan group of senior lawmakers who have lobbied intensively for a closer
U.S.-Ukraine relationship-hopes to take advantage of this sensitive period, in which the
new president will order policy reviews, modifications in existing programs, or even a
clean break from the past.
In a letter to
President-elect Trump, the caucus writes that it is absolutely critical for the United
States to enhance its support to Kiev at a time when Vladimir Putin's Russia continues
to support a separatist movement on Ukrainian soil. "Quite simply,"
the group claims
,
"Russia has launched a military land-grab in Ukraine that is unprecedented in modern
European history. These actions in Crimea and other areas of eastern Ukraine dangerously
upend well-established diplomatic, legal, and security norms that the United States and
its NATO allies painstakingly built over decades."
On this score, the senators are correct. Russia's
stealth invasion, occupation, and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula was for all
intents and purposes a land-grab denounced not only by the United States but by the
United Nations as a violation of state sovereignty and self-determination.
But let's not kid ourselves; this isn't the first time
a stronger power will attempt to change the borders of a weaker neighbor, nor will it be
the last. The Russians saw an opportunity to immediately exploit the confusion of
Ukraine's post-Viktor Yanukovych period. Moscow's signing of the Minsk accords, an
agreement that was designed to de-escalate the violence in Eastern Ukraine through
mutual demobilization of heavy weapons along the conflict line and a transfer of border
control from separatist forces back to the Ukrainian government, has been stalled to the
point of irrelevance.
It is incontrovertible that, were it not for Russia's
military support and intervention in the summer of 2014, the Ukrainian army would likely
have been able to defeat the separatist units that were carving out autonomous "peoples'
republics" in the east-or at the very least, degrade rebel capabilities to such an
extent that Kiev would be able to win more concessions at the negotiating table.
Yet while we should acknowledge Russia's violations of
international law and the U.N. Charter, U.S. and European policymakers also need to
recognize that Ukraine is far more important for Moscow's geopolitical position than
Washington's.
There is a reason why Vladimir Putin made the fateful
decision in 2014 to plunge Russian forces into Ukraine, and it wasn't because he was
itching for a war of preemption. He deployed Russian forces across the Ukrainian
border-despite the whirlwind of international condemnation and the Western financial
sanctions that were likely to accompany such a decision-because preserving a pro-Russia
bent in the Ukraine body politic was just too important for Moscow's regional position.
Grasping this reality in no way excuses Moscow's
behavior. It merely explains why the Russian government acted the way it did, and why
further U.S. military assistance to the Ukrainian security forces would be ill-advised.
In fact, one could make a convincing case that providing hundreds of millions of dollars
in security assistance to the Ukrainian government wouldn't help the situation at all,
and might lead Kiev to delude itself into thinking that Washington will come to its
immediate military aid in order to stabilize the battlefield.
Since 2015, the United States Congress has authorized
$750 million to improve the defensive capabilities of the Ukrainian military and
security forces. Congress has followed up those funds with an additional $650 million
earmarked for the Ukrainians over the next two years, a hefty sum that the next
administration would probably use as a message to the Russians that further territorial
encroachment on Ukrainian territory would produce more casualties in their ranks.
What the next administration needs to ask itself,
however, is whether more money thrown at the Ukraine problem will be more or less likely
to cause further violence in the country and turmoil for Ukraine's elected government.
Russia has demonstrated consistently that it will simply not permit a pro-Western
democratic government from emerging along its western border-and that if a pro-Western
government is formed in Kiev, Moscow will do its best to preserve a pro-Russian bent in
Ukraine's eastern provinces. Hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations haven't
forced Russia to change that calculation so far; it's not likely that hundreds of
millions more will be any more successful. Indeed, every time Washington has escalated
its rhetoric or authorized money for Ukraine's military, the Russians have responded in
equal terms.
The political crisis in Ukraine is far from resolved,
in large measure because of Russia's own actions on the ground and its nonexistent
implementation of the Minsk peace agreement. But the situation in the east, while not
fully peaceful by any means, is far less violent than it was at the war's peak in 2015.
Sometimes, not weighing in can be just as smart for the U.S. national interest as
getting involved-a reflex that is has been the forte of Washington's foreign policy
establishment since the end of the Cold War.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
In response to the latest imposition of US sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that
the new sanctions would further damage relations between the two countries and that Moscow would
respond with its own measures. "We regret that Washington is continuing on this destructive path,"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
As a reminder, on Tuesday the United States widened sanctions against Russian businessmen and
companies adopted after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine.
"We believe this damages bilateral relations ... Russia will take commensurate measures."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
Then again, it is difficult to see how sanctions between the two administration could be any more
"damaged": also on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration
to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia and
the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.
" Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen. We don't communicate with one
another, or (if we do) we do so minimally ," Peskov said.
Additionally, RIA said that according to Peskov "he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin
would seek re-election in 2018."
"Everyone's heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking
about elections," Peskov said.
Then again, the sanctions may soon be history.
According to a Bloomberg report , the U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the
showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in
a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia's economic
growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and
0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.
"It's still a toss-up whether the U.S. will ease sanctions quickly, with the EU lagging, but the
direction of travel is toward easier sanctions or less enforcement, which could reduce financing
costs," said Rachel Ziemba, the New York-based head of emerging markets at 4CAST-RGE. "We think the
macro impact would be greater in the medium term than short term as it facilitates a rate easing
trend that is already on course. In the longer term, it gives more choice of investment."
Trump, who's called President Vladimir Putin a better leader than Barack Obama, has said he
may consider recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and lifting the curbs. While
dogged by concerns that Russia intervened to tip this year's elections in the Republican candidate's
favor, Trump has already showed his hand by planning to stack his administration with officials
supportive of closer cooperation with the Kremlin, from Michael Flynn, the president-elect's national
security adviser, to Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson, a candidate for secretary of state.
An equally important consequence of any policy change by Trump would be its affect on the EU's
own penalties on Russia, with more economists saying the bloc will follow suit. Forty percent
of respondents said in the Dec. 16-19 survey that the EU will begin easing sanctions in the next
12 months, compared with 33 percent in October.
"If the U.S. eases sanctions, it won't be possible to achieve a consensus among EU member states
to keep their sanctions regime in place as currently formulated," said Charles Movit, an economist
at IHS Markit in Washington.
And although it is always possible to claim that all of Obama's failures stem from mere
incompetence, at some point this claim begins to ring hollow; how can he possibly be so utterly
competent at being incompetent?
Obama is not a Russian agent but could very well be a Soviet agent.
Being a dumb fuck whose only skill is reading a teleprompter, he has no idea how to resolve
the change in the world since the Soviet Union disintegrated.
A Russian in Crimea told me of a recent past winter near disaster when Ukraine shut off the power
(and water) - somewhat covered here on ZH. Only a truly heroic effort by Russia to bring
in generators kept them from living in dangerous conditions. Crimea is more solidly pro-Russian
than it was before the vote to secede.
All Ukrainians should understand that the NWO (controlled by the elite and their Western banks)
will subjugate the Ukraine. Evidence for this is abundant, but the most striking example
is the willingness to accept millions of non-European refugees, while few Ukrainians are allowed
into Western countries.
Yes, there is genuine reason for resentment (Holodomar), but this terror was executed by the
Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich (which means son of Kagan - as in Ron Kagan - husband of Nudelman -
understand the connection?). More Russians died under this same type of Bolshevik terror
than any other ethnicity in the USSR.
Russia is no longer the USSR, and seeks to return to a society of Christian values. Ukrainians
should seek peace with their Russian brothers. It would be to the benefit of all Western
countries, which is why the NWO is trying everything to prevent it.
The UN Mediator for Palestine, "The U.S. appointed Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden" was assassinated
in 1948 in Jerusalam by the likudnik-future izraeli Prime Ministers Begin & Shamir....
FACT:
"Folke Bernadotte ,
Count of Wisborg
( Swedish : Greve
af Wisborg ; 2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish
diplomat and nobleman. During
World War II he negotiated
the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German
concentration camps
including 450 Danish Jews from the
Theresienstadt camp.
They were released on 14 April 1945. [1]
[2] [3] In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from
Heinrich Himmler
, though the offer was ultimately rejected.
After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be the
United
Nations Security Council mediator in the
Arab–Israeli conflict
of 1947–1948. He was assassinated in
Jerusalem in 1948 by the
militant Zionist group
Lehi while pursuing
his official duties. Upon his death,
Ralph Bunche took up
his work at the UN, but was removed from the post around six months after Bernadotte was assassinated,
at the critical period of recognition of the fledgling state. ....."
Likudniks like present-day murderer & chief Benny-Boy Nutandyahoo!!!
It's 100% bonefide fuckin' TERRORISTS that are the leaders of the rothschild colony & real
estate project in the eastern Mediterranean.
Wow! Those are some stringent sources! Wikipedia, where you can edit the text to read however
you wish before citing it, ...great source! ( Seriously? A wiki cite ends the discussion for me
every single time. Dead. (Kind of like interviewing an architect who says Fisher-Price is his
inspiration). Next up is the legendary duckduckgo. Move over Library of Congress! And of course
WhatReallyHappened is the next up on the hit parade. Jeeze, I spent a cargoload of time and money
earning a masters in history. I wish I had had wiki. It would have been so much easier, AND I
would be as smart as this guy telling us all about how stupid we all are. LOL!. X_in_Sweden, go
to Wiki and look up "Useful Idiot" while standing in front of a mirror.
Zionists are also behind the use of Saudi wahabbists. It's a twofer. It clears land that Israel
covets and is part of the plan to get Christians to fight Muslims, wipping each other out.
Well Mr Chumbawamba let me congratulate you on joining the big club of anti-jewish fascism, you
share a honorable position together with Nazism and Islamic Fascism. Fuck off paranoid religitard.
I have done business with Israelis Most of them think that they are in a crunch existential
mess.
The reality is that the tech and arms business is pretty cushy and they are reluctant to give
it up.
If they get a decent guarantee of their space (and maybe a couple more settlements) they might
scale down a tad.
They can do an up-front deal with the head choppers in Riyadh any time they want because the
princes do not want to live on a sea of radioactive glass.
Obama and the current congress already locked this in until 2026 (see below) which takes
us past 2 terms of Trump. Doubt Trump could change/drain this if he wanted (?) as
current congress not only did the deal but added $500M per year to the previous Bush 10 year deal
which was set to expire in 2018. Dem/Rep... it is going to happen no matter.
"The United States has finalized a $38 billion package of military aid for
Israel
over the next 10 years, the largest of its kind ever, and the two allies plan to sign the
agreement on Wednesday, American and Israeli officials said". NY Times Sept 2016,
When I was a kid, we had a pump to fill the water trough for the animals. There was a coffee
can near it, that you used to take some of the water that was left in the water trough and pour
it into the pump. This was known as "priming the pump". You had to do this to allow
the pump to pump more water into the trough from the well.
America is a money-well for Israel. They take a little bit of the money that we flood
them with, and they donate to enough politicians campaign to insure that those politicians will
vote to turn on the money spigot, filling up Israels trough with money. Don't worry, they'll
save a coffee can or two of it to prime the pump again next time.
I really don't care if Israel lives or dies. If they live and prosper, that's just fine
with me. But what pisses me off is this system that allows them to pump money from us, just
by using a tiny portion of it to bribe our politicians with campaign contributions. This
bribing results in not just lost treasure, but also lost blood, as we fight wars to weaken Israels
neighbors, again, only because our politicians are being bribed with foreign donations.
I would prefer we find ways to jail any politician that gets money from foreign countries.
I would also prefer we put an end to Super PACs, since the foreign money will simply migrate to
those. It is bullshit that our system is set up so that the honest politicians that refuse
to sell out are promptly voted out of office because their competitor, who is willing to sell
out, is flooded with campaign money. This ends up giving us representatives who do not represent
our interests at all.
My greatest fear in Trump being a plant is that he is supposed to calm relations with Russia,
which will open up the opportunity for the big event. This gives them more time on the surface
while the deep state continues spreading chaos along Russia's borders.
I suspect Russia would be aware of this possibility however.
Trump is going to keep allowing Israelis to bribe American politicians.
Aid money goes full circle. The tax payers are the losers as usual. Trump needs to look into
the dual citizanship of congress stoolies. Drain that swamp first to put that coin into merican
infrastructure renewal/upgrades.=.jobs.
Biden's son in Ukraine couldn't help things much. How cool was the "invasion" of Crimea?
I thought it was cool. I was kind of wishing Texas would pull something like that, maybe
with NJ.
I know you have "invasion" written in a way that shows you know it was NOT an invasion. The speed
a decisiveness was certainly impressive, shame the Donbass has been relegated to the roll of dead
buffer zone though. I understand the strategic benefit of letting the Ukrainian `Army` bog down
there and bleed resources, but a lot of Ethnic Russians are dying and suffering as a result.
The Ukro-Nazis have just tried to re-run the attack on Debaltsevo, where there were put through
the meat grinder last winter. Guess what, they ended up in the grinder again, even though the
Novorossians are following Minsk rules on sending heavy armor away from the front. The Ukrops
lost up to 100 dead, a large number just left on the ground as the survivors fled. The wounded
were airlifted to Kharkov military hospital.
One Ukrop unit reported 25 dead in 3 hours of fighting.
The first several months of a new administration are inevitably seen as an opening for
those who hope to influence the White House over the next four years. The Senate Ukraine
Caucus-a bipartisan group of senior lawmakers who have lobbied intensively for a closer
U.S.-Ukraine relationship-hopes to take advantage of this sensitive period, in which the
new president will order policy reviews, modifications in existing programs, or even a
clean break from the past.
In a letter to
President-elect Trump, the caucus writes that it is absolutely critical for the United
States to enhance its support to Kiev at a time when Vladimir Putin's Russia continues
to support a separatist movement on Ukrainian soil. "Quite simply,"
the group claims
,
"Russia has launched a military land-grab in Ukraine that is unprecedented in modern
European history. These actions in Crimea and other areas of eastern Ukraine dangerously
upend well-established diplomatic, legal, and security norms that the United States and
its NATO allies painstakingly built over decades."
On this score, the senators are correct. Russia's
stealth invasion, occupation, and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula was for all
intents and purposes a land-grab denounced not only by the United States but by the
United Nations as a violation of state sovereignty and self-determination.
But let's not kid ourselves; this isn't the first time
a stronger power will attempt to change the borders of a weaker neighbor, nor will it be
the last. The Russians saw an opportunity to immediately exploit the confusion of
Ukraine's post-Viktor Yanukovych period. Moscow's signing of the Minsk accords, an
agreement that was designed to de-escalate the violence in Eastern Ukraine through
mutual demobilization of heavy weapons along the conflict line and a transfer of border
control from separatist forces back to the Ukrainian government, has been stalled to the
point of irrelevance.
It is incontrovertible that, were it not for Russia's
military support and intervention in the summer of 2014, the Ukrainian army would likely
have been able to defeat the separatist units that were carving out autonomous "peoples'
republics" in the east-or at the very least, degrade rebel capabilities to such an
extent that Kiev would be able to win more concessions at the negotiating table.
Yet while we should acknowledge Russia's violations of
international law and the U.N. Charter, U.S. and European policymakers also need to
recognize that Ukraine is far more important for Moscow's geopolitical position than
Washington's.
There is a reason why Vladimir Putin made the fateful
decision in 2014 to plunge Russian forces into Ukraine, and it wasn't because he was
itching for a war of preemption. He deployed Russian forces across the Ukrainian
border-despite the whirlwind of international condemnation and the Western financial
sanctions that were likely to accompany such a decision-because preserving a pro-Russia
bent in the Ukraine body politic was just too important for Moscow's regional position.
Grasping this reality in no way excuses Moscow's
behavior. It merely explains why the Russian government acted the way it did, and why
further U.S. military assistance to the Ukrainian security forces would be ill-advised.
In fact, one could make a convincing case that providing hundreds of millions of dollars
in security assistance to the Ukrainian government wouldn't help the situation at all,
and might lead Kiev to delude itself into thinking that Washington will come to its
immediate military aid in order to stabilize the battlefield.
Since 2015, the United States Congress has authorized
$750 million to improve the defensive capabilities of the Ukrainian military and
security forces. Congress has followed up those funds with an additional $650 million
earmarked for the Ukrainians over the next two years, a hefty sum that the next
administration would probably use as a message to the Russians that further territorial
encroachment on Ukrainian territory would produce more casualties in their ranks.
What the next administration needs to ask itself,
however, is whether more money thrown at the Ukraine problem will be more or less likely
to cause further violence in the country and turmoil for Ukraine's elected government.
Russia has demonstrated consistently that it will simply not permit a pro-Western
democratic government from emerging along its western border-and that if a pro-Western
government is formed in Kiev, Moscow will do its best to preserve a pro-Russian bent in
Ukraine's eastern provinces. Hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations haven't
forced Russia to change that calculation so far; it's not likely that hundreds of
millions more will be any more successful. Indeed, every time Washington has escalated
its rhetoric or authorized money for Ukraine's military, the Russians have responded in
equal terms.
The political crisis in Ukraine is far from resolved,
in large measure because of Russia's own actions on the ground and its nonexistent
implementation of the Minsk peace agreement. But the situation in the east, while not
fully peaceful by any means, is far less violent than it was at the war's peak in 2015.
Sometimes, not weighing in can be just as smart for the U.S. national interest as
getting involved-a reflex that is has been the forte of Washington's foreign policy
establishment since the end of the Cold War.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
In response to the latest imposition of US sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that
the new sanctions would further damage relations between the two countries and that Moscow would
respond with its own measures. "We regret that Washington is continuing on this destructive path,"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
As a reminder, on Tuesday the United States widened sanctions against Russian businessmen and
companies adopted after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine.
"We believe this damages bilateral relations ... Russia will take commensurate measures."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
Then again, it is difficult to see how sanctions between the two administration could be any more
"damaged": also on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration
to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia and
the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.
" Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen. We don't communicate with one
another, or (if we do) we do so minimally ," Peskov said.
Additionally, RIA said that according to Peskov "he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin
would seek re-election in 2018."
"Everyone's heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking
about elections," Peskov said.
Then again, the sanctions may soon be history.
According to a Bloomberg report , the U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the
showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in
a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia's economic
growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and
0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.
"It's still a toss-up whether the U.S. will ease sanctions quickly, with the EU lagging, but the
direction of travel is toward easier sanctions or less enforcement, which could reduce financing
costs," said Rachel Ziemba, the New York-based head of emerging markets at 4CAST-RGE. "We think the
macro impact would be greater in the medium term than short term as it facilitates a rate easing
trend that is already on course. In the longer term, it gives more choice of investment."
Trump, who's called President Vladimir Putin a better leader than Barack Obama, has said he
may consider recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and lifting the curbs. While
dogged by concerns that Russia intervened to tip this year's elections in the Republican candidate's
favor, Trump has already showed his hand by planning to stack his administration with officials
supportive of closer cooperation with the Kremlin, from Michael Flynn, the president-elect's national
security adviser, to Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson, a candidate for secretary of state.
An equally important consequence of any policy change by Trump would be its affect on the EU's
own penalties on Russia, with more economists saying the bloc will follow suit. Forty percent
of respondents said in the Dec. 16-19 survey that the EU will begin easing sanctions in the next
12 months, compared with 33 percent in October.
"If the U.S. eases sanctions, it won't be possible to achieve a consensus among EU member states
to keep their sanctions regime in place as currently formulated," said Charles Movit, an economist
at IHS Markit in Washington.
And although it is always possible to claim that all of Obama's failures stem from mere
incompetence, at some point this claim begins to ring hollow; how can he possibly be so utterly
competent at being incompetent?
Obama is not a Russian agent but could very well be a Soviet agent.
Being a dumb fuck whose only skill is reading a teleprompter, he has no idea how to resolve
the change in the world since the Soviet Union disintegrated.
A Russian in Crimea told me of a recent past winter near disaster when Ukraine shut off the power
(and water) - somewhat covered here on ZH. Only a truly heroic effort by Russia to bring
in generators kept them from living in dangerous conditions. Crimea is more solidly pro-Russian
than it was before the vote to secede.
All Ukrainians should understand that the NWO (controlled by the elite and their Western banks)
will subjugate the Ukraine. Evidence for this is abundant, but the most striking example
is the willingness to accept millions of non-European refugees, while few Ukrainians are allowed
into Western countries.
Yes, there is genuine reason for resentment (Holodomar), but this terror was executed by the
Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich (which means son of Kagan - as in Ron Kagan - husband of Nudelman -
understand the connection?). More Russians died under this same type of Bolshevik terror
than any other ethnicity in the USSR.
Russia is no longer the USSR, and seeks to return to a society of Christian values. Ukrainians
should seek peace with their Russian brothers. It would be to the benefit of all Western
countries, which is why the NWO is trying everything to prevent it.
The UN Mediator for Palestine, "The U.S. appointed Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden" was assassinated
in 1948 in Jerusalam by the likudnik-future izraeli Prime Ministers Begin & Shamir....
FACT:
"Folke Bernadotte ,
Count of Wisborg
( Swedish : Greve
af Wisborg ; 2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedish
diplomat and nobleman. During
World War II he negotiated
the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German
concentration camps
including 450 Danish Jews from the
Theresienstadt camp.
They were released on 14 April 1945. [1]
[2] [3] In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from
Heinrich Himmler
, though the offer was ultimately rejected.
After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be the
United
Nations Security Council mediator in the
Arab–Israeli conflict
of 1947–1948. He was assassinated in
Jerusalem in 1948 by the
militant Zionist group
Lehi while pursuing
his official duties. Upon his death,
Ralph Bunche took up
his work at the UN, but was removed from the post around six months after Bernadotte was assassinated,
at the critical period of recognition of the fledgling state. ....."
Likudniks like present-day murderer & chief Benny-Boy Nutandyahoo!!!
It's 100% bonefide fuckin' TERRORISTS that are the leaders of the rothschild colony & real
estate project in the eastern Mediterranean.
Wow! Those are some stringent sources! Wikipedia, where you can edit the text to read however
you wish before citing it, ...great source! ( Seriously? A wiki cite ends the discussion for me
every single time. Dead. (Kind of like interviewing an architect who says Fisher-Price is his
inspiration). Next up is the legendary duckduckgo. Move over Library of Congress! And of course
WhatReallyHappened is the next up on the hit parade. Jeeze, I spent a cargoload of time and money
earning a masters in history. I wish I had had wiki. It would have been so much easier, AND I
would be as smart as this guy telling us all about how stupid we all are. LOL!. X_in_Sweden, go
to Wiki and look up "Useful Idiot" while standing in front of a mirror.
Zionists are also behind the use of Saudi wahabbists. It's a twofer. It clears land that Israel
covets and is part of the plan to get Christians to fight Muslims, wipping each other out.
Well Mr Chumbawamba let me congratulate you on joining the big club of anti-jewish fascism, you
share a honorable position together with Nazism and Islamic Fascism. Fuck off paranoid religitard.
I have done business with Israelis Most of them think that they are in a crunch existential
mess.
The reality is that the tech and arms business is pretty cushy and they are reluctant to give
it up.
If they get a decent guarantee of their space (and maybe a couple more settlements) they might
scale down a tad.
They can do an up-front deal with the head choppers in Riyadh any time they want because the
princes do not want to live on a sea of radioactive glass.
Obama and the current congress already locked this in until 2026 (see below) which takes
us past 2 terms of Trump. Doubt Trump could change/drain this if he wanted (?) as
current congress not only did the deal but added $500M per year to the previous Bush 10 year deal
which was set to expire in 2018. Dem/Rep... it is going to happen no matter.
"The United States has finalized a $38 billion package of military aid for
Israel
over the next 10 years, the largest of its kind ever, and the two allies plan to sign the
agreement on Wednesday, American and Israeli officials said". NY Times Sept 2016,
When I was a kid, we had a pump to fill the water trough for the animals. There was a coffee
can near it, that you used to take some of the water that was left in the water trough and pour
it into the pump. This was known as "priming the pump". You had to do this to allow
the pump to pump more water into the trough from the well.
America is a money-well for Israel. They take a little bit of the money that we flood
them with, and they donate to enough politicians campaign to insure that those politicians will
vote to turn on the money spigot, filling up Israels trough with money. Don't worry, they'll
save a coffee can or two of it to prime the pump again next time.
I really don't care if Israel lives or dies. If they live and prosper, that's just fine
with me. But what pisses me off is this system that allows them to pump money from us, just
by using a tiny portion of it to bribe our politicians with campaign contributions. This
bribing results in not just lost treasure, but also lost blood, as we fight wars to weaken Israels
neighbors, again, only because our politicians are being bribed with foreign donations.
I would prefer we find ways to jail any politician that gets money from foreign countries.
I would also prefer we put an end to Super PACs, since the foreign money will simply migrate to
those. It is bullshit that our system is set up so that the honest politicians that refuse
to sell out are promptly voted out of office because their competitor, who is willing to sell
out, is flooded with campaign money. This ends up giving us representatives who do not represent
our interests at all.
My greatest fear in Trump being a plant is that he is supposed to calm relations with Russia,
which will open up the opportunity for the big event. This gives them more time on the surface
while the deep state continues spreading chaos along Russia's borders.
I suspect Russia would be aware of this possibility however.
Trump is going to keep allowing Israelis to bribe American politicians.
Aid money goes full circle. The tax payers are the losers as usual. Trump needs to look into
the dual citizanship of congress stoolies. Drain that swamp first to put that coin into merican
infrastructure renewal/upgrades.=.jobs.
Biden's son in Ukraine couldn't help things much. How cool was the "invasion" of Crimea?
I thought it was cool. I was kind of wishing Texas would pull something like that, maybe
with NJ.
I know you have "invasion" written in a way that shows you know it was NOT an invasion. The speed
a decisiveness was certainly impressive, shame the Donbass has been relegated to the roll of dead
buffer zone though. I understand the strategic benefit of letting the Ukrainian `Army` bog down
there and bleed resources, but a lot of Ethnic Russians are dying and suffering as a result.
The Ukro-Nazis have just tried to re-run the attack on Debaltsevo, where there were put through
the meat grinder last winter. Guess what, they ended up in the grinder again, even though the
Novorossians are following Minsk rules on sending heavy armor away from the front. The Ukrops
lost up to 100 dead, a large number just left on the ground as the survivors fled. The wounded
were airlifted to Kharkov military hospital.
One Ukrop unit reported 25 dead in 3 hours of fighting.
It is impossible to overstate the stakes involved in the latest controversy over Russia. They
involve trillions of dollars in warfare largess to the tens of thousands of bureaucratic warfare-state
parasites who are sucking the lifeblood out of the American people.
Ever since the advent of the U.S. national-security state after World War II, America has needed
official enemies, especially ones that induce fear, terror, and panic within the American citizenry.
When people are fearful, terrified, and panicked, they are much more willing, even eager, to have
government officials do whatever is necessary to keep them safe and secure. It is during such times
that liberty is at greatest risk because of the propensity of government to assume emergency powers
and the proclivity of the citizenry to let them have them.
That's what the Cold War was all about. The official enemies were communism and the Soviet Union,
which was an alliance of nations that had Russia at its center. U.S. officials convinced Americans
that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy to take over the world, with its principal base in
Moscow.
A correlative threat was Red China, whose communist hordes were supposedly threatening to flood
the United States.
There were also the communist outposts, which were considered spearheads pointed at America. North
Korea. North Vietnam. Cuba, which, Americans were told, was a communist dagger pointed out America's
neck from only 90 miles away.
And then there was communism the philosophy, along with the communists who promoted it. It was
clear, U.S. officials gravely maintained, that communism was spreading all across the world, including
inside the U.S. Army, the State Department, and Hollywood, and that communists were everyone, including
leftist organizations and even sometimes under people's beds.
Needless to say, all this fear, terror, and panic induced people to support the ever-growing budgets,
influence, and power of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, which had become the national-security
branch of the federal government - and the most powerful branch at that. Few cared that their hard-earned
monies were being taken from them by the IRS in ever-increasing amounts. All that mattered was being
kept safe from the communists.
Hardly anyone questioned or challenged this warfare-state racket. President Eisenhower alluded
to it in his Farewell Address in 1961, when he pointed out that this new-fangled governmental structure,
which he called "the military industrial complex," now posed a grave threat to the freedoms and democratic
processes of the American people.
One of those who did challenge this official-enemy syndrome was President John F. Kennedy. At
war with his national-security establishment in 1963, Kennedy threw the gauntlet down at his famous
Peace Speech at American University in June of that year. There was no reason, Kennedy said, that
the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) and the rest of the communist world couldn't live in peace co-existence
and even friendship, even if the nations were guided by different ideologies and philosophies. Kennedy
announced that it was time to end the Cold War against Russia and the rest of the communist world.
What Kennedy was proposing was anathema to the national-security state and its ever-growing army
of voracious contractors and subcontractors who were feeding at the public trough. How dare he remove
the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) as America's official enemy? How could the Pentagon, the CIA, and
the NSA justify their ever-growing budgets and their ever-growing emergency powers? Indeed, how could
they justify the very existence of their Cold War totalitarian-type apparatus known as a "national
security state" without a giant official enemy to strike fear, terror, and panic with the American
people?
Once Kennedy was removed from the scene, everything returned to "normal." The Cold War continued.
The Vietnam War against the commies in Asia to prevent more dominoes from falling got ramped up.
The Soviet Union, Red China, and the worldwide communist conspiracy continued to be America's big
official enemies. The military and intelligence budgets continued to rise. The number of warfare
state parasites continued soaring.
Seemingly, there was never going to be an end to the process. Until one day, the unexpected suddenly
happened. The Berlin Wall came crashing down, East and West Germany were reunited, and the Soviet
Union was dismantled, all of which struck unmitigated fear within the bowels of the American deep
state.
Oh sure, there was still Cuba, Red China, North Korea, and Vietnam but those communist nations,
for some reason, just didn't strike fear, terror, and panic within Americans as Russia did.
U.S. officials needed a new official enemy. Enter Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, who had
served as a partner and ally of the U.S. government during the 1980s when he was waging war against
Iran, which, by that time, had become converted from official friend to official enemy of the U.S.
Empire. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam was made into the new official enemy. Like the Soviets and the
communists, Saddam was coming to get us and unleash mushroom clouds all over America. The American
people bought it and, not surprisingly, budgets for the national-security establishment continued
their upward soar.
Then came the 9/11 attacks in retaliation for what the Pentagon and the CIA were doing in the
Middle East, followed by with the retaliatory invasions Afghanistan and Iraq. Suddenly the new official
enemies were "terrorism" and then later Islam. Like the communists of yesteryear, the terrorists
and the Muslims were coming to get us, take over the federal government, run the IRS and HUD, and
force everyone to study the Koran. The American people bought it and, not surprisingly, budgets for
the national-security establishment continued their upward soar.
The problem is that Americans, including U.S. soldiers and their families, are now growing weary
of the forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. But U.S. national-security state officials
know that if they bring the troops home, the official enemies of terrorism and Islam disappear at
the same time.
That's why they have decided to return to their old, tried and true official enemy - Russia and,
implicitly, communism. It's why the U.S. broke its promise to Russia to dismantle NATO. It's why
the U.S. supported regime change in the coup in Ukraine. It's why the U.S. wants Ukraine into NATO
- to enable the U.S. to install missiles on Russia's border. It's why the national-security state
is "pivoting" toward Asia - to provoke crises with Red China. It's why they are accusing Russia of
interfering with the U.S. presidential election and campaigning for Donald Trump. The aim of it all
is to bring back the old Cold War official enemies of Russia, China, and communism, in order to keep
Americans afraid, terrified, and panicked, which then means the continuation of ever-growing budgets
to all those warfare state parasites who are sucking the lifeblood out of the American people.
With his fight against the CIA over Russian hacking and his desire to establish normal relations
with Russia, Donald Trump is clearly not buying into this old, tried-and-true Russia-as-official
enemy narrative. In the process, he is posing a grave threat to the national-security establishment
and its ever-growing budgets, influence, and power.
"... But "bastard neoliberalism" that Trump represents in his internal economic policy probably is not a solution for the nations problems. It is too early to say what will be the level of his deviation from election promises, but judging for his appointments it probably will be considerable -- up to a complete reverse on certain promises. ..."
"... So I view his election as the next logical step (after the first two by Bush II and Obama) toward military dictatorship. Previous forms of "Inverted totalitarism" -- a neoliberal version of Bolshevism (or, more correctly, Trotskyism -- many neocons were actually former Trotskyites ) seems to stop working. Neoliberal ideology was discredited in 2008. All three: Bolshevism, Trotskyism and neoliberalism might also be viewed as just different flavors of Corporatism. ..."
"... After 2008 crisis, neoliberalism in the USA continues to exist in zombie state: as a non-dead dead, so it will be inevitably replaced by something else. Much like Bolshevism after 1945. How soon it will happen and what will be the actual trigger (the next oil crisis which turns into another round of Great Recession?) and what will be the successor is anybody guess. Bolshevism in the USSR lasted till 1991 or 46 years. The victory on neoliberalism in the Cold War was in 1991 so if we add 50 years then 2041 might be the date. ..."
I think the shift from New Deal Capitalism to neoliberalism proved to be fatal for the form
of democracy that used to exist in the USA (never perfect, and never for the plebs).
Neoliberalism as a strange combination of socialism for the rich and feudalism for the poor
is anathema for democracy even for the narrow strata of the US society who used to have a say
in the political process. Like Bolshevism was dictatorship of nomenklatura under the slogan of
"Proletarians of all countries, unite!", neoliberalism is more like dictatorship of financial
oligarchy under the slogan "The financial elite of all countries, unite!")
In this sense Trump is just the logical end of the process that started in 1980 with Reagan,
or even earlier with Carter.
And at the same time [he is] the symptom of the crisis of the system, as large swats of population
this time voted against status quo and that created the revolutionary situation when the elite
was unable to govern in the old fashion. That's why, I think, Hillary lost and Trump won.
But "bastard neoliberalism" that Trump represents in his internal economic policy probably
is not a solution for the nations problems. It is too early to say what will be the level of his
deviation from election promises, but judging for his appointments it probably will be considerable
-- up to a complete reverse on certain promises.
So I view his election as the next logical step (after the first two by Bush II and Obama)
toward military dictatorship. Previous forms of "Inverted totalitarism" -- a neoliberal version
of Bolshevism (or, more correctly, Trotskyism -- many neocons were actually former Trotskyites
) seems to stop working. Neoliberal ideology was discredited in 2008. All three: Bolshevism, Trotskyism
and neoliberalism might also be viewed as just different flavors of Corporatism.
After 2008 crisis, neoliberalism in the USA continues to exist in zombie state: as a non-dead
dead, so it will be inevitably replaced by something else. Much like Bolshevism after 1945. How
soon it will happen and what will be the actual trigger (the next oil crisis which turns into
another round of Great Recession?) and what will be the successor is anybody guess. Bolshevism
in the USSR lasted till 1991 or 46 years. The victory on neoliberalism in the Cold War was in
1991 so if we add 50 years then 2041 might be the date.
And the slide toward military dictatorship does not necessary need to take a form of junta,
which takes power via coup d'état. The control of the government by three letter agencies ("national
security state") seems to be sufficient, can be accomplished by stealth, and might well be viewed
as a form of military dictatorship too. So it can be a gradual slide: phase I, II, III, etc.
The problem here as with Brezhnev socialism in the USSR is the growing level of degeneration
of elite and the growth of influence of deep state, which includes at its core three letter agencies.
As Michail Gorbachev famously said about neoliberal revolution in the USSR "the process already
started in full force". He just did not understand at this point that he already completely lost
control over neoliberal "Perestroika" of the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika
In a way, the US Presidents are now more and more ceremonial figures that help to maintain
the illusion of the legitimacy of the system. Obama is probably the current pinnacle of this process
(which is reflected in one of his nicknames -- "teleprompter" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/obama-photo-caption-contest-teleprompter_n_1821154.html)
.
You probably could elect a dog instead of Trump and the US foreign policy will stay exactly
the same. This hissy fits about Russians that deep state gave Trump before December 19, might
be viewed as a warning as for any potential changes in foreign policy.
As we saw with foreign policy none of recent presidents really fully control it. They still
are important players, but the question is whether they are still dominant players. My impression
is that it is already by-and-large defined and implemented by the deep state. Sometimes dragging
the President forcefully into the desirable course of actions.
"... this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified. ..."
"... [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before. ..."
"... Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz. ..."
"... It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts. ..."
"... "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed. ..."
"... With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press? ..."
"... I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire. ..."
"... The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened. ..."
this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election
by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p",
which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified.
[Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the
comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come
across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never
really expressed it before.
Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They
intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content
can just be handed over to the fuzz.
I don't think I've looked at my yahoo account in 8-10 years and I didn't use their email; just
had an address. I don't remember my user name or password. I did get an email from them (to my
not-yahoo address) advising of the breach.
I was amazed as I watched a local am news show in Pittsburgh recommend adding your cell phone
number in addition to changing your password. Yeah, that's a great idea, maybe my ss# would provide
even more security.
I use yahoo email. Why should I move? As I understood the breach it was primarily a breach
of the personal information used to establish the account. I've already changed my password -
did it a couple of days after the breach was reported. I had a security clearance with DoD which
requires disclosure of a lot more personal information than yahoo had. The DoD data has been breached
twice from two separate servers.
As far as reading my emails - they may prove useful for phishing but that's about all. I'm
not sure what might be needed for phishing beyond a name and email address - easily obtained from
many sources I have no control over.
So - what am I vulnerable to by remaining at yahoo that I'm not already exposed to on a more
secure server?
Yeah, it isn't like Mr. 'We go high' is going to admit our relationship has declined because
we have underhandedly tried to isolate and knee cap them for pretty much his entire administration.
Are you referring to Obama's press conference? If so, I am glad he didn't make a big deal out
of the Russian hacking allegations - as in it didn't sound like he planned a retaliation for the
fictional event and its fictional consequences. He rose slightly in stature in my eyes - he's
almost as tall as a short flea.
With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting
the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom
mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have
the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press?
Why is a lameduck
messing with the Chinese in the South China sea? What is the point of all the "fake" news hogwash?
Is it related to Obama's expression of concern about the safety of the Internet? I can't shake
the feeling that something is going on below the surface of these murky waters.
I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference
and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so
they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire.
He did
respond at one point to a reporter that the hacks from Russia were to the DNC and Podesta but
funny how he didn't say HRC emails. Be it as it may, I think what was behind it was HRC really
trying to impress all her contributors that Russia really did do her in, see Obama said so, since
she must be in hot water over all the money she has collected from foreign governments for pay
to play and her donors.
The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then
how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind
the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get
into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is
the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then
nothing happened.
Unfortunately the nightly news is focusing on Obama says Russia hacked the DNC and had it in
for Clinton!!! He warned them to stay out of the vote! There will be consequences! Russia demands
the evidence and then a story about the evidence. (This one might have a few smarter people going
"huh, that's it?!?!")
I do like the some private some public on that consequences and retaliation thing. You either
have to laugh or throw up about the faux I've got this and the real self-righteousness. Especially
since it is supposedly to remind people we can do it to you. Is there anyone left outside of America
who doesn't think they already do do it to anyone Uncle Sam doesn't want in office and even some
they do? Mind you I'm not sure how many harried people watching the news are actually going to
laugh at that one because they don't know how how much we meddle.
"... this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified. ..."
"... [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before. ..."
"... Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz. ..."
"... It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts. ..."
"... "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed. ..."
"... With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press? ..."
"... I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire. ..."
"... The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened. ..."
this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election
by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p",
which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified.
[Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the
comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come
across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never
really expressed it before.
Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They
intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content
can just be handed over to the fuzz.
I don't think I've looked at my yahoo account in 8-10 years and I didn't use their email; just
had an address. I don't remember my user name or password. I did get an email from them (to my
not-yahoo address) advising of the breach.
I was amazed as I watched a local am news show in Pittsburgh recommend adding your cell phone
number in addition to changing your password. Yeah, that's a great idea, maybe my ss# would provide
even more security.
I use yahoo email. Why should I move? As I understood the breach it was primarily a breach
of the personal information used to establish the account. I've already changed my password -
did it a couple of days after the breach was reported. I had a security clearance with DoD which
requires disclosure of a lot more personal information than yahoo had. The DoD data has been breached
twice from two separate servers.
As far as reading my emails - they may prove useful for phishing but that's about all. I'm
not sure what might be needed for phishing beyond a name and email address - easily obtained from
many sources I have no control over.
So - what am I vulnerable to by remaining at yahoo that I'm not already exposed to on a more
secure server?
Yeah, it isn't like Mr. 'We go high' is going to admit our relationship has declined because
we have underhandedly tried to isolate and knee cap them for pretty much his entire administration.
Are you referring to Obama's press conference? If so, I am glad he didn't make a big deal out
of the Russian hacking allegations - as in it didn't sound like he planned a retaliation for the
fictional event and its fictional consequences. He rose slightly in stature in my eyes - he's
almost as tall as a short flea.
With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting
the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom
mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have
the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press?
Why is a lameduck
messing with the Chinese in the South China sea? What is the point of all the "fake" news hogwash?
Is it related to Obama's expression of concern about the safety of the Internet? I can't shake
the feeling that something is going on below the surface of these murky waters.
I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference
and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so
they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire.
He did
respond at one point to a reporter that the hacks from Russia were to the DNC and Podesta but
funny how he didn't say HRC emails. Be it as it may, I think what was behind it was HRC really
trying to impress all her contributors that Russia really did do her in, see Obama said so, since
she must be in hot water over all the money she has collected from foreign governments for pay
to play and her donors.
The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then
how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind
the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get
into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is
the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then
nothing happened.
Unfortunately the nightly news is focusing on Obama says Russia hacked the DNC and had it in
for Clinton!!! He warned them to stay out of the vote! There will be consequences! Russia demands
the evidence and then a story about the evidence. (This one might have a few smarter people going
"huh, that's it?!?!")
I do like the some private some public on that consequences and retaliation thing. You either
have to laugh or throw up about the faux I've got this and the real self-righteousness. Especially
since it is supposedly to remind people we can do it to you. Is there anyone left outside of America
who doesn't think they already do do it to anyone Uncle Sam doesn't want in office and even some
they do? Mind you I'm not sure how many harried people watching the news are actually going to
laugh at that one because they don't know how how much we meddle.
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists – ha hahahahahaha!
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists – ha hahahahahaha!
The Nuremberg Court Trials rulings only apply to 'them' not 'US'
Sundus Saleh, an Iraqi woman, claims that former President George W. Bush and other government
officials committed the crime of aggression when they launched the Iraq War, an international
war crime that was banned at the Nuremberg Trials.
Saleh filed her lawsuit in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court. The court ruled in December
2014 that the defendants in the lawsuit - George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
Rice, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz - were immune from civil proceedings based on the Westfall
Act, a federal law which immunizes government officials from lawsuits for conduct taken within
the lawful scope of their authority. Saleh appealed the decision in June 2015.
The Ninth Circuit has not indicated when it will issue an order with respect to Saleh's appeal.
Nuremberg trial also prosecuted Judges unt Doctors.
The Nuremberg Court Trials rulings only apply to 'them' not 'US'
Sundus Saleh, an Iraqi woman, claims that former President George W. Bush and other government
officials committed the crime of aggression when they launched the Iraq War, an international
war crime that was banned at the Nuremberg Trials.
Saleh filed her lawsuit in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court. The court ruled in December
2014 that the defendants in the lawsuit - George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza
Rice, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz - were immune from civil proceedings based on the Westfall
Act, a federal law which immunizes government officials from lawsuits for conduct taken within
the lawful scope of their authority. Saleh appealed the decision in June 2015.
The Ninth Circuit has not indicated when it will issue an order with respect to Saleh's appeal.
Nuremberg trial also prosecuted Judges unt Doctors.
Typically Diaspora is more nationalistic the "mainland" population. This is very true about
Ukrainian Diaspora, which partially is represented by those who fought on the side of Germany in the WWII.
They are adamantly anti-Russian.
Notable quotes:
"... Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine. ..."
"... Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them, but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. ..."
"... And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment. ..."
"... Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American Exceptionalism. ..."
"... And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues. ..."
"... The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion ..."
"... This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad faith commenting. ..."
"... The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. ..."
"... I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side won WWII. ..."
"... "The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko " ..."
"... Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security – the trajectory of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops – analyzed over and over ..."
"... The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military. ..."
"... The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is becoming more visible each day. ..."
"... Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that can 180 mid-flight? ..."
"... What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story. ..."
"... Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained in Poland, US, and Canada). ..."
"... Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption – but every U. government since 1991 has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception – but he was also not the worst one (do some research on J. Timoshenko). ..."
"... There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 – after a deal had been signed calling for early elections. The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis. ..."
"... So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points ..."
"... I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will just laugh at you. ..."
"... What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded Voice of America and is a regular with Ukraine's "StopFake.org" which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up. ..."
"... Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. ..."
"... Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too. ..."
"... What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center. That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government. ..."
"... Here's an article by Lev Golinkin commenting on the far-right's strong and dangerous influence on Ukraine today. A fascist presence like this could easily be a powerful element in Ukrainian elections, very suddenly and unpredictably too. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ukrainian-far-right-and-the-danger-it-poses/ ..."
"... This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far! ..."
"... Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues. I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream lies about Russia and Ukraine. ..."
Hello, I'm the blogger of Russia Without BS, a site you cited once in the stories about PropOrNot.
As I have recently written
on my blog
, I believe PropOrNot is most likely one person who is not linked to any real organization
group or intelligence agency. The individual is most likely what I call a cheerleader, which is
basically a person with no reasonable connection to some conflict, yet who takes a side and sort
of lives vicariously through their imagined "struggle."
That being said, you're probably not going to do yourself any favors claiming that Maidan was
a fascist coup and that fascists are in charge in Ukraine. Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers
(quite the opposite, actually), and they were not the majority of people there. Basically you
condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence of neo-Nazis
and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well documented).
Without actually bothering to look at the issues involved, you are basically telling millions
of Ukrainians that they should have tolerated a corrupt, increasingly authoritarian government
that was literally stealing their future all because some right-wingers happened to latch on to
that cause too. Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's
Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the
nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine.
As for the slogan, yes, Slava Ukraini, Heroiam Slava! has its origins in the OUN, but there
are some important things to consider when discussing Ukrainian history.
Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not
speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them,
but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. Look at the average salary
in Ukraine and look into some of the instances of corruption (some of which continue to this day),
and you'll understand why a lot of people aren't going to get up in arms about someone waving
the red and black flag. Most people have become very cynical and see the nationalists as provocateurs
or clowns, and thus they don't take them seriously enough.
Before you call this good points, please familiarize yourself with the (accurate) history of
the Maidan, Ukraine, neo-nazi presence in that country, and Russian history. Please Kovpak seems
to be an embodiment of what Ames tries to convey.
The more experienced observer listens to all sides; and all sides lie at least a little, if
only for their own comfort. Beyond that, subjectivity is inescapable, and any pair of subjectives
will inevitably diverge. This is not a malign intent, it's existential circumstance, the burden
of identity, of individual life.
My own (admittedly cursory) analysis happens to coincide with Jim Kovpak's first para (PropOrNot
being primarily a lone "cheerleader"). And I can see merit, and the call for dispassionate assessment,
in some of his other points. This does not mean I endorse Kovpak over Ames, or Ames over Kovpak;
both contribute to the searching discussion with cogent observation (and the inevitable measure
of subjective evaluation).
I thank both for their remarks, and also thank our gracious hosts ;).
No, but it was hijacked by fascists. It is sad that more democratic/progressive forces lost
out, but that's what happened. You seem to be trying to avoid recognizing this fact by affirming
the rightfulness of those who began the revolt. Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism
or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered, spent, and gunned them. It's time to mourn,
not to defend a parasitic Frankenstein that is trying to develop a European fascist movement.
Goons from that movement assaulted and injured May Day demonstrators in Sweden this year and then
fled back to the Ukraine. They are dangerous and should not be protected with illusions.
Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered,
spent, and gunned them
And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM
simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment.
Thus we have the ridiculous situation where supposedly reputable media like NYT and WaPoo
cheer on the Azov battalion and its brethren, and deny the very symbolism of the various Nazi
insignia and regalia featured on their uniforms. Jim makes some very good points, but he fell
way short in ignoring the role of the US MSM in this travesty.
And just in case someone tries to claim that we all make mistakes at times and that the MSM
made an honest mistake in regards to these neo-Nazi formations, the same thing has been happening
in Syria, where the US and its Gulf allies have armed extremists and have whitewashed their extremism
by claiming even Al Qaeda and its offshoots are noble freedom fighters.
Good on the parallel with Syria. The evolution, or distortion, of revolutionary movements as
they struggle to gain support and offensive power and then either are modified or jacked by "supporting"
external powers is not a cheering subject. The tendency to ignore that this has happened takes
two forms. One is what we are here discussing. The other is its opposite, as seen in, for example,
the way some writers try to maintain that there never was a significant democratic/progressive/humane
etc. element to the Syrian opposition.
Ukraine, as I understand it, is not monolith but has roughly 2 interest areas – western and
eastern – divided by the River Dnieper. The Western half is more pro-European and EU, the Eastern
half is more pro-Russia. The word "fascist" in Ukraine means something slightly different than
in means in the US and the EU. So I take your comment with a grain of salt, even though it is
interesting.
Ukraine's geographical location as the land "highway" between Europe and Asia has created a
long and embattled history there.
So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points because
you mistakenly think Russia is somehow opposed to US capitalism,
Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for
social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American
Exceptionalism.
And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing
for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative
power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues.
Thirded. The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents
a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion
of the fruits of the Russian oligarchic capitalist effort will benefit Russians, not elites
tied to the US, because of his self-interested nationalism. Not much to cheer about but better
than where things were headed when Yeltsin was in power.
This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere
does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting
words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies
names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker
of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls
it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad
faith commenting.
The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi
leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played
a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. There is absolutely no
equivalent to this with Occupy at all. Where does this false analogy even come from? No where
does the author state that Maidan was ONLY fascists, that is again your strawman response. Maidan
had a lot of support from pro-western, pro-european, pro-liberal forces. But to deny the key and
often lead roles played by neo-fascists in the actual organization, "self defense" and violent
confrontations with the Yanukovych goons is gross whitewashing.
Much worse is the way you rationalize the fascist OUN salute by arguing that it means something
else now, or it's become normalized, etc. These are all the same bullshit arguments made by defenders
of the Confederate flag. "It means something different now." "it's about heritage/being a rebel!/individualism!"
There is no "but" to this, and anyone who claims so is an asshole of the first order. The salute
descends directly from collaborators in the Holocaust and mass-murder of Jews and Poles and collaboration
with Nazis. If people claim they don't understand its origins, then educate them on why it's so
fucked up, don't make excuses for them. Really disgusting that you'd try to rationalize this away.
There is no "but" and no excuse, period.
"Russia Without BS" is one hell of an ironic name for someone bs-ing like this. Your failure
to actually engage the article, setting up and knocking down strawmen instead, and evading, using
false analogies-reveal your own intellectual pathologies. Try responding to the actual text here,
and maybe you'll be taken seriously.
My thought was that this post was an example of the strawman fallacy. Yet certainly Mr. Kovpak
wasn't just shooting from the hip. That is, he thought about this thing, wrote it, looked it over,
and said "well enough" and posted it. Poor logic, or bad faith?
I think the tell was his characterization of the article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking
points." What the hell is a "Russian talking point"? How do Ames' contentions follow said talking
points? Are he saying, perhaps, that Ames is another one of those Kremlin agents we've been hearing
about, or perhaps another "useful idiot"? Perhaps Ames – of all people – is a dupe for Putin,
right?
Hasbara, Ukrainian style. Bringing this junk onto NS, either this guy is alot of dumber than
he gives himself credit for, or he actually has no familiarity with NS, outside of the now- and
rightly-notorious WP/ProporNot blacklist. Probably the latter, since it looks like his comment
was a pre-masticated one-and-done.
I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this
country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side
won WWII.
I'm glad Jim Kovpak provided this background. I was very troubled to see Ames breezily smear
the Ukrainian uprising as "fascist," essentially writing off the protesters as U.S. proxies and
dismissing their grievances as either non-existent or irrelevant. Something similar has happened
in Syria, of course. Yes, the U.S. ruling blocs try to advance their interests in such places,
but if you ignore the people on the ground or dismiss them as irrelevant, you're just playing
into the hands of other tyrannical interests (in Syria: Assad, Putin, Hezbollah, etc.).
$5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they ain't
US proxies. Gla that you straightened that out for us.
The grievances in Ukraine are many and are legitimate. But that the people's anger was hijacked
by US-financed proxies is a fact. Nuland was caught dictating that Yats would be the new PM, and
darned if he didn't become just that. The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the
appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko, and the country was plunged into a civil war. But
Yats and Porky are freedom-loving democrats! The old saying remains true: "They may be corrupt
SOBs, but they are our corrupt SOBs!"
Heck, for all the crocodile tears shed by the West about corruption and democracy, it has nurtured
corruption in Eastern Europe and looked the other way as democracy has been trampled. Including
in my native Bulgaria, where millions of dollars spent by the US and allied NGOs on promoting
and financing "free press" have seen Bulgaria's freedom of media ranking slip to third world levels.
But Bulgaria is a "democracy" because it is a member of the EU and NATO, and as such its elites
have done the bidding of its Western masters at the expense of Bulgaria's national interests and
the interests of its people. Ukraine is headed down that road, and all I can say to regular Ukrainians
is that they are in for an even bigger screwing down the road, cheer-led by the Western "democracies"
and "free" media.
Meddling by US hyperpower in the internal affairs and the replacement of one set of bastahds
with another set of bastahds that is beholden to the US is not progress, which is why we call
it out. After all the spilled blood and destruction sponsored by the US, can you honestly say
that Ukraine and Syria and Libya and Iraq are now better off, and that their futures are bright?
I can't, and I can't say that for my native country either. That's because this new version of
neocolonialism is the most destructive and virulent yet. And it is particularly insidious because
it fools well-meaning people, like yourself, into believing that it actually helps improve the
lives of the natives. It does not.
"The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of
Yats and Poroschenko "
That pretty much sums it up. Jim Kovpak does make some excellent points which help to understand
what the Ukranians are thinking. The discussion regarding the poor education system and potential
lack of knowledge of what certain symbolism refers to was really good. Sort of reminds me of the
Southerners in the US who still claim that the Stars and Bars is just about Southern heritage
and pride without bothering to consider the other ramifications and what the symbol means for
those who were persecuted at one time (and continuing to today). But yeah, I'm sure there are
those who think that that flag was just something the Duke boys used on the General Lee when trying
to outrun Roscoe.
All that being said, I don't believe anybody here thinks that Yanukovich was some paragon of
virtue ruling a modern utopia. The problem is that the new boss looks surprisingly familiar to
the old boss with the main difference being that the fruits of corruption are being funneled to
different parties with the people likely still getting the shaft.
If your a(just as many in the US are), it's quite possible they are also unaware of the current
US influence in their country, just as most US citizens are unaware of what the US has done in
other countries.
I'd be very interested in Jim Kovpak's thoughts on this.
$5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they
ain't US proxies. Gla[d] that you straightened that out for us.
Yes, it doesn't get any more blatant than that, and if anyone believes otherwise they are obviously
hooked on the officially sanctioned fake news, aka the MSM.
"Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers / Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers
than other Eastern European nations" silly at best!
Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security – the trajectory
of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops – analyzed over and over
The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi
symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military.
The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign
has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs
in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is
becoming more visible each day.
Your statements are pure propaganda and I would assume you work indirectly for Alexandra Chalupa!
Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian
school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard
that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that
can 180 mid-flight?
"Basically you condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence
of neo-Nazis and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well
documented)."
You must be kidding. Where to begin? Can we start with the simple fact that the Russian Foreign
Ministry wasn't handing out baked goods to Occupy protesters in NYC, egging them on as they tossed
molotov cocktails at police, who, strangely enough, refrained from shooting protesters until right
after a peaceful political settlement was reached? Coincidence or fate? Or maybe there is strong
evidence that right wing fanatics were the ones who started the shooting on that fateful day?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021
And sorry, no matter how much Kovpak denies it, the muscle behind the "glorious revolution"
was a bunch of far-right thugs that make our American alt-right look like girl scouts. Andrei
Biletsky, leader of Azov Battalion and head of Ukraine's creatively named Social-National Assembly,
says he's committed to "punishing severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that
lead to the extinction of the white man."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
- Just like those hippies at Zuccotti Park, right?! Oh,and this guy received a medal from
Poroshenko.
I can keep going, but your "Maidan was just like Occupy!" argument pretty much speaks for itself.
Glory to the heroes indeed.
As someone who lived many years in Ukraine, speaks Ukrainian and Russian and knows personally
many of the people involved, yes, Ukrainians know full well the origin of the Nazi slogans that
the local Nazis spout.
That doesn't mean that the average frustrated euromaidan supporter is a Nazi, but Nazis bussed
in from Galicia did eventually provide the muscle, as it were, and the rest of the country were
willing to get in bed with them, appoint them to run ministries, and let them have independent
military units.
Those Nazis are perfectly happy to call themselves Nazis.
What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but
all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland
and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story.
To be fair, there is a fairly wide gap between 'racist' and 'violent racist of the KKK/Nazi
variety'.
Also (yes, partly preaching to the choir, but with a purpose), liberals are perfectly happy
to stay quiet about enormous income/prosecution/incarceration/kill rate differences, so long as
those targeted/affected can (bureau-/meritocratically) be described as 'druggies/criminals/"extremists"/uneducated-thus-
undeserving '. And to ignore drone bombing of brown people. Etc. So all the pearl-clutching/virtue-signaling
concerning racism is pretty easy to shrug off as concerning little more than a plea to express
one's support for racist policy in a PC fashion.
(Highly recommend The New Jim Crow , which I've only recently started reading, for no
good reason. Bizarre to realize that all of the stuff that's being reported on a little bit now
has been going on for 30 years now (30y of silence / wir-haben-es-nicht-gewusst wrt the structural
nature; note that any/all reporting that im/explicitly describes these issues as "scandals"/"excesses"
is part of the problem.)
WOW I guess we have democracy, so your comment got through. In a way, your post confirms the
existence of rabidly anti-Russian entities – the very point that Mark Ames makes. But you know,
there are people who know a thing or two about Russia and Ukraine, and can easily refute much
of your diatribe. (1) Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained
in Poland, US, and Canada).
Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption – but every U. government since 1991
has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception – but he was also not the worst one (do some research
on J. Timoshenko).
Corruption persists in U. today – and based on the now-required property disclosures by U.
politicians – may be even worse. It is likely correct that most U. don't give a damn about Bandera
– but most U. also do not have any power to do anything about the neo-nazis, as they are (at least
in the western part of the country) numerous, vocal, and prone to violence.
There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members
on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of
the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 – after a deal had been signed calling for early elections.
The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis.
(2) But it is your comments about the U. neo-nazi participation in the war that seem to clarify
who you really represent. This participation was not much discussed during the soviet times –
I only found out that they continued to fight against the soviet state long after the war ended
recently – from family members who witnessed it (in Belorussia, west. Ukr., and eastern Czechoslovakia).
Some of them witnessed the unspeakable cruelty of these Ukr. "troops" against villagers and any
partisans they could find. White-washing this period (or smearing soviet educational system) will
not help – there is plenty of historical evidence for those who are interested in the subject.
(3) What you say about the Russian state promoting this or that is just a scurrilous attack,
with no proof. Not even worth exploring. On the other hand, there are plenty of documented murders
of Ukr. journalists (google Buzina – a highly intelligent and eloquent Ukr. journalist, who was
gunned down in front of his home; there are quite a few others).
Ukr. in 2014 may have been protesting inept government, but what they ended up with is far
worse – by any measure, Ukr. standard of living has gone way down. But now, the industrial base
of the country has been destroyed, and the neo-nazi genie will not go back into the bottle any
time soon. Ukr. as a unified place did not exist until after WWI, and the great divisions – brought
starkly into contrast by the 2014 destruction of the state – cannot be papered over anytime soon.
Appreciate the points you bring up but if the Ukranians truly want an end to an exploitative
system, they probably are not going to get it by allying themselves with Uncle Sugar. The US provided
billions of dollars to foment the coup and our oligarchs expect a return on that investment –
they aren't going to suddenly start trust funds for all Ukranians out of the goodness of their
hearts. You are aware of that aren't you?
So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points
I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party
change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will
just laugh at you.
Hahahahahaha!
What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating
a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded
Voice of America and is
a regular with Ukraine's
"StopFake.org"
which is
funded
by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other
words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up.
Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to
America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American
democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. The good news
is that by the 80's nobody believed the state and its propagandists, even on the rare occasion
they were telling the truth, and America's people seem to be a bit ahead of the curve already,
which may explain the "fake news" hysteria from the creators and disseminators of fake news.
Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers than other Eastern European nations,
but if you look at their polls and elections you see that the far-right in Ukraine does far
worse than it does in other Eastern and even Western European countries
Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer
to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana
Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started
out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to
the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too.
What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center.
That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out
as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government.
Here in America we saw something like that in the early 1990s, when KKK leader David Duke migrated
to the political mainstream by running for office as a Republican in Louisiana. Of course Duke
never changed his views, he just learned to dissemble himself in the way he sold his politics
to the public.
This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton
didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far!
Yes, these are dangerous people, as are most "true believers". I'm also becoming even more
disappointed at Ms, Clinton. For a while, she seemed to be keeping a little distance from her
dead-enders, but now that her and Bill are out back on the money trail (How much is enough?),
it doesn't look good.
Selling fear? Really? Isn't there a shelf life on that?
I'm not certain about the contents of that crock, good sir. We now live in a "culture" where
s–t IS gold. Otherwise, why are we now enduring a "popular press" full of "wardrobe malfunctions,"
new amazing bikini bodies, salacious gossip, and equally salacious "news?" (The Page Three was
shut down really because there was too much competition.)
Oh tempura, oh s'mores! (Latinate for "We're crisped!")
Indeed. The above article is great, great stuff and shows why some of us found Hillary more
disturbing than Trump. Therefore Ames' final assumption
And the timing is incredible-as if Bezos' rag has taken upon itself to soften up the
American media before Trump moves in for the kill.
seems a bit off. It's certainly true that Trump said news organizations should face greater
exposure to libel laws but one suspects this has more to do with his personal peevishness and
inability to take criticism than the Deep State-y motives described above. Clearly the "public
versus private" Hillary–Nixon in a pant suit–would have been just the person to embrace this sort
of censorship by smear and her connection with various shadowy exiles and in her own campaign
no less shows why Sanders' failure to make FP the center of his opposition was, if not a political
mistake, at least evidence of his limited point of view.
It's unlikely that anyone running this time would be able to change our domestic trajectory
but this fascism from abroad is a real danger IMO. In Reagan times some of us thought that Reagan
supported reactionary governments abroad because that's what he and his rogue's gallery including
Casey and North wished they could do here. The people getting hysterical over Trump while pining
for Hillary don't seem to know fascism when it's right in front of them. Or perhaps it's just
a matter of whose ox is going to be gored.
Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues.
I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream
lies about Russia and Ukraine.
No surprise, ever since the US, and Biden, got involved in Ukraine. And it is even probable,
that people like that were behind the Kennedy assassination, that the US has admitted was a conspiracy,
that is still protected from "journalistic sunshine" under lock and key by the US government.
Thanks for giving this article its own post, and thanks to dcblogger for providing the
link in yesterday's Water Cooler.
Seems to me that this little bout of D-party/CIA incompetence, and/or incontinence, will finally
sound the death knell for the Operation Paperclip gang's plan. Good riddance.
"... the world's largest private surveillance operation ..."
"... Ha! I wish I'd thought of that line! I just laughed out loud on the train and my fellow commuter drones are shuffling and wondering to themselves if I'm on day release from an institution. ..."
"... Of course, the joke's on us, because that's exactly what they (Google) are with all the right friends in high places to boot ..."
"... Something that has been occurring lately with Chrome makes me think that Google is truly watching. A lot of sites (RT et al) are having the https// crossed out in red implying that the connection is no longer secure. ..."
" the head of the world's largest private surveillance operation , billionaire
Eric Schmidt "
Ha! I wish I'd thought of that line! I just laughed out loud on the train and my fellow
commuter drones are shuffling and wondering to themselves if I'm on day release from an institution.
Of course, the joke's on us, because that's exactly what they (Google)
are with all the right friends in high places to boot .
Something that has been occurring lately with Chrome makes me think that Google is truly
watching. A lot of sites (RT et al) are having the https// crossed out in red implying that the
connection is no longer secure.
Probably TOR but I would caution
this is far from foolproof and may even incur The Panopticon's more intrusive surveillance attention.
I value my privacy as much as anyone but I don't use TOR or similar simply because if they
are not a guaranteed solution, what's the point? And besides, why should I have to? It's just
another tax on my time and resources.
The opendemocracy link you gave shows up as having issues in firefox also. It looks like they
have some insecure images on the page, which is probably what chrome is complaining about.
"... On Wednesday, the Pentagon released its 2015 National Military Strategy, a 24-page blueprint for ruling the world through military force. While the language in the report is subtler and less incendiary than similar documents in the past, the determination to unilaterally pursue US interests through extreme violence remains the cornerstone of the new strategy. Readers will not find even a hint of remorse in the NMS for the vast destruction and loss of life the US caused in countries that posed not the slightest threat to US national security. Instead, the report reflects the steely resolve of its authors and elite constituents to continue the carnage and bloodletting until all potential rivals have been killed or eliminated and until such time that Washington feels confident that its control over the levers of global power cannot be challenged. ..."
"... lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition . He can be reached at [email protected] . ..."
On Wednesday, the Pentagon released its
2015 National
Military Strategy,
a 24-page blueprint for ruling the world
through military force. While the language in the report is subtler
and less incendiary than similar documents in the past, the determination
to unilaterally pursue US interests through extreme violence remains
the cornerstone of the new strategy. Readers will not find even a hint
of remorse in the NMS for the vast destruction and loss of life the
US caused in countries that posed not the slightest threat to US national
security. Instead, the report reflects the steely resolve of its authors
and elite constituents to continue the carnage and bloodletting until
all potential rivals have been killed or eliminated and until such
time that Washington feels confident that its control over the levers
of global power cannot be challenged.
As one would expect, the NMS conceals its hostile intentions behind
the deceptive language of "national security". The US does not initiate
wars of aggression against blameless states that possess large quantities
of natural resources. No. The US merely addresses "security challenges"
to "protect the homeland" and to "advance our national interests."
How could anyone find fault with that, after all, wasn't the US just
trying to bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and
now Syria?
In the Chairman's Forward, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey
attempts to prepare the American people for a future of endless war:
Future conflicts will come more rapidly, last longer, and take
place on a much more technically challenging battlefield. We must
be able to rapidly adapt to new threats while maintaining comparative
advantage over traditional ones the application of the military
instrument of power against state threats is very different than
the application of military power against non state threats. We
are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that
are resolved quickly that control of escalation is becoming more
difficult and more important. (
Document:
2015 U.S. National Military Strategy
, USNI News)
War, war and more war. This is the Pentagon's vision of the future.
Unlike Russia or China which have a plan for an integrated EU-Asia
free trade zone (Silk Road) that will increase employment, improve
vital infrastructure, and raise living standards, the US sees only
death and destruction ahead. Washington has no strategy for the future,
no vision of a better world. There is only war; asymmetrical war, technological
war, preemptive war. The entire political class and their elite paymasters
unanimously support global rule through force of arms. That is the
unavoidable meaning of this document. The United States intends to
maintain its tenuous grip on global power by maximizing the use of
its greatest asset; its military.
And who is in the military's gunsights? Check out this excerpt from
an article in Defense News:
The strategy specifically calls out Iran, Russia and North Korea
as aggressive threats to global peace. It also mentions China, but
notably starts that paragraph by saying the Obama administration
wants to "support China's rise and encourage it to become a partner
for greater international security," continuing to thread the line
between China the economic ally and China the regional competitor.
None of these nations are believed to be seeking direct military
conflict with the United States or our allies," the strategy reads.
"Nonetheless, they each pose serious security concerns which the
international community is working to collectively address by way
of common policies, shared messages, and coordinated action. (
Pentagon
Releases National Military Strategy
, Defense News)
Did you catch that last part? "None of these nations are believed
to be seeking direct military conflict with the United States or our
allies. Nevertheless, they each pose serious security concerns."
In other words, none of these countries wants to fight the United
States, but the United States wants to fight them. And the US feels
it's justified in launching a war against these countries because,
well, because they either control vast resources, have huge industrial
capacity, occupy an area of the world that interests the US geopolitically,
or because they simply want to maintain their own sovereign independence
which, of course, is a crime. According to Dempsey, any of these threadbare
excuses are sufficient justification for conflict mainly because they
"pose serious security concerns" for the US, which is to say they undermine
the US's dominant role as the world's only superpower.
The NMS devotes particular attention to Russia, Washington's flavor-of-the-month
enemy who had the audacity to defend its security interests following
a State Department-backed coup in neighboring Ukraine. For that, Moscow
must be punished. This is from the report:
Some states, however, are attempting to revise key aspects of
the international order and are acting in a manner that threatens
our national security interests. While Russia has contributed in
select security areas, such as counternarcotics and counterterrorism,
it also has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not respect the
sovereignty of its neighbors and it is willing to use force to achieve
its goals. Russia's military actions are undermining regional security
directly and through proxy forces. These actions violate numerous
agreements that Russia has signed in which it committed to act in
accordance with international norms. (2015 NMS)
Russia is an evildoer because Russia refused to stand by while the
US toppled the Ukrainian government, installed a US stooge in Kiev,
precipitated a civil war between the various factions, elevated neo
Nazis to positions of power in the security services, plunged the economy
into insolvency and ruin, and opened a CIA headquarters in the Capital
to run the whole shooting match. This is why Russia is bad and must
be punished.
But does that mean Washington is seriously contemplating a war with
Russia?
Here's an excerpt from the document that will help to clarify the
matter:
For the past decade, our military campaigns primarily have consisted
of operations against violent extremist networks. But today, and
into the foreseeable future, we must pay greater attention to challenges
posed by state actors. They increasingly have the capability to
contest regional freedom of movement and threaten our homeland.
Of particular concern are the proliferation of ballistic missiles,
precision strike technologies, unmanned systems, space and cyber
capabilities, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technologies
designed to counter U.S. military advantages and curtail access
to the global commons. (2015 NMS)
It sounds to me like the Washington honchos have already made up
their minds. Russia is the enemy, therefore, Russia must be defeated.
How else would one "counter a revisionist state" that "threatens our
homeland"?
Why with Daisy Cutters, of course. Just like everyone else.
The NMS provides a laundry list of justifications for launching
wars against (imaginary) enemies of the US. The fact is, the Pentagon
sees ghosts around every corner. Whether the topic is new technologies,
"shifting demographics" or cultural differences; all are seen as a
potential threat to US interests, particularly anything related to
the "competition for resources." In this skewed view of reality, one
can see how the invasion of Iraq was justified on the grounds that
Saddam's control of Iraq's massive oil reserves posed a direct challenge
to US hegemony. Naturally, Saddam had to be removed and over a million
people killed to put things right and return the world to a state of
balance. This is the prevailing view of the National Military Strategy,
that is, that whatever the US does is okay, because its the US.
Readers shouldn't expect to find something new in the NMS. This
is old wine in new bottles. The Pentagon has merely updated the Bush
Doctrine while softening the rhetoric. There's no need to scare the
living daylights out of people by talking about unilateralism, preemption,
shrugging off international law or unprovoked aggression. Even so,
everyone knows that United States is going to do whatever the hell
it wants to do to keep the empire intact. The 2015 National Military
Strategy merely confirms that sad fact.
General Mattis reportedly spoke of his concerns during discussions over attacking Iran and thus
fell afoul of the Washington establishment, so President Obama hastened his retirement.
Foreign Policy 's
Thomas Ricks reported :
Why the hurry? Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way-not
because he went all "mad dog," which is his public image, and the view at the White House,
but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order
consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable.
Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What
do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for
U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, "And then what?"
Washington did have a "strategy" when it attacked Iraq, the neoconservative one. This
was to intimidate the Muslim world with massive bombing,
"Shock and Awe" we called
it, so all Muslims would be afraid of us and then do what we ordered. Then we planted giant, billion-dollar
American air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would, they thought, give us hegemony over Central
Asia, intimidate Russia and Iran, while Iraq would turn into a friendly, modern democracy dependent
upon Washington. Other Muslim nations would then follow with democratic regimes which would co-operate
and obey Washington's plans.
With the neocons discredited, no other strategy has replaced theirs except to "win" and come
home. This is not unusual in our history. In past wars American "strategy" has usually been to
return to the status quo ante, the prewar situation. Washington violates nearly all of Sun Tzu's
dictums for success. Endless wars for little purpose and with no end strategy are thus likely
to continue. They are, however, profitable or beneficial for many Washington interests.
Ben @ 10, it's not the USA that's addicted to war. Rather it is the US
govt AS CAPTURED BY THE OLIGARCHS. Nor is it truly an addiction, but a
means to the end of a global oligarchy. It isn't enough to see the evil
of US aggression. One must also understand why the international
institutions which have usurped nationhood around the world are evil:
Fed/IMF system, World Bank, WTO and the entire UN system to which they
belong. US hegemony has never been intended as the endgame. Oligarchical
global govt is-- initially as a decentralized administration which they
are already trying to sell you as "multipolarity".
The quotes:
"
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely
aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the
British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public
to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of
commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by
their leaders.
"
"
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the
elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism
that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the
choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.
The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation
and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of
factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of
artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle
classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the
world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of
individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is
inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.
We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that
a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that
the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us
astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing,
financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living,
but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they
are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
"
"
For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our
history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges:
climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species,
epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the
development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we
live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred
years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only
have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.
To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations.
If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world's leaders need to acknowledge that
they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in
the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.
With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain
for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and
economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage
global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be
persuaded to seek their future at home.
We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the
elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the
past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.
"
General Mattis reportedly spoke of his concerns during discussions over attacking Iran and thus
fell afoul of the Washington establishment, so President Obama hastened his retirement.
Foreign Policy 's
Thomas Ricks reported :
Why the hurry? Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way-not
because he went all "mad dog," which is his public image, and the view at the White House,
but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order
consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable.
Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What
do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for
U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, "And then what?"
Washington did have a "strategy" when it attacked Iraq, the neoconservative one. This
was to intimidate the Muslim world with massive bombing,
"Shock and Awe" we called
it, so all Muslims would be afraid of us and then do what we ordered. Then we planted giant, billion-dollar
American air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would, they thought, give us hegemony over Central
Asia, intimidate Russia and Iran, while Iraq would turn into a friendly, modern democracy dependent
upon Washington. Other Muslim nations would then follow with democratic regimes which would co-operate
and obey Washington's plans.
With the neocons discredited, no other strategy has replaced theirs except to "win" and come
home. This is not unusual in our history. In past wars American "strategy" has usually been to
return to the status quo ante, the prewar situation. Washington violates nearly all of Sun Tzu's
dictums for success. Endless wars for little purpose and with no end strategy are thus likely
to continue. They are, however, profitable or beneficial for many Washington interests.
Ben @ 10, it's not the USA that's addicted to war. Rather it is the US
govt AS CAPTURED BY THE OLIGARCHS. Nor is it truly an addiction, but a
means to the end of a global oligarchy. It isn't enough to see the evil
of US aggression. One must also understand why the international
institutions which have usurped nationhood around the world are evil:
Fed/IMF system, World Bank, WTO and the entire UN system to which they
belong. US hegemony has never been intended as the endgame. Oligarchical
global govt is-- initially as a decentralized administration which they
are already trying to sell you as "multipolarity".
The quotes:
"
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely
aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the
British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public
to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of
commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by
their leaders.
"
"
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the
elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism
that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the
choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.
The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation
and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of
factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of
artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle
classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the
world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of
individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is
inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.
We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that
a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that
the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us
astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing,
financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living,
but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they
are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
"
"
For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our
history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges:
climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species,
epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the
development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we
live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred
years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only
have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.
To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations.
If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world's leaders need to acknowledge that
they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in
the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.
With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain
for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and
economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage
global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be
persuaded to seek their future at home.
We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the
elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the
past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.
"
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s –
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
– say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s – High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? – World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passé.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the
nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If
so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution
and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican
contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed
establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound
his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.
What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All
have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties
like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would
mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their
own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.
Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton
backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this
case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.
Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else
has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration,
while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.
The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all
faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is
this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?
Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial
Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this
New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding
the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between
managerial and New Class elites.
♦♦♦
The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier
stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed,
was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.
Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked
on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind
had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.
But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists,
while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run
by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.
Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading
Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet
mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs
of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to
the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.
Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not
own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise
and administrative prowess.
The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians
: "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as
to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy,
and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental"
power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.
The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain
their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between
big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex
to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with
the French-British Concorde.)
America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of
defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?"
Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system
of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded
forms of business enterprise."
McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But
the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart
19th-century classical liberals.
National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It
was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying.
The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes
in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.
More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class."
"This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall
Street Journal :
It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial
society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists
and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in
the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy,
and so on.
"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational
system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."
Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:
I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous
actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after
all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers
of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going
to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?
Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided
with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation
and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state
reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however,
amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.
The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism
of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and
Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.
Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach
to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree,
so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."
He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics.
The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were
evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.
Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers
or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following
the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie
to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.
Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous
militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory
state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like
Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.
Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment
to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the
protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare
is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.
The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also
enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps
keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like
many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining
managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.
The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange
for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian
ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its
class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize
its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony
helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.
♦♦♦
So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses
stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.
Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes,
"big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the
bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.
The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite
its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment,
minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right
faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders
had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.
The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of
the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype
of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.
This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might
welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .
Excellent analysis. What is important about the Trump phenomenon is not every individual issue, it's the potentially revolutionary
nature of the phenomenon. The opposition gets this. That's why they are hysterical about Trump. The conservative box checkers
do not.
"Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big
government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan
establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November."
My question is, if Trump is not himself of the managerial class, in fact, could be considered one of the original new class
members, how would he govern? What explains his conversion from the new class to the managerial class; is he merely taking advantage
of an opportunity or is there some other explanation?
I'm genuinely confused by the role you ascribe to the 'managerial class' here. Going back to Berle and Means ('The Modern Corporation
and Private Property') the managerial class emerged when management was split from ownership in mid C20th capitalism. Managers
focused on growth, not profits for shareholders. The Shareholder revolution of the 1980s destroyed the managerial class, and destroyed
their unwieldy corporations.
You seem to be identifying the managerial class with a kind of cultural opposition to the values of [neo]liberal capitalism. And
instead of identifying the 'new class' with the new owner-managers of shareholder-driven firms, you identify them by their superficial
cultural effects.
This raises a deeper problem in how you talk about class in this piece. Marx taught that you identify classes by their
structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system
of production. Does the 'new class' of journalists, academics, etc. actually own anything? If not, what is the point of ascribing
to them immense economic power?
I would agree that there is a new class of capitalists in America. But they are well known people like Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs,
Linda McMahon, the Waltons, Rick Scott the pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, and many many hedge fund
gazillionaires. These people represent the resurgence of a family-based, dynastic capitalism that is utterly different from the
managerial variety that prevailed in mid-century.
If there is a current competitor to international corporate capitalism, it is old-fashioned dynastic family capitalism. Not
Managerialism.
There is no "new class". That's simply a derogatory trope of the Right. The [neo]liberal elite– educated, cosmopolitan and possessed
of sufficient wealth to be influential in political affairs and claims to power grounded in moral stances– have a long pedigree
in both Western and non-Western lands. They were the Scribal Class in the ancient world, the Mandarins of China, and the Clergy
in the Middle Ages. This class for a time was eclipsed in the early modern period as first royal authority became dominant, followed
by the power of the Capitalist class (the latter has never really faded of course). But their reemergence in the late 20th century
is not a new or unique phenomenon.
In a year in which "trash Trump" and "trash Trump's supporters" are tricks-to-be-turned for more than 90% of mainstream journalists
and other media hacks, it's good to see Daniel McCarthy buck the "trash trend" and write a serious, honest analysis of the class
forces that are colliding during this election cycle.
Two thumbs way up for McCarthy, although his fine effort cannot save the reputation of those establishment whores who call
themselves journalists. Nothing can save them. They have earned the universality with which Americans hold them in contempt.
In 1976 when Gallup began asking about "the honesty and ethical standards" of various professions only 33% of Americans rated
journalists "very high or high."
By last December that "high or very high" rating for journalists had fallen to just 27%.
It is certain that by Election Day 2016 the American public's opinion of journalists will have fallen even further.
Most of your argument is confusing. The change I see is from a production economy to a finance economy. Wall Street rules, really.
Basically the stock market used to be a place where working folk invested their money for retirement, mostly through pensions
from unions and corporations. Now it's become a gambling casino, with the "house"-or the big banks-putting it's finger on the
roulette wheel. They changed the compensation package of CEO's, so they can rake in huge executive compensation–mostly through
stock options-to basically close down everything from manufacturing to customer service, and ship it off to contract manufacturers
and outside services in oligarchical countries like mainland China and India.
I don't know what exactly you mean about the "new class", basically its the finance industry against everyone else.
One thing you right-wingers always get wrong, is on Karl Marx he was really attacking the money-changers, the finance speculators,
the banks. Back in the day, so-called "capitalists" like Henry Ford or George Eastman or Thomas Edison always complained about
the access to financing through the big money finance capitalists.
Don't overlook the economic value of intellectual property rights (patents, in particular) in the economic equation.
A big chunk of the 21st century economy is generated due to the intellectual property developed and owned by the New Class
and its business enterprises.
The economic value of ideas and intellectual property rights is somewhat implied in McCarthy's explanation of the New Class,
but I didn't see an explicit mention (perhaps I overlooked it).
I think the consideration of intellectual property rights and the value generated by IP might help to clarify the economic
power of the New Class for those who feel the analysis isn't quite complete or on target.
I'm not saying that IP only provides value to the New Class. We can find examples of IP throughout the economy, at all levels.
It's just that the tech and financial sectors seem to focus more on (and benefit from) IP ownership, licensing, and the information
captured through use of digital technology.
"What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy."
But today we have this: Trump pledges big US military
expansion . Trump doesn't appear to have any coherent policy, he just says whatever seems to be useful at that particular
moment.
[New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative
think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous
Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the
Globalized Economy and financial markets.
Being white is not the defining characteristic of Trumpers because it if was then how come there are many white working class
voters for Hillary? The divide in the working class comes from being a member of a union or a member of the private non-unionized
working class.
Where the real class divide shows up is in those who are members of the Knowledge Class that made their living based on the
old Virtuous Economy where the elderly saved money in banks and the banks, in turn, lent that money out to young families to buy
houses, cars, and start businesses. The Virtuous Economy has been replaced by the Global Economy based on diverting money to the
stock market to fund global enterprises and prop up government pension funds.
The local bankers, realtors, private contractors, small savers and small business persons and others that depended on the Virtuous
Economy lost out to the global bankers, stock investors, pension fund managers, union contractors and intellectuals that propounded
rationales for the global economy as superior to the Virtuous Economy.
Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally
decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those
who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist
Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages
and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide.
Beginning in the 50's and 60's, baby boomers were warned in school and cultural media that "a college diploma would become what
a high school diploma is today." An extraordinary cohort of Americans took this advice seriously, creating the smartest and most
successful generation in history. But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who – knowing that college
educated people vote largely Democrat – launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what you see
now: millions of people unprepared for modern employment; meanwhile we have to import millions of college-educated Asians and
Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do.
Have to say, this seems like an attempt to put things into boxes that don't quite fit.
Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times –
nationalism vs. Globalism.
The core of it is that the government no longer serves the people. In the United States, that is kind of a bad thing, you know?
Like the EU in the UK, the people, who fought very hard for self-government, are seeing it undermined by the erosion of the nation
state in favor of international beaurocracy run by elites and the well connected.
Both this article and many comments on it show considerable confusion, and ideological opinion all over the map. What is happening
I think is that the world is changing –due to globalism, technology, and the sheer huge numbers of people on the planet. As a
result some of the rigid trenches of thought as well as class alignments are breaking down.
In America we no longer have capitalism, of either the 19th century industrial or 20th century managerial varieties. Money
and big money is still important of course, but it is increasingly both aligned with and in turn controlled by the government.
The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government
ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives
are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both
are right in a sense.
The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite
academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been
left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth
and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as
backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against
being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters."
The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties'
elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium
and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these
folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively
harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA.
I have one condition about which, Mr. Trump would lose my support - if he flinches on immigration, I will have to bow out.
I just don't buy the contentions about color here. He has made definitive moves to ensure that he intends to fight for US citizens
regardless of color. This nonsense about white racism, more bigotry in reality, doesn't pan out. The Republican party has been
comprised of mostly whites since forever and nearly all white sine the late 1960's. Anyone attempting to make hay out of what
has been the reality for than 40 years is really making the reverse pander. Of course most of those who have issues with blacks
and tend to be more expressive about it, are in the Republican party. But so what. Black Republicans would look at you askance,
should you attempt this FYI.
It's a so what. The reason you joining a party is not because the people in it like you, that is really beside the point. Both
Sec Rice and General Powell, are keenly aware of who's what it and that is the supposed educated elite. They are not members of
the party because it is composed of some pure untainted membership. But because they and many blacks align themselves with the
ideas of the party, or what the party used to believe, anyway.
It's the issues not their skin color that matters. And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes
on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to
Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and
used for their own liberal ends.
I remain convinced that if blacks wanted progress all they need do is swamp the Republican party as constituents and confront
whatever they thought was nonsense as constituents as they move on policy issues. Goodness democrats have embraced the lighter
tones despite having most black support. That is why the democrats are importing so many from other state run countries. They
could ignore blacks altogether. Sen Barbara Jordan and her deep voiced rebuke would do them all some good.
Let's face it - we are not going to remove the deeply rooted impact of skin color, once part of the legal frame of the country
for a quarter of the nations populous. What Republicans should stop doing is pretending, that everything concerning skin color
is the figment of black imagination. I am not budging an inch on the Daughters of the American Revolution, a perfect example of
the kind of peculiar treatment of the majority, even to those who fought for Independence and their descendants.
________________
I think that there are thousands and thousands of educated (degreed)people who now realize what a mess the educational and
social services system has become because of our immigration policy. The impact on social services here in Ca is no joke. In the
face of mounting deficits, the laxity of Ca has now come back to haunt them. The pressure to increase taxes weighed against the
loss of manual or hard labor to immigrants legal and otherwise is unmistakable here. There's debate about rsstroom etiquette in
the midst of serious financial issues - that's a joke. So this idea of dismissing people with degrees as being opposed to Mr.
Trump is deeply overplayed and misunderstood. If there is a class war, it's not because of Mr. Trump, those decks were stacked
in his favor long before the election cycle.
--------
"But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who–knowing that college educated people vote largely
Democrat–launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what . . . employment; meanwhile we have to
import millions of college-educated Asians and Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do."
Hmmmm,
Nope. Republicans are notorious for pushing education on everything and everybody. It's a signature of hard work, self reliance,
self motivation and responsibility. The shift that has been tragic is that conservatives and Republicans either by a shove or
by choice abandoned the fields by which we turn out most future generations - elementary, HS and college education. Especially
in HS, millions of students are fed a daily diet of liberal though unchecked by any opposing ideas. And that is become the staple
for college education - as it cannot be stated just how tragic this has become for the nation. There are lots of issues to moan
about concerning the Us, but there is far more to embrace or at the very least keep the moaning in its proper context. No, conservatives
and Republicans did engage in discouraging an education.
And there will always be a need for more people without degrees than with them. even people with degrees are now getting hit
even in the elite walls of WS finance. I think I posted an article by John Maulden about the growing tensions resulting fro the
shift in the way trading is conducting. I can build a computer from scratch, that's a technical skill, but the days of building
computers by hand went as fast it came. The accusation that the population should all be trained accountants, book keepers, managers,
data processors, programmers etc. Is nice, but hardly very realistic (despite my taking liberties with your exact phrasing). A
degree is not going to stop a company from selling and moving its production to China, Mexico or Vietnam - would that were true.
In fact, even high end degree positions are being outsourced, medicine, law, data processing, programming . . .
How about the changes in economy that have forced businesses to completely disappear. We will never know how many businesses
were lost in the 2007/2008 financial mess. Recovery doesn't exist until the country's growth is robust enough to put people back
to work full time in a manner that enables them to sustain themselves and family.
That income gap is real and its telling.
___________________
even if I bought the Karl Marx assessment. His solutions were anything but a limited assault on financial sector oligarchs
and wizards. And in practice it has been an unmitigated disaster with virtually not a single long term national benefit. It's
very nature has been destructive, not only to infrastructure, but literally the lifeblood of the people it was intended to rescue.
Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class"
are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector
and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector.
There are two middle classes in the US: the old Business Class and the New Knowledge Class. A manager would be in the Business
Class and a Bureaucrat in the New Class.
The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization,
industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial
revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization.
The New Class were those in the mostly government and nonprofit sectors that depended on knowledge for their livelihood without
it being coupled to any physical labor: teachers, intellectuals, social workers and psychiatrists, lawyers, media types, hedge
fund managers, real estate appraisers, financial advisors, architects, engineers, etc. The New Knowledge Class has only risen
since the New Deal created a permanent white collar, non-business class.
The Working Class are those who are employed for wages in manual work in an industry producing something tangible (houses,
cars, computers, etc.). The Working Class can also have managers, sometimes called supervisors. And the Working Class is comprised
mainly of two groups: unionized workers and private sector non-unionized workers. When we talk about the Working Class we typically
are referring to the latter.
The Trumpsters should not be distinguished as being a racial group or class (white) because there are many white people who
support Clinton. About 95% of Blacks vote Democratic in the US. Nowhere near that ratio of Whites are supporting Trump. So Trumps'
support should not be stereotyped as White.
The number one concern to Trumpsters is that they reflect the previous intergenerational economy where the elderly lent money
to the young to buy homes, cars and start small businesses. The Global bankers have shifted money into the stock market because
0.25% per year interest rates in a bank isn't making any money at all when money inflation runs at 1% to 2% (theft). This has
been replaced by a Global Economy that depends on financial bubbles and arbitraging of funds.
"The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated
by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right
in a sense."
Why other couching this. Ten years ago if some Hollywood exec had said, no same sex marriage, no production company in your
town, the town would have shrugged. Today before shrugging, the city clerk is checking the account balance. When the governors
of Michigan, and Arizona bent down in me culpa's on related issue, because business interests piped in, it was an indication that
the game had seriously changed. Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private
lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure
most of the public fully grasps or desires.
Same sex weddings in US military chapels - the concept still turns my stomach. Advocates control the megaphones, I don't think
they control the minds of the public, despite having convinced a good many people that those who have chosen this expression are
under some manner of assault – that demands a legal change - intelligent well educated, supposedly astute minded people actually
believe it. Even the Republican nominee believes it.
I love Barbara Streisand, but if the election means she moves to Canada, well, so be it. Take your "drag queens" impersonators
wit you. I enjoy Mr. and Mrs Pitt, I think have a social moral core but really? with millions of kids future at stake, endorsing
a terminal dynamic as if it will save society's ills - Hollywood doesn't even pretend to behave royally much less embody the sensitivities
of the same.
There is a lot to challenge about supporting Mr. Trump. He did support killing children in the womb and that is tragic. Unless
he has stood before his maker and made this right, he will have to answer for that. But no more than a trove of Republicans who
supported killing children in the womb and then came to their senses. I guess of there is one thing he and I agree on, it's not
drinking.
As for big budget military, it seems a waste, but if we are going to waste money, better it be for our own citizens. His Achilles
heel here is his intentions as to ISIS/ISIL. I think it's the big drain getting ready to suck him into the abyss of intervention
creep.
Missile defense just doesn't work. The tests are rigged and as Israel discovered, it's a hit and miss game with low probability
of success, but it makes for great propaganda.
I am supposed to be outraged by a football player stance on abusive government. While the democratic nominee is turning over
every deck chair she find, leaving hundreds of thousands of children homeless - let me guess, on the bright side, George Clooney
cheers the prospect of more democratic voters.
If Mr. Trumps only achievements are building a wall, over hauling immigration policy and expanding the size of the military.
He will be well on his way to getting ranked one of the US most successful presidents.
I never understood why an analysis needs to lard in every conceivable historical reference and simply assume its relevance, when
there are so many non constant facts and circumstances. There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it
falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes.
This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially
benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict
is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but
the underlying conflict will always remain.
State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there.
Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they
would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those.
The split on Trump is first by race (obviously), then be gender (also somewhat obviously), and then by education. Even among
self-declared conservatives it's the college educated who tend to oppose him. This is a lot broader than simply losing some "new"
Knowledge Class, unless all college educated people are put in that grouping. In fact he is on track to lose among college educated
whites, something no GOP candidate has suffered since the days of FDR and WWII.
People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's,
per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this
the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards.
People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not
impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions.
I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all
the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable.
Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American.
EliteComic beat me to the punch. I was disappointed that Ross Perot, who won over 20% of the popular vote twice, and was briefly
in the lead in early 1992, wasn't mentioned in this article.
Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli
interests above America's is un-American.
The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable
people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation
where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation,
but of justice being done period.
A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US
dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the
Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation
and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers
instead of a nation of producers.
Who really cares about the federal debt. REally? We can print dollars, exchange these worthless dollars with China for hard
goods, and then China lends the dollars back to us, to pay for our government. Get it?
It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt
dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya
Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market
utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on.
But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled.
And damn the utopianism of you "libertarians" you're worse then Marxists when it comes to ideology over reality.
"State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back
in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would
only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those."
Ah, not it's policy on some measure able effect. The seatbelt law was debate across the country. The data indicated that it
did in fact save lives. And it's impact was universal applicable to every man women or child that got into a vehicle.
That was not a private bedroom issue. Of course businesses have advocated policy. K street is not a K-street minus that reality.
But GM did not demand having relations in parked cars be legalized or else.
You are taking my apples and and calling them seatbelts - false comparison on multiple levels, all to get me to acknowledge
that businesses have influence. It what they have chosen to have influence on -
I do not think the issue of class is relevant here – whether it be new classes or old classes. There are essentially two classes
– those who win given whatever the current economic arrangements are or those who lose given those same arrangements. People who
think they are losing support Trump versus people who think they are winning support Clinton. The polls demonstrates this – Trump
supporters feel a great deal more anxiety about the future and are more inclined to think everything is falling apart whereas
Clinton supporters tend to see things as being okay and are optimistic about the future. The Vox work also shows this pervasive
sense that life will not be good for their children and grandchildren as a characteristic of Trump supporters.
The real shift I think is in the actual coalitions that are political parties. Both the GOP and the Dems have been coalitions
– political parties usually are. Primary areas of agreement with secondary areas of disagreement. Those coalitions no longer work.
The Dems can be seen as a coalition of the liberal knowledge types – who are winners in this economy and the worker types who
are often losers now in this economy. The GOP also is a coalition of globalist corporatist business types (winners) with workers
(losers) who they attracted in part because of culture wars and the Dixiecrats becoming GOPers. The needs of these two groups
in both parties no longer overlap. The crisis is more apparent in the GOP because well – Trump. If Sanders had won the nomination
for the Dems (and he got close) then their same crisis would be more apparent. The Dems can hold their creaky coalition together
because Trump went into the fevered swamps of the alt. right.
I think this is even more obvious in the UK where you have a Labor Party that allegedly represents the interests of working
people but includes the cosmopolitan knowledge types. The cosmopolitans are big on the usual identity politics, unlimited immigration
and staying in the EU. They benefit from the current economic arrangement. But the workers in the Labor party have been hammered
by the current economic arrangements and voted in droves to get out of the EU and limit immigration. It seems pretty obvious that
there is no longer a coalition to sustain the Labor Party. Same with Tories – some in the party love the EU,immigration, globalization
while others voted out of the EU, want immigration restricted and support localism. The crisis is about the inability of either
party to sustain its coalitions. Those in the Tory party who are leavers should be in a political party with the old Labor working
class while the Tory cosmopolitans should be in a party with the Labor cosmopolitans. The current coalitions not being in synch
is the political problem – not new classes etc.
Here in the US the southern Dixiecrats who went to the GOP and are losers in this economy might find a better coalition with
the black, Latino and white workers who are still in the Dem party. But as in the UK ideological culture wars have become more
prominent and hence the coalitions are no longer economically based. If people recognized that politics can only address the economic
issues and they aligned themselves accordingly – the membership of the parties would radically change.
The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia
and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come
up in the morning now,"
"Trump's voters were most strongly characterized by their "racial isolation": they live in places with little ethnic diversity.
"
During the primaries whites in more diverse areas voted Trump. The only real exception was West Virginia. Utah, Wyoming, Iowa?
All voted for Cruz and "muh values".
In white enclaves like Paul Ryans district, which is 91%, whites are able to signal against white identity without having to
face the consequences.
"All three major African, Hispanic, & Asian-American overwhelming support HRC in the election."
That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics
simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data
point would look just the same.
"On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would
benefit hard industry and managerial interests."
This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas
in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute
ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves
versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities
in which they lived.
The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large
institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused.
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s –
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
– say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s – High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? – World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passé.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
"... That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed. ..."
"... More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest since the Cold War. ..."
"... Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United States, which is putting money into all this." ..."
"... Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million expelled from their homes. ..."
"... Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts all over the globe. ..."
Angel Davilla-Rivas, a Spaniard who came to east Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels,
proudly shows off two big monochrome portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin,
tattooed on the right and left side of his torso.
Davilla-Rivas and his comrade Rafa Munez, both in their mid-twenties, traveled by train from Madrid
to eastern Ukraine where they joined the Vostok battalion, the most prominent and heavily armed unit
fighting Ukrainian troops.
"I am the only son, and it hurts my mother and father and my family a lot that I am putting myself
at risk. But ... I can't sleep in my bed knowing what's going on here," said Davilla-Rivas, sporting
a cap with the Soviet red star pinned to it.
That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining
a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans
in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists
against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed.
Angel said he wanted to return the favor after the Soviet Union, under Stalin, supported the Republican
side in Spain.
More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according
to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their
lowest since the Cold War.
The Spaniards are not the first foreigners to enter the fight.
Men from Russia, its former rebel republic of Chechnya and the Caucasus region of North Ossetia
have fought on the rebel side along with volunteers from a Russian-backed separatist enclave of Georgia
and natives of Serbia.
Russians have also taken top positions among the rebels, though a local took over at the helm
of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk Peoples' Republic" on Thursday, in a move aimed at blunting Western
accusations the rebellion is run by Moscow.
Moscow said last month there were reports that citizens from Sweden, Finland, France and the former
Soviet Baltic states had joined pro-Kiev volunteer battalions in the east as "mercenaries".
Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing
the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against
Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in
between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United
States, which is putting money into all this."
A Vostok fighter said he was happy to have the Spaniards. "We need support now, we need fighters.
An additional automatic gun will do no harm, to support, to cover one's back," said the young, brown-haired
man who did not give his name. The Spanish embassy in Moscow was not immediately available
for comment.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
blazo 6 months ago
Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million
expelled from their homes. Not too bad for only 4 months. But it could be better.
Commander in chief of glorious Kiev army, Mr Porkoshenko, and his sponsor in killings and expulsions,
Mr Obama are not satisfied. For money spent, much higher pace of killing should be #$%$ured. What
is their reference? In Babin Yar during WW 2, 1200 Ukrainian #$%$, with help of 300 Germans, managed
to kill 60 000 Ukrainians for only two days. So Mr Porkoshenko ask from Chef of all Ukrainian
security forces, Mr Paruby to explain discrepancy in efficiency in Babin Yar, and in Donbas killings.
Mr Paruby said: In Babin Yar Ukrainians to be killed were civilized and unarmed. They even smiled
for photographs during killing. But in Donbas they are barbaric armed people, they don t allow
us to kill them in peace. They turned arms on us, and killed 10 000 of our brave soldiers. They
burned our tanks, APCs, and shot down our jet bombers. And as a extreme barbarism, they captured
from us multiple rocket launchers, and fired on us, killing our 25th, 72nd, 79th motorized brigades.
Mr Porkoshenko said: You are fired, and kicked him with foot to his #$%$.
The great strategist and visionary, Mr Porkoshenko said on 25th of May: It is not a question
of days, weeks, or months, when rebellion in East Ukraine will be defeated. It is the question
of hours.... .
Ricardo 6 months ago
Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts
all over the globe. Muslims are headed to Syria and Iraq from Europe and North Africa to
fight either Assad or along side ISIS, now those that believe the days of the old USSR are returning
are headed to eastern Ukraine to fight. If you look at some of the countries mentioned in this
article it will not surprise anyone that they are all from Soviet/Russian supported countries
that even after the collapse of the USSR still follow the Russians, no matter the consequences
to their country.
"... By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Originally published at The Frontline ..."
"... President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power. "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before the November Presidential election in the US. ..."
"... The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values. ..."
"... But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. ..."
"... But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them. ..."
"... Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions ..."
"... All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens, would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations ..."
"... So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals. ..."
"... The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself. ..."
"... Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg ..."
"... While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.) ..."
"... Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" - this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it. Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes. ..."
"... Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way. ..."
"... We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply. The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our own products. ..."
"... the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of a "Buy America" clause in the future! ..."
"... The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade. the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder. ..."
"... Here's Obama's actual speech at the Nike headquarters (not factory). http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamatradenike.htm ..."
"... It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio. ..."
"... The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes. http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/ "US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike." ..."
"... So what's the incentive for Oregon's free traitors to support the TPP now? ..."
"... Perhaps they still need to show loyalty to their corporate owners and to the principle of "free trade". ..."
"... Obama: "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy." ..."
"... Thank you, Mr. President, for resolving any doubts that the American project is an imperialist project! ..."
"... Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning them into good consumerist slaves. ..."
"... Funny how little things change over the centuries. ..."
"... The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall. Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans. ..."
"... "How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu. ..."
"... The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China". ..."
"... Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China". ..."
"... Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them. ..."
"... Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret. ..."
"... Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects. ..."
"... It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country. ..."
"... I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations ..."
"... Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St. ..."
By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. Originally published at
The Frontline
There is much angst in the Northern financial media about how the era of globalisation led actively by the United States may well
be coming to an end. This is said to be exemplified in the changed political attitudes to mega regional trade deals like the Trans
Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that was signed (but has not yet been ratified) by the US and 11 other countries in Latin America,
Asia and Oceania; and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) still being negotiated by the US and the
European Union.
President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power.
"We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position
of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China
will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case
for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before
the November Presidential election in the US.
However, the changing political currents in the US are making that ever more unlikely. Hardly anyone who is a candidate in the
coming elections, whether for the Presidency, the Senate or the House of Representatives, is willing to stick their necks out to
back the deal.
Both Presidential candidates in the US (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) have openly come out against the TPP. In Clinton's case
this is a complete reversal of her earlier position when she had referred to the TPP as "the gold standard of trade deals" – and
it has clearly been forced upon her by the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders. She is already being
pushed by her rival candidate for not coming out more clearly in terms of a complete rejection of this deal. Given the significant
trust deficit that she still has to deal with across a large swathe of US voters, it will be hard if not impossible for her to backtrack
on this once again (as her husband did earlier with NAFTA) even if she does achieve the Presidency.
The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global
trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen
the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written
into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values.
But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion
as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. Even the only US government study of the
TPP's likely impacts, by the International Trade Commission, could project at best only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the
agreement up to 2032. A study by Jeronim Capaldo and Alex Izurieta with Jomo Kwame Sundaram ("Trading down: Unemployment, inequality
and other risks of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement", Working Paper 16-01, Global Development and Environment Institute, January
2016) was even less optimistic, even for the US. It found that the benefits to exports and economic growth were likely to be relatively
small for all member countries, and would be negative in the US and Japan because of losses to employment and increases in inequality.
Wage shares of national income would decline in all the member countries.
But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any
case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire
discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the
less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating
effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying:
the intellectual property provisions,
the restrictions on regulatory practices
the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions
on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens,
would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations
For example, the TPP (and the TTIP) require more stringent enforcement requirements of intellectual property rights: reducing
exemptions (e.g. allowing compulsory licensing only for emergencies); preventing parallel imports; extending IPRs to areas like life
forms, counterfeiting and piracy; extending exclusive rights to test data (e.g. in pharmaceuticals); making IPR provisions more detailed
and prescriptive. The scope of drug patents is extended to include minor changes to existing medications (a practice commonly employed
by drug companies, known as "evergreening"). Patent linkages would make it more difficult for many generic drugs to enter markets.
This would strengthen, lengthen and broaden pharmaceutical monopolies on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS drugs, and in general
make even life-saving drugs more expensive and inaccessible in all the member countries. It would require further transformation
of countries' laws on patents and medical test data. It would reduce the scope of exemption in use of medical formulations through
public procurement for public purposes. All this is likely to lead to reductions in access to drugs and medical procedures because
of rising prices, and also impede innovation rather than encouraging it, across member countries.
There are also very restrictive copyright protection rules, that would also affect internet usage as Internet Service Providers
are to be forced to adhere to them. There are further restrictions on branding that would reinforce the market power of established
players.
The TPP and TTIP also contain restrictions on regulatory practices that greatly increase the power of corporations relative to
states and can even prevent states from engaging in countercyclical measures designed to boost domestic demand. It has been pointed
out by consumer groups in the USA that the powers of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate products that affect health of
citizens could be constrained and curtailed by this agreement. Similarly, macroeconomic stimulus packages that focus on boosting
domestic demand for local production would be explicitly prohibited by such agreements.
All these are matters for concern because these agreements enable corporations to litigate against governments that are perceived
to be flouting these provisions because of their own policy goals or to protect the rights of their citizens. The Investor-State
Dispute Settlement mechanism enabled by these agreements is seen to be one of their most deadly features. Such litigation is then
subject to supranational tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards
and which do not see the rights of citizen as in any way superior to the "rights" of corporations to their profits. These courts
can conduct closed and secret hearings with secret evidence. They do not just interpret the rules but contribute to them through
case law because of the relatively vague wording of the text, which can then be subject to different interpretations, and therefore
are settled by case law. The experience thus far with such tribunals has been problematic. Since they are legally based on "equal"
treatment of legal persons with no primacy for human rights, they have become known for their pro-investor bias, partly due to the
incentive structure for arbitrators, and partly because the system is designed to provide supplementary guarantees to investors,
rather than making them respect host countries laws and regulations.
If all these features of the TPP and the TTIP were more widely known, it is likely that there would be even greater public resistance
to them in the US and in other countries. Even as it is, there is growing antagonism to the trade liberalisation that is seen to
bring benefits to corporations rather than to workers, at a period in history when secure employment is seen to be the biggest prize
of all.
So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US
and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals.
I was watching a speech Premier Li gave at the Economic Club of NY last night, and it was interesting to see how all his (vetted,
pre-selected) questions revolved around anxieties having to do with resistance to global trade deals. Li made a few pandering
comments about how much the Chinese love American beef (stop it! you're killing me! har har) meant to diffuse those anxieties,
but it became clear that the fear among TPTB of people's dissatisfaction with the current economic is palpable. Let's keep it
up!
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out a $147 million civil price fixing judgment against Chinese manufacturers of
vitamin C, ruling the companies weren't liable in U.S. courts because they were acting under the direction of Chinese authorities.
The case raised thorny questions of how courts should treat foreign companies accused of violating U.S. antitrust law when
they are following mandates of a foreign government.
"I was only following orders" might not have worked in Nuremberg, but it's a-ok in international trade.
The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the
Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for
Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself.
Trump has already back peddaled on his TPP stance. He now says he wants to renegotiate the TTP and other trade deals. Whatever
that means. Besides, Trump is a distraction, its Mike Pence you should be keeping your eye on. He's American Taliban pure and
simple.
This is simply false. Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level
consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg
Hillary wants to start a war with Russia and pass the trade trifecta of TPP/TTIP/TiSA.
While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between
Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally
a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.)
Trump was run to make Hillary look good, but that has turned out to be Mission Real Impossible!
We are seeing the absolute specious political theater at its worst, attempting to differentiate between Hillary Rodham Clinton
and the Trumpster – – – the only major difference is that Clinton has far more real blood on her and Bill's hands.
Nope, there is no lesser of evils this time around . . .
Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" -
this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it.
Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes.
Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being
against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way.
>only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the agreement up to 2032.
At that point American's wages will have dropped near enough to Chinese levels that we can compete in selling to First World
countries . assuming there are any left.
We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply.
The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our
own products.
Naaah, never been about competition, since nobody is actually vetted when they offshore those jobs or replace American workers
with foreign visa workers.
But to sum it up as succinctly as possible: the TPP is about the destruction of workers' rights; the destruction of local and
small businesses; and the loss of sovereignty. Few Americans are cognizant of just how many businesses are foreign owned today
in America; their local energy utility or state energy utility, their traffic enforcement company which was privatized, their
insurance company (GEICO, etc.).
I remember when a political action group back in the '00s thought they had stumbled on a big deal when someone had hacked into
the system of the Bretton Woods Committee (the lobbyist group for the international super-rich which ONLY communicates with the
Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader, and who shares the same lobbyist and D.C. office space as the Group of Thirty,
the lobbyist group for the central bankers [Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Mario Draghi, Ernesto Zedillo, Bill Dudley, etc.,
etc.]) and placed online their demand of the senate and the congress to kill the "Buy America" clause in the federal stimulus
program of a few years back (it was watered down greatly, and many exemptions were signed by then Commerce Secretary Gary Locke),
but such information went completely unnoticed or ignored, and of course, the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of
a "Buy America" clause in the future!
The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if
TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade.
the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder.
In June 2016, "[TransCanada] filed an arbitration claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) over President
Obama's rejection of the pipeline, making good on its January threat to take legal action against the US decision.
According to the official request for arbitration, the $15 billion tab is supposed to help the company recover costs and damages
that it suffered "as a result of the US administration's breach of its NAFTA obligations." NAFTA is a comprehensive trade agreement
between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that went into effect in January 1, 1994. Under the agreement, businesses can challenge
governments over investment disputes.
In addition, the company filed a suit in US Federal Court in Houston, Texas in January asserting that the Obama Administration
exceeded the power granted by the US Constitution in denying the project."
It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out
that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio.
Obama's rhetoric May 5, 2015 at the Nike campus was all about how small businesses would prosper. Congresswoman Bonamici clings
to this rationale in her refusal to tell angry constituents at town halls whether she supports the TPP.
The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/
"US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification
of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike."
That appeals to the other big athletic corporations that cluster in the Portland metro: Columbia Sportswear and Under Armour.
Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons
but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning
them into good consumerist slaves.
Funny how little things change over the centuries.
The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall.
Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans.
"How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu.
The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of
the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China".
Would be nice if they had even a passing thought for those people in a certain North American region located in between Canada
and Mexico.
Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP
of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China
shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China".
Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the
anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them.
If calling the International Free Trade Conspiracy "American" is enough to get it killed and destroyed, then I don't mind having
a bunch of foreigners calling the Free Trade Conspiracy "American". Just as long as they are really against it, and can really
get Free Trade killed and destroyed.
Excellent post. Thank you. Should these so called "trade agreements" be approved, perhaps Investor-State Dispute Settlement
(ISDS arbitration) futures can be created by Wall Street and made the next speculative "Play-of-the-day" so that everyone has
a chance to participate in the looting. Btw, can you loot your own house?
Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to
the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was
that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret.
At the time he made that statement Warren could go to an offsite location to read the TPP in the presence of a member of the
Trade Commission, could not have staff with her, could not take notes, and could not discuss anything she read with anyone else
after she left. Or face criminal charges.
Yeah. Nothing secret about that.
Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering
to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury
Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men
who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects.
And add to that everything from David Dayen's book (" Chain of Title ") on Covington & Burling and Eric Holder and President
Obama, and Thomas Frank's book ("Listen, Liberals") and people will have the full picture!
It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock
of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic
gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country.
So, there's a financial incentive (to maximize profits), not to repatriate foreign income (pushes up our exchange rate, currency
conversion costs, if domestic re-investment alternatives are considered more circumscribed, plus taxes, etc.).
In spite of the surfeit of $s, and E-$ credits, and unlike the days in which world-trade required a Marshall Plan jump start,
trade surpluses increasingly depend on the Asian Tiger's convertibility issues.
I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave
labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations
or even (potential) unfriendlies like China (who can easily put trojan spyware hard code or other vulnerabilities into critical
microchips the way WE were told the US could/would when it was leading on this tech when I was serving in the 90s). We already
know that US-written rules is simply a way for mega corporations to extend patents into the ever-more-distant future, a set of
rules that hands more control of arts over to the MPAA, rules that gut environmental laws, etc. Who needs the US-written agreements
when this is the result?
Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit
of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St.
"... I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been for centuries. ..."
Well, if you looked at it and decided against it why am I wasting my time? "unlike the U.S.
military which is used to destroys foreign cities without much thought of the aftermath" Always
with the nasty, sneering, condescending attitude toward us. I remind you that it was the BRITISH
army that destroyed your grandparents house, not the US Army. pl"
and the usa has learned and followed the British in so many of it's imperialist ways carrying
the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough of British or
American
bullshit..
@ james who wrote " and the usa has learned and followed the british in so many of it's imperialist
ways caring the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough
of british or american bullshit."
I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own
private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British
people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been
for centuries.
The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government
by Thomas N. Bisson Princeton University Press, 677 pp., $39.50
One of the major institutions of pre-industrial society, and one that makes it hard for people
in the modern Western world fully to grasp the past, is lordship. Lordship means a personal bond,
reciprocal but not equal, tying inferiors to superiors, bringing the latter a power over the former
that modern democratic and egalitarian ideologies would abhor. We are not accustomed to address
others as "Master" or "Mistress," "My Lord" or "My Lady."
Of course modern Western societies are not communities of equals. Vast differences in wealth
and access to education exist. But the world of lordship embraced and endorsed those differences.
Hierarchy was a valued ideal, and some people considered themselves better born than others-remember
those nineteenth-century novels with characters "of good family." The aristocrats ("aristocracy"
means "rule by the best") did not court their inferiors. They ruled them, and, if they were just
and well disposed, they protected them and furthered their interests. This is what "good lordship"
meant. Not all lords, of course, were good. Submission to cruel, arbitrary, or unhinged masters
could mean misery or death. Much of the savagery of the French Revolution is to be explained by
the fact that thousands of peasants had suffered just such a submission.
Thomas Bisson's new book concerns itself with lordship, that all-pervasive institution, in
a formative period of European history, the twelfth century (or rather the "long twelfth century,"
starting well before 1100 and continuing after 1200). It is an age that evokes for many the majesty
of the great cathedrals, like Chartres and Canterbury, the rise of a new kind of intellectual
inquiry, embodied in the questing spirit of Abelard or the emergence of the first universities,
and the flourishing of the love lyrics of the troubadours and the tales of Arthurian romance.
There is even the (now well established but initially paradoxical) notion of "the Twelfth-Century
Renaissance." This book, however, presents a different, and much darker, twelfth century.
Bisson, professor of medieval history emeritus at Harvard, is one of the leading historians
of the Middle Ages. His early work concentrated on Catalonia, a region with particularly rich
archival sources from this period; he has continually expanded both his geographical range and
the breadth of the historical questions he asks. In the 1990s he was a participant in a lively
debate on the so-called "Feudal Revolution," the theory that a transformation in the patterns
of power and authority took place in Europe in the decades around the year 1000. In those years
it was argued that older, official, and public structures of justice and administration were replaced
by new, more violent, and more localized forms, based on strongmen and their fortresses.
In his new book many of the elements of that "Feudal Revolution" recur, now extended to a later
period. Bisson's summary of developments in Catalonia in the years 1020 to 1060 presents such
a picture very clearly: there was "a terrifying collapse of public justice and the imposition
of a new order of coercive lordship over an intimidated peasantry." Moving on into the twelfth
century, the model is still recognizable: there is an "old passing world" ruled by a few nobles,
and a "burgeoning new world" of "vicious men," castle-lords and knights prepared to use violence
against the despised peasantry. This book is indeed an extended discussion of the issues arising
from that earlier debate. Bisson acknowledges that it is "not a systematic treatise, still less
a textbook," and those unfamiliar with the period may soon be lost. The book is an interpretation,
an individual assessment of European history of that period, one that takes a stand on a dozen
debated issues, often in implicit dialogue with other scholars. The main topics are lordship,
violence, and the state.
Lordship was a building block of most societies until relatively recently -- serfdom was abolished
in Russia only in 1861. Such societies were distinguished by extreme inequalities, made visible
by costume and gestures, like bowing and doffing of hats, and often supported by belief in hereditary
superiority and inferiority of blood. Collective groupings existed, but were not powerful, and
conflict and ambition were channeled more by vertical than horizontal solidarities: retainers,
servants, and other followers and dependants sought patronage from the great, not action alongside
their peers. At the highest level, lesser aristocrats became followers of great aristocrats, who
themselves would be competing for the ruler's favor. Costume dramas set in Tudor England, like
Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, convey some of the flavor of such a world.
It was the prevalence of lordship that complicates any discussion of the medieval state. Bisson
repeatedly uses the far from standard formulations "lord-king," "lord-ruler," and even "lord-archbishop"
to convey the point that every ruler of this time was also a lord, a master of men, a patriarch
of some kind, possessing his position as inheritance or property, rather than (or as well as)
holding it as an office-indeed, he writes, "there is no sign that European people in the twelfth
century thought of lordship and office as contrasting categories."
Kings were lords, but also more than lords. Like the great barons, their power was patrimonial:
that is, inherited, dynastic, based on ideas of property we might call "private." A king's kingdom
was his in the same way that a baron's landed estates were his. Transmission of power was through
father-to-son inheritance, not by election. Hence marriages, births, and deaths were the great
punctuating points of medieval politics, not caucuses and ballots. Yet a king was also more than
just the greatest of the barons. Both the Church and a long secular tradition saw him as having
special duties as a ruler, duties that might be called "public."
This dualism of lordship and the state meant that medieval rulership had two distinct faces,
which were close to being opposites: on the one hand, the grand promises made at coronation by
kings and emperors, to ensure justice and the protection of the weak and the Church; on the other
hand, the reality of being a warlord trained in mounted warfare, a leader of proud, hard men,
used to wielding lethal edged weapons, and the center of a court full of envy, ambition, and suspicion.
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was a militarized world: it was "an age of castles,"
when "those astride horses and bearing weapons routinely injured or intimidated people" -- although,
of course, they were still doing it in the thirteenth century, fourteenth century, fifteenth century,
and beyond. The Cossacks were still doing it in the twentieth century. This raises a problem.
In the absence of even a hint of dependable statistics, it is virtually impossible to weigh up
the relative violence of different periods and places of the past. We know all the difficulties
involved in dealing with modern crime figures; for the past we rarely have figures of any kind,
but must rely on stories told by chroniclers (often ecclesiastical) and interested parties (usually
plaintiffs). Historians read the laments, the individual accounts of plunder, murder, and rape,
and try to assess whether this was the way life was then, or whether it simply reflects a very
bad moment in that world. And while there can be little doubt that levels of violence were higher
in the medieval period than in modern Western peacetime societies, we, who live in the aftermath
of the worst genocidal atrocities in recorded history, should not make that claim with any complacency.
It is not difficult to gather stories of local violence and oppression from the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. But if we put these twelfth-century tales alongside those of the sixth-century
historian-bishop Gregory of Tours, whose History of the Franks reveals a world of monstrous cruelty,
we might wonder if things had really gotten much worse in the intervening six hundred years. On
one occasion, Gregory writes, a noble discovered that two of his serfs had married without his
consent: he supposedly said how delighted he was that they had at least not married serfs from
another lordship; he promised that he would not separate them, and then kept his word by having
them buried alive together. And was the twelfth century any more full of violence than, say, late
medieval France, a happy hunting ground for mercenaries and freebooters during the Hundred Years'
War?
The rulers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were trained in, and glorified, war, and expected
to live off it, as well as off the tribute of a subjugated peasantry. If such rulers formed "the
state" of their day, what are the implications? The state engages in violence; it takes away our
property. How then does it differ from a criminal enterprise? This was a question that went back
at least as far as Saint Augustine in the fourth century:
What are robber gangs, except little kingdoms? If their wickedness prospers, so that they set
up fixed abodes, occupy cities and subjugate whole populations, they then can take the name of
kingdom with impunity.
Augustine's ponderings stem from the worrying doubt that states and kingdoms, indeed all lawfully
constituted governments, are just the most successful of the robber gangs. This idea, that the
state and the criminal gang are but larger and smaller versions of the same thing, was one recurrent
strand in medieval thinking. In the words of Gregory VII, the reformist pope of the eleventh century:
Who does not know that kings and dukes had their origin in men who disregarded God and, with
blind desire and intolerable presumption, strove to dominate their equals, that is, other men,
through pride, plunder, perfidy, homicides, and every kind of crime, under the inspiration of
the lord of this world, the devil?
Westerns (like Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) often explore the thin line between
the gunslinger and the sheriff, or the poignancy of the bandit turned law officer; and the thinness
of that line is clear in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the kings of France, wishing
to concentrate their forces against the English, called upon their barons to curtail their own
feuds and vendettas: "We forbid anyone to wage war (guerre) during our war (guerre)." What the
king does and what the feuding nobles do is the same kind of thing-"war." Nowadays, we make a
sharper distinction. For instance, in the modern world, someone who takes our property away is
either a criminal or a tax collector. If the latter, then it is the state taking our property
away, and most people, of most political outlooks, distinguish the lawmakers from the lawbreakers.
Traditionally the state took away people's property in order to finance war. In Charles Tilly's
phrase, "the state made war and war made the state." The war-making, tax-raising state is indeed
the standard, familiar political unit of modern world history. If we go back in time, do we reach
a period when such an entity did not exist?
Bisson is not a scholar who throws the term "state" around freely. Indeed, the conceptual vocabulary
of his book is worth a mention. On the one hand, Bisson is happy to use the traditional but deeply
contested terms "feudal" and "feudalism," both of which even have entries in his glossary at the
end of the book. He can write of "a massive feudalizing of England by the Normans." Some historians
would do away with these concepts altogether. Even if some kinds of estates were called "fiefs"
(feoda), they argue, why should that fact lead us to a characterization of a whole society? Perhaps
a touch of self-questioning is visible in Bisson's embrace of the terminology: "'Feudal monarchy':
is this the right concept?" he asks.
In contrast to his acceptance of this traditional terminology, Bisson has a marked tendency to
use large conceptual terms with a peculiar, even personal, connotation. "Political" is an example.
The bishops of this period, he says, "vied with one another for visible precedence," yet such
struggles "were not political disputes; they were concerned with status, not process." A footnote
refers us to an infamous incident when the archbishop of York, noticing that the archbishop of
Canterbury had a seat higher than his, kicked it over and refused to be seated until he had a
seat as high. Now, one might reasonably class this as a nursery tantrum, but why should not a
public dispute over precedence count as "political"?
This wariness about the term "political" (usually in scare quotes in the book) is based on the
idea that lordship "was personal, affective, and unpolitical in nature." Might it not be clearer
to say that the politics of that time was not the same as the politics of ours? It may be that
we have here an example of a recurrent dilemma, either to say that the power relations of long
ago are not politics at all, or to say that they are, but that we must differentiate between medieval
and modern politics. Similarly, we may say that the superior authorities of that time cannot be
called states at all; or we can argue that they were, but that we must distinguish medieval and
modern states.
One of the most important examples of Bisson's idiosyncratic use of general terms is his treatment
of the word "government." He is reluctant even to apply the term to Norman England. "Royal lordship"
was not the same thing as "government." Sometimes government is completely absent. Late-twelfth-century
Europe was "an ungoverned society," although there were also "proto-governments" at this time;
by the mid-thirteenth century "something like government hovered." This unwillingness to see the
rulers of the central Middle Ages as constituting "governments" is to be explained partly because,
in Bisson's view, the people of that time lacked any understanding of the state as distinct from
lordship, but also because there are certain criteria for government, as distinct from lordship,
that the rulers did not meet. He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social
purpose.
"Accountability" is an important term in Bisson's historical vocabulary. Sometimes it means
quite literally the rendering of financial accounts, like the Catalan fiscal records which Bisson
himself has edited. He emphasizes the birth, in the twelfth century, of "a newly searching and
flexible accountability," as simple surveys of resources and fixed revenues, which can be found
from early in the Middle Ages, were supplemented by balance sheets of incoming and outgoing assets.
The English Pipe Rolls, annual audits of income and expenditures of the royal sheriffs, are a
classic example. The English Dialogue of the Exchequer of 1178, or thereabouts, reveals a department
of government that is professional, with its own technical expertise, and (in the Dialogue) its
own handbook or manual. Slightly later, in 1202, there appears what has been called "the first
budget of the French monarchy."
But Bisson also uses the word in a broader sense: accountability means official responsibility,
answerability. He associates it with the idea of office. Record-keeping is in fact one test of
official status. And true government is "the exercise of power for social purpose," "social purpose"
perhaps to be glossed here as "the common good." It is the emergence of "official conduct aimed
at social purpose," linked, interestingly, with the rise of public taxation, that, for Bisson,
signals the shift of the balance from lordship to government in the thirteenth century.
However, the chronology of state formation in the Middle Ages is a disputed issue. Some historians
talk as if there were a stateless period at some point in the central Middle Ages. Others hold
the view that, to take one notable example, the kingdom of England of the year 1000 was not only
a state but a strong, centralized, and pervasive state. If taxation and a standardized coinage
are, in Bisson's words, parts of "a new model of associative power" around the year 1200, then
the uniform land tax and centralized currency of eleventh-century England show that that model
already existed in some places two hundred years earlier.
What cannot be disputed is that over the course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,
the state became increasingly bureaucratic. The documents produced by the English government in
the eleventh century could be placed on one large table (even given that monumental oddity, Domesday
Book, the extensive survey of land ownership made in 1086 under William the Conqueror). The documents
produced by the English government in the thirteenth century fill whole rooms and could never
be read in one person's lifetime. Written records supplemented or replaced older oral forms of
information gathering, testimony, or command (Michael Clanchy's 1979 masterpiece, From Memory
to Written Record, analyzes this development for precociously bureaucratic England in the Norman
and Plantagenet period). But more bureaucratic government does not necessarily mean less violent,
or even less arbitrary, government.
Historians like bureaucracy, because it feeds their hunger for written sources, the raw material
with which they work; but the bond between historians and government is deeper than that. The
historical profession grew up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in close symbiosis
with government. Not only was the heart of historical study usually the archives produced by past
governments, but many of the students and teachers in those generations, the first to study history
as a discipline, entered government service. Charles Homer Haskins, the founding father of American
medieval scholarship, was an adviser to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
He was also the teacher of Joseph Strayer, himself the teacher of Bisson. Such academic genealogies
can be overplayed, but there is no doubt that all three great medievalists, Haskins, Strayer,
and Bisson, demonstrate a deep-rooted concern with the techniques and records of administration,
with the procedures of the bureaucrats and officials. Strayer was as familiar with the modern
as with the medieval version, since he worked for the CIA One of his most vigorous pieces of
work is entitled On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (1970; one might notice the emphasis
on both the "origins" and the "modern"; we live in the modern state; its origins go back a long
way, but the state of those days was not the state of ours). The book contains Strayer's cogent
definition of feudalism as "public powers in private hands," with that confident assurance that
these adjectives, "public" and "private," convey a simple and evident distinction that will arouse
no intellectual discomfort in readers. By contrast, Bisson's book is generated in part by his
wrestling with such concepts and their implications.
Bisson's book is called The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. "Crisis" means a vitally important
or decisive stage in the progress of anything. But in that sense, any century of human history
is a crisis. One might even say that this is simply the condition of human life-we are always
in an Age of Crisis (although the situation might not always be as alarming as today's). Bisson
acknowledges that "'crisis' was not a common word in the verbiage of the day," and the one instance
he cites of the contemporary use of the word (in its Latin form discrimen) refers to a succession
crisis in Poland in 1180. He wishes to see the various distinct political crises he discusses
(such as the Saxon revolt of 1075, the communal insurrection in Laon in 1111, the "anarchy" of
King Stephen's reign) as part of "the same wider crisis of multiplied knights and castles."
However, a case can be made that the levels of violence and disorder in this period were largely
dictated by the patterns of high politics rather than by a deep-seated structural malaise. Disputed
successions, or the accession of a child-king, could indeed upset the world of knights and castles,
unleashing the strongmen and their castle-based predatory attacks. Yet a regime of knights and
castles could also form the basis for fairly stable feudal monarchies, such as one sees in France
and England for most of the thirteenth century. If this is so, there were, of course, crises in
the twelfth century, but no Crisis.
The violence and greed of European knights of this period were directed beyond the local victims.
Bisson's "long twelfth century" was not only an age of predatory lords in their castles bullying
their peasantry but also an age of expansionary, one could say colonialist, violence. Christian
armies, led by these predatory lords, crossed into Muslim lands, capturing Toledo in 1085, Jerusalem
in 1099, and landing in North Africa in 1148; they destroyed the last remnants of West Slav paganism
in the Baltic in 1168; they even turned their formidable fighting strength against their estranged
Christian cousins in the Greek East, and sacked Constantinople in 1204. The energies generated
in the conflicts between mounted men in the West, and the expertise they acquired in subjugating
and fleecing the local peasantry, could be exported. The story of European violence is far from
unique, but it was in the central Middle Ages that it took a form that shaped the subsequent history
of the world.
A traditional view of the development of European society in the central Middle Ages, a view
to be found in textbooks past and present, is that the empire of Charlemagne (747–814) and his
successors had important elements of public authority, in the form of officials with delegated
powers and courts open to all free men, but that this regime was replaced, around the year 1000,
with a heavily militarized and violent world of strongmen in castles, lording it over peasants.
Over the course of time this world was, in its turn, transformed by the persistent efforts of
the kings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries into a network of more centralized and bureaucratic
states, which led ultimately to modern systems of government. Like every model at this level of
generality, as long as people who know something about the subject have created it, there must
be some truth in this picture, however little it can be the whole truth. But we might have questions.
Was the "old public order" of Charlemagne and his successors so public and so ordered? Was the
subsequent regime so close to anarchy?
Bisson adds to this traditional account by thinking deeply about the benefits and disadvantages
of government. He is very aware of the inhumanity of the past he studies. He refers, with allusion
to the words of the twelfth-century cleric John of Salisbury, to "hunter-lords." John was talking
about the way that aristocrats were obsessed with the chase, but we might apply his phrase in
a wider sense. Since some theorists believe that human society is imprinted with its origins in
hunting packs and the mentality of the pack, the predatory lordship of the central Middle Ages
could be conceived of as just such a hunting pack-but its prey being fellow human beings, rather
than beasts.
Confronting this world of hunter and hunted, Bisson is inspired by attractively humane impulses.
In an earlier book, Tormented Voices, a microhistorical analysis of complaints raised by Catalan
peasants in the twelfth century, he stated explicitly that he was attempting "an essay in compassionate
history." Likewise in this book. And he looks for public, accountable, official remedies for suffering
and oppression. He seems sympathetic to the idea that "power is rightly oriented towards the social
needs of people." "If ever government was the solution, not the problem," he writes, "it was so
for European peoples in the twelfth century." Is the modern world so happy in its governments?
Whether we should endure the violence of the state, as a defense against the yet more fearful
violence of our neighbors, and whether there comes a point where the violence of the state must
be resisted are great recurrent questions of moral and political life. The questions raised by
Bisson's book remain open.
@4 psychohistorian.. and i agree with you in that too.. it has to do with the packaging and a
tendency in people to identify with the packaging - in this example 'made in the usa' as some
sort of rationale for that social sickness many suffer from called 'patriotism'.. it seems to
be especially prevalent in the worst nations, the usa at this point in time being the focal point
for much of this marketing...
@ okie farmer who added a loooong comment that contained the following about the definition of
government:
"
He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social purpose.
"
The narrative provided did not get into a discussion of "social purpose" but I think that it
is an important concept. The example I would posit is the original humanistic motto of the US,
E Pluribus Unum which was instantiated by government creations of the time like the pony express....true
socialism, if you need an ism to cling to. Social Security INSURANCE is another example of an
instantiation of social purpose.
The original US motto was replaced by In God We Trust in the mid 1950's which, IMO, destroyed
the social purpose concept of government and instead tells you to trust the leaders and religious
institutions.....reversion to kings and feudalism.
You get the government you demand. What sort of world do you want to pass to the children?
"... Rather than join the struggle of imperial rivalries, the United States could use its emerging power to suppress those rivalries altogether. ..."
"... "a power unlike any other. It had emerged, quite suddenly, as a novel kind of 'super-state,' exercising a veto over the financial and security concerns of the other major states of the world." ..."
"... Peter Heather, the great British historian of Late Antiquity, explains human catastrophes with a saying of his father's, a mining engineer: "If man accumulates enough combustible material, God will provide the spark." So it happened in 1929. The Deluge that had inundated the rest of the developed world roared back upon the United States. ..."
"... "The originality of National Socialism was that, rather than meekly accepting a place for Germany within a global economic order dominated by the affluent English-speaking countries, Hitler sought to mobilize the pent-up frustrations of his population to mount an epic challenge to this order." ..."
"... He could not accept subordination to the United States because, according to his lurid paranoia, "this would result in enslavement to the world Jewish conspiracy, and ultimately race death." ..."
"... By 1944, foreigners constituted 20 percent of the German workforce and 33 percent of armaments workers (less than 9 percent of the population of today's liberal and multicultural Germany is foreign-born). ..."
"... The Hitlerian vision of a united German-led Eurasia equaling the Anglo-American bloc proved a crazed and genocidal fantasy. ..."
The United States might claim a broader democracy than those that prevailed in Europe. On the
other hand, European states mobilized their populations with an efficiency that dazzled some Americans
(notably Theodore Roosevelt) and appalled others (notably Wilson). The magazine founded by pro-war
intellectuals in 1914, The New Republic, took its title precisely because its editors regarded
the existing American republic as anything but the hope of tomorrow.
Yet as World War I entered its third year-and the first year of Tooze's story-the balance of power
was visibly tilting from Europe to America. The belligerents could no longer sustain the costs of
offensive war. Cut off from world trade, Germany hunkered into a defensive siege, concentrating its
attacks on weak enemies like Romania. The Western allies, and especially Britain, outfitted their
forces by placing larger and larger war orders with the United States. In 1916, Britain bought more
than a quarter of the engines for its new air fleet, more than half of its shell casings, more than
two-thirds of its grain, and nearly all of its oil from foreign suppliers, with the United States
heading the list. Britain and France paid for these purchases by floating larger and larger bond
issues to American buyers-denominated in dollars, not pounds or francs. "By the end of 1916, American
investors had wagered two billion dollars on an Entente victory," computes Tooze (relative to America's
estimated GDP of $50 billion in 1916, the equivalent of $560 billion in today's money).
That staggering quantity of Allied purchases called forth something like a war mobilization in
the United States. American factories switched from civilian to military production; American farmers
planted food and fiber to feed and clothe the combatants of Europe. But unlike in 1940-41, the decision
to commit so much to one side's victory in a European war was not a political decision by the U.S.
government. Quite the contrary: President Wilson wished to stay out of the war entirely. He famously
preferred a "peace without victory." The trouble was that by 1916, the U.S. commitment to Britain
and France had grown-to borrow a phrase from the future-too big to fail.
Tooze's portrait of Woodrow Wilson is one of the most arresting novelties of his book. His Wilson
is no dreamy idealist. The president's animating idea was an American exceptionalism of a now-familiar
but then-startling kind. His Republican opponents-men like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge,
and Elihu Root-wished to see America take its place among the powers of the earth. They wanted a
navy, an army, a central bank, and all the other instrumentalities of power possessed by Britain,
France, and Germany. These political rivals are commonly derided as "isolationists" because they
mistrusted the Wilson's League of Nations project. That's a big mistake. They doubted the League
because they feared it would encroach on American sovereignty. It was Wilson who wished to
remain aloof from the Entente, who feared that too close an association with Britain and France would
limit American options. This aloofness enraged Theodore Roosevelt, who complained that the Wilson-led
United States was "sitting idle, uttering cheap platitudes, and picking up [European] trade, whilst
they had poured out their blood like water in support of ideals in which, with all their hearts and
souls, they believe."
Wilson was guided by a different vision: Rather than join the struggle of imperial rivalries,
the United States could use its emerging power to suppress those rivalries altogether. Wilson
was the first American statesman to perceive that the United States had grown, in Tooze's words,
into "a power unlike any other. It had emerged, quite suddenly, as a novel kind of 'super-state,'
exercising a veto over the financial and security concerns of the other major states of the world."
Wilson hoped to deploy this emerging super-power to enforce an enduring peace. His own mistakes
and those of his successors doomed the project, setting in motion the disastrous events that would
lead to the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and a second and even more awful world war.
What went wrong? "When all is said and done," Tooze writes, "the answer must be sought in the failure
of the United States to cooperate with the efforts of the French, British, Germans and the Japanese
[leaders of the early 1920s] to stabilize a viable world economy and to establish new institutions
of collective security. Given the violence they had already experienced and the risk of even greater
future devastation, France, Germany, Japan, and Britain could all see this. But what was no less
obvious was that only the US could anchor such a new order." And that was what Americans of the 1920s
and 1930s declined to do-because doing so implied too much change at home for them: "At the hub of
the rapidly evolving, American-centered world system there was a polity wedded to a conservative
vision of its own future."
Widen the view, however, and the "forgotten depression" takes on a broader meaning as one of the
most ominous milestones on the world's way to the Second World War. After World War II, Europe recovered
largely as a result of American aid; the nation that had suffered least from the war contributed
most to reconstruction. But after World War I, the money flowed the other way.
Take the case of France, which suffered more in material terms than any World War I belligerent except
Belgium. Northeastern France, the country's most industrialized region in 1914, had been ravaged
by war and German occupation. Millions of men in their prime were dead or crippled. On top of everything,
the country was deeply in debt, owing billions to the United States and billions more to Britain.
France had been a lender during the conflict too, but most of its credits had been extended to Russia,
which repudiated all its foreign debts after the Revolution of 1917. The French solution was to exact
reparations from Germany.
Britain was willing to relax its demands on France. But it owed the United States even more than
France did. Unless it collected from France-and from Italy and all the other smaller combatants as
well-it could not hope to pay its American debts.
Americans, meanwhile, were preoccupied with the problem of German recovery. How could Germany achieve
political stability if it had to pay so much to France and Belgium? The Americans pressed the French
to relent when it came to Germany, but insisted that their own claims be paid in full by both France
and Britain.
Germany, for its part, could only pay if it could export, and especially to the world's biggest and
richest consumer market, the United States. The depression of 1920 killed those export hopes. Most
immediately, the economic crisis sliced American consumer demand precisely when Europe needed it
most. True, World War I was not nearly as positive an experience for working Americans as World War
II would be; between 1914 and 1918, for example, wages lagged behind prices. Still, millions of Americans
had bought billions of dollars of small-denomination Liberty bonds. They had accumulated savings
that could have been spent on imported products. Instead, many used their savings for food, rent,
and mortgage interest during the hard times of 1920-21.
But the gravest harm done by the depression to postwar recovery lasted long past 1921. To appreciate
that, you have to understand the reasons why U.S. monetary authorities plunged the country into depression
in 1920.
Grant rightly points out that wars are usually followed by economic downturns. Such a downturn occurred
in late 1918-early 1919. "Within four weeks of the Armistice, the [U.S.] War Department had canceled
$2.5 billion of its then outstanding $6 billion in contracts; for perspective, $2.5 billion represented
3.3 percent of the 1918 gross national product," he observes. Even this understates the shock, because
it counts only Army contracts, not Navy ones. The postwar recession checked wartime inflation, and
by March 1919, the U.S. economy was growing again.
As the economy revived, workers scrambled for wage increases to offset the price inflation they'd
experienced during the war. Monetary authorities, worried that inflation would revive and accelerate,
made the fateful decision to slam the credit brakes, hard. Unlike the 1918 recession, that of 1920
was deliberately engineered. There was nothing invisible about it. Nor did the depression "cure itself."
U.S. officials cut interest rates and relaxed credit, and the economy predictably recovered-just
as it did after the similarly inflation-crushing recessions of 1974-75 and 1981-82.
But 1920-21 was an inflation-stopper with a difference. In post-World War II America, anti-inflationists
have been content to stop prices from rising. In 1920-21, monetary authorities actually sought to
drive prices back to their pre-war levels. They did not wholly succeed, but they succeeded well enough.
One price especially concerned them: In 1913, a dollar bought a little less than one-twentieth of
an ounce of gold; by 1922, it comfortably did so again.
... ... ...
The American depression of 1920 made that decision all the more difficult. The war had vaulted
the United States to a new status as the world's leading creditor, the world's largest owner of gold,
and, by extension, the effective custodian of the international gold standard. When the U.S. opted
for massive deflation, it thrust upon every country that wished to return to the gold standard (and
what respectable country would not?) an agonizing dilemma. Return to gold at 1913 values, and you
would have to match U.S. deflation with an even steeper deflation of your own, accepting increased
unemployment along the way. Alternatively, you could re-peg your currency to gold at a diminished
rate. But that amounted to an admission that your money had permanently lost value-and that your
own people, who had trusted their government with loans in local money, would receive a weaker return
on their bonds than American creditors who had lent in dollars.
Britain chose the former course; pretty much everybody else chose the latter.
The consequences of these choices fill much of the second half of The Deluge. For Europeans, they
were uniformly grim, and worse. But one important effect ultimately rebounded on Americans. America's
determination to restore a dollar "as good as gold" not only imposed terrible hardship on war-ravaged
Europe, it also threatened to flood American markets with low-cost European imports. The flip side
of the Lost Generation enjoying cheap European travel with their strong dollars was German steelmakers
and shipyards underpricing their American competitors with weak marks.
Such a situation also prevailed after World War II, when the U.S. acquiesced in the undervaluation
of the Deutsche mark and yen to aid German and Japanese recovery. But American leaders of the 1920s
weren't willing to accept this outcome. In 1921 and 1923, they raised tariffs, terminating a brief
experiment with freer trade undertaken after the election of 1912. The world owed the United States
billions of dollars, but the world was going to have to find another way of earning that money than
selling goods to the United States.
That way was found: more debt, especially more German debt. The 1923 hyper-inflation that wiped
out Germany's savers also tidied up the country's balance sheet. Post-inflation Germany looked like
a very creditworthy borrower. Between 1924 and 1930, world financial flows could be simplified into
a daisy chain of debt. Germans borrowed from Americans, and used the proceeds to pay reparations
to the Belgians and French. The French and Belgians, in turn, repaid war debts to the British and
Americans. The British then used their French and Italian debt payments to repay the United States,
who set the whole crazy contraption in motion again. Everybody could see the system was crazy. Only
the United States could fix it. It never did.
Peter Heather, the great British historian of Late Antiquity, explains human catastrophes
with a saying of his father's, a mining engineer: "If man accumulates enough combustible material,
God will provide the spark." So it happened in 1929. The Deluge that had inundated the rest of the
developed world roared back upon the United States.
... ... ...
"The United States has the Earth, and Germany wants it." Thus might Hitler's war aims have been
summed up by a latter-day Woodrow Wilson. From the start, the United States was Hitler's ultimate
target. "In seeking to explain the urgency of Hitler's aggression, historians have underestimated
his acute awareness of the threat posed to Germany, along with the rest of the European powers, by
the emergence of the United States as the dominant global superpower," Tooze writes.
"The originality of National Socialism was that, rather than meekly accepting a place for
Germany within a global economic order dominated by the affluent English-speaking countries, Hitler
sought to mobilize the pent-up frustrations of his population to mount an epic challenge to this
order." Of course, Hitler was not engaged in rational calculation. He could not accept subordination
to the United States because, according to his lurid paranoia, "this would result in enslavement
to the world Jewish conspiracy, and ultimately race death." He dreamed of conquering Poland,
Ukraine, and Russia as a means of gaining the resources to match those of the United States.
The vast landscape in between Berlin and Moscow would become Germany's equivalent of the American
west, filled with German homesteaders living comfortably on land and labor appropriated from conquered
peoples-a nightmare parody of the American experience with which to challenge American power.
Could this vision have ever been realized? Tooze argues in The Wages of Destruction that Germany
had already missed its chance. "In 1870, at the time of German national unification, the population
of the United States and Germany was roughly equal and the total output of America, despite its enormous
abundance of land and resources, was only one-third larger than that of Germany," he writes. "Just
before the outbreak of World War I the American economy had expanded to roughly twice the size of
that of Imperial Germany. By 1943, before the aerial bombardment had hit top gear, total American
output was almost four times that of the Third Reich."
Germany was a weaker and poorer country in 1939 than it had been in 1914. Compared with Britain,
let alone the United States, it lacked the basic elements of modernity: There were just 486,000 automobiles
in Germany in 1932, and one-quarter of all Germans still worked as farmers as of 1925. Yet this backward
land, with an income per capita comparable to contemporary "South Africa, Iran and Tunisia," wagered
on a second world war even more audacious than the first.
The reckless desperation of Hitler's war provides context for the horrific crimes of his regime.
Hitler's empire could not feed itself, so his invasion plan for the Soviet Union contemplated the
death by starvation of 20 to 30 million Soviet urban dwellers after the invaders stole all foodstuffs
for their own use. Germany lacked workers, so it plundered the labor of its conquered peoples.
By 1944, foreigners constituted 20 percent of the German workforce and 33 percent of armaments
workers (less than 9 percent of the population of today's liberal and multicultural Germany is foreign-born).
On paper, the Nazi empire of 1942 represented a substantial economic bloc. But pillage and slavery
are not workable bases for an industrial economy. Under German rule, the output of conquered Europe
collapsed. The Hitlerian vision of a united German-led Eurasia equaling the Anglo-American bloc
proved a crazed and genocidal fantasy.
"... A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and intimate, and it will have broader implications. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too ..."
"... An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance that allows free government to function successfully. ..."
"... "When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows what will come out?" ..."
"... Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people. ..."
"... What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security, and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious of what NSA can do." ..."
...Among the pertinent definitions of privacy from the Oxford English Dictionary: "freedom from
disturbance or intrusion," "intended only for the use of a particular person or persons," belonging
to "the property of a particular person." Also: "confidential, not to be disclosed to others." Among
others, the OED quotes the playwright Arthur Miller, describing the McCarthy era: "Conscience was
no longer a private matter but one of state administration."
Privacy is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things-the innards of your head
and heart, the workings of your mind-and the boundary between those things and the world outside.
A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and
intimate, and it will have broader implications. That is the view of Nat Hentoff, the great
journalist and civil libertarian. He is 88 now and on fire on the issue of privacy. "The media has
awakened," he told me. "Congress has awakened, to some extent." Both are beginning to realize "that
there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from
all other people, and one of them is privacy."
Mr. Hentoff sees excessive government surveillance as violative of the Fourth Amendment, which
protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires that warrants be issued only "upon probable cause
. . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
But Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too. About a
year ago he went up to Harvard to speak to a class. He asked, he recalled: "How many of you realize
the connection between what's happening with the Fourth Amendment with the First Amendment?" He told
the students that if citizens don't have basic privacies-firm protections against the search and
seizure of your private communications, for instance-they will be left feeling "threatened." This
will make citizens increasingly concerned "about what they say, and they do, and they think." It
will have the effect of constricting freedom of expression. Americans will become careful about what
they say that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and then too careful about what they say that
can be understood. The inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.
All of a sudden, the room became quiet. "These were bright kids, interested, concerned, but they
hadn't made an obvious connection about who we are as a people." We are "free citizens in a self-governing
republic."
Mr. Hentoff once asked Justice William Brennan "a schoolboy's question": What is the most important
amendment to the Constitution? "Brennan said the First Amendment, because all the other ones come
from that. If you don't have free speech you have to be afraid, you lack a vital part of what it
is to be a human being who is free to be who you want to be." Your own growth as a person will in
time be constricted, because we come to know ourselves by our thoughts.
He wonders if Americans know who they are compared to what the Constitution says they are.
Mr. Hentoff's second point: An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance
that allows free government to function successfully. Broad and intrusive surveillance will,
definitively, put government in charge. But a republic only works, Mr. Hentoff notes, if public officials
know that they-and the government itself-answer to the citizens. It doesn't work, and is distorted,
if the citizens must answer to the government. And that will happen more and more if the government
knows-and you know-that the government has something, or some things, on you. "The bad thing is you
no longer have the one thing we're supposed to have as Americans living in a self-governing republic,"
Mr. Hentoff said. "The people we elect are not your bosses, they are responsible to us." They must
answer to us. But if they increasingly control our privacy, "suddenly they're in charge if they know
what you're thinking."
This is a shift in the democratic dynamic. "If we don't have free speech then what can we do if
the people who govern us have no respect for us, may indeed make life difficult for us, and in fact
belittle us?"
If massive surveillance continues and grows, could it change the national character? "Yes, because
it will change free speech."
What of those who say, "I have nothing to fear, I don't do anything wrong"? Mr. Hentoff suggests
that's a false sense of security.
"When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows
what will come out?"
Or can be made to come out through misunderstanding the data, or finagling, or mischief of one
sort or another.
"People say, 'Well I've done nothing wrong so why should I worry?' But that's too easy a way
to get out of what is in our history-constant attempts to try to change who we are as Americans."
Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare
of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals
or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people.
What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps
us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks
are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security,
and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees.
"There has to be somebody supervising them who knows what's right. . . . Terrorism is not going
to go away. But we need someone in charge of the whole apparatus who has read the Constitution."
Advances in technology constantly up the ability of what government can do. Its technological
expertise will only become deeper and broader.
"They think they're getting to how you think. The technology is such that with the masses of
databases, then privacy will get even weaker."
Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious
of what NSA can do."
"... Far from being seen as the guardian of a free and open online medium, the US has been painted as an oppressor, cynically using its privileged position to spy on foreign nationals. The result, warn analysts, could well be an acceleration of a process that has been under way for some time as other countries ringfence their networks to protect their citizens' data and limit the flow of information. ..."
"... At the most obvious level, the secret data-collection efforts being conducted by the US National Security Agency threaten to give would-be censors of the internet in authoritarian countries rhetorical cover as they put their own stamp on their local networks. ..."
"... But the distrust of the US that the disclosures are generating in the democratic world, including in Europe , are also likely to have an impact. From the operation of a nation's telecoms infrastructure to the regulation of the emerging cloud computing industry, changes in the architecture of networks as countries seek more control look set to cause a sea change in the broader internet. ..."
Revelations about
US
surveillance of the global internet – and the part played by some of the biggest American internet
companies in facilitating it – have stirred angst around the world.
Far from being seen as the guardian of a free and open online medium, the US has been painted as
an oppressor, cynically using its privileged position to spy on foreign nationals. The result, warn
analysts, could well be an acceleration of a process that has been under way for some time as other
countries ringfence their networks to protect their citizens' data and limit the flow of information.
"It is difficult to imagine the internet not becoming more compartmentalised and Balkanised," says
Rebecca MacKinnon, an expert on online censorship. "Ten years from now, we will look back on the
free and open internet" with nostalgia, she adds.
At the most obvious level, the secret data-collection efforts being conducted by the US National
Security Agency threaten to give would-be censors of the
internet in authoritarian countries rhetorical cover as they put their own stamp on their local
networks.
But the distrust of the US that the disclosures are generating in the democratic world,
including
in Europe, are also likely to have an impact. From the operation of a nation's telecoms infrastructure
to the regulation of the emerging cloud computing industry, changes in the architecture of networks
as countries seek more control look set to cause a sea change in the broader internet.
"... Existing "trade" agreements like NAFTA allow corporations to sue governments for passing laws and regulations that limit their profits. They set up special " corporate courts " in which corporate attorneys decide the cases. These corporate "super courts" sit above governments and their own court systems, and countries and their citizens cannot even appeal the rulings. ..."
"... Now, corporations are pushing two new "trade" agreements - one covering Pacific-are countries and one covering Atlantic-area countries - that expand these corporate rights and move governments out of their way. The Pacific agreement is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Atlantic one is called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). ..."
"... International corporations that want to intimidate countries have access to a private legal system designed just for them. And to unlock its power, sometimes all it takes is a threat. ..."
"... ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company's demands, however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. ..."
BuzzFeed is running a very important investigative series called
"Secrets
of a Global Super Court." It describes what they call "a parallel legal
universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else."
Existing "trade" agreements like NAFTA allow corporations to sue governments
for passing laws and regulations that limit their profits. They set up special
"corporate
courts" in which corporate attorneys decide the cases. These corporate "super
courts" sit above governments and their own court systems, and countries
and their citizens cannot even appeal the rulings.
Picture a poor "banana republic" country ruled by a dictator and his
cronies. A company might want to invest in a factory or railroad - things
that would help the people of that country as well as deliver a return to
the company. But the company worries that the dictator might decide to just
seize the factory and give it to his brother-in-law. Agreements to protect
investors, and allowing a tribunal not based in such countries (courts where
the judges are cronies of the dictator), make sense in such situations.
Here's the thing: Corporate investors see themselves as legitimate "makers"
and see citizens and voters and their governments - always demanding taxes and
fair pay and public safety - to be illegitimate "takers." Corporations are all
about "one-dollar-one-vote" top-down systems of governance. They consider "one-person-one-vote"
democracy to be an illegitimate, non-functional system that meddles with their
more-important profit interests. They consider any governmental legal or regulatory
system to be "burdensome." They consider taxes as "theft" of the money they
have "earned."
To them, any government anywhere is just another "banana republic"
from which they need special protection.
"Trade" Deals Bypass Borders
Investors and their corporations have set up a way to get around the borders
of these meddling governments, called "trade" deals. The trade deals elevate
global corporate interests above any national interest. When a country signs
a "trade" deal, that country is agreeing not to do things that protect the country's
own national interest - like impose tariffs to protect key industries or national
strategies, or pass laws and regulations - when those things interfere with
the larger, more important global corporate "trade" interests.
Now, corporations are pushing two new "trade" agreements - one covering
Pacific-are countries and one covering Atlantic-area countries - that expand
these corporate rights and move governments out of their way. The Pacific agreement
is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Atlantic one is called
the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Secrets of a Global Super Court
BuzzFeed's series on these corporate courts,
"Secrets
of a Global Super Court," explains the investor-state dispute settlement
(ISDS) provisions in the "trade" deals that have come to dominate the world
economy. These provisions set up "corporate
courts" that place corporate profits above the interests of governments
and set up a court system that sits above the court systems of the countries
in the "trade" deals.
In a little-noticed 2014 dissent, US Chief Justice John Roberts warned
that ISDS arbitration panels hold the alarming power to review a nation's
laws and "effectively annul the authoritative acts of its legislature, executive,
and judiciary." ISDS arbitrators, he continued, "can meet literally anywhere
in the world" and "sit in judgment" on a nation's "sovereign acts."
[. . .]
Reviewing publicly available information for about 300 claims filed during
the past five years, BuzzFeed News found more than 35 cases in which the
company or executive seeking protection in ISDS was accused of criminal
activity, including money laundering, embezzlement, stock manipulation,
bribery, war profiteering, and fraud.
Among them: a bank in Cyprus that the US government accused of
financing terrorism and organized crime, an oil company executive accused
of embezzling millions from the impoverished African nation of Burundi,
and the Russian oligarch known as "the
Kremlin's banker."
One lawyer who regularly represents governments said he's seen evidence
of corporate criminality that he "couldn't believe." Speaking on the condition
that he not be named because he's currently handling ISDS cases, he said,
"You have a lot of scuzzy sort-of thieves for whom this is a way to hit
the jackpot."
Part Two,
"The Billion-Dollar Ultimatum," looks at how "International corporations
that want to intimidate countries have access to a private legal system designed
just for them. And to unlock its power, sometimes all it takes is a threat."
Of all the ways in which ISDS is used, the most deeply hidden are the
threats, uttered in private meetings or ominous letters, that invoke those
courts. The threats are so powerful they often eliminate the need to actually
bring a lawsuit. Just the knowledge that it could happen is enough.
[. . .] ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators
can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company's demands,
however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. Especially
for nations struggling to emerge from corrupt dictatorships or to lift their
people from decades of poverty, the mere threat of an ISDS claim triggers
alarm. A single decision by a panel of three unaccountable, private lawyers,
meeting in a conference room on some other continent, could gut national
budgets and shake economies to the core.
Indeed, financiers and ISDS lawyers have created a whole new business:
prowling for ways to sue nations in ISDS and make their taxpayers fork over
huge sums, sometimes in retribution for enforcing basic laws or regulations.
The financial industry is pushing novel ISDS claims that countries
never could have anticipated - claims that, in some instances,
would be barred in US courts and those of other developed nations, or
that strike at emergency decisions nations make to cope with crises.
ISDS gives particular leverage to traders and speculators who chase
outsize profits in the developing world. They can buy into local disputes
that they have no connection to, then turn the disputes into costly international
showdowns. Standard Chartered, for example, bought the debt of a Tanzanian
company that was in dire financial straits and racked by scandal; now, the
bank has filed an ISDS claim demanding that the nation's taxpayers hand
over the full amount that the private company owed - more than $100 million.
Asked to comment, Standard Chartered said its claim is "valid."
But instead of helping companies resolve legitimate disputes over seized
assets, ISDS has increasingly become a way for rich investors to make money
by speculating on lawsuits, winning huge awards and forcing taxpayers to
foot the bill.
Here's how it works: Wealthy financiers with idle cash have purchased
companies that are well placed to bring an ISDS claim, seemingly for the
sole purpose of using that claim to make a buck. Sometimes, they set up
shell corporations to create the plaintiffs to bring ISDS cases.
And some hedge funds and private equity firms bankroll ISDS cases as third
parties - just like billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his
lawsuit against Gawker Media.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released this statement
on the ISDS provisions in TPP:
"Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wall Street would be allowed to
sue the government in extrajudicial, corporate-run tribunals over any regulation
and American taxpayers would be on the hook for damages. This is an outrage.
We need more accountability and fairness in our economy – not less. And
we need to preserve our ability to make our own rules.
"It's time for Obama to take notice of the widespread, bipartisan opposition
to the TPP and take this agreement off the table before he causes lasting
political harm to Democrats with voters."
This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the
nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If
so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution
and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican
contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed
establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound
his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.
What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All
have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties
like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would
mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their
own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.
Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton
backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this
case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.
Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else
has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration,
while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.
The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all
faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is
this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?
Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial
Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this
New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding
the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between
managerial and New Class elites.
♦♦♦
The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier
stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed,
was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.
Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked
on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind
had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.
But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists,
while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run
by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.
Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading
Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet
mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs
of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to
the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.
Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not
own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise
and administrative prowess.
The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians
: "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as
to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy,
and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental"
power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.
The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain
their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between
big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex
to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with
the French-British Concorde.)
America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of
defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?"
Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system
of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded
forms of business enterprise."
McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But
the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart
19th-century classical liberals.
National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It
was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying.
The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes
in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.
More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class."
"This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall
Street Journal :
It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial
society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists
and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in
the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy,
and so on.
"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational
system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."
Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:
I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous
actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after
all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers
of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going
to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?
Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided
with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation
and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state
reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however,
amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.
The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism
of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and
Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.
Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach
to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree,
so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."
He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics.
The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were
evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.
Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers
or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following
the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie
to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.
Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous
militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory
state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like
Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.
Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment
to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the
protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare
is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.
The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also
enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps
keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like
many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining
managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.
The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange
for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian
ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its
class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize
its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony
helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.
♦♦♦
So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses
stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.
Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes,
"big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the
bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.
The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite
its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment,
minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right
faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders
had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.
The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of
the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype
of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.
This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might
welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .
Excellent analysis. What is important about the Trump phenomenon is not every individual issue, it's the potentially revolutionary
nature of the phenomenon. The opposition gets this. That's why they are hysterical about Trump. The conservative box checkers
do not.
"Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big
government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan
establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November."
My question is, if Trump is not himself of the managerial class, in fact, could be considered one of the original new class
members, how would he govern? What explains his conversion from the new class to the managerial class; is he merely taking advantage
of an opportunity or is there some other explanation?
I'm genuinely confused by the role you ascribe to the 'managerial class' here. Going back to Berle and Means ('The Modern Corporation
and Private Property') the managerial class emerged when management was split from ownership in mid C20th capitalism. Managers
focused on growth, not profits for shareholders. The Shareholder revolution of the 1980s destroyed the managerial class, and destroyed
their unwieldy corporations.
You seem to be identifying the managerial class with a kind of cultural opposition to the values of [neo]liberal capitalism. And
instead of identifying the 'new class' with the new owner-managers of shareholder-driven firms, you identify them by their superficial
cultural effects.
This raises a deeper problem in how you talk about class in this piece. Marx taught that you identify classes by their
structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system
of production. Does the 'new class' of journalists, academics, etc. actually own anything? If not, what is the point of ascribing
to them immense economic power?
I would agree that there is a new class of capitalists in America. But they are well known people like Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs,
Linda McMahon, the Waltons, Rick Scott the pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Mitt Romney, Mark Zuckerberg, and many many hedge fund
gazillionaires. These people represent the resurgence of a family-based, dynastic capitalism that is utterly different from the
managerial variety that prevailed in mid-century.
If there is a current competitor to international corporate capitalism, it is old-fashioned dynastic family capitalism. Not
Managerialism.
There is no "new class". That's simply a derogatory trope of the Right. The [neo]liberal elite– educated, cosmopolitan and possessed
of sufficient wealth to be influential in political affairs and claims to power grounded in moral stances– have a long pedigree
in both Western and non-Western lands. They were the Scribal Class in the ancient world, the Mandarins of China, and the Clergy
in the Middle Ages. This class for a time was eclipsed in the early modern period as first royal authority became dominant, followed
by the power of the Capitalist class (the latter has never really faded of course). But their reemergence in the late 20th century
is not a new or unique phenomenon.
In a year in which "trash Trump" and "trash Trump's supporters" are tricks-to-be-turned for more than 90% of mainstream journalists
and other media hacks, it's good to see Daniel McCarthy buck the "trash trend" and write a serious, honest analysis of the class
forces that are colliding during this election cycle.
Two thumbs way up for McCarthy, although his fine effort cannot save the reputation of those establishment whores who call
themselves journalists. Nothing can save them. They have earned the universality with which Americans hold them in contempt.
In 1976 when Gallup began asking about "the honesty and ethical standards" of various professions only 33% of Americans rated
journalists "very high or high."
By last December that "high or very high" rating for journalists had fallen to just 27%.
It is certain that by Election Day 2016 the American public's opinion of journalists will have fallen even further.
Most of your argument is confusing. The change I see is from a production economy to a finance economy. Wall Street rules, really.
Basically the stock market used to be a place where working folk invested their money for retirement, mostly through pensions
from unions and corporations. Now it's become a gambling casino, with the "house"-or the big banks-putting it's finger on the
roulette wheel. They changed the compensation package of CEO's, so they can rake in huge executive compensation–mostly through
stock options-to basically close down everything from manufacturing to customer service, and ship it off to contract manufacturers
and outside services in oligarchical countries like mainland China and India.
I don't know what exactly you mean about the "new class", basically its the finance industry against everyone else.
One thing you right-wingers always get wrong, is on Karl Marx he was really attacking the money-changers, the finance speculators,
the banks. Back in the day, so-called "capitalists" like Henry Ford or George Eastman or Thomas Edison always complained about
the access to financing through the big money finance capitalists.
Don't overlook the economic value of intellectual property rights (patents, in particular) in the economic equation.
A big chunk of the 21st century economy is generated due to the intellectual property developed and owned by the New Class
and its business enterprises.
The economic value of ideas and intellectual property rights is somewhat implied in McCarthy's explanation of the New Class,
but I didn't see an explicit mention (perhaps I overlooked it).
I think the consideration of intellectual property rights and the value generated by IP might help to clarify the economic
power of the New Class for those who feel the analysis isn't quite complete or on target.
I'm not saying that IP only provides value to the New Class. We can find examples of IP throughout the economy, at all levels.
It's just that the tech and financial sectors seem to focus more on (and benefit from) IP ownership, licensing, and the information
captured through use of digital technology.
"What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy."
But today we have this: Trump pledges big US military
expansion . Trump doesn't appear to have any coherent policy, he just says whatever seems to be useful at that particular
moment.
[New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative
think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous
Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the
Globalized Economy and financial markets.
Being white is not the defining characteristic of Trumpers because it if was then how come there are many white working class
voters for Hillary? The divide in the working class comes from being a member of a union or a member of the private non-unionized
working class.
Where the real class divide shows up is in those who are members of the Knowledge Class that made their living based on the
old Virtuous Economy where the elderly saved money in banks and the banks, in turn, lent that money out to young families to buy
houses, cars, and start businesses. The Virtuous Economy has been replaced by the Global Economy based on diverting money to the
stock market to fund global enterprises and prop up government pension funds.
The local bankers, realtors, private contractors, small savers and small business persons and others that depended on the Virtuous
Economy lost out to the global bankers, stock investors, pension fund managers, union contractors and intellectuals that propounded
rationales for the global economy as superior to the Virtuous Economy.
Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally
decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those
who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist
Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages
and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide.
Beginning in the 50's and 60's, baby boomers were warned in school and cultural media that "a college diploma would become what
a high school diploma is today." An extraordinary cohort of Americans took this advice seriously, creating the smartest and most
successful generation in history. But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who – knowing that college
educated people vote largely Democrat – launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what you see
now: millions of people unprepared for modern employment; meanwhile we have to import millions of college-educated Asians and
Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do.
Have to say, this seems like an attempt to put things into boxes that don't quite fit.
Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times –
nationalism vs. Globalism.
The core of it is that the government no longer serves the people. In the United States, that is kind of a bad thing, you know?
Like the EU in the UK, the people, who fought very hard for self-government, are seeing it undermined by the erosion of the nation
state in favor of international beaurocracy run by elites and the well connected.
Both this article and many comments on it show considerable confusion, and ideological opinion all over the map. What is happening
I think is that the world is changing –due to globalism, technology, and the sheer huge numbers of people on the planet. As a
result some of the rigid trenches of thought as well as class alignments are breaking down.
In America we no longer have capitalism, of either the 19th century industrial or 20th century managerial varieties. Money
and big money is still important of course, but it is increasingly both aligned with and in turn controlled by the government.
The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government
ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives
are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both
are right in a sense.
The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite
academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been
left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth
and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as
backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against
being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters."
The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties'
elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium
and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these
folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively
harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA.
I have one condition about which, Mr. Trump would lose my support - if he flinches on immigration, I will have to bow out.
I just don't buy the contentions about color here. He has made definitive moves to ensure that he intends to fight for US citizens
regardless of color. This nonsense about white racism, more bigotry in reality, doesn't pan out. The Republican party has been
comprised of mostly whites since forever and nearly all white sine the late 1960's. Anyone attempting to make hay out of what
has been the reality for than 40 years is really making the reverse pander. Of course most of those who have issues with blacks
and tend to be more expressive about it, are in the Republican party. But so what. Black Republicans would look at you askance,
should you attempt this FYI.
It's a so what. The reason you joining a party is not because the people in it like you, that is really beside the point. Both
Sec Rice and General Powell, are keenly aware of who's what it and that is the supposed educated elite. They are not members of
the party because it is composed of some pure untainted membership. But because they and many blacks align themselves with the
ideas of the party, or what the party used to believe, anyway.
It's the issues not their skin color that matters. And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes
on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to
Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and
used for their own liberal ends.
I remain convinced that if blacks wanted progress all they need do is swamp the Republican party as constituents and confront
whatever they thought was nonsense as constituents as they move on policy issues. Goodness democrats have embraced the lighter
tones despite having most black support. That is why the democrats are importing so many from other state run countries. They
could ignore blacks altogether. Sen Barbara Jordan and her deep voiced rebuke would do them all some good.
Let's face it - we are not going to remove the deeply rooted impact of skin color, once part of the legal frame of the country
for a quarter of the nations populous. What Republicans should stop doing is pretending, that everything concerning skin color
is the figment of black imagination. I am not budging an inch on the Daughters of the American Revolution, a perfect example of
the kind of peculiar treatment of the majority, even to those who fought for Independence and their descendants.
________________
I think that there are thousands and thousands of educated (degreed)people who now realize what a mess the educational and
social services system has become because of our immigration policy. The impact on social services here in Ca is no joke. In the
face of mounting deficits, the laxity of Ca has now come back to haunt them. The pressure to increase taxes weighed against the
loss of manual or hard labor to immigrants legal and otherwise is unmistakable here. There's debate about rsstroom etiquette in
the midst of serious financial issues - that's a joke. So this idea of dismissing people with degrees as being opposed to Mr.
Trump is deeply overplayed and misunderstood. If there is a class war, it's not because of Mr. Trump, those decks were stacked
in his favor long before the election cycle.
--------
"But millions did not heed that advice, cynically buoyed by Republicans who–knowing that college educated people vote largely
Democrat–launched a financial and cultural war on college education. The result is what . . . employment; meanwhile we have to
import millions of college-educated Asians and Indians to do the work there aren't enough Americans to do."
Hmmmm,
Nope. Republicans are notorious for pushing education on everything and everybody. It's a signature of hard work, self reliance,
self motivation and responsibility. The shift that has been tragic is that conservatives and Republicans either by a shove or
by choice abandoned the fields by which we turn out most future generations - elementary, HS and college education. Especially
in HS, millions of students are fed a daily diet of liberal though unchecked by any opposing ideas. And that is become the staple
for college education - as it cannot be stated just how tragic this has become for the nation. There are lots of issues to moan
about concerning the Us, but there is far more to embrace or at the very least keep the moaning in its proper context. No, conservatives
and Republicans did engage in discouraging an education.
And there will always be a need for more people without degrees than with them. even people with degrees are now getting hit
even in the elite walls of WS finance. I think I posted an article by John Maulden about the growing tensions resulting fro the
shift in the way trading is conducting. I can build a computer from scratch, that's a technical skill, but the days of building
computers by hand went as fast it came. The accusation that the population should all be trained accountants, book keepers, managers,
data processors, programmers etc. Is nice, but hardly very realistic (despite my taking liberties with your exact phrasing). A
degree is not going to stop a company from selling and moving its production to China, Mexico or Vietnam - would that were true.
In fact, even high end degree positions are being outsourced, medicine, law, data processing, programming . . .
How about the changes in economy that have forced businesses to completely disappear. We will never know how many businesses
were lost in the 2007/2008 financial mess. Recovery doesn't exist until the country's growth is robust enough to put people back
to work full time in a manner that enables them to sustain themselves and family.
That income gap is real and its telling.
___________________
even if I bought the Karl Marx assessment. His solutions were anything but a limited assault on financial sector oligarchs
and wizards. And in practice it has been an unmitigated disaster with virtually not a single long term national benefit. It's
very nature has been destructive, not only to infrastructure, but literally the lifeblood of the people it was intended to rescue.
Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class"
are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector
and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector.
There are two middle classes in the US: the old Business Class and the New Knowledge Class. A manager would be in the Business
Class and a Bureaucrat in the New Class.
The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization,
industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial
revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization.
The New Class were those in the mostly government and nonprofit sectors that depended on knowledge for their livelihood without
it being coupled to any physical labor: teachers, intellectuals, social workers and psychiatrists, lawyers, media types, hedge
fund managers, real estate appraisers, financial advisors, architects, engineers, etc. The New Knowledge Class has only risen
since the New Deal created a permanent white collar, non-business class.
The Working Class are those who are employed for wages in manual work in an industry producing something tangible (houses,
cars, computers, etc.). The Working Class can also have managers, sometimes called supervisors. And the Working Class is comprised
mainly of two groups: unionized workers and private sector non-unionized workers. When we talk about the Working Class we typically
are referring to the latter.
The Trumpsters should not be distinguished as being a racial group or class (white) because there are many white people who
support Clinton. About 95% of Blacks vote Democratic in the US. Nowhere near that ratio of Whites are supporting Trump. So Trumps'
support should not be stereotyped as White.
The number one concern to Trumpsters is that they reflect the previous intergenerational economy where the elderly lent money
to the young to buy homes, cars and start small businesses. The Global bankers have shifted money into the stock market because
0.25% per year interest rates in a bank isn't making any money at all when money inflation runs at 1% to 2% (theft). This has
been replaced by a Global Economy that depends on financial bubbles and arbitraging of funds.
"The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated
by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right
in a sense."
Why other couching this. Ten years ago if some Hollywood exec had said, no same sex marriage, no production company in your
town, the town would have shrugged. Today before shrugging, the city clerk is checking the account balance. When the governors
of Michigan, and Arizona bent down in me culpa's on related issue, because business interests piped in, it was an indication that
the game had seriously changed. Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private
lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure
most of the public fully grasps or desires.
Same sex weddings in US military chapels - the concept still turns my stomach. Advocates control the megaphones, I don't think
they control the minds of the public, despite having convinced a good many people that those who have chosen this expression are
under some manner of assault – that demands a legal change - intelligent well educated, supposedly astute minded people actually
believe it. Even the Republican nominee believes it.
I love Barbara Streisand, but if the election means she moves to Canada, well, so be it. Take your "drag queens" impersonators
wit you. I enjoy Mr. and Mrs Pitt, I think have a social moral core but really? with millions of kids future at stake, endorsing
a terminal dynamic as if it will save society's ills - Hollywood doesn't even pretend to behave royally much less embody the sensitivities
of the same.
There is a lot to challenge about supporting Mr. Trump. He did support killing children in the womb and that is tragic. Unless
he has stood before his maker and made this right, he will have to answer for that. But no more than a trove of Republicans who
supported killing children in the womb and then came to their senses. I guess of there is one thing he and I agree on, it's not
drinking.
As for big budget military, it seems a waste, but if we are going to waste money, better it be for our own citizens. His Achilles
heel here is his intentions as to ISIS/ISIL. I think it's the big drain getting ready to suck him into the abyss of intervention
creep.
Missile defense just doesn't work. The tests are rigged and as Israel discovered, it's a hit and miss game with low probability
of success, but it makes for great propaganda.
I am supposed to be outraged by a football player stance on abusive government. While the democratic nominee is turning over
every deck chair she find, leaving hundreds of thousands of children homeless - let me guess, on the bright side, George Clooney
cheers the prospect of more democratic voters.
If Mr. Trumps only achievements are building a wall, over hauling immigration policy and expanding the size of the military.
He will be well on his way to getting ranked one of the US most successful presidents.
I never understood why an analysis needs to lard in every conceivable historical reference and simply assume its relevance, when
there are so many non constant facts and circumstances. There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it
falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes.
This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially
benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict
is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but
the underlying conflict will always remain.
State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there.
Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they
would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those.
The split on Trump is first by race (obviously), then be gender (also somewhat obviously), and then by education. Even among
self-declared conservatives it's the college educated who tend to oppose him. This is a lot broader than simply losing some "new"
Knowledge Class, unless all college educated people are put in that grouping. In fact he is on track to lose among college educated
whites, something no GOP candidate has suffered since the days of FDR and WWII.
People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's,
per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this
the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards.
People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not
impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions.
I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all
the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable.
Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American.
EliteComic beat me to the punch. I was disappointed that Ross Perot, who won over 20% of the popular vote twice, and was briefly
in the lead in early 1992, wasn't mentioned in this article.
Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli
interests above America's is un-American.
The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable
people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation
where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation,
but of justice being done period.
A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US
dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the
Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation
and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers
instead of a nation of producers.
Who really cares about the federal debt. REally? We can print dollars, exchange these worthless dollars with China for hard
goods, and then China lends the dollars back to us, to pay for our government. Get it?
It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt
dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya
Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market
utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on.
But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled.
And damn the utopianism of you "libertarians" you're worse then Marxists when it comes to ideology over reality.
"State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back
in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would
only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those."
Ah, not it's policy on some measure able effect. The seatbelt law was debate across the country. The data indicated that it
did in fact save lives. And it's impact was universal applicable to every man women or child that got into a vehicle.
That was not a private bedroom issue. Of course businesses have advocated policy. K street is not a K-street minus that reality.
But GM did not demand having relations in parked cars be legalized or else.
You are taking my apples and and calling them seatbelts - false comparison on multiple levels, all to get me to acknowledge
that businesses have influence. It what they have chosen to have influence on -
I do not think the issue of class is relevant here – whether it be new classes or old classes. There are essentially two classes
– those who win given whatever the current economic arrangements are or those who lose given those same arrangements. People who
think they are losing support Trump versus people who think they are winning support Clinton. The polls demonstrates this – Trump
supporters feel a great deal more anxiety about the future and are more inclined to think everything is falling apart whereas
Clinton supporters tend to see things as being okay and are optimistic about the future. The Vox work also shows this pervasive
sense that life will not be good for their children and grandchildren as a characteristic of Trump supporters.
The real shift I think is in the actual coalitions that are political parties. Both the GOP and the Dems have been coalitions
– political parties usually are. Primary areas of agreement with secondary areas of disagreement. Those coalitions no longer work.
The Dems can be seen as a coalition of the liberal knowledge types – who are winners in this economy and the worker types who
are often losers now in this economy. The GOP also is a coalition of globalist corporatist business types (winners) with workers
(losers) who they attracted in part because of culture wars and the Dixiecrats becoming GOPers. The needs of these two groups
in both parties no longer overlap. The crisis is more apparent in the GOP because well – Trump. If Sanders had won the nomination
for the Dems (and he got close) then their same crisis would be more apparent. The Dems can hold their creaky coalition together
because Trump went into the fevered swamps of the alt. right.
I think this is even more obvious in the UK where you have a Labor Party that allegedly represents the interests of working
people but includes the cosmopolitan knowledge types. The cosmopolitans are big on the usual identity politics, unlimited immigration
and staying in the EU. They benefit from the current economic arrangement. But the workers in the Labor party have been hammered
by the current economic arrangements and voted in droves to get out of the EU and limit immigration. It seems pretty obvious that
there is no longer a coalition to sustain the Labor Party. Same with Tories – some in the party love the EU,immigration, globalization
while others voted out of the EU, want immigration restricted and support localism. The crisis is about the inability of either
party to sustain its coalitions. Those in the Tory party who are leavers should be in a political party with the old Labor working
class while the Tory cosmopolitans should be in a party with the Labor cosmopolitans. The current coalitions not being in synch
is the political problem – not new classes etc.
Here in the US the southern Dixiecrats who went to the GOP and are losers in this economy might find a better coalition with
the black, Latino and white workers who are still in the Dem party. But as in the UK ideological culture wars have become more
prominent and hence the coalitions are no longer economically based. If people recognized that politics can only address the economic
issues and they aligned themselves accordingly – the membership of the parties would radically change.
The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia
and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come
up in the morning now,"
"Trump's voters were most strongly characterized by their "racial isolation": they live in places with little ethnic diversity.
"
During the primaries whites in more diverse areas voted Trump. The only real exception was West Virginia. Utah, Wyoming, Iowa?
All voted for Cruz and "muh values".
In white enclaves like Paul Ryans district, which is 91%, whites are able to signal against white identity without having to
face the consequences.
"All three major African, Hispanic, & Asian-American overwhelming support HRC in the election."
That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics
simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data
point would look just the same.
"On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would
benefit hard industry and managerial interests."
This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas
in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute
ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves
versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities
in which they lived.
The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large
institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused.
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s –
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
– say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s – High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? – World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passé.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
"... That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed. ..."
"... More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest since the Cold War. ..."
"... Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United States, which is putting money into all this." ..."
"... Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million expelled from their homes. ..."
"... Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts all over the globe. ..."
Angel Davilla-Rivas, a Spaniard who came to east Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels,
proudly shows off two big monochrome portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin,
tattooed on the right and left side of his torso.
Davilla-Rivas and his comrade Rafa Munez, both in their mid-twenties, traveled by train from Madrid
to eastern Ukraine where they joined the Vostok battalion, the most prominent and heavily armed unit
fighting Ukrainian troops.
"I am the only son, and it hurts my mother and father and my family a lot that I am putting myself
at risk. But ... I can't sleep in my bed knowing what's going on here," said Davilla-Rivas, sporting
a cap with the Soviet red star pinned to it.
That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining
a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans
in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists
against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed.
Angel said he wanted to return the favor after the Soviet Union, under Stalin, supported the Republican
side in Spain.
More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according
to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their
lowest since the Cold War.
The Spaniards are not the first foreigners to enter the fight.
Men from Russia, its former rebel republic of Chechnya and the Caucasus region of North Ossetia
have fought on the rebel side along with volunteers from a Russian-backed separatist enclave of Georgia
and natives of Serbia.
Russians have also taken top positions among the rebels, though a local took over at the helm
of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk Peoples' Republic" on Thursday, in a move aimed at blunting Western
accusations the rebellion is run by Moscow.
Moscow said last month there were reports that citizens from Sweden, Finland, France and the former
Soviet Baltic states had joined pro-Kiev volunteer battalions in the east as "mercenaries".
Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing
the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against
Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in
between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United
States, which is putting money into all this."
A Vostok fighter said he was happy to have the Spaniards. "We need support now, we need fighters.
An additional automatic gun will do no harm, to support, to cover one's back," said the young, brown-haired
man who did not give his name. The Spanish embassy in Moscow was not immediately available
for comment.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
blazo 6 months ago
Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million
expelled from their homes. Not too bad for only 4 months. But it could be better.
Commander in chief of glorious Kiev army, Mr Porkoshenko, and his sponsor in killings and expulsions,
Mr Obama are not satisfied. For money spent, much higher pace of killing should be #$%$ured. What
is their reference? In Babin Yar during WW 2, 1200 Ukrainian #$%$, with help of 300 Germans, managed
to kill 60 000 Ukrainians for only two days. So Mr Porkoshenko ask from Chef of all Ukrainian
security forces, Mr Paruby to explain discrepancy in efficiency in Babin Yar, and in Donbas killings.
Mr Paruby said: In Babin Yar Ukrainians to be killed were civilized and unarmed. They even smiled
for photographs during killing. But in Donbas they are barbaric armed people, they don t allow
us to kill them in peace. They turned arms on us, and killed 10 000 of our brave soldiers. They
burned our tanks, APCs, and shot down our jet bombers. And as a extreme barbarism, they captured
from us multiple rocket launchers, and fired on us, killing our 25th, 72nd, 79th motorized brigades.
Mr Porkoshenko said: You are fired, and kicked him with foot to his #$%$.
The great strategist and visionary, Mr Porkoshenko said on 25th of May: It is not a question
of days, weeks, or months, when rebellion in East Ukraine will be defeated. It is the question
of hours.... .
Ricardo 6 months ago
Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts
all over the globe. Muslims are headed to Syria and Iraq from Europe and North Africa to
fight either Assad or along side ISIS, now those that believe the days of the old USSR are returning
are headed to eastern Ukraine to fight. If you look at some of the countries mentioned in this
article it will not surprise anyone that they are all from Soviet/Russian supported countries
that even after the collapse of the USSR still follow the Russians, no matter the consequences
to their country.
"... By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Originally published at The Frontline ..."
"... President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power. "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before the November Presidential election in the US. ..."
"... The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values. ..."
"... But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. ..."
"... But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them. ..."
"... Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions ..."
"... All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens, would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations ..."
"... So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals. ..."
"... The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself. ..."
"... Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg ..."
"... While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.) ..."
"... Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" - this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it. Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes. ..."
"... Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way. ..."
"... We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply. The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our own products. ..."
"... the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of a "Buy America" clause in the future! ..."
"... The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade. the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder. ..."
"... Here's Obama's actual speech at the Nike headquarters (not factory). http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamatradenike.htm ..."
"... It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio. ..."
"... The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes. http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/ "US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike." ..."
"... So what's the incentive for Oregon's free traitors to support the TPP now? ..."
"... Perhaps they still need to show loyalty to their corporate owners and to the principle of "free trade". ..."
"... Obama: "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy." ..."
"... Thank you, Mr. President, for resolving any doubts that the American project is an imperialist project! ..."
"... Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning them into good consumerist slaves. ..."
"... Funny how little things change over the centuries. ..."
"... The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall. Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans. ..."
"... "How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu. ..."
"... The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China". ..."
"... Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China". ..."
"... Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them. ..."
"... Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret. ..."
"... Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects. ..."
"... It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country. ..."
"... I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations ..."
"... Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St. ..."
By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. Originally published at
The Frontline
There is much angst in the Northern financial media about how the era of globalisation led actively by the United States may well
be coming to an end. This is said to be exemplified in the changed political attitudes to mega regional trade deals like the Trans
Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that was signed (but has not yet been ratified) by the US and 11 other countries in Latin America,
Asia and Oceania; and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) still being negotiated by the US and the
European Union.
President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power.
"We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position
of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China
will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case
for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before
the November Presidential election in the US.
However, the changing political currents in the US are making that ever more unlikely. Hardly anyone who is a candidate in the
coming elections, whether for the Presidency, the Senate or the House of Representatives, is willing to stick their necks out to
back the deal.
Both Presidential candidates in the US (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) have openly come out against the TPP. In Clinton's case
this is a complete reversal of her earlier position when she had referred to the TPP as "the gold standard of trade deals" – and
it has clearly been forced upon her by the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders. She is already being
pushed by her rival candidate for not coming out more clearly in terms of a complete rejection of this deal. Given the significant
trust deficit that she still has to deal with across a large swathe of US voters, it will be hard if not impossible for her to backtrack
on this once again (as her husband did earlier with NAFTA) even if she does achieve the Presidency.
The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global
trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen
the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written
into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values.
But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion
as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. Even the only US government study of the
TPP's likely impacts, by the International Trade Commission, could project at best only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the
agreement up to 2032. A study by Jeronim Capaldo and Alex Izurieta with Jomo Kwame Sundaram ("Trading down: Unemployment, inequality
and other risks of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement", Working Paper 16-01, Global Development and Environment Institute, January
2016) was even less optimistic, even for the US. It found that the benefits to exports and economic growth were likely to be relatively
small for all member countries, and would be negative in the US and Japan because of losses to employment and increases in inequality.
Wage shares of national income would decline in all the member countries.
But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any
case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire
discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the
less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating
effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying:
the intellectual property provisions,
the restrictions on regulatory practices
the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions
on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens,
would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations
For example, the TPP (and the TTIP) require more stringent enforcement requirements of intellectual property rights: reducing
exemptions (e.g. allowing compulsory licensing only for emergencies); preventing parallel imports; extending IPRs to areas like life
forms, counterfeiting and piracy; extending exclusive rights to test data (e.g. in pharmaceuticals); making IPR provisions more detailed
and prescriptive. The scope of drug patents is extended to include minor changes to existing medications (a practice commonly employed
by drug companies, known as "evergreening"). Patent linkages would make it more difficult for many generic drugs to enter markets.
This would strengthen, lengthen and broaden pharmaceutical monopolies on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS drugs, and in general
make even life-saving drugs more expensive and inaccessible in all the member countries. It would require further transformation
of countries' laws on patents and medical test data. It would reduce the scope of exemption in use of medical formulations through
public procurement for public purposes. All this is likely to lead to reductions in access to drugs and medical procedures because
of rising prices, and also impede innovation rather than encouraging it, across member countries.
There are also very restrictive copyright protection rules, that would also affect internet usage as Internet Service Providers
are to be forced to adhere to them. There are further restrictions on branding that would reinforce the market power of established
players.
The TPP and TTIP also contain restrictions on regulatory practices that greatly increase the power of corporations relative to
states and can even prevent states from engaging in countercyclical measures designed to boost domestic demand. It has been pointed
out by consumer groups in the USA that the powers of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate products that affect health of
citizens could be constrained and curtailed by this agreement. Similarly, macroeconomic stimulus packages that focus on boosting
domestic demand for local production would be explicitly prohibited by such agreements.
All these are matters for concern because these agreements enable corporations to litigate against governments that are perceived
to be flouting these provisions because of their own policy goals or to protect the rights of their citizens. The Investor-State
Dispute Settlement mechanism enabled by these agreements is seen to be one of their most deadly features. Such litigation is then
subject to supranational tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards
and which do not see the rights of citizen as in any way superior to the "rights" of corporations to their profits. These courts
can conduct closed and secret hearings with secret evidence. They do not just interpret the rules but contribute to them through
case law because of the relatively vague wording of the text, which can then be subject to different interpretations, and therefore
are settled by case law. The experience thus far with such tribunals has been problematic. Since they are legally based on "equal"
treatment of legal persons with no primacy for human rights, they have become known for their pro-investor bias, partly due to the
incentive structure for arbitrators, and partly because the system is designed to provide supplementary guarantees to investors,
rather than making them respect host countries laws and regulations.
If all these features of the TPP and the TTIP were more widely known, it is likely that there would be even greater public resistance
to them in the US and in other countries. Even as it is, there is growing antagonism to the trade liberalisation that is seen to
bring benefits to corporations rather than to workers, at a period in history when secure employment is seen to be the biggest prize
of all.
So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US
and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals.
I was watching a speech Premier Li gave at the Economic Club of NY last night, and it was interesting to see how all his (vetted,
pre-selected) questions revolved around anxieties having to do with resistance to global trade deals. Li made a few pandering
comments about how much the Chinese love American beef (stop it! you're killing me! har har) meant to diffuse those anxieties,
but it became clear that the fear among TPTB of people's dissatisfaction with the current economic is palpable. Let's keep it
up!
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out a $147 million civil price fixing judgment against Chinese manufacturers of
vitamin C, ruling the companies weren't liable in U.S. courts because they were acting under the direction of Chinese authorities.
The case raised thorny questions of how courts should treat foreign companies accused of violating U.S. antitrust law when
they are following mandates of a foreign government.
"I was only following orders" might not have worked in Nuremberg, but it's a-ok in international trade.
The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the
Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for
Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself.
Trump has already back peddaled on his TPP stance. He now says he wants to renegotiate the TTP and other trade deals. Whatever
that means. Besides, Trump is a distraction, its Mike Pence you should be keeping your eye on. He's American Taliban pure and
simple.
This is simply false. Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level
consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg
Hillary wants to start a war with Russia and pass the trade trifecta of TPP/TTIP/TiSA.
While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between
Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally
a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.)
Trump was run to make Hillary look good, but that has turned out to be Mission Real Impossible!
We are seeing the absolute specious political theater at its worst, attempting to differentiate between Hillary Rodham Clinton
and the Trumpster – – – the only major difference is that Clinton has far more real blood on her and Bill's hands.
Nope, there is no lesser of evils this time around . . .
Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" -
this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it.
Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes.
Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being
against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way.
>only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the agreement up to 2032.
At that point American's wages will have dropped near enough to Chinese levels that we can compete in selling to First World
countries . assuming there are any left.
We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply.
The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our
own products.
Naaah, never been about competition, since nobody is actually vetted when they offshore those jobs or replace American workers
with foreign visa workers.
But to sum it up as succinctly as possible: the TPP is about the destruction of workers' rights; the destruction of local and
small businesses; and the loss of sovereignty. Few Americans are cognizant of just how many businesses are foreign owned today
in America; their local energy utility or state energy utility, their traffic enforcement company which was privatized, their
insurance company (GEICO, etc.).
I remember when a political action group back in the '00s thought they had stumbled on a big deal when someone had hacked into
the system of the Bretton Woods Committee (the lobbyist group for the international super-rich which ONLY communicates with the
Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader, and who shares the same lobbyist and D.C. office space as the Group of Thirty,
the lobbyist group for the central bankers [Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Mario Draghi, Ernesto Zedillo, Bill Dudley, etc.,
etc.]) and placed online their demand of the senate and the congress to kill the "Buy America" clause in the federal stimulus
program of a few years back (it was watered down greatly, and many exemptions were signed by then Commerce Secretary Gary Locke),
but such information went completely unnoticed or ignored, and of course, the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of
a "Buy America" clause in the future!
The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if
TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade.
the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder.
In June 2016, "[TransCanada] filed an arbitration claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) over President
Obama's rejection of the pipeline, making good on its January threat to take legal action against the US decision.
According to the official request for arbitration, the $15 billion tab is supposed to help the company recover costs and damages
that it suffered "as a result of the US administration's breach of its NAFTA obligations." NAFTA is a comprehensive trade agreement
between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that went into effect in January 1, 1994. Under the agreement, businesses can challenge
governments over investment disputes.
In addition, the company filed a suit in US Federal Court in Houston, Texas in January asserting that the Obama Administration
exceeded the power granted by the US Constitution in denying the project."
It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out
that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio.
Obama's rhetoric May 5, 2015 at the Nike campus was all about how small businesses would prosper. Congresswoman Bonamici clings
to this rationale in her refusal to tell angry constituents at town halls whether she supports the TPP.
The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/
"US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification
of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike."
That appeals to the other big athletic corporations that cluster in the Portland metro: Columbia Sportswear and Under Armour.
Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons
but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning
them into good consumerist slaves.
Funny how little things change over the centuries.
The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall.
Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans.
"How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu.
The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of
the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China".
Would be nice if they had even a passing thought for those people in a certain North American region located in between Canada
and Mexico.
Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP
of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China
shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China".
Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the
anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them.
If calling the International Free Trade Conspiracy "American" is enough to get it killed and destroyed, then I don't mind having
a bunch of foreigners calling the Free Trade Conspiracy "American". Just as long as they are really against it, and can really
get Free Trade killed and destroyed.
Excellent post. Thank you. Should these so called "trade agreements" be approved, perhaps Investor-State Dispute Settlement
(ISDS arbitration) futures can be created by Wall Street and made the next speculative "Play-of-the-day" so that everyone has
a chance to participate in the looting. Btw, can you loot your own house?
Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to
the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was
that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret.
At the time he made that statement Warren could go to an offsite location to read the TPP in the presence of a member of the
Trade Commission, could not have staff with her, could not take notes, and could not discuss anything she read with anyone else
after she left. Or face criminal charges.
Yeah. Nothing secret about that.
Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering
to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury
Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men
who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects.
And add to that everything from David Dayen's book (" Chain of Title ") on Covington & Burling and Eric Holder and President
Obama, and Thomas Frank's book ("Listen, Liberals") and people will have the full picture!
It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock
of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic
gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country.
So, there's a financial incentive (to maximize profits), not to repatriate foreign income (pushes up our exchange rate, currency
conversion costs, if domestic re-investment alternatives are considered more circumscribed, plus taxes, etc.).
In spite of the surfeit of $s, and E-$ credits, and unlike the days in which world-trade required a Marshall Plan jump start,
trade surpluses increasingly depend on the Asian Tiger's convertibility issues.
I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave
labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations
or even (potential) unfriendlies like China (who can easily put trojan spyware hard code or other vulnerabilities into critical
microchips the way WE were told the US could/would when it was leading on this tech when I was serving in the 90s). We already
know that US-written rules is simply a way for mega corporations to extend patents into the ever-more-distant future, a set of
rules that hands more control of arts over to the MPAA, rules that gut environmental laws, etc. Who needs the US-written agreements
when this is the result?
Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit
of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St.
"... I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been for centuries. ..."
Well, if you looked at it and decided against it why am I wasting my time? "unlike the U.S.
military which is used to destroys foreign cities without much thought of the aftermath" Always
with the nasty, sneering, condescending attitude toward us. I remind you that it was the BRITISH
army that destroyed your grandparents house, not the US Army. pl"
and the usa has learned and followed the British in so many of it's imperialist ways carrying
the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough of British or
American
bullshit..
@ james who wrote " and the usa has learned and followed the british in so many of it's imperialist
ways caring the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough
of british or american bullshit."
I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own
private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British
people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been
for centuries.
The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government
by Thomas N. Bisson Princeton University Press, 677 pp., $39.50
One of the major institutions of pre-industrial society, and one that makes it hard for people
in the modern Western world fully to grasp the past, is lordship. Lordship means a personal bond,
reciprocal but not equal, tying inferiors to superiors, bringing the latter a power over the former
that modern democratic and egalitarian ideologies would abhor. We are not accustomed to address
others as "Master" or "Mistress," "My Lord" or "My Lady."
Of course modern Western societies are not communities of equals. Vast differences in wealth
and access to education exist. But the world of lordship embraced and endorsed those differences.
Hierarchy was a valued ideal, and some people considered themselves better born than others-remember
those nineteenth-century novels with characters "of good family." The aristocrats ("aristocracy"
means "rule by the best") did not court their inferiors. They ruled them, and, if they were just
and well disposed, they protected them and furthered their interests. This is what "good lordship"
meant. Not all lords, of course, were good. Submission to cruel, arbitrary, or unhinged masters
could mean misery or death. Much of the savagery of the French Revolution is to be explained by
the fact that thousands of peasants had suffered just such a submission.
Thomas Bisson's new book concerns itself with lordship, that all-pervasive institution, in
a formative period of European history, the twelfth century (or rather the "long twelfth century,"
starting well before 1100 and continuing after 1200). It is an age that evokes for many the majesty
of the great cathedrals, like Chartres and Canterbury, the rise of a new kind of intellectual
inquiry, embodied in the questing spirit of Abelard or the emergence of the first universities,
and the flourishing of the love lyrics of the troubadours and the tales of Arthurian romance.
There is even the (now well established but initially paradoxical) notion of "the Twelfth-Century
Renaissance." This book, however, presents a different, and much darker, twelfth century.
Bisson, professor of medieval history emeritus at Harvard, is one of the leading historians
of the Middle Ages. His early work concentrated on Catalonia, a region with particularly rich
archival sources from this period; he has continually expanded both his geographical range and
the breadth of the historical questions he asks. In the 1990s he was a participant in a lively
debate on the so-called "Feudal Revolution," the theory that a transformation in the patterns
of power and authority took place in Europe in the decades around the year 1000. In those years
it was argued that older, official, and public structures of justice and administration were replaced
by new, more violent, and more localized forms, based on strongmen and their fortresses.
In his new book many of the elements of that "Feudal Revolution" recur, now extended to a later
period. Bisson's summary of developments in Catalonia in the years 1020 to 1060 presents such
a picture very clearly: there was "a terrifying collapse of public justice and the imposition
of a new order of coercive lordship over an intimidated peasantry." Moving on into the twelfth
century, the model is still recognizable: there is an "old passing world" ruled by a few nobles,
and a "burgeoning new world" of "vicious men," castle-lords and knights prepared to use violence
against the despised peasantry. This book is indeed an extended discussion of the issues arising
from that earlier debate. Bisson acknowledges that it is "not a systematic treatise, still less
a textbook," and those unfamiliar with the period may soon be lost. The book is an interpretation,
an individual assessment of European history of that period, one that takes a stand on a dozen
debated issues, often in implicit dialogue with other scholars. The main topics are lordship,
violence, and the state.
Lordship was a building block of most societies until relatively recently -- serfdom was abolished
in Russia only in 1861. Such societies were distinguished by extreme inequalities, made visible
by costume and gestures, like bowing and doffing of hats, and often supported by belief in hereditary
superiority and inferiority of blood. Collective groupings existed, but were not powerful, and
conflict and ambition were channeled more by vertical than horizontal solidarities: retainers,
servants, and other followers and dependants sought patronage from the great, not action alongside
their peers. At the highest level, lesser aristocrats became followers of great aristocrats, who
themselves would be competing for the ruler's favor. Costume dramas set in Tudor England, like
Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, convey some of the flavor of such a world.
It was the prevalence of lordship that complicates any discussion of the medieval state. Bisson
repeatedly uses the far from standard formulations "lord-king," "lord-ruler," and even "lord-archbishop"
to convey the point that every ruler of this time was also a lord, a master of men, a patriarch
of some kind, possessing his position as inheritance or property, rather than (or as well as)
holding it as an office-indeed, he writes, "there is no sign that European people in the twelfth
century thought of lordship and office as contrasting categories."
Kings were lords, but also more than lords. Like the great barons, their power was patrimonial:
that is, inherited, dynastic, based on ideas of property we might call "private." A king's kingdom
was his in the same way that a baron's landed estates were his. Transmission of power was through
father-to-son inheritance, not by election. Hence marriages, births, and deaths were the great
punctuating points of medieval politics, not caucuses and ballots. Yet a king was also more than
just the greatest of the barons. Both the Church and a long secular tradition saw him as having
special duties as a ruler, duties that might be called "public."
This dualism of lordship and the state meant that medieval rulership had two distinct faces,
which were close to being opposites: on the one hand, the grand promises made at coronation by
kings and emperors, to ensure justice and the protection of the weak and the Church; on the other
hand, the reality of being a warlord trained in mounted warfare, a leader of proud, hard men,
used to wielding lethal edged weapons, and the center of a court full of envy, ambition, and suspicion.
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was a militarized world: it was "an age of castles,"
when "those astride horses and bearing weapons routinely injured or intimidated people" -- although,
of course, they were still doing it in the thirteenth century, fourteenth century, fifteenth century,
and beyond. The Cossacks were still doing it in the twentieth century. This raises a problem.
In the absence of even a hint of dependable statistics, it is virtually impossible to weigh up
the relative violence of different periods and places of the past. We know all the difficulties
involved in dealing with modern crime figures; for the past we rarely have figures of any kind,
but must rely on stories told by chroniclers (often ecclesiastical) and interested parties (usually
plaintiffs). Historians read the laments, the individual accounts of plunder, murder, and rape,
and try to assess whether this was the way life was then, or whether it simply reflects a very
bad moment in that world. And while there can be little doubt that levels of violence were higher
in the medieval period than in modern Western peacetime societies, we, who live in the aftermath
of the worst genocidal atrocities in recorded history, should not make that claim with any complacency.
It is not difficult to gather stories of local violence and oppression from the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. But if we put these twelfth-century tales alongside those of the sixth-century
historian-bishop Gregory of Tours, whose History of the Franks reveals a world of monstrous cruelty,
we might wonder if things had really gotten much worse in the intervening six hundred years. On
one occasion, Gregory writes, a noble discovered that two of his serfs had married without his
consent: he supposedly said how delighted he was that they had at least not married serfs from
another lordship; he promised that he would not separate them, and then kept his word by having
them buried alive together. And was the twelfth century any more full of violence than, say, late
medieval France, a happy hunting ground for mercenaries and freebooters during the Hundred Years'
War?
The rulers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were trained in, and glorified, war, and expected
to live off it, as well as off the tribute of a subjugated peasantry. If such rulers formed "the
state" of their day, what are the implications? The state engages in violence; it takes away our
property. How then does it differ from a criminal enterprise? This was a question that went back
at least as far as Saint Augustine in the fourth century:
What are robber gangs, except little kingdoms? If their wickedness prospers, so that they set
up fixed abodes, occupy cities and subjugate whole populations, they then can take the name of
kingdom with impunity.
Augustine's ponderings stem from the worrying doubt that states and kingdoms, indeed all lawfully
constituted governments, are just the most successful of the robber gangs. This idea, that the
state and the criminal gang are but larger and smaller versions of the same thing, was one recurrent
strand in medieval thinking. In the words of Gregory VII, the reformist pope of the eleventh century:
Who does not know that kings and dukes had their origin in men who disregarded God and, with
blind desire and intolerable presumption, strove to dominate their equals, that is, other men,
through pride, plunder, perfidy, homicides, and every kind of crime, under the inspiration of
the lord of this world, the devil?
Westerns (like Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) often explore the thin line between
the gunslinger and the sheriff, or the poignancy of the bandit turned law officer; and the thinness
of that line is clear in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the kings of France, wishing
to concentrate their forces against the English, called upon their barons to curtail their own
feuds and vendettas: "We forbid anyone to wage war (guerre) during our war (guerre)." What the
king does and what the feuding nobles do is the same kind of thing-"war." Nowadays, we make a
sharper distinction. For instance, in the modern world, someone who takes our property away is
either a criminal or a tax collector. If the latter, then it is the state taking our property
away, and most people, of most political outlooks, distinguish the lawmakers from the lawbreakers.
Traditionally the state took away people's property in order to finance war. In Charles Tilly's
phrase, "the state made war and war made the state." The war-making, tax-raising state is indeed
the standard, familiar political unit of modern world history. If we go back in time, do we reach
a period when such an entity did not exist?
Bisson is not a scholar who throws the term "state" around freely. Indeed, the conceptual vocabulary
of his book is worth a mention. On the one hand, Bisson is happy to use the traditional but deeply
contested terms "feudal" and "feudalism," both of which even have entries in his glossary at the
end of the book. He can write of "a massive feudalizing of England by the Normans." Some historians
would do away with these concepts altogether. Even if some kinds of estates were called "fiefs"
(feoda), they argue, why should that fact lead us to a characterization of a whole society? Perhaps
a touch of self-questioning is visible in Bisson's embrace of the terminology: "'Feudal monarchy':
is this the right concept?" he asks.
In contrast to his acceptance of this traditional terminology, Bisson has a marked tendency to
use large conceptual terms with a peculiar, even personal, connotation. "Political" is an example.
The bishops of this period, he says, "vied with one another for visible precedence," yet such
struggles "were not political disputes; they were concerned with status, not process." A footnote
refers us to an infamous incident when the archbishop of York, noticing that the archbishop of
Canterbury had a seat higher than his, kicked it over and refused to be seated until he had a
seat as high. Now, one might reasonably class this as a nursery tantrum, but why should not a
public dispute over precedence count as "political"?
This wariness about the term "political" (usually in scare quotes in the book) is based on the
idea that lordship "was personal, affective, and unpolitical in nature." Might it not be clearer
to say that the politics of that time was not the same as the politics of ours? It may be that
we have here an example of a recurrent dilemma, either to say that the power relations of long
ago are not politics at all, or to say that they are, but that we must differentiate between medieval
and modern politics. Similarly, we may say that the superior authorities of that time cannot be
called states at all; or we can argue that they were, but that we must distinguish medieval and
modern states.
One of the most important examples of Bisson's idiosyncratic use of general terms is his treatment
of the word "government." He is reluctant even to apply the term to Norman England. "Royal lordship"
was not the same thing as "government." Sometimes government is completely absent. Late-twelfth-century
Europe was "an ungoverned society," although there were also "proto-governments" at this time;
by the mid-thirteenth century "something like government hovered." This unwillingness to see the
rulers of the central Middle Ages as constituting "governments" is to be explained partly because,
in Bisson's view, the people of that time lacked any understanding of the state as distinct from
lordship, but also because there are certain criteria for government, as distinct from lordship,
that the rulers did not meet. He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social
purpose.
"Accountability" is an important term in Bisson's historical vocabulary. Sometimes it means
quite literally the rendering of financial accounts, like the Catalan fiscal records which Bisson
himself has edited. He emphasizes the birth, in the twelfth century, of "a newly searching and
flexible accountability," as simple surveys of resources and fixed revenues, which can be found
from early in the Middle Ages, were supplemented by balance sheets of incoming and outgoing assets.
The English Pipe Rolls, annual audits of income and expenditures of the royal sheriffs, are a
classic example. The English Dialogue of the Exchequer of 1178, or thereabouts, reveals a department
of government that is professional, with its own technical expertise, and (in the Dialogue) its
own handbook or manual. Slightly later, in 1202, there appears what has been called "the first
budget of the French monarchy."
But Bisson also uses the word in a broader sense: accountability means official responsibility,
answerability. He associates it with the idea of office. Record-keeping is in fact one test of
official status. And true government is "the exercise of power for social purpose," "social purpose"
perhaps to be glossed here as "the common good." It is the emergence of "official conduct aimed
at social purpose," linked, interestingly, with the rise of public taxation, that, for Bisson,
signals the shift of the balance from lordship to government in the thirteenth century.
However, the chronology of state formation in the Middle Ages is a disputed issue. Some historians
talk as if there were a stateless period at some point in the central Middle Ages. Others hold
the view that, to take one notable example, the kingdom of England of the year 1000 was not only
a state but a strong, centralized, and pervasive state. If taxation and a standardized coinage
are, in Bisson's words, parts of "a new model of associative power" around the year 1200, then
the uniform land tax and centralized currency of eleventh-century England show that that model
already existed in some places two hundred years earlier.
What cannot be disputed is that over the course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,
the state became increasingly bureaucratic. The documents produced by the English government in
the eleventh century could be placed on one large table (even given that monumental oddity, Domesday
Book, the extensive survey of land ownership made in 1086 under William the Conqueror). The documents
produced by the English government in the thirteenth century fill whole rooms and could never
be read in one person's lifetime. Written records supplemented or replaced older oral forms of
information gathering, testimony, or command (Michael Clanchy's 1979 masterpiece, From Memory
to Written Record, analyzes this development for precociously bureaucratic England in the Norman
and Plantagenet period). But more bureaucratic government does not necessarily mean less violent,
or even less arbitrary, government.
Historians like bureaucracy, because it feeds their hunger for written sources, the raw material
with which they work; but the bond between historians and government is deeper than that. The
historical profession grew up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in close symbiosis
with government. Not only was the heart of historical study usually the archives produced by past
governments, but many of the students and teachers in those generations, the first to study history
as a discipline, entered government service. Charles Homer Haskins, the founding father of American
medieval scholarship, was an adviser to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
He was also the teacher of Joseph Strayer, himself the teacher of Bisson. Such academic genealogies
can be overplayed, but there is no doubt that all three great medievalists, Haskins, Strayer,
and Bisson, demonstrate a deep-rooted concern with the techniques and records of administration,
with the procedures of the bureaucrats and officials. Strayer was as familiar with the modern
as with the medieval version, since he worked for the CIA One of his most vigorous pieces of
work is entitled On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (1970; one might notice the emphasis
on both the "origins" and the "modern"; we live in the modern state; its origins go back a long
way, but the state of those days was not the state of ours). The book contains Strayer's cogent
definition of feudalism as "public powers in private hands," with that confident assurance that
these adjectives, "public" and "private," convey a simple and evident distinction that will arouse
no intellectual discomfort in readers. By contrast, Bisson's book is generated in part by his
wrestling with such concepts and their implications.
Bisson's book is called The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. "Crisis" means a vitally important
or decisive stage in the progress of anything. But in that sense, any century of human history
is a crisis. One might even say that this is simply the condition of human life-we are always
in an Age of Crisis (although the situation might not always be as alarming as today's). Bisson
acknowledges that "'crisis' was not a common word in the verbiage of the day," and the one instance
he cites of the contemporary use of the word (in its Latin form discrimen) refers to a succession
crisis in Poland in 1180. He wishes to see the various distinct political crises he discusses
(such as the Saxon revolt of 1075, the communal insurrection in Laon in 1111, the "anarchy" of
King Stephen's reign) as part of "the same wider crisis of multiplied knights and castles."
However, a case can be made that the levels of violence and disorder in this period were largely
dictated by the patterns of high politics rather than by a deep-seated structural malaise. Disputed
successions, or the accession of a child-king, could indeed upset the world of knights and castles,
unleashing the strongmen and their castle-based predatory attacks. Yet a regime of knights and
castles could also form the basis for fairly stable feudal monarchies, such as one sees in France
and England for most of the thirteenth century. If this is so, there were, of course, crises in
the twelfth century, but no Crisis.
The violence and greed of European knights of this period were directed beyond the local victims.
Bisson's "long twelfth century" was not only an age of predatory lords in their castles bullying
their peasantry but also an age of expansionary, one could say colonialist, violence. Christian
armies, led by these predatory lords, crossed into Muslim lands, capturing Toledo in 1085, Jerusalem
in 1099, and landing in North Africa in 1148; they destroyed the last remnants of West Slav paganism
in the Baltic in 1168; they even turned their formidable fighting strength against their estranged
Christian cousins in the Greek East, and sacked Constantinople in 1204. The energies generated
in the conflicts between mounted men in the West, and the expertise they acquired in subjugating
and fleecing the local peasantry, could be exported. The story of European violence is far from
unique, but it was in the central Middle Ages that it took a form that shaped the subsequent history
of the world.
A traditional view of the development of European society in the central Middle Ages, a view
to be found in textbooks past and present, is that the empire of Charlemagne (747–814) and his
successors had important elements of public authority, in the form of officials with delegated
powers and courts open to all free men, but that this regime was replaced, around the year 1000,
with a heavily militarized and violent world of strongmen in castles, lording it over peasants.
Over the course of time this world was, in its turn, transformed by the persistent efforts of
the kings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries into a network of more centralized and bureaucratic
states, which led ultimately to modern systems of government. Like every model at this level of
generality, as long as people who know something about the subject have created it, there must
be some truth in this picture, however little it can be the whole truth. But we might have questions.
Was the "old public order" of Charlemagne and his successors so public and so ordered? Was the
subsequent regime so close to anarchy?
Bisson adds to this traditional account by thinking deeply about the benefits and disadvantages
of government. He is very aware of the inhumanity of the past he studies. He refers, with allusion
to the words of the twelfth-century cleric John of Salisbury, to "hunter-lords." John was talking
about the way that aristocrats were obsessed with the chase, but we might apply his phrase in
a wider sense. Since some theorists believe that human society is imprinted with its origins in
hunting packs and the mentality of the pack, the predatory lordship of the central Middle Ages
could be conceived of as just such a hunting pack-but its prey being fellow human beings, rather
than beasts.
Confronting this world of hunter and hunted, Bisson is inspired by attractively humane impulses.
In an earlier book, Tormented Voices, a microhistorical analysis of complaints raised by Catalan
peasants in the twelfth century, he stated explicitly that he was attempting "an essay in compassionate
history." Likewise in this book. And he looks for public, accountable, official remedies for suffering
and oppression. He seems sympathetic to the idea that "power is rightly oriented towards the social
needs of people." "If ever government was the solution, not the problem," he writes, "it was so
for European peoples in the twelfth century." Is the modern world so happy in its governments?
Whether we should endure the violence of the state, as a defense against the yet more fearful
violence of our neighbors, and whether there comes a point where the violence of the state must
be resisted are great recurrent questions of moral and political life. The questions raised by
Bisson's book remain open.
@4 psychohistorian.. and i agree with you in that too.. it has to do with the packaging and a
tendency in people to identify with the packaging - in this example 'made in the usa' as some
sort of rationale for that social sickness many suffer from called 'patriotism'.. it seems to
be especially prevalent in the worst nations, the usa at this point in time being the focal point
for much of this marketing...
@ okie farmer who added a loooong comment that contained the following about the definition of
government:
"
He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social purpose.
"
The narrative provided did not get into a discussion of "social purpose" but I think that it
is an important concept. The example I would posit is the original humanistic motto of the US,
E Pluribus Unum which was instantiated by government creations of the time like the pony express....true
socialism, if you need an ism to cling to. Social Security INSURANCE is another example of an
instantiation of social purpose.
The original US motto was replaced by In God We Trust in the mid 1950's which, IMO, destroyed
the social purpose concept of government and instead tells you to trust the leaders and religious
institutions.....reversion to kings and feudalism.
You get the government you demand. What sort of world do you want to pass to the children?
"... A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and intimate, and it will have broader implications. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too ..."
"... An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance that allows free government to function successfully. ..."
"... "When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows what will come out?" ..."
"... Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people. ..."
"... What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security, and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees. ..."
"... Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious of what NSA can do." ..."
...Among the pertinent definitions of privacy from the Oxford English Dictionary: "freedom from
disturbance or intrusion," "intended only for the use of a particular person or persons," belonging
to "the property of a particular person." Also: "confidential, not to be disclosed to others." Among
others, the OED quotes the playwright Arthur Miller, describing the McCarthy era: "Conscience was
no longer a private matter but one of state administration."
Privacy is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things-the innards of your head
and heart, the workings of your mind-and the boundary between those things and the world outside.
A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and
intimate, and it will have broader implications. That is the view of Nat Hentoff, the great
journalist and civil libertarian. He is 88 now and on fire on the issue of privacy. "The media has
awakened," he told me. "Congress has awakened, to some extent." Both are beginning to realize "that
there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from
all other people, and one of them is privacy."
Mr. Hentoff sees excessive government surveillance as violative of the Fourth Amendment, which
protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires that warrants be issued only "upon probable cause
. . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
But Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too. About a
year ago he went up to Harvard to speak to a class. He asked, he recalled: "How many of you realize
the connection between what's happening with the Fourth Amendment with the First Amendment?" He told
the students that if citizens don't have basic privacies-firm protections against the search and
seizure of your private communications, for instance-they will be left feeling "threatened." This
will make citizens increasingly concerned "about what they say, and they do, and they think." It
will have the effect of constricting freedom of expression. Americans will become careful about what
they say that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and then too careful about what they say that
can be understood. The inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.
All of a sudden, the room became quiet. "These were bright kids, interested, concerned, but they
hadn't made an obvious connection about who we are as a people." We are "free citizens in a self-governing
republic."
Mr. Hentoff once asked Justice William Brennan "a schoolboy's question": What is the most important
amendment to the Constitution? "Brennan said the First Amendment, because all the other ones come
from that. If you don't have free speech you have to be afraid, you lack a vital part of what it
is to be a human being who is free to be who you want to be." Your own growth as a person will in
time be constricted, because we come to know ourselves by our thoughts.
He wonders if Americans know who they are compared to what the Constitution says they are.
Mr. Hentoff's second point: An entrenched surveillance state will change and distort the balance
that allows free government to function successfully. Broad and intrusive surveillance will,
definitively, put government in charge. But a republic only works, Mr. Hentoff notes, if public officials
know that they-and the government itself-answer to the citizens. It doesn't work, and is distorted,
if the citizens must answer to the government. And that will happen more and more if the government
knows-and you know-that the government has something, or some things, on you. "The bad thing is you
no longer have the one thing we're supposed to have as Americans living in a self-governing republic,"
Mr. Hentoff said. "The people we elect are not your bosses, they are responsible to us." They must
answer to us. But if they increasingly control our privacy, "suddenly they're in charge if they know
what you're thinking."
This is a shift in the democratic dynamic. "If we don't have free speech then what can we do if
the people who govern us have no respect for us, may indeed make life difficult for us, and in fact
belittle us?"
If massive surveillance continues and grows, could it change the national character? "Yes, because
it will change free speech."
What of those who say, "I have nothing to fear, I don't do anything wrong"? Mr. Hentoff suggests
that's a false sense of security.
"When you have this amount of privacy invasion put into these huge data banks, who knows
what will come out?"
Or can be made to come out through misunderstanding the data, or finagling, or mischief of one
sort or another.
"People say, 'Well I've done nothing wrong so why should I worry?' But that's too easy a way
to get out of what is in our history-constant attempts to try to change who we are as Americans."
Asked about those attempts, he mentions the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Red Scare
of the 1920s and the McCarthy era. Those times and incidents, he says, were more than specific scandals
or news stories, they were attempts to change our nature as a people.
What of those who say they don't care what the federal government does as long as it keeps
us safe? The threat of terrorism is real, Mr. Hentoff acknowledges. Al Qaeda is still here, its networks
are growing. But you have to be careful about who's running U.S. intelligence and U.S. security,
and they have to be fully versed in and obey constitutional guarantees.
"There has to be somebody supervising them who knows what's right. . . . Terrorism is not going
to go away. But we need someone in charge of the whole apparatus who has read the Constitution."
Advances in technology constantly up the ability of what government can do. Its technological
expertise will only become deeper and broader.
"They think they're getting to how you think. The technology is such that with the masses of
databases, then privacy will get even weaker."
Mr. Hentoff notes that J. Edgar Hoover didn't have all this technology. "He would be so envious
of what NSA can do."
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
– 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
– 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
Unfortunatly, under neoliberalism it's not people who vote. It's only large corporations which use
two party system to put forward two canditates that will follow thier agenda. quote "Unfortunately
the US propaganda system is now so entrenched and so heavily financed by the financial elites that such
campaigns as that by Sanders, admirable as it is, have no chance of changing the US system. The only
thing that will is violent revolution and that is highly unlikely given the monopoly of legitimate force
commanded by those elites."
Notable quotes:
"... Bernie Sanders is the first candidate since Carter to actually project a sense of positive values and integrity. ..."
"... Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box. ..."
"... The function of the sheepdog candidate is to give left activists and voters a reason, however illusory, to believe there's a place of influence for them inside the Democratic party,... ..."
This is a good man. He is Independent, running as a Democrat as 3rd party candidates are doomed
from the start. He is elderly, so choosing his running mate will be extremely important in terms
of his electibility. Elizabeth Warren? If she won't run for President, maybe this is the ticket?
So far this is the ONLY candidate whose desire for "change" matches what folks want. The other
potential candidates are known sleight of hand change artists. And I use the word "artist" in
the way one might describe someone who draws stick figures. Badly.
lutesongs
Bernie Sanders is the first candidate since Carter to actually project a sense of positive values
and integrity. He is the frontrunner for most Americans who care about fairness and a sustainable
future. Don't allow the corporate media to marginalize him by innuendo or non-coverage. Don't
allow the Democratic Party to turn a blind eye to the issues. Don't allow the Repubs to steal
another election through blatant electronic voter fraud, hacking the voting machines and gaming
the results. Start a campaign for voters to photograph their results and compile independent vote
counts. An honest election would likely favor a populist with integrity. Bernie Sanders is the
one.
BabyLyon
The country is ruled by greedy corporation, all governmental authorities are corrupted to the
limit, unstoppable wars and overall torpidity and all these candidates are able to offer is doubtful
solutions for two-or three "serious" problems. Either they're blind or just fool American people.
PhilippeOrlando
This population is too stupid to elect a guy like Sanders. With a median household income of 50K/year
it will vote, one more time, for people who don't represent it. The only two running candidates
who represents 99% of the population are Sanders and Stein, the Green candidate. All others will
cater first to the wealthy. Clinton will be chosen over Sanders because for some weird reason
'mericans vote for the guy they think will fight for who they think they'll be one day, not for
whom they are now. I think it's about time to stop feeling sorry for most Americans, half of them
won't bother to go vote anyway, and a huge majority will keep voting for the wrong guys.
Justin Weaver -> PhilippeOrlando
I totally get you, but I think that a lot of Americans truly believe that they ARE prosperous
even if they have minimal savings, no job security, and are only one medical disaster away from
bankruptcy. Many American's have really bought the American dream narrative even if they have
little chance of achieving it.
patimac54
Bernie's brother Larry, long time UK resident, stood for the Green Party in my constituency in
the recent elections. He has spent his adult life working for others, particularly carers, and
is a man of great integrity and intelligence. Of course he didn't win but was by far the most
impressive candidate at the local hustings, and thereby exposed the audience to a viewpoint most
will not have experienced previously.
If Bernie is half the man his brother is, US voters have a fine candidate, and similarly he may
open up the electorate's eyes to the idea that it is possible to believe in something better.
amorezu
A man that openly calls himself a 'democratic socialist' will never win in the USA. People here
have an allergy to the word 'socialism'. Unfortunately that allergy is causing them to be OK with
living in a de-facto oligarchy.
Observer453
Something I love about Bernie Sanders is that he is straight forward, honest in his views and
cannot be bought. I imagine he's something of a mystery to the many 'politicians', as Barack Obama
recently described himself.
Someone that actually thinks about what is best for the people, not for himself. Bernie calls
himself a Socialist, if that is what Socialism means - and caring for the environment - sign me
up.
jdanforth
Part of an analysis of the Sanders campaign, written three weeks ago by Bruce A. Dixon:
Bernie Sanders is this election's Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the Democratic
party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running
for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to the left of
the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination. Sheepdogs
are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into
the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party,
either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box.
1984 and 88 the sheepdog candidate was Jesse Jackson. In 92 it was California governor Jerry
Brown. In 2000 and 2004 the designated sheepdog was Al Sharpton, and in 2008 it was Dennis
Kucinich. This year it's Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. The function of the sheepdog candidate
is to give left activists and voters a reason, however illusory, to believe there's a place
of influence for them inside the Democratic party,...
Doro Wynant jdanforth
Except:
1. Not one of the candidates cited had the legislative background that Sanders has -- not the
duration in office, not the proven appeal to a diverse constituency, not the proven ability to
work respectfully with unlike-minded peers.
2. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson clearly never had a chance; they're not at all in the same
category.
3. Poverty is at a 50-year high in the US, and many once-middle-class, educated, professional
persons (myself included) are -- thanks to the recession -- part of the nouveau poor. Even the
formerly-non-activist-types are angry, and they're paying attention to his talk of income inequality
-- and Sanders has more credibility as a potential reformer than does wealthy insider HRC.
4. What Dixon condescendingly refers to as "left activists and voters [who have no influence
in the party]" are in fact people with mainstream ideas about building and maintaining a stable
society. The right, having skewed the debate over the past 25 years, luvvvvvs to pretend that
these centrist, humane ideas are wacky and way-out when in fact they're, well, mainstream ideas.
Who among us doesn't want a safe, clean world in which to live, love, work, raise our families?
Not only is that not a wacky idea, it's a very -- GASP -- Christian idea/ideal!
Jon Phillips
If you vote for Hillary you are accepting that America is now an oligarchy. How else can you
explain the amount of time the Bush & Clinton families have occupied the White House?
300 million Americans and 2 families have occupied the White House for 20 of the last 28 years........
RickyRat
This business comes down to just two choices: You can vote for Pennywise the Clown in either
his Republican or her Democratic persona, along with the creature's Robber Baron backers, or you
can vote for Sanders. You could cast a protest vote somewhere else, but doing that will just further
the cause of the Robber Barons. Let's take back the wheel of the American political process!
Bertmax RickyRat
That is a fallacy called "false equivalency". It is wrong to say that both parties are to blame.
Sure, both have their share of corruption, but at least the Democrats are pushing legislation
that actually benefits the 90%. I am a member of neither party, since I don't believe in supporting
only a narrow set of ideals one way or the other, but the GOP are the true scourge of my country.
People like Sanders and Warren actually care about this country.
A recent poll had Bernie "lagged behind the favorite by a margin of 63% to 13%" Is that among
the fake people "Hillary Who" has supporting her?
He's probably doing much better among real people.
RickyRat Chris Plante
There is a machine out there, running full blast. Sanders is the wrench the machine's owners fear.
Jeannie Parker
I take offense at the suggestion he's from far left field. It's absurd to say in the least. He's
been drafted by us. He's running for us. All of us. I admin on few Bernie Sanders' pages on FB
and I can tell you with all certainty that the folks getting behind this man and his campaign
are coming from across the political spectrum.
The beauty of it is, he has a thirty some odd years long record that cannot be altered.
This man has and always will work for the interests of everyone.
No one can listen to him and his policy positions and not get behind him.
Bernie Sanders is coming and a revolution is coming with him.
No amount of money can sway us or turn us from our goal of seeing this fine gentleman ascend to
the highest office of our Land. Cheers.
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
– 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
"... At the end of the day Trump isn't a real national-chauvinist, the compromise term I'll settle for here instead of you-know-what. He's a backbench member of the neoliberal ruling class, and a participant in the ongoing game in which two neoliberal electoral blocs make vague rhetorical overtures toward leftism and national-chauvinism while taking turns implementing different aspects of a thoroughly neoliberal governing agenda. ..."
"... the greater danger this US election season was Democrats' decision to validate and legitimize the so-called "moderate Republicans" who for decades have been laying the groundwork for Trump and all the future Trumps to come. ..."
"... In that vein, MisterMr touches on the crucial point that fascism or national-chauvinism is a tool purposefully utilized by the liberal center to divert economic discontent that might otherwise find a home on the left. ..."
"... Politics is about priorities. You don't need a policy statement "dropping" someone to drop them. All you have to do is make them one of your lowest priorities. ..."
Patrick 12.01.16 at 6:34 pm
88
"Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the political
right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism. "
And the political left has been increasingly dominated by neoliberalism.
faustusnotes, to blur the divide between the neoliberal center and the socialist left is to fall
totally and completely into the trap. At the end of the day Trump isn't a real national-chauvinist,
the compromise term I'll settle for here instead of you-know-what. He's a backbench member of
the neoliberal ruling class, and a participant in the ongoing game in which two neoliberal electoral
blocs make vague rhetorical overtures toward leftism and national-chauvinism while taking turns
implementing different aspects of a thoroughly neoliberal governing agenda.
The fact that all these "never Trump" Republicans are now clamoring for roles in what's predictably
shaping up as a neoliberal administration with a national-chauvinist veneer should validate what
the left has been saying all along: that Trump as a politician is not in any meaningful sense
unprecedented, his rhetoric proceeds logically or even inevitably from the long (and bipartisan)
tradition of national-chauvinist ideology in US electoral politics, and if anything the greater
danger this US election season was Democrats' decision to validate and legitimize the so-called
"moderate Republicans" who for decades have been laying the groundwork for Trump and all the future
Trumps to come.
... ... ...
In that vein, MisterMr touches on the crucial point that fascism or national-chauvinism
is a tool purposefully utilized by the liberal center to divert economic discontent that might
otherwise find a home on the left.
"WLGR, where is the democratic policy statement that they are "dropping" the interests
of blue collar workers?"
This isn't a clear way of analyzing the problem. Politics is about priorities. You don't
need a policy statement "dropping" someone to drop them. All you have to do is make them one of
your lowest priorities.
"... By Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book is ..."
"... So, yes, Trump's critique of American generalship possesses merit, but whether he knows it or not, the question truly demanding his attention as the incoming commander-in-chief isn't: Who should I hire (or fire) to fight my wars? Instead, far more urgent is: Does further war promise to solve any of my problems? ..."
"... As a candidate, Trump vowed to "defeat radical Islamic terrorism," destroy ISIS, "decimate al-Qaeda," and "starve funding for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah." Those promises imply a significant escalation of what Americans used to call the Global War on Terrorism. ..."
"... In that regard, his promise to "quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS" offers a hint of what is to come. ..."
"... To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment, because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that swamp. ..."
"... Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp - if he genuinely seeks to "Make America Great Again" - then he would extricate the United States from war. His liquidation of Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom's Sentinel and Inherent Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive precedent for how to proceed. ..."
"... Celebrity Apprentice ..."
"... Which brings us, finally, to that third question: To the extent that deficiencies at the top of the military hierarchy do affect the outcome of wars, what can be done to fix the problem? ..."
"... The most expeditious approach: purge all currently serving three- and four-star officers; then, make a precondition for promotion to those ranks confinement in a reeducation camp run by Iraq and Afghanistan war amputees, with a curriculum designed by Veterans for Peace . Graduation should require each student to submit an essay reflecting on these words of wisdom from U.S. Grant himself: "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword." ..."
"... this is the double failure of Washington. You might give them some credit if they were competent imperialists. But they are the worst of all worlds. They are reckless imperialists who can't even achieve their own stated aims with a modicum of competence. Real imperialists of the past would be rolling around laughing at this lot. ..."
"... They're not imperialists, they're corporatists. Graft is the object, and given that construction companies like Halliburton and mercs like Xe don't bankroll Ds, and since bombing campaigns are easy to keep up/out of the news, the money has now shifted to drones. ..."
"... I think they are imperialists in the sense that, as William Appleman Williams and others have argued, their primary orienting goal is to extend and sustain the US dominance of a world market. ..."
"... If you read what US foreign policy and military planners were saying in after WW2, that's an inescapable conclusion. Your focus on the corporation takes as a given what those planners have felt they need to strategically and militarily secure. Bacevich consistently avoids this issue and so ends up promoting a naive and implicitly hopeful view of US motives and the flexibility with which they can be pursued. ..."
"... It's really quite something to go back and read Dean Acheson testifying to a congressional committee that, unlike the Soviet Union, the US requires steady expansion of the world market to survive. He sounds like Rosa Luxemburg. ..."
"... The US is a nation of racketeers, which are perfecting the corruption of services into means of converting tax revenue into private profits. Some of these services are in fact essential, all have been – at least until recently – unassailable regardless of merit. Examples are housing, education, health care, private transportation and of course "national security". The rackets trace back to the exceptional US economic circumstances of WW2, and the leading racket was well established at the end of the Eisenhower presidency (his CYA address notwithstanding). ..."
"... For the "self-licking ice-cream cone" of military/security/intelligence/public safety expenditures to continue to grow exponentially, it is not only unnecessary for the tax-purchased services and goods to be functional, let alone deliver results – it is positively counterproductive. The question is not whether any captured government institution is dysfunctional, the question is merely whether and how the profitability it delivers to the "accounting control frauds" in charge of the incumbents can be increased. ..."
"... Success in any enterprise requires the definition of a goal. I believe that the goal of U.S. military action in MENA is two-fold: display fealty to Israel and the kings of the Arabian Peninsula; and to grow the corporate coffers of the MIC here at home. Defined in that way, the U.S. military has "hit it outta da park." Winning? Winning was a pipe dream of the likes of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Cheney knew better and took GWB along for a ride. ..."
"... I am highly suspicious that publicly stated goals of the wars were the actual targets. My take is that the actual goal has always been to keep those places in chaos; on US terms and under its control. with a safe US military base to punch those second-rate nations if necessary; By that measure, I believe both the Iraq and Afghan invasions were a success but they cannot pat each other's backs publicly. ..."
"... I think that may have been his point, albeit delivered obliquely, as in his statement that "some wars should not be fought"; his quote from Grant, "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword", as well as elsewhere in the piece. ..."
"... Drain the swamp indeed, extricate the military from our national misadventures and retire the top brass more intent on career advancement that the true needs of the nation. Problems solved and we can move on as a nation. Will the world fall apart, if true men and women of honor step forward, I highly doubt it. ..."
"... Pretty radical stuff actually, but something that resonates with many people, people without a voice. Change will come from within the military, and it is refreshing to hear words of sanity form those inside the military system-Tulsi Gabbard for one. ..."
"... There isn't too much of an incentive to win if you're a careerist either which many of them are since the military is a giant welfare program/bureaucracy largely based on licking boots to advance. It might be nice to add another accolade to that fat stack of attendance ribbons on their chests but that's all it is. Also, even if you were super serious about winning the war look at what happened to Shinseki when he clashed with the civilian leadership over the numbers of troops needed to pacify Iraq post-war. He was marginalized and finally canned altogether. ..."
"... James P. Levy , Ph.D. FRHistS, a man who never hid behind a goddamned nom de plume ..."
"... Bacevich has made the point (as have others) that when the draft was eliminated voters no longer had skin in the game and became ambivalent which is why the founding fathers set up the system with the citizen soldier as a cornerstone principle. ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich, as usual, writes a great article. But Grant and Sherman benefited from having a war with a clear goal: destroy the Confederate army and its government. I hesitate to call anything happening with the US in the Middle East or North Africa or SE Asia a "war" of that nature. There are no clear objectives. There are no criteria for an end of the conflict. ..."
"... Instead, this looks a whole lot more like the North's occupation of the South during Reconstruction. We all know how that ended: the North had to pull itself out after an economic depression, more or less leading to a reign of terror through Jim Crow. ..."
"... You make a good, concise case for what the real objectives are for these unending expensive wars. Of course, this level of clarity re these goals are seldom stated to the populace at large. Rather we're mostly fed bullshit about terrrrists and being kept "safe" and other noodleheaded claptrap. ..."
"... Yes, as I said above, the neocons objective have been an abject failure. They display incompetence at all levels. And yet nobody pays the price. And the fact that the neocons don't try to fire the generals who failed (as numerous political leaders in the past have done) is a reflection of both their incompetence and the fact that the wars have become the ultimate in self licking ice creams. ..."
"... Ordinary people make the mistake of believing that the current crop of leaders have their interests in mind at all. They do not. If Clintons Public/Private mumbo jumbo didn't clear you of that thinking I don't know what will. ..."
"... The proper way to think about these things is the neocon plan is succeeding wonderfully but they are truly too short sighted- i.e. stupid in the long term- to understand the consequences. They understand short term profit completely and how to dispense physical power but little else. Consequences and payback are externalized in their world ..."
"... 30 years in lockup for Chelsea Manning is a warning for those, I suspect, who want to say "enough is enough." I also believe that your ability to move up the hierarchy to make those decisions to keep fighting is determined by your willingness to continue to see through the neoliberal project. ..."
"... I disagree to the extent that the ideological neocons had a very clearly stated and unambiguous strategic purpose – re-engineering the world as America's corporate playground, with any possible competitor (i.e. Russia and China) firmly penned in. This meant replacing all the mid-size States which were still refusing to be part of the Washington Consensus. ..."
"... Its no secret or mystery about what they were seeking. In this, they have failed – Afghanistan remains in chaos, Iraq is more Iran controlled than US controlled, Iran still refuses to come to heel, and Russia and China are making increasing inroads to Central Asia, eastern Europe, Africa and South America. The neocon project is slowly unravelling, with Trump hopefully about to put it out of its misery. ..."
"... There are now more people in Washington who's job depends on finding more wars to fight than there are people employed to stop wars. This is the neocons fault, but its not the neocons project – they are just useful idiots for the profiteers. ..."
"... I don't make a distinction between the neocons and the profiteers. The worst possible outcome from this neocon disaster would be for the profiteers, the rentiers, to be able to reconstitute their hold over society- or to hold onto it for that matter. What will it take, complete destruction of the biosphere for people to understand that cooperation is the only means of survival? ..."
"... Part of the problem with the U.S military is that the Army sees enemy #2 as the Air Force and Navy. Gotta get those dollars. Another problem is that the U.S fails at the oft quote dictum of Sun Tzu, know yourself and know your enemy. ..."
"... In America's defense they are great at logistics side of war. ..."
"... Generals and admirals are all adept politicians and bureaucrats. they have to be to get to that level in the structure. War-fighters, no so much, with few exceptions, https://fabiusmaximus.com/2008/01/14/millennium-challenge/ . ..."
"... It's long seemed to me one of the many failings of the species is that some of us produce wise counsel that actually looks to the horizon and beyond, like the fundamental questions articulated by Sun Tzu about whether to commit the peasants who pay for it to a prolonged foreign war with long supply lines that will bankrupt the nation - http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html . And then the idiot few that gain, psychically or monetarily, from conflict, blow that kind of fundamental test of wisdom off and "go to war" or more accurately "send other people to hack and blast each other while the senders get rich." ..."
"... So is it just the inevitable case that Empires rise up, loot, murder, grow the usual huge corrupt capitals and the militaries to support the looting and keep the mopes in line, and finally succumb to some kind of wasting disease where all the corruption and interest-seeking honeycombs and finally collapses the structure? Is there no other way for humans to organize, because so many of us have the drive to dominate and to grab all the pleasure and stuff we can get away with? ..."
"... I've grown up hearing commentaries that echo this one as relating to our foreign policy adventures since WWII, and if you take a results oriented approach, they're probably true. But having gone to school for foreign policy work and talking to people who were involved with the foreign policy apparatus (doing the leg work, not the people at the top who basically have no idea what they're doing), I've become more and more convinced that it's simply incompetence. ..."
"... I think that the people dictating policy are basically a bunch of Tom Friedmans, who are utterly convinced that their empirically wrong views about how policy is executed are correct. Look at Iraq in the aftermath. Not only did they get not understand that the Sunnis and Shia might not have the best of intentions towards each other, but US companies aren't even getting all the plum oil contracts. Now surely a country that guarantees the security of the Iraqi elite could ensure that it's own companies got the best deals? ..."
"... First and foremost the US is the greatest spender in weapons, and why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them? The first objective is to use the weapons and avoid piling a dusting mountain of missiles, bombs, or any other kind of armament. Many wars are mainly the testing battlefields for new weaponry. ..."
"... Spreading fear might not be the best strategy but is has clearly been one of the main objectives in some cases, particularly Iraq. ..."
"... The best case of a president looking for an excuse to use the weapons and spread fear was G.W. Bush and Iraq v2.0. The fact that Bush excuses were clumsily manufactured and exposed without shame in the UN is a feature. It means: when we decide that we will attack you nothing will stop us. No democratic control and no international rules can stop us. ..."
"... The Bush Administration arrogantly assumed that all peoples are enough alike that they can be rescued the same way as Western Europeans were - after the Nazis were driven off. This premis was an epic error for the ages. The entire Washington establishment - to include the Pentagon - and the MSM went along with this premis. In many ways they STILL buy into it. ..."
"... You never read MSM articles questioning whether Iraqis or Afghans can buy into republican democracy. The assumption is that the whole world is waiting with baited breath to achieve this Western political-cultural ideal. ..."
"... The correct solution, in 2009, was to NOT expand Afghan operations. I spent many an hour arguing the folly of said expansion. It was inevitable that after any expansion there would be a massive draw down - which would destablize the Kabul government. ..."
"... Pull out of Syria entirely. Stop funding al Nusrah - which is an acknowledged branch of al Qaeda. Egypt has entered the conflict on the side of Assad, Iran and Russia, most recently. The "White Hats" are a fraud. ..."
"... US is caught in a typical occupation trap, where they want a subservient regime that is under their control. Subservient regimes are subservient because they lack a large power base and are dependent on their foreign backers. A subservient regime with a power base does not stay subservient for long, they quickly develop an independent streak at which point you have to overthrow them and install a different, weaker regime. ..."
"... Stabilizing a subservient regime with a weak power base requires US presence and boots on the ground. A subservient regime with a strong power base that can support itself quickly stops being subservient and has to be replaced. A "victory", where US troops would not be necessary for the regime support, means loss of control over the regime. ..."
"... So US is stuck in a loop. Political considerations force them to build up a regime to a point of independence, only to have to tear it down when it looks like it might go against American interests. US military takes the blame because they have to fight the latest insurgent group CIA built up to effect regime change. ..."
"... I would never gainsay that many technocratic, careerist general officers might be looking for ways to enhance their glory and bid up their asking price for CNN slots and board positions at Lockheed Martin. But the swamp you seek to drain has an apex predator; wealthy and powerful civilians. I seem to recall some generals, Eric Shinseki and Jay Garner come to mind, who tried to bring a little truth to power and avoid the biggest mistakes of the Iraq war. ..."
"... Eisenhower's prophecy has metastasized so deeply into the body politic, only a profound change in the views of the citizenry could possibly make a difference. Short of economic or military upheaval, it's hard to see how do we do this when our best paying jobs are strategically sprinkled across the country, making every procurement and every base sacrosanct to even the most liberal, libertarian or even peace-nick politicians? So, isn't the swamp much larger that the military officer corps? Drain this one part, and it would fill back in rather quickly if that was the main thrust of our attack on this nightmare. ..."
"... I suspect Trump is headed to the White House partly because a significant number of people concluded that social upheaval will be hastened by his administration, and that the consequences, whatever they may be, will be worth bearing so that we can rebuild on the ashes of the neoliberal/neoconservative era. ..."
"... Trump played the rubes about safety with his vitriolic Anti-Muslim rhetoric. Although Trump claimed not to want to continue the wars, I seriously doubt he'll do one damn thing to make improvements in this regard. ..."
"... Only Mussolini and Goering had a leg up on MacArthur regarding bling. ..."
"... Unfolding the Future of the Long War, a 2008 RAND Corporation report, was sponsored by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capability Integration Centre. It set out US government policy options for prosecuting what it described as "the long war" against "adversaries" in "the Muslim world," who are "bent on forming a unified Islamic world to supplant Western dominance". ..."
"... Well, the US military's performance in WW1 and WW2, often against weak opposition, was less than stunning. They won their battles with massively superior firepower, for the most part. ..."
"... But the real problem does, indeed, lie in Washington; Accepting that the US strategy in Iraq, for example, was indeed to create a pliable, pro-western democratic state, it's not clear that there was actually much the military could do when it started to unravel because of the inherent stupidity of the idea. ..."
"... Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like 370,000 combatants and noncombatants have been killed in the various theaters of operations where U.S. forces have been active. Although modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest of death is hardly trivial. ..."
"... A dozen terrorism scholars gave a wide range of answers when asked to estimate how many members there are, how the numbers have changed during al Qaeda's lifespan and how many countries the group operates in. Analysts put the core membership at anywhere from 200 to 1,000 ..."
"... Instead it was scaled up into stupid endless Perpetual War without achievable objectives. In retrospect divide $5T by 200-1,000 and consider how little it may have cost if 9/11 had been treated as a criminal act by non-state actors, instead of sticking our foot into the role of destabilizing other sovereign countries, killing /antagonizing the citizens and generally fking up their countries?? ..."
"... I think the US is falling into the old imperialist trap of thinking of these places as countries with capital cities and leaders recognized as such by the population. The British had that issue in the 1770s when they captured the capital(s) of the new US but the revolution didn't stop. External superpower (French) support was able to keep the resistance functioning and the British eventually gave up. Both of those superpowers kept duking it out on other battlefields for another 30 years. ..."
"... The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition of the Spanish Empire; total destruction of native culture and replacement with Roman forms. The places the Spanish controlled are still broken, so don't look for success in this endeavor anytime soon ..."
"... The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition of the Spanish Empire ..."
"... Say what you want about the British Empire, but they did leave behind functioning legal and political systems in most of the countries they controlled. In India's case, they also left them a common language since there are so many languages there. Many of the countries remained in the Commonwealth after independence which is something that none of the other colonial powers achieved. ..."
"... I think the key was the British focused on empire as an extension of commerce, not ideology (they already knew they were superior, so they didn't have to prove it, which allows for pragmatism). In the end, when it was clear that they couldn't hold on, they backed out more gracefully than many other empires. ..."
"... The military-industrial complex has perfected the art of putting parts of the design, manufacturing, testing, and deployment of these programs into just about Congressional District so that everybody wants their constituents to have a shot at one part of the trough. ..."
"... This is how empires fall. Asymmetrical economic and military warfare against entrenched bureaucracies and corruption. ..."
"... Sounds like the lament of an aging mafia don that's forgotten what he's talking about is illegal. "Why can't our generals pull off a good old-fashioned smash and grab like they used to? They must be incompetent!" ..."
"... So I don't think an old-fashioned smash & grab has been the goal for a long time. For decades (ever since WWII?) we've been trying to regime change our way to the goal of every Hollywood mad scientist and super-villian: everlasting world dominance. ..."
"... So while China and Russia aim for Eurasian integration, we're all about it's disintegration. We're also determined to keep the EU from ever threatening our dominance. South America is slipping the yoke, but we haven't given up. ..."
"... Here in the "Homeland" (genuflects), on the "home front," in the domestic "battle space," it's important to realize that when the Pentagon says "full-spectrum dominance," that means us, comrades. Wall-to-wall surveillance? Check. POTUS power to execute or disappear dissidents? Check. Torture enshrined in secret laws and the public mind? Check. ..."
"... Obama never renounced FSD. AFAIK it's still the strategy. Why doesn't the esteemed colonel frame his analysis in terms of our official defense posture? Are we any closer to FSD, or not? ..."
"... I'll be impressed when the colonel starts calling our wars crimes against humanity and for their immediate cessation and full reparations. "Moar better generals" will not succeed at accomplishing a basically insane strategy. Until then, I'll file Bacevich under "modified limited hangout." ..."
"... Agreed. I was surprised, too. Of course, it's the working class children in the flyover states who join the military and go to war, and come back maimed or with PTSD to a rotten job market. So that may have been politically astute on Trump's part and, if so, good for him. ..."
"... Let's be brutally frank. The US both wants an empire, but also wants to pretend it is encouraging democracy everywhere. Objectives where the result is deceitful and duplicitous behavior. Ask the Indians about the methods, or the beneficiaries of the "Monroe Doctrine." The British wanted an empire. A simple objective. If you are not England, you are a colony, and we, the English, make the rules. At the heart of American activities is a kernel of deceit. Self determination for people, but only if you do what we say. The kernel of deceit poisons every walk of life connected to Washington. Every single one. ..."
"... The US is called the empire of chaos. It could also be called the empire of Deceit. Do as we say, but we are not taking any responsibility for you if you do what we say. Don't do what we say, and we will fund your opposition until they stuff a dagger up you ass. ..."
"... Think about Democrats using identity politics to claim religious fervor and war used to show being strong on defense. With both political parties using corruption to align power and control at home and abroad. Choosing your enemies carefully, for you will become them. ..."
"... The US military was the first part of the government to be turned into a business, the first neo-liberal institution created in America. The real problem is that the US military is run by managers and not soldiers. The Germans used to make fun of the British Army in WWI by calling it an army of lions led by donkeys. The US military is an army of lions led by managers. ..."
"... If Andrew is looking for a denouement to the Military Industrial complex then one need look no further than the British empire – specifically what made it shrink and shrivel very rapidly. WWI and WWII. The decimation of the economy and the inability to keep spending money to maintain empire is what reversed the entire machine. It will be the same with the US as well. ..."
President-elect Donald Trump's message for the nation's senior military leadership is ambiguously
unambiguous. Here is he on 60 Minutes just days after winning the election.
Trump: "We have some great generals. We have great generals."
Lesley Stahl: "You said you knew more than the generals about ISIS."
Trump: "Well, I'll be honest with you, I probably do because look at the job they've done. OK,
look at the job they've done. They haven't done the job."
In reality, Trump, the former reality show host, knows next to nothing about ISIS, one of many
gaps in his education that his impending encounter with actual reality is likely to fill. Yet
when it comes to America's generals, our president-to-be is onto something. No doubt our three-
and four-star officers qualify as "great" in the sense that they mean well, work hard, and are altogether
fine men and women. That they have not "done the job," however, is indisputable - at least if their
job is to bring America's wars to a timely and successful conclusion.
Trump's unhappy verdict - that the senior U.S. military leadership doesn't know how to win - applies
in spades to the two principal conflicts of the post-9/11 era: the Afghanistan War, now in its 16th
year, and the Iraq War, launched in 2003 and (after a brief hiatus) once more grinding on.
Yet the verdict applies equally to lesser theaters of conflict, largely overlooked by the American
public, that in recent years have engaged the attention of U.S. forces, a list that would include
conflicts in Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Granted, our generals have demonstrated an impressive aptitude for moving pieces around on a dauntingly
complex military chessboard. Brigades, battle groups, and squadrons shuttle in and out of various
war zones, responding to the needs of the moment. The sheer immensity of the enterprise across
the Greater Middle East and northern Africa - the
sorties flown ,
munitions expended , the seamless deployment and redeployment of thousands of troops over thousands
of miles, the vast stockpiles of material positioned, expended, and continuously resupplied - represents
a staggering achievement. Measured by these or similar quantifiable outputs, America's military has
excelled. No other military establishment in history could have come close to duplicating the
logistical feats being performed year in, year out by the armed forces of the United States.
Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like
370,000 combatants and noncombatants
have been killed in the various theaters of operations where U.S. forces have been active. Although
modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest of death is hardly trivial.
Yet in evaluating military operations, it's a mistake to confuse how much with how
well . Only rarely do the outcomes of armed conflicts turn on comparative statistics.
Ultimately, the one measure of success that really matters involves achieving war's political purposes.
By that standard, victory requires not simply the defeat of the enemy, but accomplishing the nation's
stated war aims, and not just in part or temporarily but definitively. Anything less constitutes
failure, not to mention utter waste for taxpayers, and for those called upon to fight, it constitutes
cause for mourning.
By that standard, having been "at war" for virtually the entire twenty-first century, the United
States military is still looking for its first win. And however strong the disinclination to
concede that Donald Trump could be right about anything, his verdict on American generalship qualifies
as apt.
A Never-Ending Parade of Commanders for Wars That Never End
That verdict brings to mind three questions. First, with Trump a rare exception, why have the
recurring shortcomings of America's military leadership largely escaped notice? Second, to
what degree does faulty generalship suffice to explain why actual victory has proven so elusive?
Third, to the extent that deficiencies at the top of the military hierarchy bear directly on the
outcome of our wars, how might the generals improve their game?
As to the first question, the explanation is quite simple: During protracted wars, traditional
standards for measuring generalship lose their salience. Without pertinent standards, there
can be no accountability. Absent accountability, failings and weaknesses escape notice.
Eventually, what you've become accustomed to seems tolerable. Twenty-first century Americans inured
to wars that never end have long since forgotten that bringing such conflicts to a prompt and successful
conclusion once defined the very essence of what generals were expected to do.
Senior military officers were presumed to possess unique expertise in designing campaigns and
directing engagements. Not found among mere civilians or even among soldiers of lesser rank,
this expertise provided the rationale for conferring status and authority on generals.
In earlier eras, the very structure of wars provided a relatively straightforward mechanism for
testing such claims to expertise. Events on the battlefield rendered harsh judgments, creating
or destroying reputations with brutal efficiency.
Back then, standards employed in evaluating generalship were clear-cut and uncompromising.
Those who won battles earned fame, glory, and the gratitude of their countrymen. Those who
lost battles got fired or were put out to pasture.
During the Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln did not need an advanced degree in strategic
studies to conclude that Union generals like John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker didn't
have what it took to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia. Humiliating defeats sustained by
the Army of the Potomac at the Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville made that obvious
enough. Similarly, the victories Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman gained at Shiloh,
at Vicksburg, and in the Chattanooga campaign strongly suggested that here was the team to which
the president could entrust the task of bringing the Confederacy to its knees.
Today,
public drunkenness ,
petty corruption , or
sexual shenanigans with a subordinate might land generals in hot water. But as long as
they avoid egregious misbehavior, senior officers charged with prosecuting America's wars are largely
spared judgments of any sort. Trying hard is enough to get a passing grade.
With the country's political leaders and public conditioned to conflicts seemingly destined to
drag on for years, if not decades, no one expects the current general-in-chief in Iraq or Afghanistan
to bring things to a successful conclusion. His job is merely to manage the situation until
he passes it along to a successor, while duly adding to his collection of personal decorations and
perhaps advancing his career.
Today, for example, Army General John Nicholson commands U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.
He's only the latest in a long line of senior officers to preside over that war, beginning with General
Tommy Franks in 2001 and continuing with Generals Mikolashek, Barno, Eikenberry, McNeill, McKiernan,
McChrystal, Petraeus, Allen, Dunford, and Campbell. The title carried by these officers changed
over time. So, too, did the specifics of their "mission" as Operation Enduring Freedom evolved
into Operation Freedom's Sentinel. Yet even as expectations slipped lower and lower, none of
the commanders rotating through Kabul delivered. Not a single one has, in our president-elect's
concise formulation, "done the job." Indeed, it's increasingly difficult to know what that
job is, apart from preventing the Taliban from quite literally toppling the government.
In Iraq, meanwhile, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend currently serves as the - count 'em
- ninth American to command U.S. and coalition forces in that country since the George W. Bush administration
ordered the invasion of 2003. The first in that line, (once again) General Tommy Franks, overthrew
the Saddam Hussein regime and thereby broke Iraq. The next five, Generals Sanchez, Casey, Petraeus,
Odierno, and Austin, labored for eight years to put it back together again.
At the end of 2011, President Obama declared that they had done just that and terminated the U.S.
military occupation. The Islamic State soon exposed Obama's claim as specious when its militants
put a U.S.-trained Iraqi army to flight and annexed
large swathes of that country's territory. Following in the footsteps of his immediate
predecessors Generals James Terry and Sean MacFarland, General Townsend now shoulders the task of
trying to restore Iraq's status as a more or less genuinely sovereign state. He directs what
the Pentagon calls Operation Inherent Resolve, dating from June 2014, the follow-on to Operation
New Dawn (September 2010-December 2011), which was itself the successor to Operation Iraqi Freedom
(March 2003-August 2010).
When and how Inherent Resolve will conclude is difficult to forecast. This much we can,
however, say with some confidence: with the end nowhere in sight, General Townsend won't be its last
commander. Other generals are waiting in the wings with their own careers to polish.
As in Kabul, the parade of U.S. military commanders through Baghdad will continue.
For some readers, this listing of mostly forgotten names and dates may have a soporific effect.
Yet it should also drive home Trump's point. The United States may today have the world's most
powerful and capable military - so at least we are constantly told. Yet the record shows that
it does not have a corps of senior officers who know how to translate capability into successful
outcomes.
Draining Which Swamp?
That brings us to the second question: Even if commander-in-chief Trump were somehow able
to identify modern day equivalents of Grant and Sherman to implement his war plans, secret or otherwise,
would they deliver victory?
On that score, we would do well to entertain doubts. Although senior officers charged with
running recent American wars have not exactly covered themselves in glory, it doesn't follow that
their shortcomings offer the sole or even a principal explanation for why those wars have yielded
such disappointing results. The truth is that some wars aren't winnable and shouldn't be fought.
So, yes, Trump's critique of American generalship possesses merit, but whether he knows it or
not, the question truly demanding his attention as the incoming commander-in-chief isn't: Who should
I hire (or fire) to fight my wars? Instead, far more urgent is: Does further war promise to
solve any of my problems?
One mark of a successful business executive is knowing when to cut your losses. It's also the
mark of a successful statesman. Trump claims to be the former. Whether his putative business
savvy will translate into the world of statecraft remains to be seen. Early signs are not promising.
As a candidate, Trump
vowed to "defeat radical Islamic terrorism," destroy ISIS, "decimate al-Qaeda," and "starve funding
for Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah." Those promises imply a significant escalation of what Americans
used to call the Global War on Terrorism.
Toward that end, the incoming administration may well revive some aspects of the George W. Bush
playbook, including repopulating the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and "if it's
so important to the American people," reinstituting torture. The Trump administration will
at least consider re-imposing sanctions on countries like Iran. It may aggressively exploit
the offensive potential of cyber-weapons, betting that America's cyber-defenses will hold.
Yet President Trump is also likely to double down on the use of conventional military force.
In that regard,
his promise to "quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS" offers a hint of what is to
come. His appointment of the uber-hawkish Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his national security
adviser and his rumored selection of retired Marine Corps General James ("Mad Dog") Mattis as defense
secretary suggest that he means what he says. In sum, a Trump administration seems unlikely
to reexamine the conviction that the problems roiling the Greater Middle East will someday, somehow
yield to a U.S.-imposed military solution. Indeed, in the face of massive evidence to the contrary,
that conviction will deepen, with genuinely ironic implications for the Trump presidency.
In the immediate wake of 9/11, George W. Bush concocted a fantasy of American soldiers liberating
oppressed Afghans and Iraqis and thereby "
draining the swamp " that served to incubate anti-Western terrorism. The results achieved
proved beyond disappointing, while the costs exacted in terms of lives and dollars squandered were
painful indeed. Incrementally, with the passage of time, many Americans concluded that perhaps
the swamp most in need of attention was not on the far side of the planet but much closer at hand
- right in the imperial city nestled alongside the Potomac River.
To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment,
because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that
swamp.
Yet here's what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created that swamp in the
first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides a rationale for
federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government bigger and more
intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of billions
of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the swamp, nothing works
better than war.
Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp - if he genuinely seeks to "Make America Great
Again" - then he would extricate the United States from war. His
liquidation of Trump University, which was to higher education what Freedom's Sentinel and Inherent
Resolve are to modern warfare, provides a potentially instructive precedent for how to proceed.
But don't hold your breath on that one. All signs indicate that, in one fashion or another,
our combative next president will perpetuate the wars he's inheriting. Trump may fancy that,
as a veteran of Celebrity Apprentice (but not of military service), he possesses a special
knack for spotting the next Grant or Sherman. But acting on that impulse will merely replenish
the swamp in the Greater Middle East along with the one in Washington. And soon enough, those
who elected him with expectations of seeing the much-despised establishment dismantled will realize
that they've been had.
Which brings us, finally, to that third question: To the extent that deficiencies at the top of
the military hierarchy do affect the outcome of wars, what can be done to fix the problem?
The most expeditious approach: purge all currently serving three- and four-star officers; then,
make a precondition for promotion to those ranks confinement in a reeducation camp run by Iraq and
Afghanistan war amputees, with a curriculum designed by
Veterans for Peace . Graduation
should require each student to submit an essay reflecting on these words of wisdom from U.S. Grant
himself: "There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent
the drawing of the sword."
True, such an approach may seem a bit draconian. But this is no time for half-measures - as even
Donald Trump may eventually recognize.
As much s I have appreciated Bacevich's views over the past decade, my reaction to this is
that he's asking the wrong questions. Just what would a "victory" in these imperial interventions
look like? Does he really think our military is protecting our nation? I don't.
I believe his point is narrower. Victory in Afghanistan and Iraq would (in the eyes of the
establishment) have involved the pacification of those countries with pro-capitalist and pro-western
nominally democratic governments in charge (i.e. puppets). That is what the explicit and implicit
aim of those invasions was to be. The military was charged with achieving those ends, and they
failed (as they've failed elsewhere). And yet, even by the criteria set by the establishment,
there has been zero accountability.
And this is the double failure of Washington. You might give them some credit if they were
competent imperialists. But they are the worst of all worlds. They are reckless imperialists who
can't even achieve their own stated aims with a modicum of competence. Real imperialists of the
past would be rolling around laughing at this lot.
Thank you. Well said. You are right to make the distinction between competent, incompetent
and real imperialists. My parents came to the UK from a colony in the mid-1960s and talk about
the colonial officials they came across. It was the same with my grandparents. I have come across
the aspiring neo-cons on the make (and on the take) in the City, marking time until they can be
parachuted into a safe seat.
Few, if any, speak a foreign language and / or spent much time abroad.
They give the impression of playing chess from Tory Central Office or some "think tank", but with
other countries and lives of people they know nothing, much less care, about. As we watched Obama
being crowned in 2009, one (an aspiring Tory MP and former central office staffer) forecasted
that Obama would go down as the worst president in history and added that Bush would go down as
one of the greats. I made my excuses and went home.
They're not imperialists, they're corporatists. Graft is the object, and given that construction
companies like Halliburton and mercs like Xe don't bankroll Ds, and since bombing campaigns are
easy to keep up/out of the news, the money has now shifted to drones.
As such, they're not failing, except insofar as they are losing access to markets. And that isn't
really the case either, since the iraqi don't form a market that matters; whereas the notional
'rebuilding effort' - which did provide opportunities for looting - is/was pretty much over anyway,
once it became impossible to deny it "failed".
I think they are imperialists in the sense that, as William Appleman Williams and others have
argued, their primary orienting goal is to extend and sustain the US dominance of a world market.
If you read what US foreign policy and military planners were saying in after WW2, that's an inescapable
conclusion. Your focus on the corporation takes as a given what those planners have felt they
need to strategically and militarily secure. Bacevich consistently avoids this issue and so ends
up promoting a naive and implicitly hopeful view of US motives and the flexibility with which
they can be pursued.
It's really quite something to go back and read Dean Acheson testifying to a congressional
committee that, unlike the Soviet Union, the US requires steady expansion of the world market
to survive. He sounds like Rosa Luxemburg.
The US is a nation of racketeers, which are perfecting the corruption of services into means
of converting tax revenue into private profits. Some of these services are in fact essential,
all have been – at least until recently – unassailable regardless of merit. Examples are housing,
education, health care, private transportation and of course "national security". The rackets
trace back to the exceptional US economic circumstances of WW2, and the leading racket was well
established at the end of the Eisenhower presidency (his CYA address notwithstanding).
For the "self-licking ice-cream cone" of military/security/intelligence/public safety expenditures
to continue to grow exponentially, it is not only unnecessary for the tax-purchased services and
goods to be functional, let alone deliver results – it is positively counterproductive. The question
is not whether any captured government institution is dysfunctional, the question is merely whether
and how the profitability it delivers to the "accounting control frauds" in charge of the incumbents
can be increased.
There are many aspects of this particular proud strain of dysfunction capitalism – US weapon
exports, "foreign aid" to Israel or Saudi Arabia, support for proxy forces, actual direct expenditure
of armaments, and of course force modernization and extension are some of the many flavors. The
fuel cost alone for moving men and materiel "fuels" entire industries. It would not at all be
surprising to find that those 700 bases maintained – and expanded – are completely useless – if
not even significant liabilities – while at the same time improving the bottom line of many suppliers.
PMC's and the growing industry supporting ever-increasing logistical "needs" are another vector
of the disease. Terrorism, of course, and the market for global and domestic surveillance and
"public safety", is both a consequence and a pretext. The perfect racket produces its own justification
while profit shares increase and "product" cost decrease.
It is the privilege of the continental US that, wedged between two oceans, a colony of the
crown and a failed state, that it is largely insulated from the blowback of the various theaters
of war profiteering (this is, after all, the major advantage the national security racket has
over the competing domestic leeches). It stand to reason that the weaker the coupling to the fallout
from profitable dysfunction, the longer trends that cannot continue will.
Iraq 2003 might well have been the last time that any of the major industries involved had
any earnest intention to profit from the theater itself. Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. are in the main
write-offs, pretexts that open profit channels but not part of it. It is usually ignored that
the main issue China and Russia have with the US and its minion states is the abrogation of the
concept of sovereign nation stages, going all the way back to Clinton's interventions in the Balkans.
By accident or design, US foreign policy is one of scorched earth, preferring failed states to
nations capable of resistance. This, too, is a consequence of that "splendid insulation".
Thank you, b., for saying clearly what so many of us perceive dimly through the fog of propaganda,
and struggle to name.
Next question: is there a prayer of catalyzing a healthier political economy, or do we ordinary
people just live until we die, as best we can manage? Maybe "judiciously studying the actions"
and talking learnedly about them among our percipient selves, until even that illusion of action
is finally blocked?
"In the end, he found he could not help himself: He loved Big Brother."
The truth is that some wars aren't winnable and shouldn't be fought.
Success in any enterprise requires the definition of a goal. I believe that the goal of U.S.
military action in MENA is two-fold: display fealty to Israel and the kings of the Arabian Peninsula;
and to grow the corporate coffers of the MIC here at home. Defined in that way, the U.S. military
has "hit it outta da park." Winning? Winning was a pipe dream of the likes of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
Cheney knew better and took GWB along for a ride.
Let us pray that President Trump's small mind and loose tongue substantially degrades the willingness
of the U.S.'s partners to continue to play along. May he make America un-great again. Amen.
In the US today, we have raised a whole generation of kids where "winning matters not." To
that extent we, and our generals – whether imperialistic or corporatistic, are all "special snowflakes"
that deserve "participation trophy's" so we don't cry and act out over not winning. I say give
all our general's another star for starting and participating in wars that can't be won to begin
with. Where participation and not winning is the objective. Three cheers: hip, hip, hooray!
I am highly suspicious that publicly stated goals of the wars were the actual targets. My take
is that the actual goal has always been to keep those places in chaos; on US terms and under its
control. with a safe US military base to punch those second-rate nations if necessary; By that
measure, I believe both the Iraq and Afghan invasions were a success but they cannot pat each
other's backs publicly.
However, they must now admit that they did not think the case of Iraq through, and the case
of Syria is a complete failure, raising the stature of Russia to a super power again, while slowly
but surely losing influence on Iraq and Egypt. But, that, arguably, could not have been realistically
expected of the generals of the time to predict.
I think that may have been his point, albeit delivered obliquely, as in his statement that
"some wars should not be fought"; his quote from Grant, "There never was a time when, in my opinion,
some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword", as well as elsewhere in the
piece.
Grant's rise from drunk who couldn't get a job in 1861 and W Scott's efforts to recruit Bobby
Lee, a guy who was out of the army for years by that point, are indications the general class
was never particularly competent.
I think you need to re-read the post again. He is asking the right questions and provides a
history lesson besides. The beginning paragraphs could be interpreted as the standard, we need
victory fare, but all is designed to lead to his final prescription for action- all the while
being very diplomatic and appreciative to those who serve in the military.
Drain the swamp indeed, extricate the military from our national misadventures and retire the
top brass more intent on career advancement that the true needs of the nation. Problems solved
and we can move on as a nation. Will the world fall apart, if true men and women of honor step
forward, I highly doubt it.
Pretty radical stuff actually, but something that resonates with many people, people without
a voice. Change will come from within the military, and it is refreshing to hear words of sanity
form those inside the military system-Tulsi Gabbard for one.
Could Trump shake up the gridlock, we shall see. Like a toxic mine tailing pit, once the retaining
walls are breached, the effluence tends to spill out very quickly.
Silly question: Does the fault lie in our generals or in our commander in chief? Which leads
to another silly question: Who does our commander in chief answer to?
The generals seem to be only as effective as the policy they are prescribed to carry out. They
ultimately answer to the President. So if they're ordered to carry out an impossible task they
will obviously fail and they will kick the can down the road to save their own reputations.
There
isn't too much of an incentive to win if you're a careerist either which many of them are since
the military is a giant welfare program/bureaucracy largely based on licking boots to advance.
It might be nice to add another accolade to that fat stack of attendance ribbons on their chests
but that's all it is. Also, even if you were super serious about winning the war look at what
happened to Shinseki when he clashed with the civilian leadership over the numbers of troops needed
to pacify Iraq post-war. He was marginalized and finally canned altogether.
Yes, the good doctor should resolutely shoulder the burden of "opposition party spokesman"
and return to the fray. If we all took every slight and injury offered online to heart, there
would be nary a rational word communicated, and, we would have much recourse to the suppressed
Rogers Profanisaurus.
Besides, Upstate New York must be cold now, and the Professor spending a lot of time being housebound.
I stood in James' corner once or twice as he started lashing out, as I thought he was just
having a few bad days. It went on and I simply ran out of patience with him when he wrote his
farewell screed and signed off with:
James P. Levy , Ph.D. FRHistS, a man who never hid behind a goddamned nom de plume
It will be interesting to hear from readers if they have colleagues who are former service
men and women. There has been an influx in the City since the crisis, but they were always there
in fewer numbers. Some thrive in admin / COO roles, but many are frustrated and last no more than
a couple of years. Dad retired from the Royal Air Force in March 1991 after 25 years. He found
it difficult to settle in civilian life (employed as a doctor at St Mary's hospital in west London)
and left at the end of 1991 for a development project in southern Africa (a year or so of being
a middle class welfare junkie masquerading as a Foreign Office adviser) and twenty years working
for Persian Gulf despots around MENA.
I'm a Vietnam vet and I did respond but it has been ignored as usual. The point of my post
was that the generals do what they are ordered to do by the commander in chief and the problem
lies with whoever that is at any given time. From that flows the logical point that we elect the
commander in chief and don't really pay much attention to what he orders. The fault lies with
the electorate. Bacevich has made the point (as have others) that when the draft was eliminated
voters no longer had skin in the game and became ambivalent which is why the founding fathers
set up the system with the citizen soldier as a cornerstone principle. The president at any given
time just does what he wants and the only possible means of accountability is through the voting
booth. Our wars last stopped when the populace had skin in the game and made it extremely clear
to Nixon that we wanted an end. We have met the enemy and he is us.
The fault lies partly with the electorate, but also with Congress. For more than a decade,
Charlie Rangel has been introducing bills to reinstate the draft. Crickets from Congress.
I'm a former member of the Selective Service Board, and yes, they still exist. A draft in order
to be effective, cannot offer deferments (a la Dick Cheney) and still be fair. Only until those
who order the wars have family members (including women) subject to a draft, will we cease our
idiotic imperialist impulses.
While all you say is true, 40 years of corporate evolution in the political sphere has changed
the equation. As the last election cycle has shown, any attempt to alter current relationships
will need political activism intended to change the system not just gaining office to make slight
course corrections. We as a people are too far off course for that. The Vietnam era was a turning
point and business interests mobilized to never let that fiasco- people power- take root again.
They have been very successful in their mission, but now they have to deal with the problem of
an unwanted and underused population. The unemployable if you will.
Re-instituting the draft is no longer necessary and would be counterproductive to the corporate
mission. As long as our current standing army can be paid off, why bother with a draft, it is
no longer necessary. You avoid the military coup problem also. Our military continues to be bought
off and as long as the economic incentives supporting an excessively large military remain unchallenged,
the draft is unnecessary. Unnecessary from the maintenance of corporate power that is. Corporate
power must be minimized first, then talk of a draft will make more sense. What values are learned
in the military today? USA has ben turned into a corporate brand.
Being poor, unemployable, or one illness away form such a fate is the new skin in the game.
While national service is a force that must be worked into our social responsibilities, its true
meaning for strengthening and protecting the people has been subverted into a tool for corruption.
Voices within the military that call for a return to the ideal of a citizen soldier instead of
a mercenary warrior is what I think Bacevich has in mind.
Andrew Bacevich, as usual, writes a great article. But Grant and Sherman benefited from having a war with a clear goal: destroy the Confederate
army and its government. I hesitate to call anything happening with the US in the Middle East or North Africa or SE
Asia a "war" of that nature. There are no clear objectives. There are no criteria for an end of
the conflict.
Instead, this looks a whole lot more like the North's occupation of the South during Reconstruction.
We all know how that ended: the North had to pull itself out after an economic depression, more
or less leading to a reign of terror through Jim Crow.
The United States is trying to do Reconstruction in a whole lot of spheres and is failing at
that because it's generally an impossible enterprise.
I would disagree that there were no clear objectives. The objective was to turn Iraq and Afghanistan
and Libya, etc., in to countries like Egypt or Jordan or Indonesia – weakened pro-western (or
at least western-dependent) puppets with a sheen of democratic respectability, where US corporations
could roam free. I don't think there is any need to read anything else into the objectives – that
is the 'ideal' for the neocons, and that was their objective, both stated and unstated.
You make a good, concise case for what the real objectives are for these unending expensive
wars. Of course, this level of clarity re these goals are seldom stated to the populace at large.
Rather we're mostly fed bullshit about terrrrists and being kept "safe" and other noodleheaded
claptrap.
Given your definition, however, with which I agree, the Generals have still FAILED. And again,
where's the accountability? There is none.
Trump plans to give himself and all the other Oligarchs, and the corporations giant tax cuts.
There will be some in the middle class who experience a tax increase. Yet we're supposed to bloat
the MIC budget by some huge amount for what purpose?? So Trump can build hotels, golf courses
and casinos in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq? Not being all that snarky.
Yes, as I said above, the neocons objective have been an abject failure. They display incompetence
at all levels. And yet nobody pays the price. And the fact that the neocons don't try to fire
the generals who failed (as numerous political leaders in the past have done) is a reflection
of both their incompetence and the fact that the wars have become the ultimate in self licking
ice creams.
While a plan might not be 100% successful, I don't see how you characterize the neocon program
an abject failure. It is chugging along just fine. If waste and chaos are states of being that
directly benefit your program, they are probably 90% successful.
If war is a racket, then the good times roll on and talking about failed generals being replaced,
or accountability will be served by getting hold of better generals, those sentiments must make
them chuckle when they are discussing their private positions. Win/Win for the neocons.
Ordinary people make the mistake of believing that the current crop of leaders have their interests
in mind at all. They do not. If Clintons Public/Private mumbo jumbo didn't clear you of that thinking
I don't know what will.
The proper way to think about these things is the neocon plan is succeeding wonderfully but
they are truly too short sighted- i.e. stupid in the long term- to understand the consequences.
They understand short term profit completely and how to dispense physical power but little else.
Consequences and payback are externalized in their world. If you live in the moment, who cares
about the future. As the illuminist Karl Rove once stated, "We're an empire now, and when we act,
we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will -
we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things
will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what
we do."
Well, people don't stay passive actors forever. Just as nature cannot absorb carelessness forever.
A day of reckoning will come- it alway does. Failure is in the mind of the beholder. It depends
on perspective. As the neocons double, tripple, quadruple down on their policies, they will be
able to ride the flaming mess into the ground. Think Clinton.
It is up to us- the sane- to realize the success of the neoliberal program and want out- or
off- or whatever phrase makes sense. In our wars of misadventure, it will be those in the military
that finally say enough is enough. If someone pulls that off, it would be viewed as the most courageous
act in decades.
In our wars of misadventure, it will be those in the military that finally say enough is
enough. If someone pulls that off, it would be viewed as the most courageous act in decades.
30 years in lockup for Chelsea Manning is a warning for those, I suspect, who want to say "enough
is enough." I also believe that your ability to move up the hierarchy to make those decisions
to keep fighting is determined by your willingness to continue to see through the neoliberal project.
I disagree to the extent that the ideological neocons had a very clearly stated and unambiguous
strategic purpose – re-engineering the world as America's corporate playground, with any possible
competitor (i.e. Russia and China) firmly penned in. This meant replacing all the mid-size States
which were still refusing to be part of the Washington Consensus.
Its no secret or mystery about
what they were seeking. In this, they have failed – Afghanistan remains in chaos, Iraq is more
Iran controlled than US controlled, Iran still refuses to come to heel, and Russia and China are
making increasing inroads to Central Asia, eastern Europe, Africa and South America. The neocon
project is slowly unravelling, with Trump hopefully about to put it out of its misery.
The issue of war profiteering is something that I see as something entirely different. What
the neocons failed to anticipate was that their Clash of Civilisations would result in a hugely
powerful military-industrial process which has become self replicating. There are now more people
in Washington who's job depends on finding more wars to fight than there are people employed to
stop wars. This is the neocons fault, but its not the neocons project – they are just useful idiots
for the profiteers.
I don't make a distinction between the neocons and the profiteers. The worst possible outcome
from this neocon disaster would be for the profiteers, the rentiers, to be able to reconstitute
their hold over society- or to hold onto it for that matter. What will it take, complete destruction
of the biosphere for people to understand that cooperation is the only means of survival?
While I agree with what you are saying, if desiring a peaceful world is on your agenda, then
every effort must be made to not allow the rentiers to take the position of, well now, we overstepped
somewhat, will do better next time.
Making neat divisions is the reason humanity is in the predicament we find ourselves in the
first place. We have dissected the whole into so many parts, it is no longer recognizable.
Modernity has been a dissecting force- a unifying force is needed.
I agree with so much of the analysis here. But why do people insist still (especially given
his recent appointments) that Trump has any interest at all in putting "it" out of our misery?
Color me skeptical.
Hey Kim, as RUKidding says, I wouldn't argue that those are clear objectives, because the generals
that are being talked about above aren't being told up front that they are working toward that
goal.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're exactly right about those being the objectives.
Those are the ultimate political goals and the ends of the wars - but generals are never given
them as objectives in this form. Concisely, the objectives of any general are threefold:
1) destroy the enemy forces;
2) break their will to fight;
3) control the territory under dispute.
They learned that at the military academy - after all, these were the fundamental principles
articulated by Carl von Clausewitz almost 200 years ago. Well, in those purely military terms, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria are
total failures.
Enemy forces destroyed? They seem inexhaustible.
Territory controlled? Those countries have basically been "no-go" areas ever since war started.
Breaking the enemy's will to fight? Mmmwaaahahahahaha.
Trump is correct on this point: job not done. At all.
Glad you brought up Carl von Clausewitz. I remember the Newsweek article when Gen. Tommy Franks
said there were 9 centers of gravity in Iraq. The article took this as some type of wisdom. It
was clear that Franks hadn't even read the Cliff notes version of On War as there is only one
center of gravity according to Carl von C in which you focus your effort on.
Probably one reason when Franks was put on the Outback Steakhouse board of directors it did
so poorly and was pulled out of Canada. He was a great strategist after all /sarc.
Part of the problem with the U.S military is that the Army sees enemy #2 as the Air Force and
Navy. Gotta get those dollars. Another problem is that the U.S fails at the oft quote dictum of Sun Tzu, know yourself and
know your enemy.
The U.S seems to create the enemy they would like to fight rather than the one
that's actually there and as a nation has no sense of self anymore. They don't understand their
limitations or even their strengths it seems. It seems the Pentagon and the Gov. thinks throwing
money equals effectiveness. I'd argue that the unlimited money is the problem. Actual innovation
often stems from being limited in some way. Mother is the necessity of invention and all that.
Look the German assault teams that were born out of desperation in the final days of WWI. This
concept helped tremendously in WW2 and it wasn't unlimited money that created them.
In America's defense they are great at logistics side of war.
To further this thread as to why the generals have failed:
If the point of these wars is to install a pro-Western style (aka USA business friendly) society
and government, a point to which I agree is the reason for the US's fighting, then how, in God's
name!, are you going to do that when the point of a military is to destroy things and kill people?
(words taken from the cover of DoD's documents). The US military is not to build things and help
people! The generals are asked to do what their own training prevents them and those they direct
from doing.
Anyone remember this 2010 bit of PowerPoint-ia? "'When we understand that slide, we'll have
won the war:' US generals given baffling PowerPoint presentation to try to explain Afghanistan
mess,"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1269463/Afghanistan-PowerPoint-slide-Generals-left-baffled-PowerPoint-slide.html
(And note the Brass Balls of the contractor, PA Knowledge Group Ltd, claiming a COPYRIGHT
over this obvious work-for-hire.) This kind of stuff is the daily grist of the strategic/tactical
mill that grinds out body counts, serial deployments in search of missions, and the endless floods
of corrupt cash, destabilizing weapons and internal and external subterfuges, along with a lot
of wry humor and a large helping of despair for the Troops and the mope civilians who "stand too
close to Unlawful Enema Combatants ™".
It's long seemed to me one of the many failings of the species is that some of us produce wise
counsel that actually looks to the horizon and beyond, like the fundamental questions articulated
by Sun Tzu about whether to commit the peasants who pay for it to a prolonged foreign war with
long supply lines that will bankrupt the nation -
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
. And then the idiot few that gain, psychically or monetarily, from conflict, blow that kind
of fundamental test of wisdom off and "go to war" or more accurately "send other people to hack
and blast each other while the senders get rich."
There's a fundamental problem that to me gets too little attention: What the Empire is doing
is an entirely Barmicide game.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/barmecide
Our rulers here in the Empire are pretty good at the procurement, deployment and logistical
mechanics of Milo Minderbinder's complex Enterprise, the "war as a racket" thing, the extracting
of public wealth to build shiny or stealthy or smart "systems." But as Bacevitch notes, they get
to completely escape from the consequences of Only-tool-in-the-box monomania, of applying the
big hammer of "War" to the subtle tasks of creating and maintaining a survivable space for the
species. Which patently is not the "goal" in any event. And never answered, as pointed out, is
the daring question of "what is the goal/are the goals, and what actions or refraining from actions
are likely to get there?"
The talk about "asymmetric warfare" is mostly whining about little wogs who dare to adopt the
wisdoms of other ambitious and thoughtful humans, like the Afghans and, yes, even ISIS, on how
to defeat (within the terms of the game they are playing and understand that the Empire does NOT
understand the terrain or the rules or moves) invaders and colonialists and even corporatists.
Though the latter are often victorious in the after-conflict processes, if you can't clobber your
enemy, corrupt him! works too.) There are wheels within wheels, of course, and "we mopes" in the
Imperial homeland are too busy eking out a survival locally to even try to contemplate let alone
understand the complexities of even the Middle East, let alone the Great Game being played out
again with Russia and China and the aggressive and Teutonic bosses of the Eurozone All while
the "defence" establishment figures out ever more exotic ways to kill humans, via code (genetic
and cyber) and "smart weapons" like autonomous killing robots "on land, in air, at sea "
So is it just the inevitable case that Empires rise up, loot, murder, grow the usual huge corrupt
capitals and the militaries to support the looting and keep the mopes in line, and finally succumb
to some kind of wasting disease where all the corruption and interest-seeking honeycombs and finally
collapses the structure? Is there no other way for humans to organize, because so many of us have
the drive to dominate and to grab all the pleasure and stuff we can get away with?
I've grown up hearing commentaries that echo this one as relating to our foreign policy adventures
since WWII, and if you take a results oriented approach, they're probably true. But having gone
to school for foreign policy work and talking to people who were involved with the foreign policy
apparatus (doing the leg work, not the people at the top who basically have no idea what they're
doing), I've become more and more convinced that it's simply incompetence.
I think that the people dictating policy are basically a bunch of Tom Friedmans, who are utterly
convinced that their empirically wrong views about how policy is executed are correct. Look at
Iraq in the aftermath. Not only did they get not understand that the Sunnis and Shia might not
have the best of intentions towards each other, but US companies aren't even getting all the plum
oil contracts. Now surely a country that guarantees the security of the Iraqi elite could ensure
that it's own companies got the best deals?
I think the most probable explanation is that they believed their own propaganda. They believed
that the Iraqis wanted to be a liberal democracy with a free market, and that US firms would obviously
be the most competitive in a bid for the oil contracts. People like Kerry believe in the ideas
of human rights and war crimes, condemning the Russians for bombing Aleppo even though we do the
exact same thing with a ever so slightly less flimsy justification.
Yes, again, good points, esp in re to the fact that US companies aren't even getting the plum
oil contracts. We were told by feckless Cheney via W that there would be that magical mythical
Iraqi "Oil Dividend" that would not only pay for the War on Iraq – essentially giving us back
the money we spent on it (conveniently ignoring the collateral damage of many US combatant deaths,
and many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizen deaths, but who cares about that piddling, trifling
detail) – as well as getting more besides.
Eh? And then what? Well that Dick, Cheney, got very very rich offa US taxpayer dollars, and
no doubt some other Oligarchs did as well. But we never ever got paid back for our "investment"
in "freeing" the Iraqi's from their oppressor, Saddam.
And that salient detail was flushed down the memory hole, and duly noted, that at least the
Oligarchs did learn ONE lesson from that bullshit, which is to never ever again even go so far
as to make a promise that the hapless proles in the USA will ever see one thin dime from these
foreign misadventures.
I can't talk from personal experience but I've read plenty of foreign policy publications of
the type taken seriously by academics and politicians, and I'd agree with you. Some are laughably
stupid, they don't know the first thing about the countries they are talking about. It wasn't
just Bush jnr in 2002 who didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, I strongly suspect
that many 'experts' consulted had only the faintest knowledge of what they were dealing with.
There are a scary number of second and third rate intellects roaming around sharing their 'knowledge'.
I think the standard textbook for this should be Graham Greenes
'The Quiet American'
. I've always been amazed at the prescience of that book (he pretty much predicted the arc
of the Vietnam War in 1959), but I always think of the main character, Pyle, when I see yet another
Middle Eastern mess. Pyle is a generally well meaning young man with far too much power, who is
convinced by some academic that he has the key to sorting out the whole Vietnam mess. Needless
to say, lots of innocents die because of his half baked ideas. The establishment is full of Pyles,
although many I think are not quite so well meaning.
I would like to agree with you, but I don't. First and foremost the US is the greatest spender
in weapons, and why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them? The first objective
is to use the weapons and avoid piling a dusting mountain of missiles, bombs, or any other kind
of armament. Many wars are mainly the testing battlefields for new weaponry. For that reason,
having endless localized wars can be quite useful. Besides using it, the second objective is spread
fear. I have it, I have the will to use it, and I am well trained. Spreading fear might not be
the best strategy but is has clearly been one of the main objectives in some cases, particularly
Iraq.
The best case of a president looking for an excuse to use the weapons and spread fear was G.W.
Bush and Iraq v2.0. The fact that Bush excuses were clumsily manufactured and exposed without
shame in the UN is a feature. It means: when we decide that we will attack you nothing will stop
us. No democratic control and no international rules can stop us.
'why does anyone spend in weapons if there is not plan to use them?'
And yet the U.S.'s recent, most stupendously expensive weapons systems are unusable.
Literally , they cannot be used for most practical purposes in combat.
The F-35, for instance, has trouble flying and would be bested by air fighters of the previous
generation in combat. The Littoral Combat Ship's aluminum superstructure would burn down to the
waterline if ever one were hit by a missile (among other problems). And there are other projects
that are almost equally ridiculous.
The point is, of course, that with their cost overruns and sheer unusability, these projects
continue precisely because they're stupendously profitable. The American economic system is utterly
dependent on such military Keynesianism, which is a principle means of redistribution from rich
U.S. states to small ones. And consequently we live in a world reminiscent of the world of useless
wepfash designers - weapons fashions designers - envisaged by Philip K. Dick's The Zap Gun.
One takeaway may be that the U.S. can either have the largest level of military Keynesianism
in history or win its wars. It apparently cannot do both.
Remember when Trump threatened to fire a bunch of generals? That really upset a lot of people
in Washington. Replacing a flag officer is a very complicated affair – they have a whole rotation
system set up, to move them from one job to another. That's certainly reflected in the combat
commands as well. They all need to check that box, in order to burnish their credentials. It seems
to be just achieving that rank is the real accomplishment. Measuring their performance afterward
is irrelevant – in that way, it's very similar to how CEOs are treated in the corporate world.
It would be nice if Trump fired a bunch of generals, just because we have too many of them already.
I don't see that happening, though.
Generals get removed. Mattis was retired a year early because he didn't get along with Obama. Whatever "get along'
means. Flynn left early. Remember McChrystal?
Rotation may have benefits of exposure to new areas and skill development opportunities. It
may also hide failures, and demonstrate the military equivalent of the "dance of the lemons" that
shuffles incompetent, corrupt or lazy principals around to different schools. There is more of
a meritocracy in the military, with less overt politicization, although the politics takes different
forms. I write that sadly as one from a family that supports the military and has many veterans.
American discussions about military are sidetracked easily by any number of stakeholders. Politicians
posture for patriotism (alliteration intended to elicit Porky Pig), while collecting campaign
cash. They are only the most visible of those that would shout down or hijack any objective discussion
of mission failures or weapons systems debacles such as the F-35. Their less visible neo-con enablers,
dual loyalty pundits and effective taskmasters all have their snouts in the trough and their rear
ends displayed to the citizens. If there is no other change in DC than to unmask those Acela bandits,
then many will applaud.
War is failure. Do not engage. And for dawgs sake do not arm, train, fund al Q types. I think
the last point in re Trumps way of doing things will be most telling. That would be victory.
Precisely. The US is situated in the safest neighborhood on the planet - oceans on two sides;
Canada and Mexico on the other two. All of the other dozens of nations in the western hemisphere get along just fine without a
global network of military bases and a 350-ship navy.
What the f*** is our problem? As history demonstrates, a value-subtracting global empire is
an infallible recipe for economic decline.
To try to look at the bright side, here's the thing about military people who are "uber hawkish",
or actually managed to get a nickname like "Mad Dog" . they like decisive, "clean" (funny word
to use for blowing people and the landscape to smithereens, but that's what people label it as)
engagements where bad guys are taken out and good guys rejoice.
If they are, and I'm sure they are, smart enough to see that this is exactly not what
the Middle East messes are, they may well tell Trump "let's just get our stuff and go home".
What we have been trying to do in the ME is not, and has never been (going back to before us,
the Russians in Afghanistan) anything where a military makes any sense at all. It's police+political
work at best, and despite what we've been turning the police departments into at home, police
work is very, very different from military work. Hopefully the warrior types see this, whereas
the Hillary Clintons of the world simply won't.
The US can win any standup fight. We quickly smashed the Taliban's military, and Saddam didn't
last long at all. It's the long, grinding guerrilla war that comes after that we inevitably lose.
And even there we will win 99% of the engagements (if all else fails, drop a giant bomb on them)
and yet sooner or later we'll run home with our tail between our legs.
Washington is addicted to gold-plated occupations. Whereas the only route to success is minimalist, an economy of force strategy. That also entails economy of injuries. Occupying forces ought to spend most of their time like Firemen - in their bunks back at the
barracks. That's how success was achieved in the 19th Century. ( British Empire, American nation,
French Empire. )
Such a scheme is still working wonders in South Korea. Not a whole lot of casualties that way.
Nation building is crazy all across the ummah. They won't suffer it. You would NOT believe
the amount of infrastructure blown up by our Iraqi allies - as a financial hustle.
It took forever for the American Army to figure out that the reason the power system kept crashing
was that the fellow building it up was corrupt and cashing in hugely by re-doing the same work
five times over. He would pull security off the power grid at point X so that his cousins could
dynamite the towers. Yes, he fled when the jig was up.
With his departure, the system started to work. This fiasco was an extreme embarrassement to
the US Army and the Iraqi officials. The perp had his whole clan involved. (!) Yes, this story
is suppressed. Guess why ?
1. The Generals have won. They are Generals.
2. The Military does not win wars, it prolongs the stalemate until the enemy's economy collapses.
3. With no public definition of win (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria), what is win?
4. The MIC is very lucrative. There are man, many winners there.
The Bush Administration arrogantly assumed that all peoples are enough alike that they can
be rescued the same way as Western Europeans were - after the Nazis were driven off. This premis was an epic error for the ages. The entire Washington establishment - to include the Pentagon - and the MSM went along with
this premis. In many ways they STILL buy into it.
You never read MSM articles questioning whether Iraqis or Afghans can buy into republican democracy.
The assumption is that the whole world is waiting with baited breath to achieve this Western political-cultural
ideal.
But Islam proscribes democracy, and these lands are emotionally Islamic in the extreme. When
queried, virtually every man demands Shariah law, under Islam.
Changing Afghan culture is what doomed the Soviet 'project.' So the Pentagon was not ever going
to touch cultural issues. This has proved very controvesial as Afghans practice pederasty on a
grand scale. Likewise, the NATO nations were not going to 'touch' the opium trade.
They were also wholly dependent upon Pakistan for logistics. Ultimately, a second rail route
was established at horrific expense across Russia. But no military specific goods could travel
by that route.
So the entire campaign was both necessary - to punish al Qaeda and the Taliban - and unwinnable
in a WWII sense. There never was a thought about expanding the scope of the conflict up to WWII
purportions, of course.
The problem is not that of Pentagon leadership.
The folly starts at the strategic level - straight out of the White House.
It was a mistake for Bush to be so optomistic, grandiose.
It was a mistake for Obama to run away from Iraq. A corps sized garrison force would've permitted
him enough influence to stop Maliki from sabotaging his own army - with crony appointments. (
The Shia simply did not have enough senior talent. So he over promoted his buddies and his tribe.
This set the stage for ghost soldiers and a collapse in morale across entire divisions. )
The correct solution, in 2011, was to endure - like we have in South Korea.
The correct solution, in 2009, was to NOT expand Afghan operations. I spent many an hour arguing
the folly of said expansion. It was inevitable that after any expansion there would be a massive
draw down - which would destablize the Kabul government.
The correct solution for both was a steady-state, economy of operations mode - with the US
Army largely standing idle in their barracks - letting the locals run all day to day operations.
You end up with the best of all worlds, low American casualties, low interference with the
locals, yet a psychological back-bone for young governments – – who are financial cripples.
At this time, the best route is to cut off Pakistan from all Western aid, and to entirely stop
Pakistani immigration to the West. Islamabad is as much an enemy of the West as Riyadh or Tehran.
This would also help calm Pakistan down, as it's the cultural embarrassment vis a vis the West
that's driving Pakistanis crazy. Let them interact with their blood cousins, the Hindus of India.
That'll be plenty enough modernity for Islamabad and Riyadh.
Pull out of Syria entirely. Stop funding al Nusrah - which is an acknowledged branch of al
Qaeda. Egypt has entered the conflict on the side of Assad, Iran and Russia, most recently. The "White
Hats" are a fraud.
Comparing "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan with Civil War or such conflicts confuses the issue
and shifts the responsibility from the policy makers to the military. Iraq and Afghanistan are
not wars, they are occupations and as such are unwinnable.
US is caught in a typical occupation trap, where they want a subservient regime that is under
their control. Subservient regimes are subservient because they lack a large power base and are
dependent on their foreign backers. A subservient regime with a power base does not stay subservient
for long, they quickly develop an independent streak at which point you have to overthrow them
and install a different, weaker regime.
US imposed regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan are classic examples of this. Al-Maliki in Iraq
was a marginal figure before becoming prime minister, similar to Karzai in Afghanistan. The new
leaders, Ashraf Ghani as the new Afghan president and Haider Al-Abadi as the Iraqi prime minister
are both ex-pats that only returned to the country after US occupation. Both Al-Maliki and Karzai
have been in power long enough that they were starting to develop a power base and show signs
of breaking away from the US, so they had to be replaced.
Stabilizing a subservient regime with a weak power base requires US presence and boots on the
ground. A subservient regime with a strong power base that can support itself quickly stops being
subservient and has to be replaced. A "victory", where US troops would not be necessary for the
regime support, means loss of control over the regime.
So US is stuck in a loop. Political considerations force them to build up a regime to a point
of independence, only to have to tear it down when it looks like it might go against American
interests. US military takes the blame because they have to fight the latest insurgent group CIA
built up to effect regime change.
I would never gainsay that many technocratic, careerist general officers might be looking for
ways to enhance their glory and bid up their asking price for CNN slots and board positions at
Lockheed Martin. But the swamp you seek to drain has an apex predator; wealthy and powerful civilians.
I seem to recall some generals, Eric Shinseki and Jay Garner come to mind, who tried to bring
a little truth to power and avoid the biggest mistakes of the Iraq war.
Ideologues in the administration had other plans. The first being the original sin of the war
itself, supported by a vast industry of defense, finance and media interests who knew opportunity
when they saw it. As for now, what the hell is the mission that the military is supposed to win?
I get the sense we will have our next big, proper war on account of using the military to solve
problems that no military could, like say a GWOT.
Eisenhower's prophecy has metastasized so deeply into the body politic, only a profound change
in the views of the citizenry could possibly make a difference. Short of economic or military
upheaval, it's hard to see how do we do this when our best paying jobs are strategically sprinkled
across the country, making every procurement and every base sacrosanct to even the most liberal,
libertarian or even peace-nick politicians? So, isn't the swamp much larger that the military
officer corps? Drain this one part, and it would fill back in rather quickly if that was the main
thrust of our attack on this nightmare.
I suspect Trump is headed to the White House partly because a significant number of people
concluded that social upheaval will be hastened by his administration, and that the consequences,
whatever they may be, will be worth bearing so that we can rebuild on the ashes of the neoliberal/neoconservative
era.
I sympathize, but with three college aged daughters, I was willing to work for, wait for, another
shot at a Bernie Sanders shaped attack on the system rather than throwing a Trump grenade. Trump
will only disrupt the system by accident, and absolutely unpredictably. His family's interests
are superbly served by the status quo, give or take a tax break or another busted union. It's
madness not to see his run for presidency as a vanity project run amok. If his cabinet and congress
play him right, it's pedal to the metal for the most reactionary, avaricious, vindictive and bellicose
impulses in this country.
Someone might get hurt, and with bugger all to show for it.
Isn't victory the one thing we seek to avoid ? If there were victory anywhere, it would mean "the end", and everyone knows arm sales cannot,
should not, must not, end. After all, it is the only industrial endeavor we are still good at.
Yes, well there's that as well. And that's not an insignificant issue. So again, the witless
proles are fed endless propaganda about terrrrrists and being "safe" in order to keep on keeping
on. Trump played the rubes about safety with his vitriolic Anti-Muslim rhetoric. Although Trump
claimed not to want to continue the wars, I seriously doubt he'll do one damn thing to make improvements
in this regard.
Have readers seen / thought of the amount of decorations modern US generals and admirals wear
in comparison to their WW2 equivalents? I know Uncle Sam has been in permanent war for a long
time, but does beating up Grenada and Panama count? The other lot to wear a lot of bling are the
welfare junkies occupying Buck House.
Compared to Ike and Bradley, but Beedle wrote a book where he claimed credit for single-handedly
winning the war. West Point is ultimately a self selective group which poses a set of problems.
What kind of kid wants to be a soldier for 30 to 40 years at age 16 when they need to start the
application process? No one accidentally winds up at West Point or the other academies anymore.
What kind of kid in 1810 thought he could carry on for Washington at age 16? I bet he's arrogant
and loves pomp and pageantry.
I'm convinced we need to draft the officer corp from college bound seniors.
Unfolding the Future of the Long War, a 2008 RAND Corporation report, was sponsored by the
US Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capability Integration Centre. It set out US government
policy options for prosecuting what it described as "the long war" against "adversaries" in
"the Muslim world," who are "bent on forming a unified Islamic world to supplant Western dominance".
Interesting. Rand was enlisted to write up a report almost a decade later on a decision that
was made in 2000 when Little George decided to run for office. Making it appear to have just evolved
into this situation today, no doubt. Remember Rumsfeld's name for the ME war in 2002 was "Odyssey
Dawn". When he first tried to call it a "Crusade" he horrified everyone and had to find something
more genteel. But Odyssey Dawn clearly says it all – it will be a very long war and it will carry
us around the world and we will stagger in confusion but in the end we will find our way. Not
the kind of war you can win by "bombing the shit out of em," as Donald might do. The victory we
will get from Odyssey Dawn will be the benefits of attrition and engagement. But the devastation
we cause will never be worth it.
Bacevich: "Yet here's what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created
that swamp in the first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides
a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government
bigger and more intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes
tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the
swamp, nothing works better than war."
Appreciated Bacevich's three questions, particularly the second. Far past time to come clean
on the real strategy in MENA. The mission and "the job" of military leaders has NOT been to bring
America's wars to a timely and successful conclusion. Instead, there is a strategy to balkanize
that region, keep it in chaos, keep the American people in perpetual wars and "support our troops"
mode, threaten Europeans with a flood of immigrants, assure profits for the MIC and access for
oil majors, and simply keep the military and other agencies occupied. "Winning a war" (and subsequent
occupation) in terms of "bringing conflicts to a prompt and successful conclusion" doesn't appear
to be high on the priority list of those who set the nation's geopolitical and military strategy.
Project for a New American Century indeed.
In terms of "draining the swamp" that war has created, as Bacevich points out, the names mentioned
as prospective appointees as national security adviser and defense secretary are not cause for
optimism that the incoming administration will implement policies that will lead to resolution
rather than perpetuating this mess.
Well, the US military's performance in WW1 and WW2, often against weak opposition, was less
than stunning. They won their battles with massively superior firepower, for the most part.
But
many of the same criticisms that Bacevich makes could be, and indeed were, made of the Vietnam
War, which is an odd omission from his article. If anything, the level of generalship then was
probably worse than it is today.
But the real problem does, indeed, lie in Washington; Accepting that the US strategy in Iraq,
for example, was indeed to create a pliable, pro-western democratic state, it's not clear that
there was actually much the military could do when it started to unravel because of the inherent
stupidity of the idea. At what the military call the "operational" level of war, there seems to
have been a complete thought vacuum in Washington. I can imagine successive generals asking the
political leadership "yes, but what exactly do you want me to do " and never getting
a coherent answer.
Nor should we overlook the resulting body count. Since the autumn of 2001, something like
370,000 combatants and noncombatants have been killed in the various theaters of operations where
U.S. forces have been active. Although modest by twentieth century standards, this post-9/11 harvest
of death is hardly trivial.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903285704576560593124523206 A dozen terrorism scholars gave a wide range of answers when asked to estimate how many members
there are, how the numbers have changed during al Qaeda's lifespan and how many countries the
group operates in. Analysts put the core membership at anywhere from 200 to 1,000
My recollection is toward the low end ( towards 200ppl) at the time of GWB addle-minded decision
to pull the relatively modest special forces resources out of Tora Bora in Afghanistan that had
the AlQ Principles in the crosshairs. Instead GWB pursued a bizarre and unrelated non-sequitur
mission of tipping over SH in Iraq– allegedly because Saddam had threatened his Dad?
What was a reasonable response with explicit objectives to remedy a criminal act (as well at
the time with fairly unanimous sympathies of other Countries) could have been accomplished with
a modest Military footprint before getting the fk out of Afghanistan.
Instead it was scaled up into stupid endless Perpetual War without achievable objectives.
In retrospect divide $5T by 200-1,000 and consider how little it may have cost if 9/11 had
been treated as a criminal act by non-state actors, instead of sticking our foot into the role
of destabilizing other sovereign countries, killing /antagonizing the citizens and generally fking
up their countries??
I think the US is falling into the old imperialist trap of thinking of these places as countries
with capital cities and leaders recognized as such by the population. The British had that issue
in the 1770s when they captured the capital(s) of the new US but the revolution didn't stop. External
superpower (French) support was able to keep the resistance functioning and the British eventually
gave up. Both of those superpowers kept duking it out on other battlefields for another 30 years.
Yugoslavia was a temporary post-WW II construct based on a personality cult of Tito. When he
died, the real Yugoslavia turned out to be a bunch of tribes that really, really hated each other
and it all went to pieces.
North America is unusual with a huge moat around it other than a little isthmus at the south
end. Even so, there are millions of illegal immigrants that come over that isthmus or cross over
the southern moat (Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean) over the years. Only three countries (Mexico, US,
Canada) are in play and those borders have been stable for over a century. This was after the
US fought a massive civil war to keep that basic structure instead of having another country.
Even so, Quebec has come close to secession, Texas and California mumble about it periodically,
and Mexico effectively has a civil war with drug cartels. However, this is VERY stable compared
to nearly anywhere else in the world, so it leads us to false equivalencies about how other parts
of the world should work.
Putting in corrupt leaders with no popular support doesn't work as we have recently proved
again in Afghanistan and Iraq after having proved it previously in Vietnam and Cuba (pre-Castro).
The Afghanistan outcome may have worked better if the concept of Afghanistan disappeared and NATO
had worked with each region to come up with rational boundaries based on historical tribal alliances.
T.E. Lawrence had drawn a map like that for Iraq c.1918 but it did not fit the colonial power
requirements.. Turkey vs. the Kurds and Iran linking with the Shiites ensured that natural map
wasn't going to happen in 2003 either.
So, it is not clear what victory means in these areas. I think in many cases our concept of
victory is very different than what the locals think is acceptable. It appears that Assad, Russia,
and Iran may be "victorious" in Syria because it is clear they are willing to wipe out the village
to save it. They may find that there is nobody left there to rule though, so they will repopulate
those areas with allies, thereby probably sowing the seeds for another future war.
The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the imposition
of the Spanish Empire; total destruction of native culture and replacement with Roman forms. The
places the Spanish controlled are still broken, so don't look for success in this endeavor anytime
soon
The nearest analog to what the US is trying to do in all these places is a lot like the
imposition of the Spanish Empire
At least the Spanish had a quantifiable, albeit indefensible objective (resource extraction) that
drove their predatory behavior. Our quizzical form of imperialism is a net resource drag with
fuzzy morphing objectives
Say what you want about the British Empire, but they did leave behind functioning legal and
political systems in most of the countries they controlled. In India's case, they also left them
a common language since there are so many languages there. Many of the countries remained in the
Commonwealth after independence which is something that none of the other colonial powers achieved.
I think the key was the British focused on empire as an extension of commerce, not ideology
(they already knew they were superior, so they didn't have to prove it, which allows for pragmatism).
In the end, when it was clear that they couldn't hold on, they backed out more gracefully than
many other empires.
If there's one thing we can hope for in a Trump presidency, it's going to be Trump looking
at the disaster of biblical proportions that continues to unfold in the arena of government contracting.
It doesn't matter which sector his gaze falls upon, he's going to find an appalling failure in
contract negotiation: the F-35, the Zumwalt, the LCS, the KC-46, the B-21 (really, just the idea
of cost-plus contracts in general), the SLS, the FCC's Universal Service Fund, the EPA's Superfund,
the Department of Education's "Race to the Top" and "No Child Left Behind" mandates, the ACA,
the dollar value on whatever classified contract the telecommunications industry has to spy on
the American people, the private contractors presently employed by the military to perform its
duties - the list is endless.
The military-industrial complex has perfected the art of putting parts of the design, manufacturing,
testing, and deployment of these programs into just about Congressional District so that everybody
wants their constituents to have a shot at one part of the trough.
This is how empires fall. Asymmetrical economic and military warfare against entrenched bureaucracies
and corruption.
potus wants to make money giving speeches after office and also needs $$$$$$$$$$$ for his lieberry.
The merchants of death will hire him for those speeches and send money for lieberry.
The generals of today help the merchants of death make money so when the retire they can go to
work for the merchants of death.
The idea is to never win so there is always an enemy so the merchants of death can continue to
profit.
The easy way to control a country is to have chaos all the time. This makes easier to steal resources
and keep citizens from pulling their own levers of justice. We only have to look at Amerika but
other countries around the globe have the same going on. austerity for all.
The .01% would like to thank you for staying at each others throats.
I matriculated at one of the U.S. Military Service Academies. I had my share of classes on
"War Footing," "War Strategies" and "War, War, War – The Scarlet O'Hara Doctrine." (That last
one was mine and mine alone.)
And then I took the typical post-grad Naval War College assortment of "think-tanked" war symposiums.
All for naught, I must say.
Then came my time in the field. Most of my peers were good soldiers, junior officers and even
a few were leaders. But no one I knew had the stomach for the orders passed down – they were seen
just as watered-down "march-in-place" bullshit until the next wave of senior leadership flew in.
We junior officers were in the field just as much as our men – I'd say half (or more) of my
squadrons were comprised of men and women on their second, third, fourth – or more – tours of
duty. I'm so glad they didn't hear the bullshit we had to listen to. In fact, to this day, my
greatest gift to my men and women was the translation and humanizing effect of taking bullshit
orders and making them palatable for them.
No, we haven't won a war since WWII for many reasons; but, in my humble estimation, the two
biggest culprits are politics and logistics. For one, our politicians don't know what it's like
to wage war, what it's like for the combatants or the civilians seemingly always caught in the
middle. Or what the hell we're going to do in the off-chance that we win one of these puppies.
No, the Generals have not forgotten how to win wars – in fact, there are no generals
alive now who ever had the good fortune to win one. So the Generals don't know how to
win wars.
Oh, by the way – this was during Vietnam. Nothing has changed.
Glad to read a comment from someone with first hand experience. Generals know how to win conventional
wars, where success is measured based on % enemy destroyed or seizing an objective. One could
argue Norman Schwarzkopf won the 1st Gulf War, only difference is that U.S. Generals weren't left
to perform humanitarian functions after. As the author eludes to - but still doesn't stray from
attacking the competence of senior military leaders– without an objective can success be determined?
If one's mission as a Colonel is to lead a Brigade security operation on a Forward Operating Base
for a year, can he/she be successful based on the author's arbitrary standards of success? I would
argue with minimal casualties and no breaches over the year, the mission would be a success, but
these everyday successes are neglected. Accordingly, if a Component Combatant Commander leads
coalition operations in Iraq for two years with 0.05% coalition casualties and no FOBs being breached,
shouldn't that be a success?
It's too bad that General's success can't be measured like their CEO equivalents based on an
quarterly earnings, instead they have to answer to often ill-informed civilian leadership being
judged by vacant metrics and arbitrary standards by those like Bakevich. At least the military's
top executives (Generals) make about 4x their median worker's salary. These men and women could
take far better jobs in the MIC or the Corporate Realm, many I'm sure stay for noble reasons to
lead their servicemembers.
Sounds like the lament of an aging mafia don that's forgotten what he's talking about is illegal.
"Why can't our generals pull off a good old-fashioned smash and grab like they used to? They must
be incompetent!"
That's so last millennium. We've moved on, don. Smash & grabs are penny ante. Now the game
is Full-Spectrum Dominance.
So I don't think an old-fashioned smash & grab has been the goal for a long time. For decades
(ever since WWII?) we've been trying to regime change our way to the goal of every Hollywood mad
scientist and super-villian: everlasting world dominance.
What have they actually accomplished? Hard to say, from my vantage point. "Insufficient data,"
as the old Star Trek computer said.
I know that one of the main goals is to prevent there from ever being any threat to our dominance.
So while China and Russia aim for Eurasian integration, we're all about it's disintegration. We're
also determined to keep the EU from ever threatening our dominance. South America is slipping
the yoke, but we haven't given up.
At the very least, our generals are doing a smashing job of spreading chaos. And then there's
weaponized economics.
Here in the "Homeland" (genuflects), on the "home front," in the domestic "battle space," it's
important to realize that when the Pentagon says "full-spectrum dominance," that means us, comrades.
Wall-to-wall surveillance? Check. POTUS power to execute or disappear dissidents? Check. Torture
enshrined in secret laws and the public mind? Check.
On what level are the relevant decisions being made: public discourse, or top security? We're
not privy to the councils where super secret intelligence is discussed and the big decisions are
made. We're out here, on the receiving end of weapons-grade PSYOPS.
So what are we talking about, here? I don't think analyses based in kayfabe will ever arrive
at real insight. Analyzing events in terms of the cover stories meant to dupe us is much ado about
nothing.
The above article was published in 2000. Obama never renounced FSD. AFAIK it's still the strategy.
Why doesn't the esteemed colonel frame his analysis in terms of our official defense posture?
Are we any closer to FSD, or not?
But I must say, nice job of framing the debate. /s
As far as any hope for change under the new don, I don't see any. He'd have to publicly renounce
FSD, wind down the empire of bases, and find something to do with all those now in its employ,
all while "pivoting" to climate change and rejuvenating the economy, to actually respond to our
actual conditions. The Don is many things, but a martyr for peace and Mother Earth ain't one.
I'll be impressed when the colonel starts calling our wars crimes against humanity and for
their immediate cessation and full reparations. "Moar better generals" will not succeed at accomplishing
a basically insane strategy. Until then, I'll file Bacevich under "modified limited hangout."
"But can he do anything about it?" - Don't go to war without a damn good reason seems like
it might be a pretty good start. Despite his typically being all over the map on this – e.g. tough-on-terrorism-and-ISIS
– I found myself repeatedly surprised during the primary season at Trump being the only major-party
candidate – even including Bernie – to consistently talk good sense on Libya, Syria, Ukraine and
Russia.
Agreed. I was surprised, too. Of course, it's the working class children in the flyover states
who join the military and go to war, and come back maimed or with PTSD to a rotten job market.
So that may have been politically astute on Trump's part and, if so, good for him.
Andrew Bacevich is correct if one wears blinders and looks strictly at DoD Generals. The reality
is that there is a Western Imperium that is intent only on short term profits and has degenerated
into looting its own people and destroying sovereign nations. The Vietnam War showed that colonial
wars could not be fought with a conscript army. The volunteer US Army is too small to put a platoon
of soldiers in every village and town square in Afghanistan let alone Iraq. The endless wars were
unwinnable from the get go. The globalist empire is supremely efficient in looting taxpayers,
trashing Deplorables and spreading regime change campaigns across the world. The forever wars
are being fought by proxy forces with Western military support without a single thought for their
deadly consequences to make money.
Let's be brutally frank. The US both wants an empire, but also wants to pretend it is encouraging democracy everywhere.
Objectives where the result is deceitful and duplicitous behavior. Ask the Indians about the
methods, or the beneficiaries of the "Monroe Doctrine." The British wanted an empire. A simple objective. If you are not England, you are a colony,
and we, the English, make the rules. At the heart of American activities is a kernel of deceit. Self determination for people, but
only if you do what we say. The kernel of deceit poisons every walk of life connected to Washington.
Every single one.
The US is called the empire of chaos. It could also be called the empire of Deceit. Do as we
say, but we are not taking any responsibility for you if you do what we say. Don't do what we
say, and we will fund your opposition until they stuff a dagger up you ass.
I don't understand why we're in the Middle East at all. The US seems taken by the 4000 year
old, 5th grade concept of controlling the "Fertile Crescent." Why don't we just buy the oil we
want at prevailing prices.
Winning for the Boykin-ites is when the Middle East becomes Christian! lol As Smedley said.
"It's a racket."
Whatever, then there's Israel's push to steal Palestinian gas and pipe it thru Syria and Turkey
to markets in the Europe.
Think about Democrats using identity politics to claim religious fervor and war used to show
being strong on defense. With both political parties using corruption to align power and control
at home and abroad. Choosing your enemies carefully, for you will become them.
Let's just pull out of the Middle East and do everything we can to de-escalate these wars:
especially to keep the other great powers out too, unless called back in as a true UN peacekeeping
force after the locals have found a way to cool things down.
The US military was the first part of the government to be turned into a business, the first
neo-liberal institution created in America. The real problem is that the US military is run by
managers and not soldiers. The Germans used to make fun of the British Army in WWI by calling
it an army of lions led by donkeys. The US military is an army of lions led by managers.
If Andrew is looking for a denouement to the Military Industrial complex then one need look
no further than the British empire – specifically what made it shrink and shrivel very rapidly.
WWI and WWII. The decimation of the economy and the inability to keep spending money to maintain
empire is what reversed the entire machine. It will be the same with the US as well.
As long as
the dollar is high and Wall Street keeps it that way, there will be no pressure to do anything
different. When people start going hungry and jobless and start getting the bejesus bombed out
of them as happened during the blitz then they begin to understand what war truly means. In America
there has been no war for too long and the people here know nothing about war's sufferings and
privations. There was a little window via the draft during 'Nam' but that's about it. Nothing
will happen until a majority of the populace start hurting real bad.
"... I think tribalism is a bad term to describe this phenomenon. In reality what we see should be properly called "far right nationalism". And in several countries this is a specific flavor of far right nationalism which is called neofascism ..."
"... Brexit is just a symptom of growing resistance to neoliberalism, and the loss of power of neoliberal propaganda. Much like "Prague Spring" was in the past. ..."
"... the sustainability of modern far right nationalism depends mainly on continuation of austerity policies and uncontrolled neoliberal globalization with its outsourcing of local manufacturing, services and replacing well paying jobs with McJobs. Which cannot be stopped without betraying of fundamental tenets of neoliberalism as an ideology and economic theory. ..."
"... Thanks to "neoliberalism achievements" far right nationalism already achieved the status of mass movement with own political party(ies) in most EU countries. Trump_vs_deep_state in the USA is pretty modest demonstration of the same trend in comparison with EuroMaydan (Yanukovich government was a typical corrupt neoliberal government). And first attempts might fail (as they failed in Ukraine) ..."
Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the
political right has been increasingly dominated by tribalism
The sustainability of tribalism as a political force will depend, in large measure, on
the perceived success or failure of Brexit.
I see it differently. I think tribalism is a bad term to describe this phenomenon. In reality
what we see should be properly called "far right nationalism". And in several countries this is
a specific flavor of far right nationalism which is called neofascism , if we understand
neofascism as
neofascism = fascism
– physical violence as the main tool of controlling opposition
– attempts to replace parliamentary democracy with the authoritarian rule
+ some degree of acceptance of "unearned income" and financial oligarchy
+ weaker demands for social protection of middle class and Drang nach Osten
Brexit is just a symptom of growing resistance to neoliberalism, and the loss of power
of neoliberal propaganda. Much like "Prague Spring" was in the past.
And the sustainability of modern far right nationalism depends mainly on continuation of
austerity policies and uncontrolled neoliberal globalization with its outsourcing of local manufacturing,
services and replacing well paying jobs with McJobs. Which cannot be stopped without betraying
of fundamental tenets of neoliberalism as an ideology and economic theory.
Thanks to "neoliberalism achievements" far right nationalism already achieved the status
of mass movement with own political party(ies) in most EU countries. Trump_vs_deep_state in the USA is pretty
modest demonstration of the same trend in comparison with EuroMaydan (Yanukovich government was
a typical corrupt neoliberal government). And first attempts might fail (as they failed in Ukraine)
In other words neoliberalism is digging its own grave, but not the way Marx assumed.
"... Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true nature of far-right parties. ..."
"... Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners. ..."
"... "Our European cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single European currency," ..."
"... The Austrian Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking Italian bordering region of South Tyrol. ..."
"... On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector. ..."
Around a decade ago, Columbia University historian Robert Paxton rightly pointed out how "a fascism
of the future - an emergency response to some still unimagined crisis - need not resemble classical
fascism perfectly in its outward signs and symbols ... the enemy would not necessarily be Jews.
An authentically popular fascism in America would be pious, anti-black, and, since September 11,
2001, anti-Islamic as well; in Western Europe it would be secular and, these days, more likely anti-Islamic
than anti-Semitic; and in Russia and Eastern Europe it would be religious, anti-Semitic, Slavophile,
and anti- Western.
New fascisms would probably prefer the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time."
Does any of this sound familiar across the Atlantic?
Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not
an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true
nature of far-right parties.
Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote
a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners.
There is also a sense of decline and threat that was widely exploited by interwar fascism, and
by these extreme-right parties, which - after 1945 - resisted immigration on the grounds of defending
the so-called "European civilization".
The future of Europe?
The future of European societies could, however, follow these specific lines: "Our European
cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial
powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single
European currency," as Marcel de Graaff, co-president of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group
in the European Parliament, declared.
Another fellow party, the Belgian
Vlaams Belang , calls for an opposition to multiculturalism. It "defends the interests of the
Dutch-speaking people wherever this is necessary", and would "dissolve Belgium and establish an independent
Flemish state. This state ... will include Brussels", the current capital of the EU institutions.
The Austrian
Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from
the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking
Italian bordering region of South Tyrol.
On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle
of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector.
She also wants to renegotiate the European treaties and establish a "
pan-European Union " including Russia.
At the end of these inward-looking changes, there will be no free movement of Europeans across
Europe, and this will be replaced with a reconsolidation of the sovereignty of nation states.
Resentments among regional powers might rise again, while privileges will be based on ethnic origins
- and their alleged purity. In sum, this is how Europe will probably look if one follows the "moderate"
far-right policies. The dream of building the United States of Europe will become an obsolete memory
of the past. And the old continent will be surely less similar to the post-national one which guaranteed
peace and - relative - prosperity after the disaster of World War II.
Andrea Mammone is a historian of modern Europe at Royal Holloway, University of London.
He is the author of "Transnational Neofascism in France and Italy". He is currently writing a book
on the recent nationalist turn in Europe.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect
Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Exception of course are refugees (which one could say we have some moral responsibility to
rescue since our 15 year war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria (since we are
bombing quite a bit in Syria), and many other places has more than done or bit fan disorder and
violence from which the refugees flee rather than die, ditto the children fleeing Mexico and Central
America where our war on (some people) who use drugs has created both right wing Governments and
drug gangs and associated violence.)
I think it is bad form when left wing sites repeat right-wing memes (falsehoods and half-truths),
particularly when the new right-wing authoritarian kleptocrats who are taking over the Government
are talking about rounding up, placing in concentration camps, and deporting millions of people,
citizens and non-citizens alike..
rickstersherpa, November 30, 2016 11:46 am
Just out curiosity, since Mr. Kimel used the example of Iran, there was a huge Iranian immigration
to the U.S. In sense they both support (since many of the these people were high skill immigrants)
and rebut his point (since they came from a culture he marks as particularly "foreign" to U.S.
culture.
http://xpatnation.com/a-look-at-the-history-of-iranian-immigrants-in-the-u-s/ It has actually
been an amazingly successful immigration, with many now millionaires (a mark of "success" that
I find rather reflects the worse part of America, the presumption by Americans, Rich, Middle,
or poor, that if you are not rich, you are nothing, a loser; but still it appears to be a marker
that Mr. Kimel is using.
Beverly Mann, November 30, 2016 3:47 pm
To add to Rickstersherpa's comments, I'll also point out that among the Muslim immigrants who've
committed acts of terrorism in this country, none to my knowledge was on welfare nor were their
parents on welfare, None.
This post is just the latest in what is now many-months-long series of white supremacist/ white
nationalist posts by Kimel, whose original bailiwick at this blog was standard left-of-center
economics but obviously is something close to the opposite now. He left the blog for two or three
years, and came back earlier this year unrecognizable and with a vengeance. Literally.
I was a blogger here for six-and-a-half years until earlier this month, and was among regulars
who comment in the Comments threads who repeatedly expressed dismay. Kimel's last few posts, lik
this one, are published directly under his name. Before that Dan Crawford and run75441 were posting
them for him and crediting him with the posts.
In my comments int those threads, I've suggested as you did here that this blogger belongs
at Breitbart, or more accurately, you say that this blog is providing the same type of voice as
Breitbart.
But at least Breitbart hasn't been known as left-of-center blog. Allowing these posts on a
blog that has misleads readers into thinking, if only for a moment, that maybe this guy's saying
something that you're missing, or not saying something that you think he's saying. It's really
jarring.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:49 pm
Sorry, but leftists were the originators of anti-immigration. They blasted classical
liberals and their "open borders" to buy talent on the market rather than "building within"
and using the state to develop talent.
"right wing" Christians are some of the worst people in terms of helping the underground
railroad for immigrants in the US.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:54 pm
Beverly, Breitbart loves illegal immigration and wants it to stay, indeed quite illegal.
You represent the problem of modern politics. Anyone you don't agree with, you start
making dialectical points rather than going under the hood to find out the point.
Jack November 30, 2016 4:24 pm
Kimel,
Your points leave out any consideration of the cultural variabilities of this host country.
Given that the USofA is a country made up of immigrants from a wide variety of places across
the globe I would think that there is some benefit to varying the sources of immigration
in the present given the past. Some of the cultural distinctions that you suggest as different
from our own are not homogeneous within our own culture. For example, I wouldn't choose
to live in some parts of the US because of the degree of antisemitism that I might find
even though I am what one might call an agnostic Jew. There are many Americans that don't
make that distinction.
Face it Mike, there is probably a place for just about anyone from any place that would
be suitable for their emigration within the US. We don't all have to share the same values
with the new comer. We don't share values amongst ourselves as it is. We've got large numbers
of immigrants and their off spring from the Far East, South East Asia, Africa, South America
and the middle East. We even have many Europeans. Keep in mind that that last category is
made up of people who have spent the past two thousand years trying as hard as possible
to kill one another. So who is to say what immigrant group is best for the US? We've been
moving backwards for the past several decades. Maybe we need some new blood to get thinks
going forward again.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:27 pm
Apparently you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations and fears unrelated
to racism and ethnicity bias masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and immigrants
willing to work for lower wages irrespective of their race and ethnicity, on the other hand,
The Rage. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:34 pm
CORRECTED COMMENT: Apparently, The Rage, you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations
masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and fears unrelated to racism and
ethnicity bias, that immigrants willing to work for lower wages will put downward pressure
on wages in this country, irrespective of the race and ethnicity or the immigrant willing to
work for the low wages. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about
his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
(Definitely a cut-and-paste issue there with that first comment, which I accidentally clicked
"Post Comment" for before it was ready for posting.)
Jack, November 30, 2016 4:45 pm
I will accept one category of immigrant for exclusion. No identifiable criminals allowed.
We haven't always done so well on that trait. So let's do a better job of excluding those seeking
admission who can be shown to be actively involved with any form of criminal behavior. That
goes for Euros, Russians, Chinese, South Americans, etc. That also includes very wealthy criminals
whose wealth is the result of their positions of authority in their home country.
"The fact that there is homegrown dysfunction isn't a good argument for importing more dysfunction."
What manner of dysfunction beyond criminality did you have in mind?
" it makes sense to be selective, both for our sake and the sake of those who are unlikely
to function well and would become alienated and unable to fend for themselves in the US." Please
define "unlikely to function well" more precisely. Remember that the goal of our immigration
quotas is to allow a reasonable balance of people from varying countries to achieve admission.
"To be blunt, some people have attitudes that allow them to function well in the West. Typically
they are dissidents in non Western countries." That statement is generally problematic. What
measure of attitude do we use here? Is it the rabble rousers that you want to give preference
to? Then why only from non Western countries?
"... Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude any
challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent fascism
can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate politically
in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders. ..."
"... They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology. ..."
"... In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war and
create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and powerful.
Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is defined as being
essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex becomes sacrosanct in
the pursuit of national defense. ..."
"... Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating a
gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. ..."
Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude
any challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent
fascism can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate
politically in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders.
Today this
force is the Republican Party, now infiltrated by Tea Party radicals. Those views stress past values,
nationalist spirit and strong cultural unity. Neo-fascists tend to exclude ideas and changes that
they see as threatening their cherished value system.
They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology.
Nonetheless, in the United States this idealized viewpoint has overtones of racism and tends to
focus around Christianity as the source of needed values. For instance, one slogan of the Tea Party
is "Regular Folks United – The Bully Pulpit for Regular Folks." Irregulars need not apply.
In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war
and create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and
powerful. Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is
defined as being essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex
becomes sacrosanct in the pursuit of national defense.
In present-day America such neo-fascist ideas are combatively percolating in national politics
and are exemplified in the rhetoric of such radical figures as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Ron Paul,
Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann.
Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating
a gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. Furthermore, global capitalism is advancing at a time when, according to Oxfam, by
2050, the global population is forecast to rise by one-third to more than 9 billion, while demand
for food will rise even higher – by 70 percent – as more prosperous economies demand more calories
and crop production continues to fall relative to population.
The British charity projects that prices of staple foods could more than double in the next 20
years, pushing millions of people deeper into poverty. The effects of a combination of population
growth and the growing numbers of unemployed and impoverished people in the world is creating international
crises, most recently in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen; but the emergency is global and
we face a crisis of humanity. The world is a powder keg and the fuse is burning.
Fascists use this time of great upheavals and uncertainties as their raison d'etre to return
to an imagined world where such problems did not exist. Uneducated people are prone to heed their
simplistic slogans and ideas.
"... Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude any
challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent fascism
can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate politically
in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders. ..."
"... They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology. ..."
"... In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war and
create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and powerful.
Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is defined as being
essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex becomes sacrosanct in
the pursuit of national defense. ..."
"... Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating a
gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. ..."
Fascism is authoritarian political ideology that promotes nationalism and glorifies the state.
It is a totalitarian in orientation, meaning that those benefiting from the system work to exclude
any challenges to state hegemony. Generally state leaders prefer a single-party state, but nascent
fascism can exist in a two-party state, as in the United States with one party attempting to dominate
politically in order to bring to the fore the essentialist views of its leaders.
Today this
force is the Republican Party, now infiltrated by Tea Party radicals. Those views stress past values,
nationalist spirit and strong cultural unity. Neo-fascists tend to exclude ideas and changes that
they see as threatening their cherished value system.
They want a solidified nation that fights degeneration and decadence as defined by them. They
seek a rebirth of and a return to traditional values. In the modern context it is politically incorrect
to openly espouse an ideal of racial purity, so neo-fascists stress the need for cultural unity based
on ancestry and past values as idealized in their exclusionist ideology.
Nonetheless, in the United States this idealized viewpoint has overtones of racism and tends to
focus around Christianity as the source of needed values. For instance, one slogan of the Tea Party
is "Regular Folks United – The Bully Pulpit for Regular Folks." Irregulars need not apply.
In fascism a strong leader is sought to exemplify and promote this singular collective identity.
This leader and his cohort are committed to maintain national strength and are willing to wage war
and create systems of national security, such as the Patriot Act, to keep the nation unified and
powerful. Opposition to the state and its idealized values is defined as heretical. Militarism is
defined as being essential to maintaining the nation's power and the military industrial complex
becomes sacrosanct in the pursuit of national defense.
In present-day America such neo-fascist ideas are combatively percolating in national politics
and are exemplified in the rhetoric of such radical figures as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Ron Paul,
Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann.
Neo-fascist rhetoric is being propagated during a time when global capitalism is creating
a gaping chasm between the super rich and the masses of humanity, ecological degradation and widespread
violence. Furthermore, global capitalism is advancing at a time when, according to Oxfam, by
2050, the global population is forecast to rise by one-third to more than 9 billion, while demand
for food will rise even higher – by 70 percent – as more prosperous economies demand more calories
and crop production continues to fall relative to population.
The British charity projects that prices of staple foods could more than double in the next 20
years, pushing millions of people deeper into poverty. The effects of a combination of population
growth and the growing numbers of unemployed and impoverished people in the world is creating international
crises, most recently in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen; but the emergency is global and
we face a crisis of humanity. The world is a powder keg and the fuse is burning.
Fascists use this time of great upheavals and uncertainties as their raison d'etre to return
to an imagined world where such problems did not exist. Uneducated people are prone to heed their
simplistic slogans and ideas.
"... In recent years, George W. Bush assumed the power to kidnap, torture, and assassinate any individual, anywhere in the world, at any time, without even a pretense of due process. Upon replacing Bush, Barack Obama legitimized Bush's kidnapping and torture (by refusing to prosecute the perpetrators or provide recourse to the victims) while enthusiastically embracing the power to assassinate at will. Noam Chomsky said Obama has trashed the 800-year-old Magna Carta, which King John of England would have approved of. ..."
"... Can there be anything more dictatorial than the power of a single individual to kill and make war at will? While American presidents thankfully do not have the power to unilaterally impose taxes, pass legislation, or incarcerate without charges inside U.S. borders, the illegitimate authority they do possess to carry out unrestrained violence across the world is unquestionably one feature of a dictator. ..."
"... There has not been a single American president since World War II that has not exceeded his constitutional authority by committing crimes that would meet the standard by which officials were convicted and executed at the Nuremberg trials. ..."
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
The President, as Commander-in-Chief, directs the wars that Congress declares. However, starting
with Truman's intervention in the Korean War in 1950 and continuing with invasions of Vietnam, Grenada,
Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombings of dozens more countries, the President's ability to unilaterally
initiate war with a sovereign nation has been normalized. Congress has not declared war since 1941
despite the fact the U.S. military has intervened in nearly every corner of the world.
In recent years, George W. Bush assumed the power to kidnap, torture, and assassinate any individual,
anywhere in the world, at any time, without even a pretense of due process. Upon replacing Bush,
Barack Obama legitimized Bush's kidnapping and torture (by refusing to prosecute the perpetrators
or provide recourse to the victims) while enthusiastically embracing the power to assassinate at
will. Noam Chomsky said Obama has trashed the 800-year-old Magna Carta, which King John of England
would have approved of.
Can there be anything more dictatorial than the power of a single individual to kill and make
war at will? While American presidents thankfully do not have the power to unilaterally impose taxes,
pass legislation, or incarcerate without charges inside U.S. borders, the illegitimate authority
they do possess to carry out unrestrained violence across the world is unquestionably one feature
of a dictator.
There has not been a single American president since World War II that has not exceeded his constitutional
authority by committing crimes that would meet the standard by which officials were convicted and
executed at the Nuremberg trials.
Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 to imprison Japanese Americans in concentration camps was a flagrant
violation of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law.
Truman's firebombing of Tokyo, nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and invasion of Korea
violated provisions of multiple treaties that are considered the "supreme law of the land" per Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution.
Eisenhower's use of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected presidents in Iran and Guatemala,
as well as the initiation of a terrorist campaign against Cuba, violated the UN Charter, another
international treaty that the Constitution regards as the supreme law of the land.
Kennedy was guilty of approving the creation of a mercenary army to invade Cuba, as well as covert
warfare in Vietnam. Johnson massively escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam with the introduction
of ground troops, which he fraudulently justified to the public through misrepresentation of the
Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Succeeding Johnson, Nixon waged a nearly genocidal air campaign against not only Vietnam but Cambodia
and Laos, killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying ecosystems across Indochina, and leaving
an unfathomable amount of
unexploded ordnance
, which continues to kill and maim hundreds of people each year.
Ford covertly supported the South African invasion of Angola and overtly supported the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor. Carter continued support of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, as well
as providing military support to military dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador. Reagan oversaw
the creation and operation of a terrorist army in Nicaragua, sponsored military dictatorships throughout
Central America, and directly invaded Grenada.
Bush the Elder invaded Panama and Iraq. Clinton oversaw sanctions in Iraq that killed as many
as 1 million people, carried out an air war from 15,000 feet against Serbia, and bombed a pharmaceutical
plant in Sudan that produced medications for half the country. Bush the Lesser invaded and occupied
Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama continued both of those wars, as well as dramatically expanding the drone
assassination program in as many as seven countries.
So I beg to differ with Blow and anyone else who claims the presidency deserves respect. Any institution
or position that permits such illegal and immoral actions unchecked should be eradicated and replaced
with some alternative that does not allow such concentration of power in the hands of a single person.
"... The term conspiracy theorist was developed by the CIA in the mid-1960s to ridicule those who believed there was a wide government role in the assassination of President Kennedy. It has been used ever since to describe legitimate researchers into Iran-Contra, 9/11, and other deep state crimes. ..."
Mohsen Abdelmoumen : According to you, when we see the numerous demonstrations anti-Trump
in the United States after the election of Donald Trump at the presidency, are we witnessing a colored
revolution?
Wayne Madsen: It is classic Soros-funded color revolution. Soros is financing MoveOn.org, Black
Lives Matter, Demos, and other of his groups to turn out protesters and is even running ads in papers
looking for paid drivers and protest coordinators.
In your very relevant books devoted to George Soros: "Soros: Quantum of Chaos", you reveal the
true face of this figure who is the spearhead of several destabilization operations in the world.
From where does all the power come that this criminal holds and why is he untouchable?
Soros is very wealthy and actually a frontman for an even more powerful and wealthy person, Evelyn
de Rothschild, along with his family. They are all the true puppet masters of the world.
Soros remains a major element in the anti-Trump device. Can Trump resist him?
Trump is actually now being surrounded by people who will serve in his administration who will
be loyal to the Soros-Rothschild puppet masters and certainly not to Trump.
Can we say that the occult world is more powerful than legal institutions?
Secret societies with their crazy rituals have been the bane of human existence since the time
of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees in Palestine and the Dionysian cults of the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean
region.
In your book " ISIS is US - The Shocking Truth Behind the Army of Terror", you detail
the relations between the USA and ISIS/Daesh. What is the triggering element that has put you on
this trail?
Trump's national security adviser retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn revealed that the US was supporting
ISIS and then he was forced to resign. My own sources in the Middle East confirmed this long before
Flynn made his public statement and was fired as Defense Intelligence Agency chief by Obama.
You mention Western Sahara and the involvement of the Clintons in a deal with the Kingdom of Morocco
while this case is under the authority of UN. Aren't the Clintons outlaws such Bonnie and Clyde by
supporting Morocco against the Sahrawi people and the UN's resolutions?
The Clintons received at least $12 million from the Moroccan government in return for buying their
loyalty to Morocco's agenda, which includes permanently annexing Western Sahara as the "Southern
Province." Morocco and Israel share the same policy on annexing illegally-occupied territories.
According to your diverse very interesting analysis, can we assert that the World Government or
the false prophets of the New World Order are the real decision-makers of this world?
I mentioned a few already, Soros/Rothschild. Others are the Bilderbergs, Bohemian Club, and the
Council on Foreign Relations and their counterparts.
You know very well some American intelligence agencies like the NSA. Do these intelligence agencies
serve the US' interests or, rather, the oligarchy's interests?
The CIA has always served the interests of Wall Street. NSA now serves the interests of the global
security network it leads.
You were an officer in the US Navy. Was the whistleblower you are today born after your military
career or before?
Before. I was an FBI-Navy whistleblower in 1982 and helped to uncover a major pedophile ring in
the US Navy that reached into the Reagan-Bush White House and was ultimately exposed in The Washington
Times in 1988-89. My whistleblowing cost me my Navy career, however, and a subsequent series of fairly
bad jobs.
In the recent US election, we saw the mass media bankruptcy despite their manipulations and their
fake polls. Didn't one of the pillars of world oligarchy collapse under our eyes? Don't we witness
a historic moment announcing the end of the New World Order and its purely capitalist product, globalization?
99 percent of major newspapers endorsed Clinton. Many alternative news sources supported Trump.
We are seeing a massive shift away from newspapers and corporate TV and websites to the alternative
media, of which WayneMadsenReport.com has been prominent since its founding in 2005.
Snowden has denounced the Prism program and you have denounced Echelon, both of which serve the
interests of the world's oligarchic caste. What is known is not only the immersed part of the iceberg?
What is still relatively unknown is the close cooperation between NSA and private companies like
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and major telecommunications companies. It is much greater than
even Snowden's documents describe.
The quantity and especially the quality of your reports reveal to us a world unknown by millions
of human beings. How all these truths have been hidden?
The major media cooperates with the government in covering up news events.
I advise everyone to read the Wayne Madsen Report as well as your books and follow your various
interventions in the alternative media. How do you explain that we, who are resisting to what I call
the fascist oligarchic caste, are called conspiracy theorists? Is this concept the only
weapon of the fascist imperialists to reduce to silence all those who resist them and to reinforce
the ranks of those whose who have been brainwashed?
The term conspiracy theorist was developed by the CIA in the mid-1960s to ridicule those who believed
there was a wide government role in the assassination of President Kennedy. It has been used ever
since to describe legitimate researchers into Iran-Contra, 9/11, and other deep state crimes.
Your book " The Star and The Sword " is one of the few to talk about intimate and opaque
links between the Zionist entity of Israel and Saudi Arabia. You claim that they organize false flag
attacks, including the 9/11. What is the origin and nature of this Israeli-Saudi strategic alliance?
Do you think that the JASTA law will succeed or will it be countered by the Zionist allies of Saudi
Arabia? Do the fact that the USA and the Westerners turn a blind eye on the criminal war led by the
Saudis to Yemen isn't due to the weight of the lobby Zionist?
The Zionist-Wahhabi/Saudi alliance goes back to Ibn Saud who wrote the British and Zionist leaders
that he did not oppose a Jewish homeland in Palestine so long as it did not lay claim to Saudi territory
on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. The relationship has always been close, except for the
time of King Faisal, who was conveniently shot in the face and killed by a relative.
Do you undergo pressure or threats in relation to the remarkable work you do? If so, how do you
live it?
I was forced to move my domicile from Washington because the outgoing Obama administration put
pressure on some media organizations I did work for. These included RT (contributor agreement canceled)
and Al Jazeera America (which is now defunct).
The FBI entered my apartment in Washington at least twice and I've had three visits by them at
my new home in Florida. I was informed of 3 personal threats in Washington. I ignore all these pressures and continue to exercise the freedom of the press. Are you optimistic or do you think that the Satanist project of the oligarchy still has a nuisance
capacity that can plunge the world into chaos?
As with cockroaches, which detest light, the shadow figures of covert power cannot stand what
is known as the disinfectant of sunshine. Light has always fought against darkness and will continue
to do so.
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen
Wayne Madsen is an American journalist, television news commentator, online editor of Wayne
Madsen Report.com , investigative journalist and author specializing intelligence and international
affairs.Starting in 1997, after his military service as a U.S. Navy lieutenant assigned to Anti-Submarine
Warfare duties and to the National Security Agency as a COMSEC analyst, he applied his military intelligence
training to investigative journalism.He has since written for many daily, weekly, and monthly publications
including The Progressive , The Village Voice , Counterpunch , Philadelphia
Inquirer , Houston Chronicle , Allentown Morning Call , Juneau Empire ,
Cleveland Plain Dealer , Real Clear Politics , Danbury Newstimes , Newsday
and many others.Throughout his journalistic career, he has been a television commentator on many
programs, including 60 Minutes , Russia Today , Press TV , and many others.He
has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared
on ABC , NBC , CBS , PBS , CNN , BBC , Al Jazeera , and MS-NBC .
He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, and a terrorism investigation judicial inquiry of the French government. Wayne
Madsen has some thirty-five years experience in security issues. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed
one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National
Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer
Sciences Corporation. Wayne Madsen was a Senior Fellow for the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC), a privacy public advocacy organization. Mr. Madsen is a member of the National Press Club.
Wayne Madsen is the author of The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan,
1992), an acclaimed reference book on international data protection law; Genocide and Covert Operations
in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999); co-author of America's Nightmare: The Presidency
of George Bush II ( Dandelion, 2003); Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy,
Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden ; author of Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black
Ops & Brass Plates ; Overthrow a Fascist Regime on $15 a Day ; The star and the sword
; The Manufacturing of a President: the CIA's Insertion of Barack H. Obama, Jr. into the White
House ; L'Affaire Petraeus ; and National Security Agency Surveillance: Reflections
and Revelations ; Soros: Quantum of Chaos (2015); Unmasking ISIS: The Shocking Truth
(2016).
SergeyL
1h ago
1
2
The problem is not a populism but western democracy which is
a new religion, and as any religion it's intolerant to any
opposite opinion. I can bet what if you will kill all
Russians and all who are not western you will split and
start fight between yourselves like Christianity or Islam
did before.
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Tongariro1
2h ago
1
2
We have not had an election to put a populist government
into power in the UK. We had a referendum on the specific
issue of EU membership. Even in the USA, they have elected a
populist president, but Congress had much the same political
complexion as it has had in times past. There is no campaign
of any note in the UK to reduce aid.
The vulnerability of
aid programmes to the whims of just two countries reveals a
greater weakness - too few other countries contribute too
little.
If the UN were to act more effectively to meet its core
objective - "to maintain international peace and security" -
then there would be less need for aid. Increasingly, the
role of the UN seems to be to lament the failings of the
west and other developed nations in preventing carnage,
whilst doing little to tackle the perpetrators or bring
about peace. Syria is a prime example of catastrophic
failure.
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PrinceVlad
2h ago
2
3
If western populism leads to more isolationist foreign
policies, there will be fewer refugees. Wouldn't this be a
good thing?
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John Chaloner
3h ago
10
11
According to the linked table in the article, the UK
provides significantly more aid than France, Italy and
Germany combined.
Drain that swamp and then come back with the begging bowl
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Laurence Johnson
4h ago
6
7
Humanitarian aid became political a long time ago and
nothing to do with populists. What is incredible is whilst
the West was creating the tragedy with one hand, the
taxpayers were left to pick up the tab of attempting to fix
it all up.
Refugees are on the whole the result of Western
intervention, subversive and open in other nations
democratic systems, or indeed other nations despotic
systems.
The world has changed in 2016, people have become far
wiser to what has been going on and the costs of intervening
in projecting what we perceive to be democracy in our eyes
has cost many lives, and many trillions of dollars.
Oh and stop the financial oppression of your workers, who
are being squeezed in the pocket like never before in this
globalist world!
What's this Crown Agents.....so transparent!
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Tsugunder
5h ago
6
7
"even if the US and UK do not decrease aid contributions,
there is still a risk that they would allow humanitarian
action to fall prey to politics."
Is this a sick joke? From the Marshall Plan on, Western
governmental aid (with the possible exception of
Scandinavian donors) has been consistently and unashamedly
political, with disastrous results.
Sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of aid workers is
higher than the complement of colonial administrators in the
bygone era, is a case in point: "Since 1960, western
governments have pumped more than $1 trillion in aid into
the region, with the remarkable result that GDP per capita
has declined."
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/07/imperialism-is-back-and-this-time-its-politically-correct
/
It's not 'Western populism' that threatens humanitarian
action globally but its instrumentalisation by the likes of
the US and the UK.
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radsatser
5h ago
2
3
" they will jeopardise not only their jobs,"
National security state gone rogue is fascism. Frankly, I don't see evidence of huge abuse
of US liberties. But I do see our foreign policy distorted by a counter-terror obsession
Notable quotes:
"... the government's interpretation of that law ..."
"... "One reports a crime; and one commits a crime." ..."
"... but does not include differences of opinion concerning public policy matters ..."
Two weeks ago, the Guardian began publishing a series of eye-opening revelations about the National
Security Agency and its surveillance
efforts both in the United States
and overseas. These stories raised long-moribund and often-ignored questions about the pervasiveness
of government surveillance and the extent to which privacy rights are being violated by this secret
and seemingly unaccountable security apparatus.
However, over the past two weeks, we've begun to get a clearer understanding of the story and
the implications of what has been published – informed in part by a new-found (if forced upon them)
transparency from the intelligence community. So here's one columnist's effort to sort the wheat
from the chaff and offer a few answers to the big questions that have been raised.
These revelations are a big deal, right?
To fully answer this question, it's important to clarify the revelations that have sparked such
controversy. The Guardian (along with the Washington Post) has broken a number of stories, each of
which tells us very different things about what is happening inside the US government around matters
of surveillance and cyber operations. Some are relatively mundane, others more controversial.
The story that has shaped press coverage and received the most attention was the first one – namely,
the publication of a judicial order from the
Fisa court to Verizon that
indicated the US is "hoovering" up millions of phone records (so-called "metadata") into a giant
NSA database. When it broke, the
story was quickly portrayed as a frightening tale of government overreach and violation of privacy
rights. After all, such metadata – though it contains no actual content – can be used rather easily
as a stepping-stone to more intrusive forms of surveillance.
But what is the true extent of the story here: is this picture of government Big Brotherism correct
or is this massive government surveillance actually quite benign?
First of all, such a collection of data is not, in and of itself, illegal. The
Obama administration
was clearly acting within the constraints of federal law and received judicial approval for this
broad request for data. That doesn't necessarily mean that the law is good or that the
government's interpretation of that law is not too broad, but unlike the Bush "warrantless wiretapping"
stories of several years ago, the US government is here acting within the law.
The real question that should concern us is one raised by the
TV writer David Simon in a widely cited blogpost looking at the issues raised by the Guardian's
reporting, namely:
"Is government accessing the data for the legitimate public safety needs of the society, or
are they accessing it in ways that abuse individual liberties and violate personal privacy – and
in a manner that is unsupervised."
We know, for example, that the NSA is required to abide by laws that prevent the international
targeting of American citizens (you can
read more about that
here). So, while metadata about phone calls made can be used to discover information about the
individuals making the calls, there are "minimization" rules, procedures and laws that guide the
use of such data and prevent possible abuse and misuse of protected data.
Sure, the potential for abuse exists – but so, too, does the potential for the lawful use of metadata
in a way that protects the privacy of individual Americans – and also assists the US government in
pursuit of potential terrorist suspects. Of course, without information on the specific procedures
used by the NSA to minimize the collection of protected data, it is impossible to know that no laws
are being broken or no abuse is occurring.
In that sense, we have to take the government's word for it. And that is especially problematic
when you consider the Fisa court decisions authorizing this snooping are secret and the congressional
intelligence committees tasked with conducting oversight tend to be toothless.
But assumptions of bad faith and violations of privacy by the US government are just that assumptions.
When President Obama says that the NSA is not violating privacy rights because it would be against
the law, we can't simply disregard such statements as self-serving. Moreover, when one considers
the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports, what personal data they give
to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly posted voluntarily on Facebook, sent
via email and searched for online, highly-regulated data-mining by the NSA seems relatively tame.
One of the key questions that have emerged over this story is the motivation of the leaker in
question, Edward Snowden. In
his initial public interview, with Glenn Greenwald on 9 June, Snowden explained his actions,
in part, thus:
"I'm willing to sacrifice because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy
privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance
machine they're secretly building."
Now, while one can argue that Snowden's actions do not involve personal sacrifice, whether they
are heroic is a much higher bar to cross. First of all, it's far from clear that the US government
is destroying privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world.
Snowden may sincere about being "valiant for truth", but he wouldn't be the first person to believe
himself such and yet be wrong.
Second, one can make the case that there is a public interest in knowing that the US is collecting
reams of phone records, but where is the public interest – and indeed, to Snowden's own justification,
the violation of privacy – in leaking a presidential directive on cyber operations or leaking that
the US is spying on the Russian president?
The latter is both not a crime it's actually what the NSA was established to do! In his
recent online chat hosted by the Guardian, Snowden suggested that the US should not be spying
on any country with whom it's not formally at war. That is, at best, a dubious assertion, and one
that is at odds with years of spycraft.
On the presidential directive on cyber operations, the damning evidence that Snowden revealed
was that President Obama has asked his advisers to create a list of potential targets for cyber operations
– but such planning efforts are rather routine contingency operations. For example, if the
US military drew up war
plans in case conflict ever occurred between the US and North Korea – and that included offensive
operations – would that be considered untoward or perhaps illegitimate military planning?
This does not mean, however, that Snowden is a traitor. Leaking classified data is a serious offense,
but treason is something else altogether.
The problem for Snowden is that he has now also
leaked classified information about ongoing US intelligence-gathering efforts to foreign governments,
including China and Russia. That may be crossing a line, which means that the jury is still out on
what label we should use to describe Snowden.
Shouldn't Snowden be protected as a whistleblower?
This question of leakers v whistleblowers has frequently been conflated in the public reporting
about the NSA leak (and many others). But this is a crucial error. As Tara Lee, a lawyer at the law
firm DLA Piper, with expertise in defense industry and national security litigation said to me there
is an important distinction between leakers and whistleblowers, "One reports a crime; and one
commits a crime."
Traditionally (and often technically), whistleblowing refers to specific actions that are taken
to bring to attention illegal behavior, fraud, waste, abuse etc. Moreover, the US government provides
federal employees and contractors with the protection to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. In the case
of Snowden, he could have gone to the inspector general at the Department of Justice or relevant
congressional committees.
From all accounts, it appears that he did not go down this path. Of course, since the material
he was releasing was approved by the Fisa court and had the sign-off of the intelligence committee,
he had good reason to believe that he would have not received the most receptive hearing for his
complaints.
Nevertheless, that does not give him carte blanche to leak to the press – and certainly doesn't
give him carte blanche to leak information on activities that he personally finds objectionable but
are clearly legal. Indeed, according to the
Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), whistleblowers can make complaints over matter of what
the law calls "urgent concern", which includes "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of
law or executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an
intelligence activity involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinion
concerning public policy matters [my italics]."
In other words, simply believing that a law or government action is wrong does not give one the
right to leak information; and in the eyes of the law, it is not considered whistleblowing. Even
if one accepts the view that the leaked Verizon order fell within the bounds of being in the "public
interest", it's a harder case to make for the presidential directive on cyber operations or the eavesdropping
on foreign leaders.
The same problem is evident in the incorrect description of
Bradley Manning as
a whistleblower. When you leak hundreds of thousands of documents – not all of which you reviewed
and most of which contain the mundane and not illegal diplomatic behavior of the US government –
you're leaking. Both Manning and now Snowden have taken it upon themselves to decide what
should be in the public domain; quite simply, they don't have the right to do that. If every government
employee decided actions that offended their sense of morality should be leaked, the government would
never be able to keep any secrets at all and, frankly, would be unable to operate effectively.
So, like Manning, Snowden is almost certainly not a whistleblower, but rather a leaker. And that
would mean that he, like Manning, is liable to prosecution for leaking classified material.
Are Democrats hypocrites
over the NSA's activities?
A couple of days ago, my Guardian colleague, Glenn Greenwald made the following assertion:
"The most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance
have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. One of the most significant
aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of
the Bush "war on terror" and national security state into their biggest proponents."
This is regular line of argument from Glenn, but it's one that, for a variety of reasons, I believe
is not fair. (I don't say this because I'm an Obama partisan – though I may be called one for writing
this.)
First, the lion's share of criticism of these recent revelations has come, overwhelmingly, from
Democrats and, indeed, from many of the same people, including Greenwald, who were up in arms when
the so-called warrantless wiretapping program was revealed in 2006. The reality is that outside a
minority of activists, it's not clear that many Americans – Democrats orRepublicans –
get all that excited about these types of stories. (Not that this is necessarily a good thing.)
Second, opposition to the Bush program was two-fold: first, it was illegal and was conducted with
no judicial or congressional oversight; second, Bush's surveillance policies did not occur in a vacuum
– they were part of a pattern of law-breaking, disastrous policy decisions and Manichean rhetoric
over the "war on terror". So, if you opposed the manner in which Bush waged war on the "axis of evil",
it's not surprising that you would oppose its specific elements. In the same way, if you now support
how President Obama conducts counter-terrorism efforts, it's not surprising that you'd be more inclined
to view specific anti-terror policies as more benign.
Critics will, of course, argue – and rightly so – that we are a country of laws first. In which
case it shouldn't matter who is the president, but rather what the laws are that govern his or her
conduct. Back in the world of political reality, though, that's not how most Americans think of their
government. Their perceptions are defined in large measure by how the current president conducts
himself, so there is nothing at all surprising about Republicans having greater confidence in a Republican
president and Democrats having greater confidence in a Democratic one, when asked about specific
government programs.
Beyond that, simply having greater confidence in President Obama than President Bush to wield
the awesome powers granted the commander-in-chief to conduct foreign policy is not partisanship.
It's common sense.
George Bush was, undoubtedly,
one of the two or three worst foreign policy presidents in American history (and arguably, our worst
president, period). He and Dick Cheney habitually broke the law, including but not limited to the
abuse of NSA surveillance. President Obama is far from perfect: he made the terrible decision to
surge in Afghanistan, and
he's fought two wars of dubious legality in Libya and Pakistan, but he's very far from the sheer
awfulness of the Bush/Cheney years.
Unless you believe the US should have no NSA, and conduct no intelligence-gathering in the fight
against terrorism, you have to choose a president to manage that agency. And there is nothing hypocritical
or partisan about believing that one president is better than another to handle those responsibilities.
Has NSA surveillance prevented terrorist attacks, as claimed?
In congressional testimony this week, officials from the Department of Justice and the
NSA argued that surveillance efforts stopped "potential terrorist events over 50 times since
9/11". Having spent far too many years listening to public officials describe terrifying terror plots
that fell apart under greater scrutiny, this assertion sets off for me a set of red flags (even though
it may be true).
I have no doubt that NSA surveillance has contributed to national security investigations, but
whether it's as extensive or as vital as the claims of government officials is more doubtful. To
be honest, I'm not sure it matters. Part of the reason the US government conducts NSA surveillance
in the first place is not necessarily to stop every potential attack (though that would be nice),
but to deter potential terrorists from acting in the first place.
Critics of the program like to argue that "of course, terrorists know their phones are being tapped
and emails are being read", but that's kind of the point. If they know this, it forces them to choose
more inefficient means of communicating, and perhaps to put aside potential attacks for fear of being
uncovered.
We also know that not every terrorist has the skills of a Jason Bourne. In fact, many appear to
be not terribly bright, which means that even if they know about the NSA's enormous dragnet, it doesn't
mean they won't occasionally screw up and get caught.
Yet, this gets to a larger issue that is raised by the NSA revelations.
When is enough counter-terrorism enough?
Over the past 12 years, the US has developed what can best be described as a dysfunctional relationship
with terrorism. We've become obsessed with it and with a zero-tolerance approach to stopping it.
While the former is obviously an important goal, it has led the US to take steps that not only undermine
our values (such as torture), but also make us weaker (the invasion of
Iraq, the surge in Afghanistan,
etc).
To be sure, this is not true of every anti-terror program of the past dozen years. For example,
the US does a better job of sharing intelligence among government agencies, and of screening those
who are entering the country. And military efforts in the early days of the "war on terror" clearly
did enormous damage to al-Qaida's capabilities.
In general, though, when one considers the relatively low risk of terrorist attacks – and the
formidable defenses of the United States – the US response to terrorism has been one of hysterical
over-reaction. Indeed, the balance we so often hear about when it comes to protecting privacy while
also ensuring security is only one part of the equation. The other is how do we balance the need
to stop terrorists (who certainly aspire to attack the United States) and the need to prevent anti-terrorism
from driving our foreign policy to a disproportionate degree. While the NSA revelations might not
be proof that we've gone too far in one direction, there's not doubt that, for much of the past 12
years, terrorism has distorted and marred our foreign policy.
Last month, President Obama gave a seminal speech at the National Defense University, in which
he essentially declared the "war on terror" over. With troops coming home from Afghanistan, and drone
strikes on the decline, that certainly seems to be the case. But as the national freakout over the
Boston Marathon bombing – and the extraordinary over-reaction of a city-wide lockdown for one wounded
terrorist on the loose – remind us, we still have a ways to go.
Moreover, since no politician wants to find him- or herself in a situation after a terrorist attack
when the criticism "why didn't you do more?" can be aired, that political imperative of zero tolerance
will drive our counterterrorism policies. At some point, that needs to end.
In fact, nine years ago, our current secretary of state, John Kerry, made this exact point; it's
worth reviewing his words:
"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives,
but they're a nuisance I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end
illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on
the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that
you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''
What the NSA revelations should spark is not just a debate on surveillance, but on the way we
think about terrorism and the steps that we should be willing to take both to stop it and ensure
that it does not control us. We're not there yet.
Re: How many Billions / Trillions are spent on these services?
The wonderful thing about living in a "Keynesian" perpetually increasing debt paradise is you
NEVER have to say you can't afford anything. (Well, unless you want to say it, but if you do it's
just political bullshit).
So, to answer your question... A "Keynesian" never asks how much, just how much do you want.
"When one considers the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports,
what personal data they give to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly posted
voluntarily on Facebook, sent via email and searched for online, highly-regulated data-mining
by the NSA seems relatively tame."
Dear Sir: Please post your email addresses, bank accounts, and passwords. We'd like to look
at everything.
"When one considers the privacy violations that Americans willingly submit to at airports,
what personal data they give to the government in their tax returns, and what is regularly
posted voluntarily on Facebook, sent via email and searched for online [...]"
Wow! I don't really care about my personal email. I do care about all political activists,
journalists, lawyers etc. That a journalist would support Stasi style surveillance state is astonishing.
I wish I had the time to go through this article and demolish it sentence by sentence as it
so richly deserves, but at the moment I don't. Instead, might I suggest to the author that he
go to the guardian archive, read every single story about this in chronological order and then
read every damn link posted in the comment threads on the three most recent stories.
Most especially the links in the comment threads. If after that, he cannot see why we "civil
libertarian freaks" are not just outraged, but frightened, he frankly lacks both historical knowledge
and any ability to analyze the facts that are staring him in the face. I can't believe I am going
to have to say this again but here goes: YOU do not get to give away my contitutional rights,
Mr. Cohen.
I don't give a shit how much you trust Obama compared to dubya. The Bill of Rights states in
clear, unambiguous language what the Federal government may NOT do do its citizens no matter WHO
is president.
Michael Cohen Frankly, I don't see evidence of huge abuse of US liberties.
Well of course you wont see them.
But the abuses are very probably already happening on a one to one basis in the same shadows in
which the intelligence was first gathered.
Title is pretty misleading. It is neoliberals who are snake oil sellers. In no way FDR was
a snake oil seller.
Notable quotes:
"... People aren't so much voting _for_ snake oil as _against_ the status quo. ..."
"... False analogies. Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize. 'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch. ..."
"... From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society, economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure! ..."
"... Snake oil salesmen, eh? One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo. ..."
"... The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. ..."
"... Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake oil." ..."
"... "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" ..."
"... Seems it to difficult to admit globalization damaged US workers, so the fall back is to call workers gullible and racist. ..."
Clearly Keynes and FDR were snake-oil salesmen. The Progressive New Deal Era (1932-80) being the
biggest economic muckup in the history of humanity!
Thankfully Friedman came along and made America and the world great again. (Just a slight kink
in the model: the global economy teetering on the verge of collapse into fascist revolutions and
world war. Nothing a little free-market medicine can't nip in the bud!)
False analogies.
Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize.
'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch.
If the faux left don't get some logic it needs to be replaced by a leftie of the Trump brand.
have become "homogeneous", while Lebanon has not thrived as a nation
"
~~steve randy waldman~
Populist Politicians
From the steve quotation you can guess that USA has thrived thus all our long list of ethnicity-s
are mutually dissolving each into the other. As interbreeding proceeds you can see the evidence
within Gaussian distribution of each ethnic feature. We are now a nation of one people.
If it then follows that the recent election was not merely all things racism, what was the
focus of the candidates?
From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight
from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society,
economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some
of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of
pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure!
His vision is incomplete. He is still searching for the answers, but he is certain that we
cannot return to the cold war of 1950. Will he rediscover deflation, full reserve banking, green
transportation, a gentler approach to the Luddites?
We need to support his search for a more sustainable USA, a more sustainable planet, a more
sustainable
Snake oil salesmen, eh?
One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman
on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People
voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo.
There are populists and then there are demagogues masquerading as populists. Stamp out the
populists with constant ridicule from the crackpot realists and all that will be left are the
demagogues who style themselves as populists.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got
punched in the chest; that's why I've got a lump." [:-)]
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. Would Dillow or
SWL call Corbyn and Sanders snake oil salesmen?
The centrists do. The corrupt corporate media makes a point to do that.
Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and
so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake
oil."
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul
of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"
Title is pretty misleading. It is neoliberals who are snake oil sellers. In no way FDR was
a snake oil seller.
Notable quotes:
"... People aren't so much voting _for_ snake oil as _against_ the status quo. ..."
"... False analogies. Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize. 'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch. ..."
"... From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society, economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure! ..."
"... Snake oil salesmen, eh? One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo. ..."
"... The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. ..."
"... Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake oil." ..."
"... "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" ..."
"... Seems it to difficult to admit globalization damaged US workers, so the fall back is to call workers gullible and racist. ..."
Clearly Keynes and FDR were snake-oil salesmen. The Progressive New Deal Era (1932-80) being the
biggest economic muckup in the history of humanity!
Thankfully Friedman came along and made America and the world great again. (Just a slight kink
in the model: the global economy teetering on the verge of collapse into fascist revolutions and
world war. Nothing a little free-market medicine can't nip in the bud!)
False analogies.
Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize.
'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch.
If the faux left don't get some logic it needs to be replaced by a leftie of the Trump brand.
have become "homogeneous", while Lebanon has not thrived as a nation
"
~~steve randy waldman~
Populist Politicians
From the steve quotation you can guess that USA has thrived thus all our long list of ethnicity-s
are mutually dissolving each into the other. As interbreeding proceeds you can see the evidence
within Gaussian distribution of each ethnic feature. We are now a nation of one people.
If it then follows that the recent election was not merely all things racism, what was the
focus of the candidates?
From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight
from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society,
economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some
of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of
pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure!
His vision is incomplete. He is still searching for the answers, but he is certain that we
cannot return to the cold war of 1950. Will he rediscover deflation, full reserve banking, green
transportation, a gentler approach to the Luddites?
We need to support his search for a more sustainable USA, a more sustainable planet, a more
sustainable
Snake oil salesmen, eh?
One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman
on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People
voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo.
There are populists and then there are demagogues masquerading as populists. Stamp out the
populists with constant ridicule from the crackpot realists and all that will be left are the
demagogues who style themselves as populists.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got
punched in the chest; that's why I've got a lump." [:-)]
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. Would Dillow or
SWL call Corbyn and Sanders snake oil salesmen?
The centrists do. The corrupt corporate media makes a point to do that.
Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and
so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake
oil."
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul
of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"
"... the media is not in competition with talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it. ..."
"... This piece is right on the money and nails the ultimate failure of our modern corporate media. ..."
"... Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political discourse will be possible. ..."
"... These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/ ..."
"... People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us. ..."
"... The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling out the media. We need more of that. ..."
"... "We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit? ..."
"... Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal' economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites that negotiated the deals. ..."
"... Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. ..."
This could be the subtitle of the
talk
I will be giving later today. I will have more to say in later posts, plus a link to the
full text..., but I thought I would make this important point here about why I keep going on about
the media. In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with
talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it.
I don't blame the media for this disenchantment, which is real enough, but for the fact that it is
leading people to make choices which are clearly bad for society as a whole, and in many cases will
actually make them worse off. They are choices which in an important sense are known to be wrong.
Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever
makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve
up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political
discourse will be possible.
Case in Point: Fake Media. As documented in the WaPo yesterday, two unemployed restaurant workers (McDonalds?) made a
fortune with their fake news website that collected ad revenue from the likes of Facebook. They
didn't bother with any facts; just published stories they knew would attract right wing extremists.
They really worked at their craft using specific language and formats to draw in eyeballs.
It worked beyond their wildest expectations and they won't even discuss how much money they made.
Something tells me there might be a bit of "fake news" creation going on in those shops, eh? But
no, let's pull out our hair over some 20-year-old with a Facebook feed. And -- censor! For the
greater good, naturally.
"In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with talking
about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it."
People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along
with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters
who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us.
The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn
but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling
out the media. We need more of that.
The SyFy Channel has a new series called Incorporated about a dystopian America set in 2074 where
global climate change has wrecked havoc on politics and society. Giant multinational corporations
have stepped in and taken over for governments as America's class divisions have sharpened between
the haves and the have-nots. You can watch the first episode online.
Globalization is not Pareto improving. Maybe it could be done in a way that is, but until then,
the "media" is correct to paint a disenchanting picture
Pareto improving assumes we compensates those who lose from globalization. This is well known.
What else is well known is we have a terrible track record on this score.
"We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it
will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit?
Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal'
economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that
free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites
that negotiated the deals.
Why do 'liberal' economists insist on invalidating the life experience of so many?
Wisdom implies giving a good look to the consequences, and taking measures to ameliorate those
negative. Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. These weren't
without consequences and maybe not even, on balance, gainful.
In the future, let those best able to make any necessary sacrifices and adjustments.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got punched
in the chest; that's why I've got a lump."
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 [a week] job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
The President, as Commander-in-Chief, directs the wars that Congress declares. However, starting
with Truman's intervention in the Korean War in 1950 and continuing with invasions of Vietnam, Grenada,
Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombings of dozens more countries, the President's ability to unilaterally
initiate war with a sovereign nation has been normalized. Congress has not declared war since 1941
despite the fact the U.S. military has intervened in nearly every corner of the world in the years
since.
In recent years, George W. Bush assumed the power to kidnap, torture, and assassinate any
individual, anywhere in the world, at any time, without even a pretense of due process. Upon replacing
Bush, Barack Obama legitimized Bush's kidnapping and torture (by refusing to prosecute the perpetrators
or provide recourse to the victims) while enthusiastically embracing the power to assassinate at
will. Noam Chomsky has said this represents Obama trashing the 800-year-old Magna Carta, which King
John of England would have approved of.
Can there be anything more dictatorial than the power of a single individual to kill and make
war at will? While American presidents thankfully do not have the power to unilaterally impose taxes,
pass legislation, or incarcerate without charges inside U.S. borders, the illegitimate authority
they do possess to carry out unrestrained violence across the world is unquestionably a dictatorial
feature.
There has not been a single American president since World War II that has not exceeded his constitutional
authority by committing crimes that would meet the standard by which officials were convicted and
executed at the Nuremberg trials.
Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 to imprison Japanese Americans in concentration camps was a flagrant
violation of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law.
Truman's firebombing of Tokyo, nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and invasion of Korea
violated provisions of multiple treaties that are considered the "supreme law of the land" per Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution.
Eisenhower's use of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected presidents in Iran and Guatemala,
as well as the initiation of a terrorist campaign against Cuba, violated the UN Charter, another
international treaty that the Constitution regards as the supreme law of the land.
Kennedy was guilty of approving the creation of a mercenary army to invade Cuba, as well as covert
warfare in Vietnam. Johnson massively escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam with the introduction
of ground troops, which he fraudulently justified through misrepresentation of the Gulf of Tonkin
incident.
Succeeding Johnson, Nixon waged a nearly genocidal air campaign against not only Vietnam but Cambodia
and Laos, killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying ecosystems across Indochina, and leaving
an unfathomable amount of unexploded ordnance, which continues to kill and maim hundreds of people
each year.
Ford covertly supported the South African invasion of Angola and overtly supported the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor. Carter continued supporting the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, as well
as providing financial and military support to military dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Reagan oversaw the creation and operation of a terrorist army in Nicaragua, sponsored military dictatorships
throughout Central America, and directly invaded Grenada.
Bush the Elder invaded Panama and Iraq. Clinton oversaw sanctions in Iraq that killed as many
as 1 million people, carried out an air war that indiscriminately pulverized civilian targets from
15,000 feet in Serbia, and bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that produced medications for half
the country. Bush the Lesser invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama continued both of those
wars, as well as dramatically expanding the drone assassination program in as many as seven countries.
So I beg to differ with Blow and anyone else who claims the presidency deserves respect. Any institution
or position that permits such illegal and immoral actions unchecked should be eradicated and replaced
with some alternative that does not.
Liberal Clinton defender Matt Yglesias argues that from a historical perspective, Trump is uniquely
dangerous. "(P)ast presidents," Yglesias writes, "have simply been restrained by restraint. By a
belief that there are certain things one simply cannot try or do."
It is hard to take such vacuous proclamations with a straight face. As we have seen, every single
American president since at least WWII has engaged in serious violations of international and domestic
law to cause death, destruction and misery across the world, from murdering individuals without due
process to unleashing two nuclear bombs on civilian populations in a defeated country that was seeking
to surrender.
When Trump assumes the presidency, he will inherit a frightening surveillance/military/incarceration
apparatus that includes a targeted killing program; a vast NSA domestic and international spying
network; a death squad (the Joint Special Operations Command); and an extralegal system for indefinite
kidnapping and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.
Partisans see a problem only when the presidency is in the "wrong" hands. If Obama is at the helm,
liberals are fine with unconstitutional mass surveillance or killing an American citizen without
charge or trial every now and then. Conservatives trusted Bush to warrantlessly surveill Americans,
but were outraged at the Snowden revelations.
Principled opponents recognize that no one should be trusted with illegitimate authority. The
hand-wringing and hyperventilation by liberals about the dangers of a Trump presidency ring hollow
and hypocritical.
American presidents long ago became the equivalent of elected monarchs, beyond the democratic
control of the those they purportedly serve. The occupant of the office is able to substitute his
own judgments and whims for a universally applicable set of laws and limits on the exercise of power.
It is what Dolores Vek describes as "actually existing fascism." Both parties have contributed to
it, the media has normalized it, and the public has accepted its creation and continued existence
without rebelling against it. It's time to stop treating the presidency itself with respect and start
actively delegitimizing it.
This unadmitted ignorance was previously displayed for those with eyes to see it in the Libya debacle,
perhaps not coincidentally Clinton's pet war. Cast by the Obama White House as a surgical display
of "smart power" that would defend human rights and foster democracy in the Muslim world, the 2011
Libyan intervention did precisely the opposite. There is
credible evidence that the U.S.-led NATO campaign prolonged and exacerbated the humanitarian
crisis, and far from creating a flourishing democracy, the ouster of strongman Muammar Qaddafi led
to a power vacuum into which ISIS and other rival unsavories surged.
The 2011 intervention and the follow-up escalation in which we are presently entangled were both
fundamentally informed by "the underlying belief that military force will produce stability and that
the U.S. can reasonably predict the result of such a campaign," as Christopher Preble has argued
in a must-read Libya analysis
at Politico . Both have proven resoundingly wrong.
Before Libya, Washington espoused the same false certainty in advance of intervention and nation-building
Iraq and Afghanistan. The rhetoric around the former was particularly telling: we would find nuclear
weapons and "be greeted as liberators,"
said Vice President
Dick Cheney. The whole thing would take five months or less,
said Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. It would be a
"cakewalk." As months dragged into years of nation-building stagnation, the ignored truth became
increasingly evident: the United States cannot reshape entire countries without obscene risk and
investment, and even when those costly commitments are made, success cannot be predicted with certainty.
Nearly 14 years later, with Iraq demonstrably more violent and less stable than it was before
U.S. intervention, wisdom demands we reject Washington's recycled snake oil.
Recent polls (let alone the anti-elite backlash Trump's
win represents ) suggest Americans are ready to do precisely that. But a lack of public enthusiasm
has never stopped Washington from hawking its fraudulent wares-this time in the form of yet-again
unfounded certainty that escalating American intervention in Syria is a sure-fire solution to that
beleaguered nation's woes.
We must not let ourselves be fooled. Rather, we "should understand that we don't need to overthrow
distant governments and roll the dice on what comes after in order to keep America safe," as Preble,
reflecting on Libya,
contends . "On the contrary, our track record over the last quarter-century shows that such interventions
often have the opposite effect."
And as for the political establishment, let Trump's triumph be a constant reminder of the necessity
of expecting the unexpected and proceeding with due (indeed, much overdue) prudence and restraint
abroad. If Washington so grossly misunderstood the direction of its own heartland-without the muddling,
as in foreign policy, of massive geographic and cultural differences-how naïve it is to believe that
our government can successfully play armed puppet-master over an entire region of the world?
Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities. She is a weekend editor at The Week
and a columnist at Rare , and her writing has also appeared at Time , Politico
, Relevant , The Hill , and other outlets.
That "Navy ship that broke down in the Panama Canal" - it cost $4.4 *billion* dollars. And
there is a second one just finishing construction with a third coming in at the basement bargain
price of $3.7B:
The Zumwalt cost more than $4.4bn and was commissioned in October in Maryland. It also suffered
a leak in its propulsion system before it was commissioned. The leak required the ship to remain
at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia longer than expected for repairs.
The ship is part of the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works in more than
25 years.
The second Zumwalt-class destroyer, which also cost more than $4.4bn, was christened in
a June ceremony during which US Rep Bruce Poliquin called it an "extraordinary machine
of peace and security". The third ship is expected to cost a bit less than $3.7bn.
Well, I understand that these are magnificent "machines of peace and security" but it seems
rather a shame that some of that money couldn't be spent on delivering, say, clean water to residents
of Flint and elsewhere.
US Dems and Republicans both:
Money for ENDLESS WAR - no problem!
Money for housing, health, education, environment - how the hell can we find money for that?
River
Given that the ammo is one million a shell, $3.7 billion is a bargain of sorts.
It isn't a shame that money couldn't be used elsewhere. It's a God Damn outrage.
PlutoniumKun
Well, not quite a million, but $800,000 a shell according to Stars and Stripes magazine. And each
ship is supposed to carry 600 of them. The Zumwelt is basically a very expensive mobile artillery
ship, with no clear military purpose. The Navy have pretty much confirmed this by cancelling the
system (there were originally to be 38 of them). The worst thing is that despite it having no clear
purpose and costing vast sums of money, nobody seems willing to call anyone to account for having
blown billions on an entirely worthless defence system.
"... the media is not in competition with talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it. ..."
"... This piece is right on the money and nails the ultimate failure of our modern corporate media. ..."
"... Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political discourse will be possible. ..."
"... These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/ ..."
"... People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us. ..."
"... The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling out the media. We need more of that. ..."
"... "We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit? ..."
"... Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal' economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites that negotiated the deals. ..."
"... Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. ..."
This could be the subtitle of the
talk
I will be giving later today. I will have more to say in later posts, plus a link to the
full text..., but I thought I would make this important point here about why I keep going on about
the media. In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with
talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it.
I don't blame the media for this disenchantment, which is real enough, but for the fact that it is
leading people to make choices which are clearly bad for society as a whole, and in many cases will
actually make them worse off. They are choices which in an important sense are known to be wrong.
Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever
makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve
up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political
discourse will be possible.
Case in Point: Fake Media. As documented in the WaPo yesterday, two unemployed restaurant workers (McDonalds?) made a
fortune with their fake news website that collected ad revenue from the likes of Facebook. They
didn't bother with any facts; just published stories they knew would attract right wing extremists.
They really worked at their craft using specific language and formats to draw in eyeballs.
It worked beyond their wildest expectations and they won't even discuss how much money they made.
Something tells me there might be a bit of "fake news" creation going on in those shops, eh? But
no, let's pull out our hair over some 20-year-old with a Facebook feed. And -- censor! For the
greater good, naturally.
"In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with talking
about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it."
People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along
with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters
who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us.
The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn
but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling
out the media. We need more of that.
The SyFy Channel has a new series called Incorporated about a dystopian America set in 2074 where
global climate change has wrecked havoc on politics and society. Giant multinational corporations
have stepped in and taken over for governments as America's class divisions have sharpened between
the haves and the have-nots. You can watch the first episode online.
Globalization is not Pareto improving. Maybe it could be done in a way that is, but until then,
the "media" is correct to paint a disenchanting picture
Pareto improving assumes we compensates those who lose from globalization. This is well known.
What else is well known is we have a terrible track record on this score.
"We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it
will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit?
Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal'
economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that
free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites
that negotiated the deals.
Why do 'liberal' economists insist on invalidating the life experience of so many?
Wisdom implies giving a good look to the consequences, and taking measures to ameliorate those
negative. Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. These weren't
without consequences and maybe not even, on balance, gainful.
In the future, let those best able to make any necessary sacrifices and adjustments.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got punched
in the chest; that's why I've got a lump."
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 [a week] job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
That "Navy ship that broke down in the Panama Canal" - it cost $4.4 *billion* dollars. And
there is a second one just finishing construction with a third coming in at the basement bargain
price of $3.7B:
The Zumwalt cost more than $4.4bn and was commissioned in October in Maryland. It also suffered
a leak in its propulsion system before it was commissioned. The leak required the ship to remain
at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia longer than expected for repairs.
The ship is part of the first new class of warship built at Bath Iron Works in more than
25 years.
The second Zumwalt-class destroyer, which also cost more than $4.4bn, was christened in
a June ceremony during which US Rep Bruce Poliquin called it an "extraordinary machine
of peace and security". The third ship is expected to cost a bit less than $3.7bn.
Well, I understand that these are magnificent "machines of peace and security" but it seems
rather a shame that some of that money couldn't be spent on delivering, say, clean water to residents
of Flint and elsewhere.
US Dems and Republicans both:
Money for ENDLESS WAR - no problem!
Money for housing, health, education, environment - how the hell can we find money for that?
River
Given that the ammo is one million a shell, $3.7 billion is a bargain of sorts.
It isn't a shame that money couldn't be used elsewhere. It's a God Damn outrage.
PlutoniumKun
Well, not quite a million, but $800,000 a shell according to Stars and Stripes magazine. And each
ship is supposed to carry 600 of them. The Zumwelt is basically a very expensive mobile artillery
ship, with no clear military purpose. The Navy have pretty much confirmed this by cancelling the
system (there were originally to be 38 of them). The worst thing is that despite it having no clear
purpose and costing vast sums of money, nobody seems willing to call anyone to account for having
blown billions on an entirely worthless defence system.
"... Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism? Is
it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts. ..."
"... The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of
the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way
to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3) ..."
"... What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy
of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of
state. (5) ..."
"... At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
..."
"... Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard to
the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the United
States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they fail
to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied key
functions in his administration. ..."
"... Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and one
of the architects of the wars in the Middle East. ..."
"... it is more realistic to suppose that as long as the United States has interests in the countries of the South and
the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate to intervene. ..."
"... In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. ..."
"... (Translated from the French by Luciana Bohne) ..."
If the discourse of humanitarianism seduced the North, it has not been so in the South, even less in the Near and Middle
East, which no longer believe in it. The patent humanitarian disasters in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have disillusioned
them.
It is in this sense that Trump's victory is felt as a release, a hope for change, and a rupture from the policy of Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. This policy, in the name of edifying nations ("nation building"), has destroyed some of the oldest nations
and civilizations on earth; in the name of delivering well-being, it has delivered misery; in the name of liberal values,
it has galvanized religious zeal; in the name of democracy and human rights, it has installed autocracies and Sharia law.
Who is to blame?
Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism?
Is it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts.
Can the United States not learn from history, or does it just doom itself to repeat it? Does it not pose itself the
question of how al-Qaeda and Daesh originated? How did they organize themselves? Who trained them? What is their mobilizing
discourse? (1) Why is the US their target? None of this seems to matter to the US: all it cares about is
projecting its own idealism. (2)
The death of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, has it contributed to the well being of these
peoples? Or does the United States perhaps respond to this question in the manner of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's
Secretary of State, who regretted the death of five-hundred-thousand Iraqi children, deprived of medications by the American
embargo, to conclude with the infamous sentence, "[But] it was worth it "?
Was it worth it that people came to perceive humanitarian intervention as the new crusades? Was it worth it that they
now perceive democracy as a pagan, pre-Islamic model, abjured by their belief? Was it worth it that they now perceive modernity
as deviating believers from the "true" path? Was it worth that they now perceive human rights as human standards as contrary
to the divine will? Was it worth it that people now perceive secularism as atheism whose defenders are punishable by beheading?
Have universal values become a problem rather than a solution? What then to think of making war in their name? Has humanitarian
intervention become punishment rather than help?
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions
of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are
a way to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign
policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary
of state. (5)
The end of interventionism?
But are Clinton's defeat and Trump's accession to power sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism?
Donald Trump is a nationalist, whose rise has been the result of a coalition of anti-interventionists within the Republican
Party. They professe a foreign policy that Trump has summarized in these words: "We will use military force only in cases
of vital necessity to the national security of the United States. We will put an end to attempts of imposing democracy
and overthrowing regimes abroad, as well as involving ourselves in situations in which we have no right to intervene."
(6)
But drawing conclusions about the foreign policy of the United States from unofficial statements seems simplistic.
At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
One can't predict his policy with regard to the Near and Middle East, since he has not yet even formed his cabinet.
Moreover, presidents in office can change their tune in the course of their tenure. The case of George W. Bush provides
an excellent example.
Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard
to the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the
United States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they
fail to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied
key functions in his administration. (8)
Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and
one of the architects of the wars in the Middle East.
These indices show that nothing seems to have been gained by the South, still less by the Near and Middle East. There
appears to be no guarantee that the situation will improve.
The non-interventionism promised by Trump may not necessarily equate to a policy of isolationism. A non-interventionist
policy does not automatically mean that the United States will stop protecting their interests abroad, strategic or otherwise.
Rather, it could mean that the United States will not intervene abroad except to defend their own interests,
unilaterally -- and perhaps even more aggressively. Such a potential is implied in Trump's promise to increase
the budget for the army and the military-industrial complex. Thus, it is more realistic to suppose that as long as
the United States has interests in the countries of the South and the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate
to intervene.
In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. The political reality is too complex to be reduced to statements
by a presidential candidate campaigning for election, by an elected president, or even by a president in the course of
performing his office.
No one knows what the future will bring.
Marwen Bouassida is a researcher in international law at North African-European relations, University of Carthage,
Tunisia. He regularly contributes to the online magazine Kapitalis.
"Russian security firm says iPhone secretly logs all your phone calls"
By Mike Wehner...Nov 17, 2016...10:36 AM
"A Russian security firm is casting doubt on just how big of an ally Apple is when it comes to
consumer privacy. In a new report, the company alleges that Apple's iCloud retains the entire call
history of every iPhone for as long as four months, making it an easy target for law enforcement
and surveillance.
The firm, Elcomsoft, discovered that as long as a user has iCloud enabled, their call history
is synced and stored. The log includes phone numbers, dates and durations of the calls, and even
missed calls, but the log doesn't stop there; FaceTime call logs, as well as calls from apps that
utilize the "Call History" feature, such as Facebook and WhatsApp, are also stored.
There is also apparently no way to actually disable the feature without disabling iCloud entirely,
as there is no toggle for call syncing.
"We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls
from any of their devices," an Apple spokesperson told The Intercept via email."Device data is encrypted
with a user's passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user's Apple ID
and password. Apple recommends all customers select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication."
But security from unauthorized eyes isn't what users should be worrying about, according to former
FBI agent and computer forensics expert Robert Osgood. "Absolutely this is an advantage [for law
enforcement]," Osgood told The Intercept. ""Four months is a long time [to retain call logs]. It's
generally 30 or 60 days for telecom providers, because they don't want to keep more [records] than
they absolutely have to."
If the name Elcomsoft sounds familiar, it's because the company's phone-cracking software was
used by many of the hackers involved in 2014's massive celebrity nudes leak. Elcomsoft's "Phone Breaker"
software claims the ability to crack iCloud backups, as well as backup files from Microsoft OneDrive
and BlackBerry."
Michael Flynn, expected to advise Donald Trump on counterproductive killing operations misleading
labeled "national security," is generally depicted as a lawless
torturer and assassin. But, whether for partisan reasons or otherwise, he's a lawless torturer
and assassin who has blurted out some truths he shouldn't be allowed to forget.
"Lt. Gen. Flynn, who since leaving the DIA has become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration,
charges that the White House relies heavily on drone strikes for reasons of expediency, rather
than effectiveness. 'We've tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline
that "we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts" and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,' Flynn said.
'And you know what? It doesn't matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason
to fight us even harder.'"
"When you drop a bomb from a drone you are going to cause more damage than you are going to
cause good. The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict."
Will Flynn then advise Trump to cease dropping bombs from drones? Or will he go ahead and advise
drone murders, knowing full well that this is counterproductive from the point of view of anyone
other than war profiteers?
From the same report:
"Asked . . . if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn . . . replied:
'I don't disagree with that,' adding: 'I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy.'"
So Trump's almost inevitable string of drone murders will be conducted under the guidance of a
man who knows they produce terrorism rather than reducing it, that they endanger the United States
rather than protecting it. In that assessment, he agrees with the vast majority of Americans who
believe that the wars of the past
15 years have made the United States less safe, which is the view of numerous other
experts as well.
Flynn, too, expanded his comments from drones to the wars as a whole:
"What we have is this continued investment in conflict. The more weapons we give, the more
bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for
the other solutions."
Flynn also, like Trump, accurately cites the criminal 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as critical to
the creation of ISIS:
"Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion
and occupation of Iraq. 'We definitely put fuel on a fire,' he told Hasan. 'Absolutely there
is no doubt, history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003. Going
into Iraq, definitely it was a strategic mistake."
So there will be no advice to make similar strategic mistakes that are highly profitable to the
weapons industry?
Flynn, despite perhaps being a leading advocate of lawless imprisonment and torture, also admits
to the counterproductive nature of those crimes:
"The former lieutenant general denied any involvement in the litany of abuses carried out by
JSOC interrogators at Camp Nama in Iraq, as revealed by the
New York Times and
Human Rights Watch, but admitted the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period 'absolutely'
helped radicalise Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organisation,
ISIL."
Recently the International Criminal Court teased the world with the news that it might possible
consider indicting US and other war criminals for their actions in Afghanistan. One might expect
all-out resistance to such a proposal from Trump and his gang of hyper-nationalist war mongers, except
that . . .
"Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi
detainees: 'You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable
History is not going to look kind on those actions and we will be held, we should be held, accountable
for many, many years to come.'"
Let's not let Flynn forget any of these words. On Syria he has blurted out some similar facts
to those Trump has also articulated:
"Publicly commenting for the first time on a previously-classified August 2012
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo,
which had predicted 'the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality
in Eastern Syria ( ) this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want' and confirmed
that 'the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria,' the former DIA chief told Head to Head that 'the [Obama] Administration'
didn't 'listen' to these warnings issued by his agency's analysts. 'I don't know if they turned
a blind eye,' he said. 'I think it was a decision, I think it was a willful decision.'"
Let that sink in. Flynn is taking credit for having predicted that backing fighters in Syria could
lead to something like ISIS. And he's suggesting that Obama received this information and chose to
ignore it.
Now, here's a question: What impact will "bombing the hell" out of people have? What good will
"killing their families" do? Spreading nukes around? "Stealing their oil"? Making lists of and banning
Muslims? Is it Flynn's turn to willfully ignore key facts and common sense in order to "advise" against
his better judgment a new president who prefers to be advised to do what he was going to do anyway?
Or can Flynn be convinced to apply lessons learned at huge human cost to similar situations going
forward even with a president of a different party, race, and IQ?
At least with Trump I expect him to talk crap but
Obama talks crap as well when he should know better:
The values that we talked about -- the values of democracy, and free speech, and international
norms, and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny
and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity -- those things are not something
that we can set aside.
"... With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. ..."
"... the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies. ..."
"... If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is ..."
"... Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it." ..."
"... Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits: as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras, in Greece, for example ..."
"... President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough? ..."
"... I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former minister of a tax haven. ..."
"... We've always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties. ..."
"... If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles, we'll be there ..."
"... Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims. ..."
"... Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. ..."
"... Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly. ..."
"... "The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way! ..."
"... As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!" ..."
"... Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen. ..."
"... It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start. In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans) can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo add to the confusion by their flawed analysis. ..."
Whatever the reason, we agree with the next point he makes, namely the overthrow of "experts" by
amateurs.
euronews: "Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected?
Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo: "This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't
have a political project, you're not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs And yet, the
amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are
the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have
destroyed democracy and their international policies. If that's the case, it signifies
that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially
if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we have today, it means the European
dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand
that, we'll also get to face it."
Bingo, or as Nassim Taleb put its, the "Intellectual-Yet-Idiot"
class. It is the elimination of these so-called "experts", most of whom have PhDs or other letters
next to their name to cover their insecurity, and who drown every possible medium with their endless,
hollow, and constantly wrong chatter, desperate to create a self-congratulatory echo
chamber in which their errors are diluted with the errors of their "expert" peers,
that will be the biggest challenge for the world as it seeks to break away from the legacy of a fake
"expert class" which has brought the entire world to its knees, and has unleashed the biggest political
tsunami in modern history.
One thing is certain: the "experts" won't go quietly as the "amateurs" try to retake what is rightfully
theirs.
... ... ...
Beppe Grillo, Leader of the Five Star Movement
"It's an extraordinary turning point. This corn cob – we can also call Trump that in a nice way –
doesn't have particularly outstanding qualities. He was such a target for the media, with such terrifying
accusations of sexism and racism, as well as being harassed by the establishment – such as the New
York Times – but, in the end, he won.
"That is a symbol of the tragedy and the apocalypse of traditional information. The television
and newspapers are always late and they relay old information. They no longer anticipate anything
and they're only just understanding that idiots, the disadvantaged, those who are marginalised –
and there are millions of them – use alternative media, such as the Internet, which passes under
the radar of television, a medium people no longer use.
"With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was
born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions
of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists
and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. We'll
get into government and they'll ask themselves how we did it."
euronews
"There is a gap between giving populist speeches and governing a nation."
Beppe Grillo
"We want to govern, but we don't want to simply change the power by replacing it with our own. We
want a change within civilisation, a change of world vision.
"We're talking about dematerialised industry, an end to working for money, the start of working
for other payment, a universal citizens revenue. If our society is founded on work, what will happen
if work disappears? What will we do with millions of people in flux? We have to organise and manage
all that."
euronews
"Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected? Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo
"This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't have a political project, you're
not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs
"And yet, the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the
professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all
the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies.
"If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely
misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we
have today, it means the European dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge
change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it."
euronews
"Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits:
as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras,
in Greece, for example "
Beppe Grillo
"Yes, I agree."
euronews
"Let's take the example of Podemos in Spain. They came within reach of power, then had to backtrack.
Why?"
Beppe Grillo
"Because there's an outdated way of thinking. Because they think power is managed by forming coalitions
or by making agreements with others.
"From our side, we want to give the tools to the citizens. We have an information system called
Rousseau, to which every Italian citizen can subscribe for free. There they can vote in regional
and local elections and check what their local MPs are proposing. Absolutely any citizen can even
suggest laws in their own name.
"This is something never before directly seen in democracy and neither Tsipras nor Podemos have
done it."
euronews
"You said that you're not interested in breaking up the European Union, but rather in profoundly
changing it. What can a small group of MEPs do to put into motion such great change?"
Beppe Grillo
"The little group of MEPs is making its voice heard, but there are complications In parliament,
there are lobby groups and commissions. Parliament decides, but at the same time doesn't decide.
"We do what we can, in line with our vision of a world based on a circular economy. We put forward
the idea of a circular economy as the energy of the future and the proposal has been adopted by the
European parliament."
euronews
"One hot topic at the Commission at the moment is the problem of the conflicts of interest concerning
certain politicians.
"President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence
from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough?"
Beppe Grillo
"I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former
minister of a tax haven."
euronews
"You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo
"Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has actually elected. That's
what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
euronews "You don't regret being allied with Farage?"
Beppe Grillo
"It was an alliance of convenience, made to give us enough support to enter parliament. We've
always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea
of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties.
"I'm not against Europe, but I am against the single currency. Conversely, I am for the idea of
a common currency. The words are important: 'common' and 'single' are two different concepts.
"In any case, the UK has demonstrated something that we in Italy couldn't even dream of: organising
a clear 'yes-no' referendum."
euronews
"That is 'clear' in terms of the result and not its consequences. In reality, the population is torn.
Many people's views have done u-turns."
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, the responsibility returns entirely to the British. They made the decision."
euronews
"Doesn't it bother you that Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is playing the spoilsport in Europe?
Criticising European institutions was your battle horse and now he is flexing his muscles in Brussels."
Beppe Grillo
"Renzi has to do that. But he's just copying me and in doing so, strengthens the original."
euronews
"Whatever it may be, his position at the head of the government can get him results."
Beppe Grillo
"Very well. If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants
to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles,
we'll be there."
euronews
"In the quarrel over the flexibility of public accounts due to the earthquake and immigration, who
are you supporting?"
Beppe Grillo "On that, I share Renzi's position. I have nothing against projects and ideas. I have preconceptions
about him. For me, he is completely undeserving of confidence."
euronews
"Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in
December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims."
Beppe Grillo
"It's already lost for him."
euronews
"If he doesn't win, will you ask for early elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, we want elections because the government as it stands is not legitimate and, as
a consequence, neither are we.
"From this point onwards, the government moves forward simply by approving laws based on how urgent
they are. And 90 percent of laws are approved using this method. So what good will it do to reform
the Senate to make the process quicker?"
euronews
"Can you see yourself at the head of the Italian government?"
Beppe Grillo
"No, no. I was never in the race. Never."
euronews
"So, Beppe Grillo is not even a candidate to become prime minister or to take on another official
role, if one day the Five Star Movement was to win the elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"The time is fast approaching."
euronews
"Really? A projection?"
Beppe Grillo
"People just need to go and vote. We're sure to win."
BabaLooey -> Nemontel •Nov 21, 2016 6:27 AM
euronews: "You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo: "Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has
actually elected. That's what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
BOILED DOWN - THAT IS ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID.
Blackhawks •Nov 21, 2016 3:15 AM
Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. People all over the world
are voting for conmen and clowns instead of his endorsed candidates and chosen successor. Having
previously exposed the "intellectual-yet-idiot" class, Nassim Taleb unleashes his acerbic
tone in 3 painfully "real news" tweets on President Obama's legacy...
Obama:
Protected banksters (largest bonus pool in 2010)
"Helped" Libya
Served AlQaeda/SaudiBarbaria(Syria & Yemen) https://t.co/bcNMhDgmuo
Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow
your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly.
Yen Cross -> LetThemEatRand •Nov 21, 2016 3:27 AM
Amen~ The" European Toadies" should also institute " term limits" so those Jean Paul & Draghi][JUNKERS[]-
technocratic A-Holes can be done away with!
NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 5:07 AM
"The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU
DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so
WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way!
As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's
ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!"
Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving
their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY
angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen.
Yep -THAT is how F'KING sick they are. These, my friends, are your "Experts", your self-decribed
"Elite" - and Soros is at the head of the parade.
lakecity55 -> NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 6:18 AM
You know the old saying, "an expert's a guy from more than 20 miles outside of town."
tuetenueggel •Nov 21, 2016 5:17 AM
Which experts do you mean Beppe ?
All I Kow is that those "experts" are too stupid to piss a hole in the snow.
Oettinger ( not even speaking his mother tongue halfways correct )
Jean clown Juncker ( always drunk too is a kind of well structured day )
Schulz capo (who was too stupid as mayor of a german village so they fucked him out)
Hollande ( lefts are always of lower IQ then right wing people )
Blair ( war criminal )
and thousands more not to be named her ( due to little space availlable )
caesium •Nov 21, 2016 6:35 AM
It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start.
In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans)
can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo
add to the confusion by their flawed analysis.
The bedrock of Italy was always the Catholic faith which the country has abandoned. "The Faith
is Europe and Europe is the Faith" said Hilaire Belloc. A reality that Grillo is unable to grasp.
At least with Trump I expect him to talk crap but
Obama talks crap as well when he should know better:
The values that we talked about -- the values of democracy, and free speech, and international
norms, and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny
and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity -- those things are not something
that we can set aside.
Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
When I had heard
in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee,
I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence
community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director
of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this
up.
The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts'
conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the
message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that
spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western
universities.
If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East
on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book
as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.
There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration
with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining
in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events.
That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this
is not a seminal work on
General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly
in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely
define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama
administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.
He supports what he can
tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on
the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us
is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand
that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.
Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize
it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years.
General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and
began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster.
Please buy and read this book!
Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few
Others Do.
To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently
retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms
and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting
sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages,
right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched
and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his
book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As
Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work
appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as
the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think
that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this
is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and
serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points,
which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential
read.
In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and
proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions.
Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately
exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking
of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name.
As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all
too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their
careers.
In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home
and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in
which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter
also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their
mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention
to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.'
Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this,
he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and
a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this
capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage"
on p. 154.)
Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil
war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces.
In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again,
this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures
that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons
of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking
about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric
Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General
Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was
bureaucratic in nature.
The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together
the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection
to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out
how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses
how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy"
(p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.
General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually
unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to
the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his
army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan).
He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as
al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine,
General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion
itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that
every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.
Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although
such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn
demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in
the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global
American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy.
General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as
I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts
with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any
unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating
what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that
describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages
127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian
political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the
more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort
to undermine them.
The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works
of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that,
coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment.
Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection
is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence
of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this
book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that
the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.
The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent
makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away
are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.
My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC
in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and
during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available
for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive
of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.
At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly
lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from
spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.
Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should
read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't
like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at
war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is
not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.
We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no
longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre
of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have
won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for
the good cause of freedom.
My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General
Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!
I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical
Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations
that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world,
ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around
radical interpretations of the Qur'an.
Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there
will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a
religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic
world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire
Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.
If
you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"
, by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC
Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the
reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion
can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as
apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is
certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative
evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals
and reactionaries of political Islam.
One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more
that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics,"
whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with
the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."
As if there is any relationship
to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where
they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a
label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing
more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of
setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence
of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless,
as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors
who's authority is founded on political Islam.
In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated
via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional
occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems
unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end
state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism
to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological
end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy
seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration
of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems
more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment
to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long
war.
Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes
that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical
MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure,
a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could
see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level
active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind,
Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy
and at most an operational strategy.
Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at
a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions
made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.
We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this
time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states
who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique
perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.
Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is
as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective
through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action
he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.
The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy
in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:
1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality – for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.
In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam
because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that
our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy
is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled
reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five
I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral
compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists
thrives.
Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have
the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart
rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who
will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an
outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?
As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation
needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as
described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.
* * *
In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an
educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As
a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the
problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and
General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its
Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.
Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his
views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight
ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot
of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence
is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what
is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind
of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which
is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the
difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical
knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems
unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of
Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence
has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his
world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell
him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic
background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected
and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt
with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.
This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way
with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union
and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the
wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years,
right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of
that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in
this craziness.
To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source
of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches
as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where
is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that
Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That
ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that
understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic
abilities.
Trump position is somewhat misrepresented. In his speeches he also points out to dominance of financial
oligarchy and predatory behaviour of corporation outsourcing jobs to countries with cheaper labour.
Notable quotes:
"... A cult of "action for action's sake ..."
"... Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
..."
One of the most-read takes on fascism comes from Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco
in an essay for the New York Review of Bookstitled "
Ur-Fascism ."
Eco emphasizes the extent to which fascism is ad hoc and opportunistic. It's "philosophically out
of joint," he writes, with features that "cannot be organized into a system" since "many of them
contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanacticism."
With that said, it is true that there are fascist movements, and it's also true that when you strip
their cultural clothing-the German paganism in Nazism, for example-there are common properties. Not
every fascist movement shows all of them, but-Eco writes-"it is enough that one of them be present
to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Eco identifies 14, but for this column, I want to focus
on seven. They are: A cult of "action for action's sake ," where "thinking is a form of
emasculation"; an intolerance of "analytical criticism," where disagreement is condemned; a profound
"fear of difference," where leaders appeal against "intruders"; appeals to individual and social
frustration and specifically a "frustrated middle class" suffering from "feelings of political humiliation
and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups"; a nationalist identity set against internal
and external enemies (an "obsession with a plot"); a feeling of humiliation by the "ostentatious
wealth and force of their enemies"; a "popular elitism" where "every citizen belongs to the best
people of the world" and underscored by contempt for the weak; and a celebration of aggressive (and
often violent) masculinity.
... ... ...
Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
He continued:
"The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems," and "Our enemies are getting
stronger and stronger by the way, and we as a country are getting weaker." This includes unauthorized
immigrants, and now refugees, whom he attacks as a menace to ordinary Americans. The former, according
to Trump, take jobs and threaten American safety-"They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime.
They're rapists."-while the latter are a "Trojan horse." But Trump promises action. He will cut new
deals and make foreign competitors subordinate. He will deport immigrants and build a wall on the
border, financed by Mexico. He will bring "
spectacular " economic growth. And Trump isn't an ideologue; he's an opportunist who borrows
freely from both parties.
... ... ...
Alone and disconnected, this rhetoric isn't necessarily fascist... In the Europe of the 1920s and
'30s, fascist parties organized armed gangs to intimidate political opponents. Despite assaults at
Trump events, that still seems unlikely....
Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
When I had heard
in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee,
I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence
community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director
of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this
up.
The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts'
conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the
message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that
spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western
universities.
If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East
on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book
as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.
There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration
with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining
in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events.
That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this
is not a seminal work on
General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly
in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely
define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama
administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.
He supports what he can
tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on
the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us
is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand
that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.
Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize
it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years.
General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and
began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster.
Please buy and read this book!
Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few
Others Do.
To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently
retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms
and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting
sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages,
right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched
and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his
book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As
Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work
appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as
the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think
that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this
is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and
serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points,
which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential
read.
In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and
proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions.
Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately
exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking
of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name.
As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all
too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their
careers.
In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home
and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in
which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter
also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their
mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention
to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.'
Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this,
he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and
a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this
capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage"
on p. 154.)
Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil
war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces.
In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again,
this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures
that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons
of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking
about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric
Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General
Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was
bureaucratic in nature.
The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together
the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection
to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out
how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses
how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy"
(p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.
General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually
unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to
the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his
army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan).
He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as
al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine,
General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion
itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that
every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.
Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although
such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn
demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in
the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global
American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy.
General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as
I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts
with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any
unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating
what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that
describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages
127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian
political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the
more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort
to undermine them.
The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works
of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that,
coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment.
Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection
is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence
of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this
book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that
the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.
The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent
makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away
are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.
My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC
in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and
during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available
for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive
of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.
At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly
lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from
spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.
Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should
read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't
like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at
war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is
not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.
We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no
longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre
of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have
won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for
the good cause of freedom.
My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General
Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!
I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical
Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations
that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world,
ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around
radical interpretations of the Qur'an.
Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there
will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a
religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic
world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire
Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.
If
you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"
, by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC
Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the
reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion
can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as
apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is
certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative
evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals
and reactionaries of political Islam.
One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more
that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics,"
whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with
the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."
As if there is any relationship
to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where
they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a
label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing
more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of
setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence
of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless,
as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors
who's authority is founded on political Islam.
In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated
via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional
occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems
unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end
state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism
to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological
end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy
seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration
of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems
more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment
to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long
war.
Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes
that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical
MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure,
a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could
see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level
active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind,
Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy
and at most an operational strategy.
Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at
a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions
made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.
We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this
time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states
who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique
perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.
Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is
as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective
through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action
he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.
The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy
in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:
1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality – for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.
In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam
because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that
our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy
is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled
reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five
I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral
compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists
thrives.
Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have
the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart
rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who
will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an
outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?
As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation
needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as
described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.
* * *
In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an
educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As
a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the
problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and
General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its
Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.
Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his
views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight
ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot
of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence
is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what
is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind
of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which
is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the
difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical
knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems
unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of
Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence
has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his
world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell
him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic
background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected
and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt
with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.
This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way
with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union
and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the
wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years,
right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of
that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in
this craziness.
To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source
of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches
as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where
is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that
Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That
ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that
understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic
abilities.
Trump position is somewhat misrepresented. In his speeches he also points out to dominance of financial
oligarchy and predatory behaviour of corporation outsourcing jobs to countries with cheaper labour.
Notable quotes:
"... A cult of "action for action's sake ..."
"... Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
..."
One of the most-read takes on fascism comes from Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco
in an essay for the New York Review of Bookstitled "
Ur-Fascism ."
Eco emphasizes the extent to which fascism is ad hoc and opportunistic. It's "philosophically out
of joint," he writes, with features that "cannot be organized into a system" since "many of them
contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanacticism."
With that said, it is true that there are fascist movements, and it's also true that when you strip
their cultural clothing-the German paganism in Nazism, for example-there are common properties. Not
every fascist movement shows all of them, but-Eco writes-"it is enough that one of them be present
to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Eco identifies 14, but for this column, I want to focus
on seven. They are: A cult of "action for action's sake ," where "thinking is a form of
emasculation"; an intolerance of "analytical criticism," where disagreement is condemned; a profound
"fear of difference," where leaders appeal against "intruders"; appeals to individual and social
frustration and specifically a "frustrated middle class" suffering from "feelings of political humiliation
and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups"; a nationalist identity set against internal
and external enemies (an "obsession with a plot"); a feeling of humiliation by the "ostentatious
wealth and force of their enemies"; a "popular elitism" where "every citizen belongs to the best
people of the world" and underscored by contempt for the weak; and a celebration of aggressive (and
often violent) masculinity.
... ... ...
Now, let's look at Trump. His campaign revolves around one theme: That the United States is weak,
that it loses, and that it needs leadership to become "great again." "We don't have victories anymore,"
he said in his
announcement
speech . "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They
kill us. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity."
He continued:
"The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems," and "Our enemies are getting
stronger and stronger by the way, and we as a country are getting weaker." This includes unauthorized
immigrants, and now refugees, whom he attacks as a menace to ordinary Americans. The former, according
to Trump, take jobs and threaten American safety-"They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime.
They're rapists."-while the latter are a "Trojan horse." But Trump promises action. He will cut new
deals and make foreign competitors subordinate. He will deport immigrants and build a wall on the
border, financed by Mexico. He will bring "
spectacular " economic growth. And Trump isn't an ideologue; he's an opportunist who borrows
freely from both parties.
... ... ...
Alone and disconnected, this rhetoric isn't necessarily fascist... In the Europe of the 1920s and
'30s, fascist parties organized armed gangs to intimidate political opponents. Despite assaults at
Trump events, that still seems unlikely....
"... as sheltered intellectuals, often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the world, like the old Roman proconsuls. ..."
"... But more unending wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become destructively bankrupting. ..."
Even before the Iraq War,
John Bolton was
a leading brain behind the neoconservatives' war-and-conquest agenda. Long ago I wrote about him,
in "John Bolton and U.S. Lawlessness,"
"The Bush administration's international lawlessness did not come from nowhere. Its intellectual
foundations were laid long before 9/11 by neoconservatives." I quoted Bolton, "It is a big mistake
to for us to grant any validity to international law because over the long term, the goal of those
who think that it really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States." In fact
I set up a web page, the John
Bolton File , containing various links about him and the neocons.
Nearly all of Donald Trump's appointments to his transition team are very encouraging. Indeed,
I have known many of them for years. But he could undermine his whole agenda by allowing neocons
back into their former staffing and leadership role over Republican foreign policy. The
New York Times reported how many are now scrambling to get back into their old dominant
positions. And now National Review , which supported all the disasters in Iraq, has come out
to promote Bolton for secretary of state.
I have written about the neocons for many years. Their originators were former leftists who
later became anti-communists. After the collapse of communism, they provided the intellectual
firepower for hawks and imperialists who wanted an aggressive American foreign policy. Having lived
and done business for many years in the Third World, I thought they would only bring about disasters
for America. What especially interested me was their almost total lack of experience in and knowledge
about the outside world, particularly Asia and Latin America. I even set up a web page called
War Party Neoconservative
Biographies as I researched their education and experience.
Brilliant academics as many of them were, their "foreign" experience was at best a semester
or two in London or, for the more daring, some studies in Paris or, for the Jewish ones, a summer
on a kibbutz in Israel.
They are above all Washington insiders. John Bolton is very typical. A summa cum laude graduate
of Yale, then Yale Law School, time with a top Washington law firm, and then various academic and
political appointments, but no foreign living or work experience.
Also, as sheltered intellectuals,
often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the
world, like the old Roman proconsuls.
Long ago
Peter Viereck explained them with
his observation about the vicarious "lust of many intellectuals for brute violence." No wonder they
urged Bush on to his disastrous war and occupation policies. Even before Iraq they were first urging
dominance over Russia and then military confrontation with China, when a U.S. spy plane was collided
by a Chinese fighter plane. It wasn't just the Arab world which was in their sights.
I write about all this based on my own experience of studying in Germany and France, working 15
years in South America, and speaking four languages fluently.
Trump appointments so far are really showing his focus upon getting America back on track with
faster economic growth, which has been so stunted by Obama's runaway regulatory regime. To understand
their costs, see analysis in the Competitive Enterprise Institute's
"Ten Thousand Commandments."
But more unending
wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our
nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become
destructively bankrupting. Few would now doubt that America has crossed this threshold. When it costs
us a million dollars per year per man to field combat infantry in unending wars, we will face
economic ruin just like happened with the Roman Empire.
The risk is that Trump's foreign-affairs transition team becomes infiltrated. Much of the transition
is being run out of the Heritage Foundation, which was a big promoter of the Iraq War.
Pence is great on domestic issues but not on foreign policy. Although a Catholic, he also is
very close to those evangelicals who believe that supporting Israel's expansion will help to speed
up the second coming of Christ and, consequently, Armageddon. One must assume that he, together with
the military-industrial complex, is plugging for the neoconservatives again to work their agenda
upon America and the world.
Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative .
It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all
need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism has been disastrous for the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial heartland, now little more than its wasteland ..."
"... The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate. ..."
"... two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair: offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. ..."
"... Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime. ..."
"... In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus, a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic) minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate, stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined. ..."
"... But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital (which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century capitalism. ..."
"... Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. ..."
"... Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ..."
"... Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too, along with a number of social drivers. ..."
"... The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico. ..."
"... I contend that in some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision appeared in sharp relief with Brexit. ..."
"... Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity, so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions that predate the emergence of identity politics. ..."
"... It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the plight of their cherished white working class. ..."
"... The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity. Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory present. ..."
"... Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'. ..."
"... Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness' threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation. Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like a minority vote. ..."
"... Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority, much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'? ..."
"... I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective. ..."
"... In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s." ..."
"... Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate." ..."
"... In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.' ..."
"... In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country, and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time, more and more power. ..."
"... To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their 2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced to pay. ..."
"... This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman white underclass (or so they see it). ..."
"... You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you), you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back. Nobody trusts the elite at all. ..."
"... You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem. ..."
"... One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016: the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people. This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party. ..."
"... Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery. ..."
"... None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it. ..."
"... . It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part. ..."
"... This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to the Ivy League, which is 90% of them. ..."
"... Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a "boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win? ..."
"... "The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians." ..."
"... "It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of rubble.' ..."
"... "One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken." ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response, governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to, and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time, is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon known as Goodhart's law. (..) ..."
"... " what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically, and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right to vote. ..."
"... "The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened. ..."
"... "The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism. It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun." ..."
"... They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue collar work. ..."
"... trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been "correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic party, have to accept. ..."
"... trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama was defending keeping what was already there. ..."
"... "Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html ..."
"... Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. "" ..."
The question is no longer her neoliberalism, but yours. Keep it or throw it away?
I wish this issue was being seriously discussed. Neoliberalism has been disastrous for
the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial
heartland, now little more than its wasteland (cf. "flyover zone" – a pejorative term which
inhabitants of the zone are not too stupid to understand perfectly, btw).
The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied
them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary
production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent
living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate.
As noted upthread, two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair:
offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. The jobs that have been lost will not return,
and indeed will be lost in ever greater numbers – just consider what will happen to the trucking
sector when self-driving trucks hit the roads sometime in the next 10-20 years (3.5 million truckers;
8.7 in allied jobs).
Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable
giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that
would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations
for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum
wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence
life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime.
In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus,
a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal
distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic)
minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate,
stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined.
I appreciate and espouse the goals of identity politics in all their multiplicity, and also
understand that the institutions of slavery and sexism predated modern capitalist economies.
But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital
(which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired
as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their
capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse
or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century
capitalism.
Also: Faustusnotes@100
For example Indiana took the ACA Medicaid expansion but did so with additional conditions that
make it worse than in neighboring states run by democratic governors.
And what states would those be? IL, IA, MI, OH, WI, KY, and TN have Republican governors. Were
you thinking pre-2014? pre-2012?
To conclude and return to my original point: what's to become of the Rust Belt in future? Did
the Democratic platform include a New New Deal for PA, OH, MI, WI, and IA (to name only the five
Rust Belt states Trump flipped)?
" Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic
and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive
governments to deal with this.
Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization
launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial
and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though,
was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the
Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. "
What should have been one comment came out as 4, so apologies on that front.
I spent the last week explaining the US election to my students in Japan in pretty much the
terms outlined by Lilla and PIketty, so I was delighted to discover these two articles.
Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too,
along with a number of social drivers. It was therefore very easy to call for a show of hands
to identify students studying here in Tokyo who are trying to decide whether or not to return
to areas such as Tohoku to build their lives; or remain in Kanto/Tokyo – the NY/Washington/LA
of Japan put crudely.
I asked students from regions close to Tohoku how they might feel if the Japanese prime minister
decided not to visit the region following Fukushima after the disaster, or preceding an election.
The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an
apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained
that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans
did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico.
I then asked the students, particularly those from outlying regions whether they believe Japan
needed a leader who would 'bring back Japanese jobs' from Viet Nam and China, etc. Many/most agreed
wholeheartedly. I then asked whether they believed Tokyo people treated those outside Kanto as
'inferiors.' Many do.
Piketty may be right regarding Trump's long-term effects on income inequality. He is wrong,
I suggest, to argue that Democrats failed to respond to Sanders' support. I contend that in
some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root
and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed
was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision
appeared in sharp relief with Brexit.
Also worth noting is that the rust belts problems are as old as Reagan – even the term dates
from the 80s, the issue is so uncool that there is a dire straits song about it. Some portion
of the decline of manufacturing there is due to manufacturers shifting to the south, where the
anti Union states have an advantage. Also there has been new investment – there were no Japanese
car companies in the us in the 1980s, so they are new job creators, yet insufficient to make up
the losses. Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity,
so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions
that predate the emergence of identity politics.
It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves
on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the
plight of their cherished white working class. Suddenly it's not the forces of capital and
the objective facts of history, but a bunch of whiny black trannies demanding safe spaces and
protesting police violence, that drove those towns to ruin.
And what solutions do they think the dems should have proposed? It can't be welfare, since
we got the ACA (watered down by representatives of the rust belt states). Is it, seriously, tariffs?
Short of going to an election promising w revolution, what should the dems have done? Give us
a clear answer so we can see what the alternative to identity politics is.
basil 11.19.16 at 5:11 am
Did this go through?
Thinking with WLGR @15, Yan @81, engels variously above,
The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people
and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of
the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great
injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation
of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic
vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan
C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity.
Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory
present.
I get that the tropes around race are easy, and super-available. Privilege confessing is very
in vogue as a prophylactic against charges of racism. But does it threaten the structures that
produce this abjection – either as embittered, immiserated 'white working class' or as threatened
minority group? It is always *those* 'white' people, the South, the Working Class, and never the
accusers some of whom are themselves happy to vote for a party that drowns out anti-war protesters
with chants of USA! USA!
Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces
ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'.
--
Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making
that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness'
threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans
are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation.
Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like
a minority vote.
Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder
if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of
the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority,
much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are
denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape
really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'?
I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants
in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but
this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective.
The 'racialisation' of class in Britain has been a consequence of the weakening of 'class'
as a political idea since the 1970s – it is a new construction, not an historic one.
.
This is not to deny the existence of working-class racism, or to suggest that racism is
somehow acceptable if rooted in perceived socio-economic grievances. But it is to suggest that
the concept of a 'white working class' needs problematizing, as does the claim that the British
working-class was strongly committed to a post-war vision of 'White Britain' analogous to the
politics which sustained the idea of a 'White Australia' until the 1960s.
Yes, old, settled neighbourhoods could be profoundly distrustful of outsiders – all outsiders,
including the researchers seeking to study them – but, when it came to race, they were internally
divided. We certainly hear working-class racist voices – often echoing stock racist complaints
about over-crowding, welfare dependency or exploitative landlords and small businessmen, but
we don't hear the deep pathological racial fears laid bare in the letters sent to Enoch Powell
after his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 (Whipple, 2009).
But more importantly, we also hear strong anti-racist voices loudly and clearly. At Wallsend
on Tyneside, where the researchers were gathering their data just as Powell shot to notoriety,
we find workers expressing casual racism, but we also find eloquent expressions of an internationalist,
solidaristic perspective in which, crucially, black and white are seen as sharing the same
working-class interests.
Racism is denounced as a deliberate capitalist strategy to divide workers against themselves,
weakening their ability to challenge those with power over their lives (shipbuilding had long
been a very fractious industry and its workers had plenty of experience of the dangers of internal
sectarian battles).
To be able to mobilize across across racialised divisions, to have race wither away entirely
would, for me, be the beginning of a politics that allowed humanity to deal with the inescapable
violence of climate change and corporate power.
*To add to the bibliography – David R. Roediger, Elizabeth D. Esch – The Production of Difference
– Race and the Management of Labour, and Denise Ferreira da Silva – Toward a Global Idea of Race.
And I have just been pointed at Ian Haney-López, White By Law – The Legal Construction of Race.
FWIW 'merica's constitutional democracy is going to collapse.
Some day - not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change
forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies - there is going to be a collapse of the
legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent.
If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better,
more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen .
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from
the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional
continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly
important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the
Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When
they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the
basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote:
"the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly
legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate."
In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing
of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found,
a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a
period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative
and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.'
Given that the basic point is polarisation (i.e. that both the President and Congress have
equally strong arguments to be the the 'voice of the people') and that under the US appalling
constitutional set up, there is no way to decide between them, one can easily imagine the so to
speak 'hyperpolarisation' of a Trump Presidency as being the straw (or anvil) that breaks the
camel's back.
In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country,
and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral
result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious
democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time,
more and more power.
nastywoman @ 150
Just study the program of the 'Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland' or the Program of 'Die
Grünen' in Germany (take it through google translate) and you get all the answers you are looking
for.
No need to run it through google translate, it's available in English on their site. [Or one
could refer to the Green Party of the U.S. site/platform, which is very similar in scope and overall
philosophy. (www.gp.org).]
I looked at several of their topic areas (Agricultural, Global, Health, Rural) and yes, these
are general theses I would support. But they're hardly policy/project proposals for specific regions
or communities – the Greens espouse "think global, act local", so programs and projects must be
tailored to individual communities and regions.
To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the
Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their
2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced
to pay.
This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring
that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the
neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes
upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman
white underclass (or so they see it).
I expect at this point that Trump will be reelected comfortably. If not only the party itself,
but also most of its activists, refuse to actually change, it's more or less inevitable.
You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going
to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that
your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you),
you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't
stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or
not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back.
Nobody trusts the elite at all.
You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror
at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem.
One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016:
the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people.
This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party.
Folks, we have seen this before. Let's not descend in backbiting and recriminations, okay?
We've got some commenters charging that other commenters are "mansplaining," meanwhile we've got
other commenters claiming that it's economics and not racism/misogyny. It's all of the above.
Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists
also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has
happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising
to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the
existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able
to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery.
None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a
modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The
problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it.
Instead, what we're seeing is a whirlwind of finger-pointing from the Democratic leadership
that lost this election and probably let the entire New Deal get rolled back and wiped out. Putin
is to blame! Julian Assange is to blame! The biased media are to blame! Voter suppression is to
blame! Bernie Sanders is to blame! Jill Stein is to blame! Everyone and anyone except the current
out-of-touch influence-peddling elites who currently have run the Democratic party into the ground.
We need the feminists and the black lives matter groups and we also need the green party people
and the Bernie Sanders activists. But everyone has to understand that this is not an isolated
event. Trump did not just happen by accident. First there was Greece, then there was Brexit, then
there was Trump, next it'll be Renzi losing the referendum in Italy and a constitutional crisis
there, and after that, Marine Le Pen in France is going to win the first round of elections. (Probably
not the presidency, since all the other French parties will band together to stop her, but the
National Front is currently polling at 40% of all registered French voters.) And Marine LePen
is the real deal, a genuine full-on out-and-out fascist. Not a closet fascist like Steve Bannon,
LePen is the full monty with everything but a Hugo Boss suit and the death's heads on the cap.
Does anyone notice a pattern here?
This is an international movement. It is sweeping the world . It is the end of neoliberalism
and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp
out the authoritarian part.
Feminists, BLM, black bloc anarchiest anti-globalists, Sandernistas, and, yes, the former Hillary
supporters. Because it not just a coincidence that all these things are happening in all these
countries at the same time. The bottom 90% of the population in the developed world has been ripped
off by a managerial and financial and political class for the last 30 years and they have all
noticed that while the world GDP was skyrocketing and international trade agreements were getting
signed with zero input from the average citizen, a few people were getting very very rich but
nobody else was getting anything.
This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially
single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings
and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to
the Ivy League, which is 90% of them.
And the Democratic party is so helpless and so hopeless that it is letting the American Nazi
Party run to the left of them on health care, fer cripes sake! We are now in a situation
where the American Nazi Party is advocating single-payer nationalized health care, while the former
Democratic presidential nominee who just got defeated assured everyone that single-payer "will
never, ever happen."
C'mon! Is anyone surprised that Hillary lost? Let's cut the crap with the "Hillary
was a flawed candidate" arguments. The plain fact of the matter is that Hillary was running mainly
on getting rid of the problems she and her husband created 25 years ago. Hillary promised criminal
justice reform and Black Lives Matter-friendly policing policies - and guess who started the mass
incarceration trend and gave speeches calling black kids "superpredators" 20 years ago? Hillary
promised to fix the problems with the wretched mandate law forcing everyone to buy unaffordable
for-profit private insurance with no cost controls - and guess who originally ran for president
in 2008 on a policy of health care mandates with no cost controls? Yes, Hillary (ironically, Obama's
big surge in popularity as a candidate came when he ran against Hillary from the left, ridiculing
helath care mandates). Hillary promises to reform an out-of-control deregulated financial system
run amok - and guess who signed all those laws revoking Glass-Steagal and setting up the Securities
Trading Modernization Act? Yes, Bill Clinton, and Hillary was right there with him cheering the
whole process on.
So pardon me and lots of other folks for being less than impressed by Hillary's trustworthiness
and honesty. Run for president by promising to undo the damage you did to the country 25 years
ago is (let say) a suboptimal campaign strategy, and a distinctly suboptimal choice of presidential
candidate for a party in the same sense that the Hiroshima air defense was suboptimal in 1945.
Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a
"boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win?
Because we're back in the 1930s again, the economy has crashed hard and still hasn't recovered
(maybe because we still haven't convened a Pecora Commission and jailed a bunch of the thieves,
and we also haven't set up any alphabet government job programs like the CCC) so fascists and
racists and all kinds of other bottom-feeders are crawling out of the political woodwork to promise
to fix the problems that the Democratic party establishment won't.
Rule of thumb: any social or political or economic writer virulently hated by the current Democratic
party establishment is someone we should listen to closely right now.
Cornel West is at the top of the current Democratic establishment's hate list, and he has got
a great article in The Guardian that I think is spot-on:
"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph
of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded
to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians."
Glenn Greenwald is another writer who has been showered with more hate by the Democratic establishment
recently than even Trump or Steve Bannon, so you know Greenwald is saying something important.
He has a great piece in The Intercept on the head-in-the-ground attitude of Democratic
elites toward their recent loss:
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political
force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite
a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the
Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local
levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced
no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of
rubble.'
"One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked
political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce
a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats,
one would be quite mistaken."
Last but far from least, Scottish economist Mark Blyth has what looks to me like the single
best analysis of the entire global Trump_vs_deep_state tidal wave in Foreign Affairs magazine:
"At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass
unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response,
governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to,
and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time,
is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon
known as Goodhart's law. (..)
" what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary
regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this
world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at
all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically,
and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right
to vote.
"The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary
order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as
the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from
those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that
are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened.
"In short, to understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing
everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them.
"The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism.
It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing
above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun."
You don't live here, do you? I'm really asking a genuine question because the way you are framing
the question ("SPECIFICS!!!!!!) suggests you don't. (Just to show my background, born and raised
in Australia (In the electoral division of Kooyong, home of Menzies) but I've lived in the US
since 2000 in the midwest (MO, OH) and currently in the south (GA))
If this election has taught us anything it's no one cared about "specifics". It was a mood,
a feeling which brought trump over the top (and I'm not talking about the "average" trump voter
because that is meaningless. The average trunp voter was a republican voter in the south who the
Dems will never get so examining their motivations is immaterial to future strategy. I'm talking
about the voters in the Upper Midwest from places which voted for Obama twice then switched to
trump this year to give him his margin of victory).
trump voters have been pretty clear they don't actually care about the way trump does (or even
doesn't) do what he said he would do during the campaign. It was important to them he showed he
was "with" people like them. They way he did that was partially racialized (law and order, islamophobia)
but also a particular emphasis on blue collar work that focused on the work. Unfortunately these
voters, however much you tell them they should suck it up and accept their generations of familial
experience as relatively highly paid industrial workers (even if it is something only their fathers
and grandfathers experienced because the factories were closing when the voters came of age in
the 80s and 90s) is never coming back and they should be happy to retrain as something else, don't
want it. They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue
collar work.
trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs
and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been
"correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about
how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic
party, have to accept.
The idea they don't want "government help" is ridiculous. They love the government. They just
want the government to do things for them and not for other people (which unfortunately includes
blah people but also "the coasts", "sillicon valley", etc.). Obama won in 2008 and 2012 in part
due to the auto bailout.
trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like
the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama
was defending keeping what was already there.
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the
automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable
labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
So yes. Clinton needed vague promises. She needed something more than retraining and "jobs
of the future" and "restructuring". She needed to show she was committed to their way of life,
however those voters saw it, and would do something, anything, to keep it alive. trump did that
even though his plan won't work. And maybe he'll be punished for it. In 4 years. But in the interim
the gop will destroy so many things we need and rely on as well as entrench their power for generations
through the Supreme Court.
But really, it was hard for Clinton to be trusted to act like she cared about these peoples'
way of life because she (through her husband fairly or unfairly) was associated with some of the
larger actions and choices which helped usher in the decline.
Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned
out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump
economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's
economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. ""
"... " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement ," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches, so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400 kids." ..."
"... Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump" ..."
"... " The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ." ..."
"... ... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team ... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities ... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet. ..."
Bannon next discusses the "battle line" inside America's great divide.
He absolutely - mockingly - rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist,
I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist, " he tells me. " The globalists gutted the American
working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to
not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent
of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion
market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about
."
Bannon's vision: an "entirely new political movement", one which drives the conservatives crazy.
As to how monetary policy will coexist with fiscal stimulus, Bannon has a simple explanation: he
plans to "rebuild everything" courtesy of negative interest rates and cheap debt throughout the world.
Those rates may not be negative for too long.
" Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement
," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the
guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the
world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all
jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be
as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists,
in an economic nationalist movement."
How Bannon describes Trump: " an ideal vessel"
It is less than obvious how Bannon, now the official strategic brains of the Trump operation,
syncs with his boss, famously not too strategic. When Bannon took over the campaign from Paul
Manafort, there were many in the Trump circle who had resigned themselves to the inevitability
of the candidate listening to no one . But here too was a Bannon insight: When the campaign seemed
most in free fall or disarray, it was perhaps most on target. While Clinton was largely absent
from the campaign trail and concentrating on courting her donors, Trump - even after the leak
of the grab-them-by-the-pussy audio - was speaking to ever-growing crowds of thirty-five or forty
thousand. "He gets it, he gets it intuitively," says Bannon, perhaps still surprised he has found
such an ideal vessel. "You have probably the greatest orator since William Jennings Bryan, coupled
with an economic populist message and two political parties that are so owned by the donors that
they don't speak to their audience. But he speaks in a non-political vernacular, he communicates
with these people in a very visceral way. Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches,
so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows
up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When
they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400
kids."
Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump"
At that moment, as we talk, there's a knock on the door of Bannon's office, a temporary, impersonal,
middle-level executive space with a hodgepodge of chairs for constant impromptu meetings. Sen.
Ted Cruz, once the Republican firebrand, now quite a small and unassuming figure, has been waiting
patiently for a chat and Bannon excuses himself for a short while. It is clear when we return
to our conversation that it is not just the liberal establishment that Bannon feels he has triumphed
over, but the conservative one too - not least of all Fox News and its owners, the Murdochs. "They
got it more wrong than anybody," he says. " Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump.
To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly."
Bannon recounts, with no small irony, that when Breitbart attacked Kelly after her challenges
to Trump in the initial Republican debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes - whom Bannon describes
as an important mentor, and who Kelly's accusations of sexual harassment would help topple in
July - called to defend her. Bannon says he warned Ailes that Kelly would be out to get him too
.
Finally, Bannon on how he sees himself in the administration:
Bannon now becomes part of a two-headed White House political structure, with Reince Priebus
- in and out of Bannon's office as we talk - as chief of staff, in charge of making the trains
run on time, reporting to the president, and Bannon as chief strategist, in charge of vision,
goals, narrative and plan of attack, reporting to the president too. Add to this the ambitions
and whims of the president himself, and the novel circumstance of one who has never held elective
office, the agenda of his highly influential family and the end runs of a party significant parts
of which were opposed to him, and you have quite a complex court that Bannon will have to finesse
to realize his reign of the working man and a trillion dollars in new spending.
"I am," he says, with relish, "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
" The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia.
The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he
means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the
black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they
were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people.
It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ."
... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team
... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities
... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful
accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet.
........ from wiki ...
Stephen Kevin Bannon was born on November 27, 1953, in Norfolk, Virginia into a working-class,
Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats. He graduated from Virginia Tech in
1976 and holds a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. In 1983,
Bannon received an M.B.A. degree with honors from Harvard Business School.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster
as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the
Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.
After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers
& Acquisitions Department. In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched
Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. Through Bannon & Co., Bannon negotiated
the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. As payment, Bannon & Co. accepted a financial
stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld. Société Générale purchased Bannon & Co. in
1998.
In 1993, while still managing Bannon & Co., Bannon was made acting director of Earth-science
research project Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Under Bannon, the project shifted emphasis from
researching space exploration and colonization towards pollution and global warming. He left the
project in 1995.
After the sale of Bannon & Co., Bannon became an executive producer in the film and media industry
in Hollywood, California. He was executive producer for Julie Taymor's 1999 film Titus. Bannon
became a partner with entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz at The Firm, Inc., a film
and television management company. In 2004, Bannon made a documentary about Ronald Reagan titled
In the Face of Evil. Through the making and screening of this film, Bannon was introduced to Peter
Schweizer and publisher Andrew Breitbart. He was involved in the financing and production of a
number of films, including Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, The
Undefeated (on Sarah Palin), and Occupy Unmasked. Bannon also hosts a radio show (Breitbart News
Daily) on a Sirius XM satellite radio channel.
Bannon is also executive chairman and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute,
where he helped orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash. In 2015, Bannon was ranked
No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015".
Bannon convinced Goldman Sachs to invest in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment.
Following a lawsuit, the company rebranded as Affinity Media and Bannon took over as CEO. From
2007 through 2011, Bannon was chairman and CEO of Affinity Media.
Bannon became a member of the board of Breitbart News. In March 2012, after founder Andrew
Breitbart's death, Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, the parent company
of Breitbart News. Under his leadership, Breitbart took a more alt-right and nationalistic approach
towards its agenda. Bannon declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016. Bannon
identifies as a conservative. Speaking about his role at Breitbart, Bannon said: "We think of
ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly 'anti-' the permanent political class."
The New York Times described Breitbart News under Bannon's leadership as a "curiosity of the
fringe right wing", with "ideologically driven journalists", that is a source of controversy "over
material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist." The newspaper also noted how
Breitbart was now a "potent voice" for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Bannon: " The globalists gutted the American working class ..the Democrats were talking
to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality.
They lost sight of what the world is about ."
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
Bannon: " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political
movement I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
Dear Mr. Bannon, it has to be way more than $1trillion in 10 years. Obama's $831 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) didn't make up the difference for all the job lost
in 2007/08. Manufacturing alone lost about 9 million jobs since 1979, when it peaked.
Trump needs to go Ronald Reagan 180% deficit spending. If Trump runs 100% like Obama, Trump
will fail as well.
The author mixes the notion of populism as a social protest against the excesses of the rule of
the current oligarchy, which enpoverish common people, with neofascism and far right nationalism, which are now popular forms of expression of this
protest
SANTIAGO – Many of the men and women who turned out for the annual meeting of the International
Monetary Fund in early October were saying something like this: "Imagine if the Republicans had nominated
someone with the same anti-trade views as Trump, minus the insults and the sexual harassment. A populist
protectionist would be headed to the White House."
The underlying view is that rising populism on the right and the left, both in the United States
and in Europe, is a straightforward consequence of globalization and its unwanted effects: lost jobs
and stagnant middle-class incomes. Davos men and women hate this conclusion, but they have embraced
it with all the fervor of new converts.
Yet there is an alternative – and more persuasive – view: while economic stagnation helps push
upset voters into the populist camp, bad economics is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for bad politics. On the contrary, argues Princeton political scientist
Jan-Werner
Mueller in his new book
: populism is a "permanent shadow" on representative democracy.
Populism is not about taxation (or jobs or income inequality). It is about representation – who
gets to speak for the people and how.
Advocates of democracy make some exalted claims on its behalf. As Abraham Lincoln put it at
Gettysburg
, it is "government of the people, by the people, for the people." But modern representative
democracy – or any democracy, for that matter – inevitably falls short of these claims. Voting in
an election every four years for candidates chosen by party machines is not exactly what Lincoln's
lofty words call to mind.
What populists offer, Mueller says, is to fulfill what the Italian democratic theorist Norberto
Bobbio calls the broken promises of democracy. Populists speak and act, claims Mueller, " as if
the people could develop a singular judgment,... as if the people were one,... as if
the people, if only they empowered the right representatives, could fully master their fates."
Populism rests on a toxic triad: denial of complexity, anti-pluralism, and a crooked version
of representation.
Most of us believe that social choices (Build more schools or hospitals? Stimulate or discourage
international trade? Liberalize or restrict abortion?) are complex, and that the existence of a plurality
of views about what to do is both natural and legitimate. Populists deny this. As
Ralf Dahrendorf
once put it, populism is simple; democracy is complex. To populists, there is only one right
view – that of the people.
If so, the complex mechanisms of liberal democracy, with its emphasis on delegation and representation,
are all unnecessary. No need for parliaments endlessly debating: the unitary will of the people can
easily be expressed in a single vote. Hence populists' love affair with plebiscites and referenda.
Brexit, anyone?
And not just anyone can represent the people. The claim is to exclusive representation. Remember
Trump's boast in his address
to the Republican National Convention: "I alone can fix it."
Politics is always about morality, Aristotle told us. But populists favor what Mueller calls a
particular moralistic interpretation of politics . Those who hold the right view about the
world are moral; the rest are immoral, lackeys of a corrupt elite. That was exactly the rhetoric
of the late Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez. When that failed, and when Chávez's sank his country's
economy, there was always US imperialism to blame. So populism is a kind of identity politics. It
is always us against them .
Viewed in this light, populism is not a useful corrective to a democracy captured by technocrats
and elites, as Marine Le Pen, Rafael Correa, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or assorted Western intellectuals
want you to believe. On the contrary, it is profoundly anti-democratic, and hence a threat to democracy
itself.
What is to be done? My take (the prescription is my own, not Mueller's) is that democrats must
(and can) beat populists at their own game. The toxic triad can become salutary.
First, acknowledge complexity. The only thing that upsets voters as much as being lied to is being
treated like babies. People who lead challenging lives know that the world is complex. They do not
mind being told that. They appreciate being spoken to as the grownups they are.
Second, do not treat diversity of views and identities as a problem calling for a technocratic
solution. Rather, make respect for such diversity a profoundly moral feature of society. The fact
that we are not all the same and we can still get along is a tremendous democratic achievement. Make
the case for it. And do not fall for the tired cliché that reason is for democrats and emotion is
for populists. Make the case for pluralistic democracy in a way that inspires and stirs emotion.
Third, defend – and update – representation. Leave delegation to complex technical matters. Take
advantage of modern technologies to bring other choices – particularly those having to do with the
fabric of daily life – closer to voters. Tighten campaign finance laws, regulate lobbying better,
and enforce affirmative-action measures to ensure that representatives are of the people and work
for the people.
These measures alone will not ensure that all of democracy's broken promises are fulfilled. But
we cannot expect a single set of simple actions to solve a complex problem. Nor can we believe that
we alone can fix it.
If we believed that, we would be populists. For the sake of democracy, that is precisely what
we should not be.
Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Professor
of Professional Practice in International Development at Columbia University's School of International
and Public Affairs. He has taught at Harvard University and New York University, and is the author
of numerous studies on international economics and development.
"... The economic point is that globalisation has boosted trade and overall wealth, but it has also created a dog eat dog world where western workers compete with, and lose jobs to, people far away who will do the work for much less. ..."
"... But neither Trump nor Farage have shown any evidence of how realistically they can recreate those jobs in the west. And realistically god knows how you keep the wealth free trade and globalisation brings but avoid losing the good jobs? At least the current mess has focused attention on the question and has said that patience has run out. ..."
"... Compared to the real economic problems, the identity politics is minor, but it is still an irritant that explains why this revolution is coming from the right not from the left. ..."
"... And what "age" has that been Roy? The "age" of: climate change, gangster bankers, tax heavens, illegal wars, nuclear proliferation, grotesque inequality, the prison industrial complex to cite just a few. That "age"? ..."
"... the right wing press detest one kind of liberalism, social liberalism, they hate that, but they love economic liberalism, which has done much harm to the working class. ..."
"... Most of the right wing press support austerity measures, slashing of taxes and, smaller and smaller governments. Yet apparently, its being socially liberal that is the problem ..."
A crucial point "WWC men aren't interested in working at McDonald's for $15 per hour instead
of $9.50. What they want is... steady, stable, full-time jobs that deliver a solid middle-class
life."
The economic point is that globalisation has boosted trade and overall wealth, but it has
also created a dog eat dog world where western workers compete with, and lose jobs to, people
far away who will do the work for much less.
But neither Trump nor Farage have shown any evidence of how realistically they can recreate
those jobs in the west. And realistically god knows how you keep the wealth free trade and globalisation
brings but avoid losing the good jobs? At least the current mess has focused attention on the
question and has said that patience has run out.
Compared to the real economic problems, the identity politics is minor, but it is still
an irritant that explains why this revolution is coming from the right not from the left.
If you're white and male it's bad enough losing your hope of economic security, but then to
be repeatedly told by the left that you're misogynist, racist, sexist, Islamophobic, transgenderphobic
etc etc is just the icing on the cake. If the author wants to see just how crazy identity politics
has become go to the Suzanne Moore piece from yesterday accusing American women of being misogynist
for refusing to vote for Hillary. That kind of maniac 'agree with me on everything or you're a
racist, sexist, homophobe' identity politics has to be ditched.
Reply
Funny, I've been a white male my whole life and not once have I been accused of being a misogynist,
racist, sexist, Islamophobic, or transgenderphobic. I didn't think being a white male was so difficult
for some people...
Reply
"Are we turning our backs on the age of enlightenment?".
And what "age" has that been Roy? The "age" of: climate change, gangster bankers, tax heavens,
illegal wars, nuclear proliferation, grotesque inequality, the prison industrial complex to cite
just a few. That "age"?
I agree hardly an age of enlightenment. My opinion... the so called Liberal Elite are responsible
for many of the issues in the list. The poor and the old in this country are not being helped
by the benefits system. Yet the rich get richer beyond the dreams of the ordinary man.
I would
pay more tax if I thought it might be spent more wisely...but can you trust politicians who are
happy to spend 50 billion on a railway line that 98% of the population will never use.
No solutions from me ...an old hippy from the 60s "Love and peace man " ...didn't work did
it :)
I have come under the impression that the right wing press detest one kind of liberalism,
social liberalism, they hate that, but they love economic liberalism, which has done much harm
to the working class.
Most of the right wing press support austerity measures, slashing of taxes and, smaller
and smaller governments. Yet apparently, its being socially liberal that is the problem.
The author mixes the notion of populism as a social protest against the excesses of the rule of
the current oligarchy, which enpoverish common people, with neofascism and far right nationalism, which are now popular forms of expression of this
protest
SANTIAGO – Many of the men and women who turned out for the annual meeting of the International
Monetary Fund in early October were saying something like this: "Imagine if the Republicans had nominated
someone with the same anti-trade views as Trump, minus the insults and the sexual harassment. A populist
protectionist would be headed to the White House."
The underlying view is that rising populism on the right and the left, both in the United States
and in Europe, is a straightforward consequence of globalization and its unwanted effects: lost jobs
and stagnant middle-class incomes. Davos men and women hate this conclusion, but they have embraced
it with all the fervor of new converts.
Yet there is an alternative – and more persuasive – view: while economic stagnation helps push
upset voters into the populist camp, bad economics is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for bad politics. On the contrary, argues Princeton political scientist
Jan-Werner
Mueller in his new book
: populism is a "permanent shadow" on representative democracy.
Populism is not about taxation (or jobs or income inequality). It is about representation – who
gets to speak for the people and how.
Advocates of democracy make some exalted claims on its behalf. As Abraham Lincoln put it at
Gettysburg
, it is "government of the people, by the people, for the people." But modern representative
democracy – or any democracy, for that matter – inevitably falls short of these claims. Voting in
an election every four years for candidates chosen by party machines is not exactly what Lincoln's
lofty words call to mind.
What populists offer, Mueller says, is to fulfill what the Italian democratic theorist Norberto
Bobbio calls the broken promises of democracy. Populists speak and act, claims Mueller, " as if
the people could develop a singular judgment,... as if the people were one,... as if
the people, if only they empowered the right representatives, could fully master their fates."
Populism rests on a toxic triad: denial of complexity, anti-pluralism, and a crooked version
of representation.
Most of us believe that social choices (Build more schools or hospitals? Stimulate or discourage
international trade? Liberalize or restrict abortion?) are complex, and that the existence of a plurality
of views about what to do is both natural and legitimate. Populists deny this. As
Ralf Dahrendorf
once put it, populism is simple; democracy is complex. To populists, there is only one right
view – that of the people.
If so, the complex mechanisms of liberal democracy, with its emphasis on delegation and representation,
are all unnecessary. No need for parliaments endlessly debating: the unitary will of the people can
easily be expressed in a single vote. Hence populists' love affair with plebiscites and referenda.
Brexit, anyone?
And not just anyone can represent the people. The claim is to exclusive representation. Remember
Trump's boast in his address
to the Republican National Convention: "I alone can fix it."
Politics is always about morality, Aristotle told us. But populists favor what Mueller calls a
particular moralistic interpretation of politics . Those who hold the right view about the
world are moral; the rest are immoral, lackeys of a corrupt elite. That was exactly the rhetoric
of the late Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez. When that failed, and when Chávez's sank his country's
economy, there was always US imperialism to blame. So populism is a kind of identity politics. It
is always us against them .
Viewed in this light, populism is not a useful corrective to a democracy captured by technocrats
and elites, as Marine Le Pen, Rafael Correa, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or assorted Western intellectuals
want you to believe. On the contrary, it is profoundly anti-democratic, and hence a threat to democracy
itself.
What is to be done? My take (the prescription is my own, not Mueller's) is that democrats must
(and can) beat populists at their own game. The toxic triad can become salutary.
First, acknowledge complexity. The only thing that upsets voters as much as being lied to is being
treated like babies. People who lead challenging lives know that the world is complex. They do not
mind being told that. They appreciate being spoken to as the grownups they are.
Second, do not treat diversity of views and identities as a problem calling for a technocratic
solution. Rather, make respect for such diversity a profoundly moral feature of society. The fact
that we are not all the same and we can still get along is a tremendous democratic achievement. Make
the case for it. And do not fall for the tired cliché that reason is for democrats and emotion is
for populists. Make the case for pluralistic democracy in a way that inspires and stirs emotion.
Third, defend – and update – representation. Leave delegation to complex technical matters. Take
advantage of modern technologies to bring other choices – particularly those having to do with the
fabric of daily life – closer to voters. Tighten campaign finance laws, regulate lobbying better,
and enforce affirmative-action measures to ensure that representatives are of the people and work
for the people.
These measures alone will not ensure that all of democracy's broken promises are fulfilled. But
we cannot expect a single set of simple actions to solve a complex problem. Nor can we believe that
we alone can fix it.
If we believed that, we would be populists. For the sake of democracy, that is precisely what
we should not be.
Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Professor
of Professional Practice in International Development at Columbia University's School of International
and Public Affairs. He has taught at Harvard University and New York University, and is the author
of numerous studies on international economics and development.
Castigating the US electorate as accomplices and facilitators of wars, or at best describing it as
ignorant sheep herded by political elites, speaks only to a partial reality; in public opinion polls,
even in ones weighted overwhelmingly to the center-right, the American people consistently opposse
militarism and wars, past and present.
The right and Left, each in their own way, fail to grasp the contradiction that define US political
life, namely, the profound gap between the American public and the Washington elite on questions
of war and peace, and the electoral process which results in the perpetuation of militarism. We will
proceed to analyze the most recent polling of US public opinion and then turn to the electoral outcomes.
In the second part we will discuss the contradictions and raise several ways in which the contradiction
can be resolved.
... ... ...
Analysis and Perspectives
On all major issues of foreign policy pertaining to war and peace, the political elite is far
more bellicose than the US public; far more likely to ignore wars that threaten national security;
more likely to violate the Constitution;and are committed to increasing military spending even as
it reduces social programs.
The political elites are more likely to intervene or become "entangled" in Middle East wars, against
the opinion of majoritarian popular opinion. No doubt the decidedly oligarchical military-industrial
complexes, Israeli power configuration and mass media publicists, are far more influential than the
pro-democracy public.
The future portends the political elites' continuation of military policies, increasing security
threats and diminishing public representation.
Some Hypothesis on the Contradiction between Popular Opinion and Electoral Outcomes
There is clearly a substantial gap between the majority of Americans and the political elite regarding
the military's role overseas, wars, constitutional prerogives, the demonization of Russia, the deployment
of US troops to Syria and the US entanglement in Middle East wars, which it is understood to be Israel.
Yet it is also a fact that the US electorate votes for the two major political parties that supports
wars, back Middle East alliances with warring states, Saudi Arabia and Israel,and sanction Russia
as the main threat to US security.
ORDER IT NOW
Several hypotheses regarding this contradiction should be considered.
1. Close to 50% of the electorate abstain from voting in Presidential and Congressional elections,
which most likely includes those Americans that oppose the US military role overseas. In other words
the war parties 'win' elections with 25% or less of the electorate.
2. The fact that the mass media vehemently supports one or the other of the two war parties probably
influences a minority of the electorate which votes in the elections. However, critics of the mass
media have exaggerated their influence because they fail to explain why the majority of the American
public respondents are in contrary to the mass media and oppose their militarist propaganda.
3. Many of the anti-militarism Americans who decide to vote for war parties may be choosing the
lesser evil. They may decide there are possible degrees of war mongering.
4. Americans who oppose militarism may decide to vote for militarist politicians for reasons other
than overseas wars. For example, majoritarian Americans may vote for a militarist politician who
secures financing for local infrastructure programs, or dairy subsidies or promises of employment,
or lowering the public debt or opposing corrupt incumbents.
5. Americans opposed to militarism may be deceived by demagogic war party presidential candidates
who promise peace and who, once in power, escalate wars.
6. Likewise, 'identity politics' can divert anti-militarist voters into supporting war party candidates
who claim office because of their race, ethnicity, gender, loyalties to overseas states and sexual
preference.
7. The war parties block anti-militarist parties from access to the mass media, especially during
electoral debates viewed by tens of millions. War parties establish onerous restrictions for registering
anti-militarist parties, voters with non-violent prison records or lacking photo identification or
transport to voting sites or time-off from work. In other words the electoral process is rigged and
imposes 'forced voting' and abstention: limited choices obligate abstention or voting for war parties.
Only if elections were open and democratic, where anti-militarist parties were allowed equal rights
to register and debate in the mass media, and where financial campaigns are equalized will the contradictions
between anti-militarist majorities and voters for pro-war elites be resolved.
Dr Liam Fox, Boris Johnson, Sir Michael Fallon, and Priti Patel issued a joint rejection
The Government has rejected calls by two parliamentary committees for it to stop the sale of
British bombs to Saudi Arabia's armed forces in Yemen.
Saudi forces have been widely accused of committing war crimes during the campaign in the country,
where reports on the ground suggest they have blown up international hospitals, funerals, schools,
and weddings.
Despite the reported incidents and the worsening humanitarian situation in the country since
the bombardment began, the UK has signed off £3.3 billion in arms sales to the country since the
start of the offensive….
####
What's not to like about supping from the Wahabbi cup?
Nearly 60% (58.3%) of the population in Ukraine lives below the poverty line, according to data of
the M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Surveys, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.
In 2015, this indicator was half as much – 28.6%. "The poverty index has increased twofold along
with the actual cost of living," says Svetlana Polyakova , the leading research fellow at the Living
Standard Department at the Demography Institute. "In addition, within the past year, we saw a growth
of the poverty level defined by the UN criteria for estimation of internationally comparable poverty
line in Central and Eastern Europe."
The highest poverty line was registered among the families having at least one child – 38.6% and
pensioners – 23%. The situation may deteriorate this year. According to the State Service of Statistics,
savings of Ukrainians in April-June fell by 5.297billion hryvnias (more than $200 million at the
current exchange rate).
The cost of living in Ukraine in 2016 makes up 1,544 hryvnias (about $60).
Earlier, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said the previous policy of populism and
"money printing and distribution to people" made the country weaker and the people poorer.
Nearly 60% (58.3%) of the population in Ukraine lives below the poverty line, according to data of
the M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Surveys, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.
In 2015, this indicator was half as much – 28.6%. "The poverty index has increased twofold along
with the actual cost of living," says Svetlana Polyakova , the leading research fellow at the Living
Standard Department at the Demography Institute. "In addition, within the past year, we saw a growth
of the poverty level defined by the UN criteria for estimation of internationally comparable poverty
line in Central and Eastern Europe."
The highest poverty line was registered among the families having at least one child – 38.6% and
pensioners – 23%. The situation may deteriorate this year. According to the State Service of Statistics,
savings of Ukrainians in April-June fell by 5.297billion hryvnias (more than $200 million at the
current exchange rate).
The cost of living in Ukraine in 2016 makes up 1,544 hryvnias (about $60).
Earlier, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said the previous policy of populism and
"money printing and distribution to people" made the country weaker and the people poorer.
British diplomat John Glubb wrote a book called "The Fate of Empires and Search For Survival."
Glubb noted that the average age of empires since the time of ancient Assyria (859-612 B.C.)
is 250 years. Only the Mameluke Empire in Egypt and the Levant (1250-1517) made it as far as
267 years. America is 238 years old and is exhibiting signs of decline. All empires begin,
writes Glubb, with the age of pioneers, followed by ages of conquest, commerce, affluence,
intellect and decadence. America appears to have reached the age of decadence, which Glubb
defines as marked by "defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, frivolity, an influx of foreigners,
the welfare state, [and] a weakening of religion."
The most important is probably the fact that the ideology of the current US empire -- neoliberalism
(called here "liberal progressivism") -- became discredited after 2008. What happened after the
collapse of the Marxist ideology with the USSR is well known. It took 46 years (if we assume that
the collapse started in 1945 as the result of victory in WWII, when the Soviet army has a chance
to see the standard of living in Western countries). Why the USA should be different ? Decline
of empires is very slow and can well take a half a century. Let's say it might take 50 years from
9/11 or October 2008.
One telling sign is the end of "American hegemony" in the global political sphere. One telling
sign is the end of "American hegemony" in the global political sphere. As Lupita hypothesized
here Trump might be the last desperate attempt to reverse this process.
Another, the deterioration of the standard of living of the USA population and declining infrastructure,
both typically are connected with the overextension of empire. In Fortune (
http://fortune.com/2015/07/20/united-states-decline-statistics-economic/
) Jill Coplan lists 12 signs of the decline.
Trump election is another sign of turmoil. The key message of his election is "The institutions
we once trusted deceived us" That includes the Democratic Party and all neoliberal MSM. Like was
the case with the USSR, the loss of influence of neoliberal propaganda machine is a definite sign
of the decline of empire.
Degeneration of the neoliberal political elite that is also clearly visible in the current set
of presidential candidates might be another sign. Hillary Clinton dragged to the car on 9/11 commemorative
event vividly reminds the state of health of a couple of members of Soviet Politburo .
"... Ideally, the next step would be for Trump and Putin to meet, with all their key ministers, in a long, Camp David like week of negotiations in which everything, every outstanding dispute, should be put on the table and a compromise sought in each case. Paradoxically, this could be rather easy: the crisis in Europe is entirely artificial, the war in Syria has an absolutely obvious solution, and the international order can easily accommodate a United States which would " deal fairly with everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations " and " seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict ". ..."
"... The truth is that the USA and Russia have no objective reasons for conflict – only ideological issues resulting directly from the insane ideology of messianic imperialism of those who believe, or pretend to believe, that the USA is an "indispensable nation". What the world wants – needs – is the USA as a *normal* nation. ..."
"... The worst case? Trump could turn out to be a total fraud. I personally very much doubt it, but I admit that this is possible. More likely is that he just won't have the foresight and courage to crush the Neocons and that he will try to placate them. If he does so, they will instead crush him. It is a fact that while administrations have changed every 4 or 8 years, the regime in power has not, and that US internal and foreign policies have been amazingly consistent since the end of WWII. Will Trump finally bring not just a new administration but real "regime change"? I don't know. ..."
"... Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that regimes can be measured on a spectrum which ranges from regimes whose authority is their power and regimes whose power in in their authority. In the case of the USA we now clearly can see that the regime has no other authority than its power and that makes it both illegitimate and unsustainable. ..."
"... Finally, whether the US elites can accept this or not, the US Empire is coming to an end. ..."
"... With Hillary, we would have had a Titanic-like denial up to the last moment which might well have come in the shape of a thermonuclear mushroom over Washington DC. Trump, however, might use the remaining power of the USA to negotiate the US global draw-down thereby getting the best possible conditions for his country. ..."
So it has happened: Hillary did not win! I say that instead of saying that "Trump won" because
I consider the former even more important than the latter. Why? Because I have no idea whatsoever
what Trump will do next. I do, however, have an excellent idea of what Hillary would have done: war
with Russia. Trump most likely won't do that. In fact, he specifically said in his acceptance speech:
I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first,
we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations. We will seek
common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict .
And Putin's reply was immediate:
We heard the statements he made as candidate for president expressing a desire to restore relations
between our countries. We realise and understand that this will not be an easy road given the
level to which our relations have degraded today, regrettably. But, as I have said before, it
is not Russia's fault that our relations with the United States have reached this point.
Russia is ready to and seeks a return to full-format relations with the United States. Let
me say again, we know that this will not be easy, but are ready to take this road, take steps
on our side and do all we can to set Russian-US relations back on a stable development track.
This would benefit both the Russian and American peoples and would have a positive impact on
the general climate in international affairs, given the particular responsibility that Russia
and the US share for maintaining global stability and security.
This exchange, right there, is enough of a reason for the entire planet to rejoice at the defeat
of Hillary and the victory of Trump.
Will Trump now have the courage, willpower and intelligence to purge the US Executive from the
Neocon cabal which has been infiltrating it for decades now? Will he have the strength to confront
an extremely hostile Congress and media? Or will he try to meet them halfway and naively hope that
they will not use their power, money and influence to sabotage his presidency?
I don't know. Nobody does.
One of the first signs to look for will be the names and backgrounds of the folks he will appoint
in his new administration. Especially his Chief of Staff and Secretary of State.
I have always said that the choice for the lesser evil is morally wrong and pragmatically misguided.
I still believe that. In this case, however, the greater evil was thermonuclear war with Russia and
the lesser evil just might turn out to be one which will gradually give up the Empire to save the
USA rather than sacrifice the USA for the needs of the Empire. In the case of Hillary vs Trump the
choice was simple: war or peace.
Trump can already be credited with am immense achievement: his campaign has forced the US corporate
media to show its true face – the face of an evil, lying, morally corrupt propaganda machine. The
American people by their vote have rewarded their media with a gigantic "f*ck you!" – a vote of no-confidence
and total rejection which will forever demolish the credibility of the Empire's propaganda machine.
I am not so naive as to not realize that billionaire Donald Trump is also one of the 1%ers, a
pure product of the US oligarchy. But neither am I so ignorant of history to forget that elites
do turn on each other , especially when their regime is threatened. Do I need to remind anybody
that Putin also came from the Soviet elites?!
Ideally, the next step would be for Trump and Putin to meet, with all their key ministers,
in a long, Camp David like week of negotiations in which everything, every outstanding dispute, should
be put on the table and a compromise sought in each case. Paradoxically, this could be rather easy:
the crisis in Europe is entirely artificial, the war in Syria has an absolutely obvious solution,
and the international order can easily accommodate a United States which would " deal fairly with
everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations " and " seek common ground, not hostility;
partnership, not conflict ".
The truth is that the USA and Russia have no objective reasons for conflict – only ideological
issues resulting directly from the insane ideology of messianic imperialism of those who believe,
or pretend to believe, that the USA is an "indispensable nation". What the world wants – needs –
is the USA as a *normal* nation.
The worst case? Trump could turn out to be a total fraud. I personally very much doubt it,
but I admit that this is possible. More likely is that he just won't have the foresight and courage
to crush the Neocons and that he will try to placate them. If he does so, they will instead crush
him. It is a fact that while administrations have changed every 4 or 8 years, the regime in power
has not, and that US internal and foreign policies have been amazingly consistent since the end of
WWII. Will Trump finally bring not just a new administration but real "regime change"? I don't know.
Make no mistake – even if Trump does end up disappointing those who believed in him what happened
today has dealt a death blow to the Empire. The "Occupy Wall Street" did not succeed in achieving
anything tangible, but the notion of "rule of the 1%" did emerge from that movement and it stayed.
This is a direct blow to the credibility and legitimacy of the entire socio-political order
of the USA: far from being a democracy, it is a plutocracy/oligarchy – everybody pretty much accepts
that today. Likewise, the election of Trump has already proved that the US media is a prostitute
and that the majority of the American people hate their ruling class. Again, this is a direct blow
to the credibility and legitimacy of the entire socio-political order. One by one the founding
myths of the US Empire are crashing down and what remains is a system which can only rule by force.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that regimes can be measured on a spectrum which ranges
from regimes whose authority is their power and regimes whose power in in their authority. In the
case of the USA we now clearly can see that the regime has no other authority than its power and
that makes it both illegitimate and unsustainable.
Finally, whether the US elites can accept this or not, the US Empire is coming to an end.
With Hillary, we would have had a Titanic-like denial up to the last moment which might well
have come in the shape of a thermonuclear mushroom over Washington DC. Trump, however, might use
the remaining power of the USA to negotiate the US global draw-down thereby getting the best possible
conditions for his country. Frankly, I am pretty sure that all the key world leaders realize
that it is in their interest to make as many (reasonable) concessions to Trump as possible and work
with him, rather than to deal with the people whom he just removed from power.
If Trump can stick to his campaign promises he will find solid and reliable partners in
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Neither Russia nor China have anything at all to gain from a confrontation
or, even less so, a conflict with the USA. Will Trump have the wisdom to realize this and use it
for the benefit of the USA? Or will he continue with his anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian rhetoric?
"... Some of those applications are coming from the #NeverTrump crowd, the source said, and include former national security officials who signed one or more of the letters opposing Trump. ..."
"... Fifty GOP national security experts signed an August letter saying Trump "would put at risk our country's national security and well-being" because he "lacks the character, values and experience" to occupy the Oval Office, making him "the most reckless president in American history." ..."
"... Another bipartisan letter cited concern about potential foreign conflicts of interest Trump might encounter as president, and called on him to disclose them by releasing his tax returns. Trump has refused to do so, saying he is under audit and will make the returns public only once that is done. ..."
The extraordinary repudiation -- partly based on Trump's rejection of basic US foreign policy
tenets, including support for close allies -- helped spark the hashtag #NeverTrump. Now, a source
familiar with transition planning says that hard wall of resistance is crumbling fast.
There are "boxes" of applications, the source said. "There are many more than people realize."
Some of those applications are coming from the #NeverTrump crowd, the source said, and include
former national security officials who signed one or more of the letters opposing Trump. "Mea
culpas" are being considered -- and in some cases being granted, the source said -- for people who
did not go a step further in attacking Trump personally.
... ... ...
Fifty GOP national security experts signed an August letter saying Trump "would put at risk
our country's national security and well-being" because he "lacks the character, values and experience"
to occupy the Oval Office, making him "the most reckless president in American history."
Another bipartisan letter cited concern about potential foreign conflicts of interest Trump might
encounter as president, and called on him to disclose them by releasing his tax returns. Trump has
refused to do so, saying he is under audit and will make the returns public only once that is done.
It remains to be seen what kind of team Trump will pull together, how many "NeverTrumpers" will apply
for positions and to what degree the President-elect will be willing to accept them.
There's a fight underway within the Trump transition team about whether to consider "never Trumpers"
for jobs, one official tells CNN. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is leading the transition
team, has been working to persuade Trump and other top officials to consider Republicans who openly
opposed his campaign. That has caused some friction with those who see no place for people who didn't
support their candidate.
"... Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides Richard Perle , Douglas Feith , and Elliott Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like Paul Wolfowitz - eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy team. ..."
John Feffer Director, Foreign Policy
In Focus and Editor, LobeLog Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives
in favor of Hillary Clinton.
As a group, Washington's neocons are generally terrified of Trump's unpredictability and his flirtation
with the alt-right. They also support Clinton's more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her
closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long years in the wilderness, they're daydreaming
of an appointment or two in a Clinton administration.
This group of previously staunch Republicans, who believe in using American military power to
promote democracy, build nations, and secure U.S. interests abroad, have defected in surprising numbers.
Washington Post columnist
Robert Kagan , the Wall Street Journal 's
Bret Stephens , and the
Foreign
Policy Initiative 's
James Kirchick have all endorsed Clinton. Other prominent neocons like The National Review
's William Kristol
, the Wall Street Journal 's
Max Boot , and SAIS's
Eliot Cohen have rejected
Trump but not quite taken the leap to supporting Clinton.
A not particularly large or well-defined group, neoconservatives have attracted a disproportionate
amount of attention in this election. For the Trump camp, these Republican defectors merely prove
that the elite is out to get their candidate, thus reinforcing his outsider credentials (never mind
that Trump initially
wooed neocons like Kristol).
For the left , the neocons are flocking to support a bird of their feather, at least when it
comes to foreign policy, which reflects badly on Clinton. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is attracted
to the man-bites-dog aspect of the story (news flash: members of the vast right-wing conspiracy support
Clinton!).
As we come to the end of the election campaign, which has been more a clash of personalities than
of ideologies, the neocon defections offer a much more interesting storyline. As the Republican Party
potentially coalesces around a more populist center, the neocons are the canary in the coal mine.
Their squawking suggests that the American political scene is about to suffer a cataclysm. What will
that mean for U.S. foreign policy?
A History of Defection
The neoconservative movement began within the Democratic Party. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat
from Washington State, carved out a new position in the party with his liberal domestic policies
and hardline Cold War stance. He was a strong booster of civil rights and environmental legislation.
At the same time, he favored military build-up and a stronger relationship with Israel. He was also
dismayed with the Nixon administration's détente with the Soviet Union.
Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides
Richard Perle
, Douglas Feith
, and Elliott
Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like
Paul Wolfowitz
- eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed
an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy
team.
At the end of the Reagan era, their commitment to such policies as regime change in the Middle
East, confrontation with Russia, and opposition to multilateral institutions like the United Nations
brought them into conflict with realists in the George H.W. Bush administration. So many of them
defected once again to support Bill Clinton.
Writes
Jim Lobe:
A small but not insignificant number of them, repelled by George H.W. Bush's realpolitik, and
more specifically his Middle East policy and pressure on then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to
join the Madrid peace conference after the first Gulf War, deserted the party in 1992 and publicly
endorsed Bill Clinton. Richard Schifter, Morris Amitay of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, Angier Biddle Duke, Rita Freedman of the Social Democrats USA, neocon union leaders John
Joyce and Al Shanker, Penn Kemble of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, James Woolsey,
Marty Peretz of The New Republic, and Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute all
signed a much-noted ad in The New York Times in August 1992 endorsing Clinton's candidacy. Their
hopes of thus being rewarded with top positions in a Clinton administration were crushed.
The flirtation with Clinton's Democratic Party was short-lived. Woolsey, Schifter, and Kemble
received appointments in the Clinton administration, but the neocons in general were unhappy with
their limited influence, Clinton's (albeit inconsistent) multilateralism, and the administration's
reluctance to intervene militarily in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia. Disenchantment turned to anger
and then to organizing. In 1997, many of the same people who worked for Scoop Jackson and embraced
Ronald Reagan put together
the Project for the New American Century in an effort to preserve and expand America's post-Cold
War unilateral power.
A handful of votes in Florida in 2000 and the attacks on September 11 the following year combined
to give the neocons a second chance at transforming U.S. foreign policy. Dick Cheney became perhaps
the most powerful vice president in modern American history, with Scooter Libby as his national security
adviser. Donald Rumsfeld became secretary of defense, with Paul Wolfowitz as his deputy and Feith
as head of the policy office. Elliott Abrams joined the National Security Council, and so on. Under
their guidance, George W. Bush abandoned all pretense of charting a more modest foreign policy and
went on a militarist bender.
The foreign policy disasters of the Bush era should have killed the careers of everyone involved.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of think tanks and universities that value access over intelligence
(or ethics) - and even the most incompetent and craven administration officials after leaving office
retain their contacts (and their arrogance).
Those who worry that the neocons will be rewarded for their third major defection - to Reagan,
to Bill Clinton, and now to Hillary Clinton - should probably focus elsewhere. After all, the Democratic
nominee this year doesn't have to go all the way over to the far right for advice on how to construct
a more muscular foreign policy. Plenty of mainstream think tanks - from
the Center for a New American Security on the center-right to the leftish
Center for American Progress - are offering their advice on how to "restore balance" in how the
United States relates to the world. Many of these positions - how to push back against Russia, take
a harder line against Iran, and ratchet up pressure on Assad in Syria - are not very different from
neocon talking points.
But the defections do herald a possible sea change in party alignment. And that will influence
the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy.
The Walking Dead
The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging for nearly a decade. The Tea Party dispatched many
party centrists - Jim Leach, Richard Lugar - who once could achieve a measure of bipartisanship in
Congress. The overwhelming whiteness of the party, even before the ascendance of Trump, made it very
difficult to recruit African Americans and Latinos in large numbers. And now Trump has driven away
many of the professionals who have served in past Republican administrations, including the small
clique of neoconservatives.
What remains is enough to win state and local elections in certain areas of the country. But it's
not enough to win nationally. Going forward, with the further demographic shift away from white voters,
this Republican base will get older and smaller. Moreover, on foreign policy, the Trumpistas are
leading the party in a
nationalist,
apocalyptic direction that challenges the party leadership (in emphasis if not in content).
It's enough to throw dedicated Republicans into despair. Avik Roy, who was an advisor to the presidential
campaigns of Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry,
told
This American Life :
I think the Republican Party is a lost cause. I don't think the Republican Party is capable
of fixing itself, because the people who are most passionate about voting Republican today are
the Trump voters. And what politician is going to want to throw those voters away to attract some
unknown coalition of the future?
One of his Republican compatriots, Rob Long, had this to say on the podcast about how anti-Trump
survivors who stick with the party will navigate the post-election landscape:
It'll be like The Walking Dead, right? We're going to try to come up with bands of people and
walk across the country. And let's not get ourselves killed or eaten and hook up with people we
think are not insane or horrible or in some way murderous.
Coming out of this week's elections, here's my guess of what will happen. The Republican Party
will continue to be torn apart by three factions: a dwindling number of moderates like Susan Collins
(R-ME), right-wing fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan (R-WI), and burn-the-house-down Trumpsters
like Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Foreign policy won't be much of an issue for the party because it will
be shut out of the White House for 12 years running and will focus instead on primarily domestic
questions. Perhaps the latter two categories will find a way to repair their breach; perhaps the
party will split in two; perhaps Trump supporters will engineer a hostile takeover.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, may suffer as a result of its success. After all, how can a single
party play host to both Bernie Sanders and
Robert Kagan ?
How can the party promote both guns and butter? How can Hillary Clinton preserve Obama's diplomatic
successes - the Iran deal, the Cuba détente, the efforts to contain climate change - and be more
assertive militarily? Whatever unity the party managed during the elections will quickly fall apart
when it comes to governing.
In one sense, Clinton may well resurrect the neocon legacy by embracing a more or less progressive
domestic policy (which would satisfy the Sanderistas) and a more hawkish foreign policy (which would
satisfy all the foreign policy mandarins from both parties who supported her candidacy).
At the same time, a new political axis is emerging: internationalists vs. insularists, with the
former gathering together in the Democratic Party and the latter seeking shelter in a leaky Republican
Party. But this categorization conceals the tensions within each project. Internationalists include
both fans of the UN and proponents of unilateral U.S. military engagement overseas. Insularists,
who have not turned their back on the world quite as thoroughly as isolationists, include both xenophobic
nationalists and those who want to spend war dollars at home.
The trick of it for progressives is to somehow steal back the Democratic Party from the aggressive
globalists and recapture those Trump voters who are tired of supporting war and wealthy transnational
corporations. Or, perhaps in the wake of the Republican Party's collapse, progressives could create
a new party that challenges Clinton and the neocons.
One thing is for certain, however. With a highly unpopular president about to take office and
one of the major political parties on life support, the current political moment is highly unstable.
Something truly remarkable could emerge. Or voters in 2020 might face something even more monstrous
than what has haunted this election cycle.
The fact is that the world has gotten along just as well without a hegemon as with one (assuming
that America really holds something like such a position right now), and perhaps better, and that
most of the colossal wreckage of our last century came from one set of powers either trying to preserve
their hegemony or seize that hegemony from those who possessed it. It is not a worthy or admirable
goal for any people, and it usually only spells ruin for the would-be hegemon and everyone else.
An American refusal to be the hegemon will not mean pandemonium and chaos in the world (no more than
there already is, at any rate). It will, in all likelihood, force other regional powers to reassess
their own responsibilities (if we must use this patronising and ridiculous language) for their own
areas.
This process might involve some violence in certain parts of the world as regional powers impose
their goals on neighbours, but this will generally be no more than the general, global violence resisting
the general, global dominance of one state in perpetuity. Some pro-imperialist and interventionist
talking heads often refer to a "global counterinsurgency" when speaking of terrorism. But there cannot
be a global counterinsurgency if one ceases to claim practical lordship over the earth.
One of the greatest weaknesses of the hegemonist or imperialist/interventionist view is that it
has so completely failed to take account of the fruits of the collapse of the Soviet bloc. (The other
great weakness is the presumption that the world must fall apart without American, i.e., their tutelage.)
The fruits of the fall of the USSR have been largely positive, at least in terms of international
affairs. The erstwhile chaos and complexity of the world is simply a return to normality in international
relations before the massive artifice of the two power blocs. Anarchy and economic exploitation broke
out in Russia in the 1990s, thanks largely to the shock therapy it received from Western "friends,"
but in most of the world the old Soviet areas of control and influence enjoyed more or less stable
and relatively moderate governments. The wars in Yugoslavia are often held up as an example of the
future nature of conflict in this century, but what this ignores is that these wars were largely
the exception to the experience of states in the wake of the Cold War. It also ignores that the Balkan
wars were in no small part manufactured and encouraged by outside powers to advance old, Great Power
goals of dominance.
Mr. Ferguson's answer for the relatively peaceful, post-Soviet world is more domination by the
winning bloc to ensure…the peace and stability that already exist in much of the world. We heard
much the same thing before the invasion of Iraq: we must invade to ensure regional stability! Then
we heard that the stability in the Near East was the wrong kind of stability, and it needed to go
anyway. But stability is simply the codeword for domination, and where the empire does not dominate
there must, of necessity, be instability.
"... the more credible explanation is: 1) Barack Obama very eloquently promised Hope and Change in 2008 and 2012. 2) Barack Obama systematically broke his promises of hope and change. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton promised to continue Obama's policies. 4) Working people who had voted for Obama in the hope that he truly would change things lost patience and got sick of Democrats who (in the words of one millenial) "promise everything and change nothing." ..."
"... Populism is the real explanation for Trump's victory. ...he talked about stopping the globalization that's destroying the American middle class and ending our crazy endless unwinnable foreign wars. By contrast, Hillary Clinton gave $225,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs hedge fund traders in which she said the "banker-bashing so popular within both parties was unproductive and indeed foolish." ..."
Raven Oathill in #145 says: "Oh, for examples of Trumpian fascism I forgot advocating torture
…"
Barack Obama continued Bush-era torture, only slightly differently. Obama restricted torture
to Appendix M of the CIA's interrogation manual - that's the manual that the CIA created by studying
the Chinese communist's Mao-era thought reform torture methods. Appendix M prohibits cutting and
beating in favor of sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, cold, noise assault, and other methods
like the water drip method. These forms of torture leave no marks but drive people insane or destroy
their minds as surely as the standard three weeks of non-stop beatings favored in Lubyanka.
Let's not forget that the American president who began our current ride on the torture carousel
was Bill Clinton, who initiated "extraordinary rendition" (AKA fly prisoners to third world countries
in CIA chartered Lear jets and let third world dictators torture the victims for us).
The problem with the smug top-4% narrative of the Democratic elite's professional class that "It's
all about racism!" is that many of the counties in red states that went heavily for Trump in this
election went even more heavily for Bernie Sanders. A lot of states that voted for Trump in this
election voted for Obama in the last election.
What, did those Rust Belt states suddenly decide to not become racist when Obama ran, and then
became racist again when Trump ran? How does that work? "A black guy is running for president, so
I'm going to stop being a racist and vote for him. Oh, wait, now a white guy is running for president,
so I'm going to become a racist again." Does that make sense?
No, the more credible explanation is: 1) Barack Obama very eloquently promised Hope and Change
in 2008 and 2012. 2) Barack Obama systematically broke his promises of hope and change.
3) Hillary Clinton promised to continue Obama's policies. 4) Working people who had voted for
Obama in the hope that he truly would change things lost patience and got sick of Democrats who (in
the words of one millenial) "promise everything and change nothing."
Populism is the real explanation for Trump's victory. ...he talked about stopping the globalization
that's destroying the American middle class and ending our crazy endless unwinnable foreign wars.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton gave $225,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs hedge fund traders in which
she said the "banker-bashing so popular within both parties was unproductive and indeed foolish."
Meanwhile Bill Clinton dismissed the American population's rage at the bankers who crashed the
world economy with the comment: `"You could take Lloyd Blankfein in an alley and slit his throat,
and it would satisfy them for about two days," Clinton said. "Then the blood lust would rise again."'
Did I mention that Hillary's daughter Chelsea is married to former Goldman Sachs hedge fund
manager Mark Mezvinsky? They recently bought a pre-WW I ten million dollar townhouse overlooking
Madison Square Park. So much for Chelsea's "zero dollar salary." I don't know a lot of people with
a salary of zero dollars who can afford to buy 10.5 million dollar apartments in the upper West Side
of New York. Do you?
Hillary has wooed defense contractors with the love that dare not speak its name (the love
of foreign intervention, AKA burning brown babies by the bushel-load) and she has promised lots more
endless unwinnable wars around the globe, disguised as the sound-bite "America needs a more assertive
foreign policy."
`"It is clear that she is behind the use of force in anything that has gone on in this cabinet.
She is a Democratic hawk and that is her track record. That's the flag she's planted," said Gordon
Adams, a national security budget expert who was an associate director in President Bill Clinton's
Office of Management and Budget.
`Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who has spent her post-service days
protesting the war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, is more blunt.
"Interventionism is a business and it has a constituency and she is tapping into it," she
tells TAC. "She is for the military industrial complex, and she is for the neoconservatives."'
By way of contrast, here's Donald Trump giving a speech on foreign policy:
"Unfortunately, after the Cold War, our foreign policy veered badly off course. We failed to
develop a new vision for a new time. In fact, as time went on, our foreign policy began to make
less and less sense. Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, and this led to one foreign
policy disaster after another. We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama's
line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions have helped to throw the region into chaos, and
gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper.
"It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries
that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western Democracy. We tore up what institutions
they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands
of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result. The vacuum was created
that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment.
Our foreign policy is a complete and total disaster. No vision, no purpose, no direction, no strategy."
Do I believe that Trump meant any of that? Of course not. Did Trump change his foreign policy
stance five minutes after he gave that speech? Probably. Is the rest of that Trump foreign policy
speech crazy and counterfactual? Obviously - especially the part where Trump claims that America's
military is underfunded (!)
But the point here is that Trump actually at least talked about these screwups. He talked about
America's mad wars around the globe. He talked about how American leaders couldn't stop getting into
endless unwinnable foreign quagmires after the Cold War ended. Every ordinary American knows this
stuff. But no one in Washington was talking about it - except Trump. Hillary, who voted for the Iraq
war of 2003 and tried to convince president Obama to bomb Iran rather than negotiate, certainly never
wanted to mention any of these inconvenient problems. And our beloved president Obama's response
was "America is already great." Torture? Endless wars? Collapsing middle class? Burgeoning poverty?
Skyrocketing child malnutrition? Bankers asset-stripping the economy? No problem, America is already
great. Enjoy!
Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about American corporations shipping
jobs overseas. Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about bankers looting the population
and crashing the world economy and paying themselves bonuses out of the publicly-funded bailout money.
Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about how globalization is destroying the U.S.
middle class.
The professionals with advanced degrees who make $80,000 a year or more (the top 4% of the
American population) are the ones who control the Democratic party today. And they made sure
Sanders never got the nomination. These self-styled Big Brains have decided to treat ordinary working
folks and peons who have a mere bachelor's degree and no professional credential (Ma, PhD, M.D.,
LLD, JD) the same way Jim Crow Southerners used to treat black people.
Everyone without an advanced degree is now treated by the leaders of the Democratic party as
one of "those people," ungrateful curs who have the unbelievable gall to criticize their betters.
"Those people" have the insufferable temerity to question the wiser and smarter and far more wealthy
doyens of the Democratic party, the masterminds with professional credentials, the geniuses who assure
them that the TPP is spiffy and globalization is absolutely marvy-doo and global wage arbitrage is
just dreamy.
To the professional class top-4% who run the Democratic party, working people and scum with a
mere bachelor's degree are inferior creatures, not ready for self-governance. "Those people" must
be guided by a superior breed, the elites with advanced degrees, those wise enough to have gotten
things right by invading Iraq. And deregulating the banks. And making sure Bernie Sanders never got
the Democratic nomination. And writing those marvelous zero-hours work contracts that let employers
force employees to call in every morning to see if they get a shift that day.
"Those people" without advanced degrees need careful management, since they have no impulse
control, they're filthy and smelly, they're really animals who can't help drinking and carousing
and breeding. "Those people" never had the discipline to get a masters or an M.D., so they need a
firm hand, and the strict guidance of the All-Powerful Market to keep them in check. Sound familiar?
Sort of like, oh, say, Deep South slaveowners talking about their slaves circa 1840?
Populism. That's the reason why Trump won. ... he's the only one of the two presidential candidates
who sounded any genuinely populist notes during the campaign. When Hillary was asked if she wanted
to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, she said "no." When Hillary was asked about foreign wars,
she lapsed into the old "indispensable nation" crap. When Hillary was asked about single-payer health
care she called it "something that will never, ever happen."
With all that said, today I break my silence, in order to comment briefly on the 2016 US presidential
election in the aftermath of Trump's victory. At the beginning of this presidential campaign, I thought
Donald Trump's candidacy might be a publicity stunt; like a bombastic prime time reality show. But
I was aware that the hard-core neocon, war mongering Hilary Clinton was the real danger, in terms
of foreign policy and international politics. Her policies and past crimes are completely in-line
with the current US-imperial agenda of endless war and military might, and this makes her
far
far more
dangerous than Trump. It also made her far more likely to win the election, I presumed.
His extreme outrageousness and egomania aside, I felt from the outset that Trump is perceived as
a threat to the global corporate, militarized establishment and its political allies, and that this
is the real reason he has been demonized adhominem by the political establishment and the media in
the US, across party lines. Most democratic and republican politicians and media pundits are part
of the global establishment machine.
Trump's greatest crime seemed to be his unwillingness to acquiesce to the global establishment.
His views on foreign policy, military spending and economic and trade policy demonstrate this. Because
of his apparent threat to the global military industrial, US-led, global banking/war empire, I was
certain that the deep state and global elites simply would not allow him to win. Even if they had
to rig the elections in an already rigged political system, I was certain they would not "let him"
win.
Now that he has, I'm not sure what to think, especially considering FBI director Comey's sudden
flip flop and condemnation of Clinton, reopening the investigation into the Clinton email (email
Gate) scandal, in the eleventh hour. Does the FBI wish to see Trump in office? If so, what does that
mean about his threat to the establishment? Is Trump the beginning of the end of the global establishment
or is he just a revision, a new direction, a preparation for a new iteration of the status quo? Of
course, Trump is part of the elite given his immense wealth and corporate muscle. But as the Centre
for Research on Globalization explains, the elites are not a monolith [1], and there may be divisions
and factions within the global elite that do indeed oppose the present and historical direction of
the global establishment. Is that what Trump represents, the division within the global power structure?
Does he have friends in high places that wish to revamp the current global militarized corporate
and banking oligarchy? Or, is he but its latest iteration of it? Is he a gateway to what is to come–Martial
Law, etc [2]? It remains to be seen.
For now, I'm guardedly optimistic about the new direction that economic policy and US foreign
policy could take under his presidency. If he is willing (and able) to rein in either, then he will
have surpassed the broken promises of the previous US administration. He has stated numerous times
that he opposes many elements of the war on terror (the invasion of Libya, current US operations
in Syria and attempts to oust the existing regime, covert support of ISIS by the US, etc) and the
military industrial complex. And while he is no doubt a capitalist, he is more of the old-school
nationalist capitalist or protectionist-isolationist kind, not the neoliberal
global capitalism
that has put everyone out of work. This alone made Trump better than Hilary, so to speak. But the
fact that he is no doubt part of the economic elite and that he was able to win at all, despite resistance
from all sides of the political and media spectrum (both democratic and republican), raises questions.
"... Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides Richard Perle , Douglas Feith , and Elliott Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like Paul Wolfowitz - eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy team. ..."
John Feffer Director, Foreign Policy
In Focus and Editor, LobeLog Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives
in favor of Hillary Clinton.
As a group, Washington's neocons are generally terrified of Trump's unpredictability and his flirtation
with the alt-right. They also support Clinton's more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her
closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long years in the wilderness, they're daydreaming
of an appointment or two in a Clinton administration.
This group of previously staunch Republicans, who believe in using American military power to
promote democracy, build nations, and secure U.S. interests abroad, have defected in surprising numbers.
Washington Post columnist
Robert Kagan , the Wall Street Journal 's
Bret Stephens , and the
Foreign
Policy Initiative 's
James Kirchick have all endorsed Clinton. Other prominent neocons like The National Review
's William Kristol
, the Wall Street Journal 's
Max Boot , and SAIS's
Eliot Cohen have rejected
Trump but not quite taken the leap to supporting Clinton.
A not particularly large or well-defined group, neoconservatives have attracted a disproportionate
amount of attention in this election. For the Trump camp, these Republican defectors merely prove
that the elite is out to get their candidate, thus reinforcing his outsider credentials (never mind
that Trump initially
wooed neocons like Kristol).
For the left , the neocons are flocking to support a bird of their feather, at least when it
comes to foreign policy, which reflects badly on Clinton. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is attracted
to the man-bites-dog aspect of the story (news flash: members of the vast right-wing conspiracy support
Clinton!).
As we come to the end of the election campaign, which has been more a clash of personalities than
of ideologies, the neocon defections offer a much more interesting storyline. As the Republican Party
potentially coalesces around a more populist center, the neocons are the canary in the coal mine.
Their squawking suggests that the American political scene is about to suffer a cataclysm. What will
that mean for U.S. foreign policy?
A History of Defection
The neoconservative movement began within the Democratic Party. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat
from Washington State, carved out a new position in the party with his liberal domestic policies
and hardline Cold War stance. He was a strong booster of civil rights and environmental legislation.
At the same time, he favored military build-up and a stronger relationship with Israel. He was also
dismayed with the Nixon administration's détente with the Soviet Union.
Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides
Richard Perle
, Douglas Feith
, and Elliott
Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like
Paul Wolfowitz
- eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed
an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy
team.
At the end of the Reagan era, their commitment to such policies as regime change in the Middle
East, confrontation with Russia, and opposition to multilateral institutions like the United Nations
brought them into conflict with realists in the George H.W. Bush administration. So many of them
defected once again to support Bill Clinton.
Writes
Jim Lobe:
A small but not insignificant number of them, repelled by George H.W. Bush's realpolitik, and
more specifically his Middle East policy and pressure on then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to
join the Madrid peace conference after the first Gulf War, deserted the party in 1992 and publicly
endorsed Bill Clinton. Richard Schifter, Morris Amitay of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, Angier Biddle Duke, Rita Freedman of the Social Democrats USA, neocon union leaders John
Joyce and Al Shanker, Penn Kemble of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, James Woolsey,
Marty Peretz of The New Republic, and Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute all
signed a much-noted ad in The New York Times in August 1992 endorsing Clinton's candidacy. Their
hopes of thus being rewarded with top positions in a Clinton administration were crushed.
The flirtation with Clinton's Democratic Party was short-lived. Woolsey, Schifter, and Kemble
received appointments in the Clinton administration, but the neocons in general were unhappy with
their limited influence, Clinton's (albeit inconsistent) multilateralism, and the administration's
reluctance to intervene militarily in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia. Disenchantment turned to anger
and then to organizing. In 1997, many of the same people who worked for Scoop Jackson and embraced
Ronald Reagan put together
the Project for the New American Century in an effort to preserve and expand America's post-Cold
War unilateral power.
A handful of votes in Florida in 2000 and the attacks on September 11 the following year combined
to give the neocons a second chance at transforming U.S. foreign policy. Dick Cheney became perhaps
the most powerful vice president in modern American history, with Scooter Libby as his national security
adviser. Donald Rumsfeld became secretary of defense, with Paul Wolfowitz as his deputy and Feith
as head of the policy office. Elliott Abrams joined the National Security Council, and so on. Under
their guidance, George W. Bush abandoned all pretense of charting a more modest foreign policy and
went on a militarist bender.
The foreign policy disasters of the Bush era should have killed the careers of everyone involved.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of think tanks and universities that value access over intelligence
(or ethics) - and even the most incompetent and craven administration officials after leaving office
retain their contacts (and their arrogance).
Those who worry that the neocons will be rewarded for their third major defection - to Reagan,
to Bill Clinton, and now to Hillary Clinton - should probably focus elsewhere. After all, the Democratic
nominee this year doesn't have to go all the way over to the far right for advice on how to construct
a more muscular foreign policy. Plenty of mainstream think tanks - from
the Center for a New American Security on the center-right to the leftish
Center for American Progress - are offering their advice on how to "restore balance" in how the
United States relates to the world. Many of these positions - how to push back against Russia, take
a harder line against Iran, and ratchet up pressure on Assad in Syria - are not very different from
neocon talking points.
But the defections do herald a possible sea change in party alignment. And that will influence
the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy.
The Walking Dead
The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging for nearly a decade. The Tea Party dispatched many
party centrists - Jim Leach, Richard Lugar - who once could achieve a measure of bipartisanship in
Congress. The overwhelming whiteness of the party, even before the ascendance of Trump, made it very
difficult to recruit African Americans and Latinos in large numbers. And now Trump has driven away
many of the professionals who have served in past Republican administrations, including the small
clique of neoconservatives.
What remains is enough to win state and local elections in certain areas of the country. But it's
not enough to win nationally. Going forward, with the further demographic shift away from white voters,
this Republican base will get older and smaller. Moreover, on foreign policy, the Trumpistas are
leading the party in a
nationalist,
apocalyptic direction that challenges the party leadership (in emphasis if not in content).
It's enough to throw dedicated Republicans into despair. Avik Roy, who was an advisor to the presidential
campaigns of Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry,
told
This American Life :
I think the Republican Party is a lost cause. I don't think the Republican Party is capable
of fixing itself, because the people who are most passionate about voting Republican today are
the Trump voters. And what politician is going to want to throw those voters away to attract some
unknown coalition of the future?
One of his Republican compatriots, Rob Long, had this to say on the podcast about how anti-Trump
survivors who stick with the party will navigate the post-election landscape:
It'll be like The Walking Dead, right? We're going to try to come up with bands of people and
walk across the country. And let's not get ourselves killed or eaten and hook up with people we
think are not insane or horrible or in some way murderous.
Coming out of this week's elections, here's my guess of what will happen. The Republican Party
will continue to be torn apart by three factions: a dwindling number of moderates like Susan Collins
(R-ME), right-wing fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan (R-WI), and burn-the-house-down Trumpsters
like Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Foreign policy won't be much of an issue for the party because it will
be shut out of the White House for 12 years running and will focus instead on primarily domestic
questions. Perhaps the latter two categories will find a way to repair their breach; perhaps the
party will split in two; perhaps Trump supporters will engineer a hostile takeover.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, may suffer as a result of its success. After all, how can a single
party play host to both Bernie Sanders and
Robert Kagan ?
How can the party promote both guns and butter? How can Hillary Clinton preserve Obama's diplomatic
successes - the Iran deal, the Cuba détente, the efforts to contain climate change - and be more
assertive militarily? Whatever unity the party managed during the elections will quickly fall apart
when it comes to governing.
In one sense, Clinton may well resurrect the neocon legacy by embracing a more or less progressive
domestic policy (which would satisfy the Sanderistas) and a more hawkish foreign policy (which would
satisfy all the foreign policy mandarins from both parties who supported her candidacy).
At the same time, a new political axis is emerging: internationalists vs. insularists, with the
former gathering together in the Democratic Party and the latter seeking shelter in a leaky Republican
Party. But this categorization conceals the tensions within each project. Internationalists include
both fans of the UN and proponents of unilateral U.S. military engagement overseas. Insularists,
who have not turned their back on the world quite as thoroughly as isolationists, include both xenophobic
nationalists and those who want to spend war dollars at home.
The trick of it for progressives is to somehow steal back the Democratic Party from the aggressive
globalists and recapture those Trump voters who are tired of supporting war and wealthy transnational
corporations. Or, perhaps in the wake of the Republican Party's collapse, progressives could create
a new party that challenges Clinton and the neocons.
One thing is for certain, however. With a highly unpopular president about to take office and
one of the major political parties on life support, the current political moment is highly unstable.
Something truly remarkable could emerge. Or voters in 2020 might face something even more monstrous
than what has haunted this election cycle.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – as senator, secretary of
state, and active partner in the Clinton Foundation – has had the privilege of
influencing major players in governments across the globe.
The result of her efforts has largely been the unfettered consolidation of
autocratic power, instability (when not total collapse) in vulnerable states, and
a global jihadist movement with its own Caliphate infiltrating some of the world's
most strategic locations.
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The above map shows the nations of the world Clinton's policies have
destabilized and, below, an explanation of why each is labeled the way it is. This
is meant to be a comprehensive list, though by no means complete: there are few
nations in which an American secretary of state has no influence whatsoever.
Emboldened Autocrats
China
As secretary of state, Clinton presided over a policy known as the "
pivot
to Asia
," meant to increase American visibility in the continent and, in
particular, bring China and the United States closer together. Clinton publicly
supported the "
one-China
policy
" – China's way of imposing itself on the Republic of China (Taiwan),
Tibet, Hong Kong, and the western Xinjiang region – and encouraged China to
buy up U.S. debt
.
Following her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton expressed support for
incoming president Xi Jinping in private. In a 2013 private speech now public,
thanks to the organization WikiLeaks, Clinton
said
it was "good news" that Xi was "doing much more to try to assert his
authority" than his predecessor, Hu Jintao.
Since then, Xi has declared himself the "
core
"
leader,
comparable to Mao Zedong
;
colonized
the maritime territory of six nations in the South China Sea; used
state violence
to crack down on the nation's skyrocketing Christian
population; and engaged in multiple Communist Party purges, citing unspecified "
corruption
."
Cuba
Hillary Clinton has loudly supported President Obama's policy to "normalize"
relations with Cuba, and her associates
maintain close ties
to the Washington, D.C., community that benefits from
relations with the Castro regime. President Obama's "normalization" has
triggered a boom
in violent arbitrary arrests of political dissidents and a
new wave of refugees seeking to leave the communist dictatorship before the United
States changes its mind about treating them as political refugees.
Iran
Hillary Clinton's work to embolden the Iranian Islamic dictatorship began early
in her term as secretary of state. During Clinton's tenure, the Obama
administration all but ignored the Iranian Green Revolution, a series of protests
against then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Clinton's State Department
rejected requests for funding
from groups doing the work on the grounds of
documenting Khamenei's rampant human rights abuses against unarmed protesters.
The Obama administration's crowning achievement in securing the Shiite
Caliphate's rule came years later, of course, in the form of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal. While the parties signed
the deal long after her departure from State, Clinton was responsible for "naming
the negotiators for the nuclear talks and approving two major U.S. concessions to
Iran in 2011 – guaranteeing Iran the right to enrich uranium and agreeing to close
the IAEA's investigation of Iran's past nuclear weapons work,"
according to Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy
.
Malaysia
Under Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysia has become a hotbed of
corruption
and,
increasingly,
radical
Islamic sentiment
. The Obama administration has, nonetheless, cozied up to
Kuala Lumpur, including
improving
its human rights ratings
to make it an eligible partner in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. Among the allies Clinton world
feared
would
challenge Clinton, the presidential candidate, on Malaysia were labor leader
Richard Trumka and George Soros.
Secretary of State Clinton approached North Korea with a policy known as "
strategic
patience
," which one expert described as "sitting back and watching while
North Korea continued to build up its nuclear weapons program." North Korea has
detonated two nuclear weapons since Clinton has been out of office, in part
emboldened by "strategic patience" and in part, many argued after the fourth of
five tests,
emboldened by the Iranian nuclear deal
.
Russia
Clinton has attempted to convince the American people that her arch-rival in
the presidential election is Russian President Vladimir Putin, but long before it
was politically expedient for her to do so, Clinton was the face of President
Obama's "Russian reset" – the one that preceded the collapse of Ukraine – and
bragged privately to big-money donors of her close ties to Putin. The strongman
trusted her so much, she once boasted, that he invited her to his "
inner
sanctum
."
Turkey
In her memoir,
Hard Choices
, Clinton reserved praise from President
(then-Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan that sounded not unlike her optimistic
profiling of Xi Jinping. Erdogan,
she said
, was "an ambitious, forceful, devout and effective politician." Of
his government, she said Erdogan was correct to seek "zero problems with
neighbors." WikiLeaks-released emails
have since revealed
that Erdogan sought to buy influence through campaign
donations to the Clintons.
During his tenure as president, Erdogan has advanced the cause of Islamism in
Turkey to unprecedented levels since the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, going so
far as to allow Islamic prayers in the Hagia Sophia, an iconic Christian landmark.
He has also conducted
mass arrests of political enemies
and shut down numerous media outlets who
dare challenge his government
. Last Friday, Erdogan's government
arrested the leaders
of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) – a pro-Kurdish,
pro-Christian center-left party – in a midnight raid on dubious "terrorism"
charges.
Venezuela
Clinton served as secretary of state during the tail end of the tenure of
socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, who died shortly after she departed. Chávez
presided over a bleak time in Venezuelan history: nationalizing private
industries, cozying up to enabling autocrats in Cuba, Iran, and China, and using
violence to suppress anti-socialist opposition.
In 2009, Clinton defended negotiating with Chávez and fostering diplomacy with
him, telling a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S.
should dismiss
Chávez's ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and communist China
because "we've isolated him, so he's gone elsewhere. I mean, he's a very sociable
guy."
Venezuela's economy is now in free fall as dozens of prisoners of conscience
languish in prison under Chávez's hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro's
management of his own government has been so abysmal that, with Clinton gone,
President Obama has declared Venezuela
a national security threat
.
Emboldened Corruption
Algeria
The government of Algeria is involved in one of the most egregious corruption
schemes of the Clinton Foundation: offering the Clintons a $500,000 check. "The
donation reportedly coincided with an intense effort by Algeria to lobby Mrs
Clinton's State Department over US criticism of its human rights record,"
The
Telegraph
notes
.
Brazil
Earlier this year, Brazil
impeached and ousted
its socialist President Dilma Rousseff for a variety of
fiscal improprieties, including the misrepresentation of government funds to lure
investors. Triggering protests that numbered in the millions, however, was
Rousseff's deep involvement in something known as "Operation Car Wash," a
sprawling corruption scheme in which dozens of government officials took millions
in kickbacks from projects commissioned by the state-run oil company Petrobras.
As secretary of state, Clinton had longtime ties to Rousseff and
praised
"her commitment to openness, transparency," stating that "her fight
against corruption is setting a global standard" in 2012.
Haiti
The Clinton Foundation's
exploitation
of Haiti's poverty and the damage caused by a 2010 earthquake has
left many of those nation's leaders disgusted enough to speak up about the
corruption. An operation to aid earthquake victims run by the Clintons was also
found to have "
played
a role
" in an unprecedented cholera outbreak in that country.
Kazakhstan
Among the more alarming deals Clinton cut at the State Department was the
nuclear deal that handed one-fifth of America's uranium production capacity to
Russia. While Russia usurped control of the Uranium One corporation, the Clinton
Foundations coffers filled with Russian money.
In addition to Uranium One control, the
New York Times
reports
that Russia gained control of "mines in Kazakhstan that are among the
most lucrative in the world."
Morocco
A more recent WikiLeaks reveal shows that the Clinton Foundation received a $12
million donation from the King of Morocco in exchange for Hillary Clinton's
presence at a Foundation summit. At the last minute, she
did not attend
.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed longstanding ties to the Clinton family and
donated
at least $50 million to the Clinton Foundation. These ties persisted
even as Clinton
privately admitted
she had evidence that Saudi Arabia provided "clandestine
financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the
region."
United States
While the Clinton Foundation often served as a
laundry service for foreign donations
, Clinton fostered questionable ties with
plenty of domestic entities, as well. Clinton
has raked in millions
in donations from big business in America, donors to
which she privately promised "
open
borders
." Clinton's ties to Department of Justice officials in the wake of an
investigation into her use of an illicit private server for state business has
also raised many questions regarding cronyism and corruption within our own
country.
Jihadist Boom
Afghanistan
President Obama famously declared that the war in Afghanistan
was over
for American soldiers in 2014. The policies that led to that point
only exacerbated the damage a vacuum of American power in the nation wrought
following the announcement.
Under Clinton, the State Department
largely ignored
a sprawling corruption problem that left Afghanistan with few
resources to combat the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Clinton policies elsewhere in the
world also led to the development of an Islamic State presence in the nation.
Currently, U.S. officials
warn
that the Taliban is stronger than it has been since September 11, 2001.
Indonesia
One of Clinton's first stops as secretary of state was Indonesia, where she
proclaimed, "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women's
rights can co-exist, go to Indonesia."
At the time
(2009), her visit was met with chants of "Allahu akbar" and an
inauspicious shoe-throwing protest against her.
Since then, Clinton's foreign policy greatly contributed to the creation of the
Islamic State, a jihadist group
actively courting Indonesian recruits
. "Between 300 and 700 Indonesians are
believed to have joined the group in Syria and Iraq over the past two years," the
BBC reported in July, adding that 30 Indonesian groups had pledged allegiance to
Islamic State "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Iraq
Unlike Syria, the collapse of which followed violent acts of oppression by a
ruthless tyrant, Iraq's collapse is more closely tied to American foreign policy
due to the nation's longtime occupation there. An American presence on the ground
in Iraq did more to subdue jihadist elements there than any action to routinely
fleeing Iraqi military and its corrupt leadership took.
While Clinton was in office, President Obama
withdrew
most of America's troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum rapidly
filled by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran-backed Shiite militias. Military
experts
have agreed
that a prolonged American presence in the country would have
contributed to stability and withdrawing left the nation vulnerable to Islamist
colonization.
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon
The nations surrounding Lake Chad continue to struggle with the rise of Boko
Haram, a jihadist group
founded in 2002
but active throughout the 2010s in northeast Borno state,
Nigeria. Boko Haram is currently the deadliest wing of the Islamic State and
responsible for killing
an
estimated 15,000
and displacing millions. The group rose to international
prominence following the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary
school in the Borno region in 2014. Most of these girls remain in captivity,
"married" off to Boko Haram jihadists for use as sex slaves.
As secretary of state, Clinton
refused to designate
Boko Haram, at the time affiliated with al-Qaeda, a
Foreign Terrorist Organization. The move
severely hindered
the Nigerian government's ability to target and neutralize
the group, as they could not seek U.S. aid for the mission.
Somalia, Kenya
Clinton
traveled to Somalia
personally in 2009 t0 offer support against al-Shabaab, an
al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. Following that visit, al-Shabaab made its
ties to al-Qaeda public and went on two high-profile rampages against civilians in
Kenya: the
Westgate Mall massacre
in 2013 and the
Garissa University attack
of 2015. It has since then become a popular enough
jihadist group to have found itself the object of courtship of both its al-Qaeda
overlords and the Islamic State.
The United States did little in those in-between years to subdue al-Shabaab,
including a "
Yemen-like
"
drone policy to target leadership and an embarrassing
failed raid
on an al-Shabaab camp in 2013. Clinton herself merely
implored the terrorists
to allow humanitarian aid.
Collapse of State
Libya
Clinton's role
in the death of Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, in the
September 11, 2012, siege of Benghazi is now well-known. She had a major role in
pushing for the decision to support Libya's uprising against dictator Muammar
Gadhafi, as well, however – a move President Obama followed up with little
strategy to ensure that a stable, secular government would replace Gadhafi. The
collapse of the Gadhafi dictatorship has left Libya a failed state, at first
governed by
two rival parties
, but now partially governed by the
Islamic State
,
al-Qaeda
, and a variety of Islamist tribal militias.
The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, during Clinton's stewardship of the State
Department. The Secretary reportedly
pushed President Obama
to arm Sunni Arab Syrian rebels, armed militias that
included a high number of jihadist elements, many of whom would move on to fight
for the Islamic State. The President
reportedly did not heed Clinton's advice
, though he failed to do much of
anything else, either.
In 2011, however, Clinton referred to dictator Bashar al-Assad as "
a
reformer
" by reputation, whose nascent rule was cause for optimism, casting
some doubt on how adamantly she pushed President Obama to arm the Syrian rebels.
Today, Syria remains a land mass governed piecemeal by the Islamic State,
Kurdish militias, al-Qaeda linked armed Sunni groups, and the
Iranian-Russian-Assad alliance. Assad
claimed in an interview
earlier this month that Syria is now "much better off"
than before the civil war.
Sudan/South Sudan
The creation of South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, was a direct product
of Clinton's foreign policy. Years of civil war in Sudan between the northern
Muslim population and the Christian south gave way to secession and a war between
two nations, not one. By the time Clinton visited in 2012,
the
Washington Post
referred to the refugee crisis there as one of
the worst in the world (soon to be eclipsed by the Syrian crisis).
The State Department persisted in aiding the South Sudanese government, even
continuing to provide funding after evidence surfaced that the government
employed
child soldiers
. Subsequent reports unveiled that Clinton-related firms
received money
from the South Sudanese government, as well.
Clinton's State Department support appears to have done little to
stabilize South Sudan. Report of
mass rape
at UN camps are common, and the country is
now facing a famine
.
Ukraine/Georgia
The Obama administration's tepid responses to Russian colonization of former
Soviet states have left Ukraine without its Crimea region and its eastern
provinces in collapse. In Georgia, the breakaway regions of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia
, invaded in 2008, remain under pseudo-Russian
control.
Hillary Clinton presided over a "Russian reset" policy meant to dissuade
Vladimir Putin from pillaging his neighbors. Clinton even gave her Russian
counterpart Sergei Lavrov a literal "reset button" as a gift,
leaving him baffled
. The reset succeeded in keeping Russia from obstructing
the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the invasion of Libya
, but did
little to convince Putin to change his foreign policy.
Subsequent revelations showed the Clintons
taking money from both sides
of the Ukraine conflict and being careful of
making too tough a stand against Putin's aggression.
Yemen
As secretary of state, Clinton made the first visit as America's top diplomat
to Yemen since 1990. There, she told Ali Abdullah Saleh that
she
would support
a program to return al-Qaeda terrorists imprisoned at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, to Yemen, while also acknowledging that Yemen was a hotbed of
al-Qaeda activity. Saleh is now an ally of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which
have launched a civil war against current President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi.
Al-Qaeda is possibly the most stable entity in a nation where
80 percent
of
civilians live off of humanitarian aid,
quadrupling its presence in the nation in a year
. Yemen is a failed state torn
apart by an emboldened Iran and Saudi Arabia, both major beneficiaries of the
Clinton State Department's policies.
The Migrant Crisis
Austria, Belgium, the Balkan nations, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, the UK
The Obama administration's Syria and Libya policies (See above.), executed
while Clinton was secretary of state, have triggered a flood of
nearly five million
displaced Syrians
and
more
than one million Libyans
seeking refuge in Europe and the Middle East.
Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, and other volatile
regions have added to the masses seeking a new home, rejected in countries like
Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia who have criticized the West for being
unwelcoming.
By Daniel
Larison James Traub gamely
tries to convince us (and himself) that Clinton's foreign policy won't be as aggressive and meddlesome
as she says it will be, but he undermines his argument when he says this:
As a senator and later secretary of state, she rarely departed from the counsel of senior military
officials. She was far more persuaded of the merits of Gen. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal's
counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan, which would have sent an additional 40,000 troops there,
than Obama was and maybe even more than then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates was. She rarely departed
from Gates on any significant issue. Of course, the one time she did so was on Libya, where she
advocated intervention and he did not [bold mine-DL]. On Syria, Clinton may have to choose between
her own expressed commitments and a Pentagon that is far more cautious and more inclined to see
mishap than are civilian interventionists. I wonder how Kagan-esque she will be in the White House.
Less so, perhaps, than she was as secretary of state.
In other words, when military officers recommended a larger escalation, she agreed with them,
and when Gates didn't support intervention she didn't agree. Clinton was fine with advice from the
military when it meant supporting deeper involvement, but she broke with Gates when he didn't want
to take sides in a foreign war. That isn't a picture of someone who consistently heeds military advice,
but rather someone who always opts for the more aggressive option available at the time. It doesn't
make much sense that Clinton as president would be less "Kagan-esque" than she was as a member of
Obama's Cabinet. As president, she will have considerable leeway to do as she sees fit, Congress
will be pathetically quiescent as usual, and most of the foreign policy establishment will be encouraging
her to do more in Syria and elsewhere. Clinton will be predisposed to agree with what they urge her
to do, and in the last twenty years she has never seen a military intervention that she thought was
unnecessary or too risky. Why is that suddenly going to change when she has the power of the presidency?
In virtually every modern case, a new president ends up behaving more hawkishly than expected based
on campaign rhetoric. All of the pressures and incentives in Washington push a president towards
do-somethingism, and Clinton has typically been among the least resistant to the demand to "do something"
in response to crises and conflicts, so why would we think she would become more cautious once she
is in office? I can understand why many of her supporters wish that to be the case, but it flies
in the face of all the available evidence, including most of what we know about how Washington works.
Traub makes a number of predictions at the end of his article:
She will not make dumb mistakes. She will reassure every ally who needs reassurance. She will
try to mute China's adventurism in the South China Sea without provoking a storm of nationalism.
She'll probably disappoint the neocons. She won't go out on any limbs. She won't shake the policymaking
consensus.
I don't know where this confidence in Clinton's good judgment comes from, but it seems misplaced.
I suppose it depends on what you think smart foreign policy looks like, but there is a fair amount
of evidence from Clinton's own record that she is quite capable of making dumb mistakes.
That doesn't just apply to her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq and her backing for intervention
in Libya, but could also refer to her support for sending weapons to Ukraine, her endorsement of
"no-fly" and safe zones in Syria, her preference for more sanctions on Iran while negotiations were
still taking place, and her belief that the U.S. has to bomb another country to retain its "credibility."
All of these are mistakes, and some are quite dumb.
It isn't at all reassuring to know that Clinton will "reassure every ally who needs reassurance,"
because in practice that means indulging bad behavior from reckless clients and rewarding them with
more aid and weapons. Earlier in the article, Traub seems to understand that enabling the Saudis
is a bad idea:
This last policy, which for Clinton will come under the heading of "alliance management," would
only deepen the violence and sectarian strife rending the region. She would be better advised
to tell the Saudis that the United States will reduce its support of their war effort unless they
make serious efforts toward a lasting cease-fire.
That would certainly be wiser than offering uncritical backing of their intervention, but what
is the evidence that Clinton thinks U.S. support for the war on Yemen needs to be curtailed? Yemen
has been devastated in no small part because of Obama's willingness to "reassure" the Saudis and
their allies. What other countries will be made to suffer so Clinton can keep them happy? Clinton
may disappoint neocons, but then they are disappointed by anything short of preventive war. Even
if Clinton's foreign policy isn't aggressive enough to satisfy them, it is likely to be far more
aggressive than necessary.
"... The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists, which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young girls screaming while racing down the street in flames. ..."
"... Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable level of detachment. ..."
"... They both share to an extent the dominant New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody, but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it." ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what they would do to employ our military power. ..."
"... She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus directed against Russia. ..."
"... Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president, recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. ..."
"... Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power vacuum that will benefit the latter. ..."
"... Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran, which has been fighting ISIS. ..."
"... One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. ..."
"... Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do. ..."
"... She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles. ..."
The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on
multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile
military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely
of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists,
which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the
rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of
Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young
girls screaming while racing down the street in flames.
Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither
of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable
level of detachment. Hillary is notorious for her assessment of the brutal killing of Libya's
Moammar Gaddafi, saying "We came, we saw, he died." They both share to an extent the dominant
New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody,
but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it."
In the election campaign there has, in fact, been little discussion of the issue of war and peace
or even of America's place in the world, though Trump did at one point note correctly that implementation
of Hillary's suggested foreign policy could escalate into World War III. It has been my contention
that the issue of war should be more front and center in the minds of Americans when they cast their
ballots as the prospect of an armed conflict in which little is actually at stake escalating and
going nuclear could conceivably end life on this planet as we know it.
With that in mind, it is useful to consider what the two candidates have been promising. First,
Hillary, who might reasonably be designated the Establishment's war candidate though she carefully
wraps it in humanitarian "liberal interventionism." As Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
has always viewed a foreign crisis as an opportunity to use aggressive measures to seek a resolution.
She can always be relied upon to "do something," a reflection of the neocon driven Washington foreign
policy consensus.
Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally
and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what
they would do to employ our military power.
She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus
directed against Russia. And, unfortunately, there would be little or no pushback against the
exercise of her admittedly poor instincts regarding what to do, as was demonstrated regarding Libya
and also with Benghazi. She would find little opposition in Congress and the media for an extremely
risky foreign policy, and would benefit from the Washington groupthink that prevails over the alleged
threats emanating from Russia, Iran, and China.
Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly
Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric
Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president,
recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. I think it's coming.
It's going to be maritime confrontation and if it doesn't happen immediately, I'll bet you a dollar
it's going to be happening after the presidential election, whoever is elected."
Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in
that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no
way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power
vacuum that will benefit the latter. She has also called for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect
the local population as well as the insurgent groups that the U.S. supports, some of which had been
labeled as terrorists before they were renamed by current Secretary of State John Kerry. Such a zone
would dramatically raise the prospect of armed conflict with Russia and it puts Washington in an
odd position vis-à-vis what is occurring in Syria. The U.S. is not at war with the Syrian government,
which, like it or not, is under international law sovereign within its own recognized borders. Damascus
has invited the Russians in to help against the rebels and objects to any other foreign presence
on Syrian territory. In spite of all that, Washington is asserting some kind of authority to intervene
and to confront the Russians as both a humanitarian mission and as an "inherent right of self-defense."
Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which
have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran,
which has been fighting ISIS. As a Senator, she threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran but
she has more recently reluctantly supported the recent nuclear agreement with that country negotiated
by President Barack Obama. But she has nevertheless warned that she will monitor the situation closely
for possible violations and will otherwise pushback against activity by the Islamic Republic. As
one of her key financial supporters is Israeli Haim Saban, who has said he is a one issue guy and
that issue is Israel, she is likely to pursue aggressive policies in the Persian Gulf. She has also
promised to move America's relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a "new level" and
has repeatedly declared that her support for Israel is unconditional.
One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions
on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed
to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Washington is not at war with either Iran or Yemen
and the Houthis are not on the State Department terrorist list but our good friends the Saudis have
been assiduously bombing them for reasons that seem obscure. Stopping ships in international waters
without any legal pretext would be considered by many an act of piracy. Morell has also called for
covertly assassinating Iranians and Russians to express our displeasure with the foreign policies
of their respective governments.
Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated
arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO,
which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views
expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional
coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED
has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do.
After making a number of bumper-sticker claims about Russia and Putin that are either partially
true, unproven or even ridiculous, Gershman concluded that "the United States has the power to contain
and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so." It is basically a
call for the next administration to remove Putin from power-as foolish a suggestion as has ever been
seen in a leading newspaper, as it implies that the risk of nuclear war is completely acceptable
to bring about regime change in a country whose very popular, democratically elected leadership we
disapprove of. But it is nevertheless symptomatic of the kind of thinking that goes on inside the
beltway and is quite possibly a position that Hillary Clinton will embrace. She also benefits from
having the perfect implementer of such a policy in Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland, her extremely
dangerous protégé who is currently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
and who might wind up as Secretary of State in a Clinton Administration.
Shifting to East Asia, Hillary sees the admittedly genuine threat from North Korea but her response
is focused more on China. She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to
deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with
defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure
North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think
about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles.
Trump's foreign policy is admittedly quite sketchy and he has not always been consistent. He has
been appropriately enough slammed for being simple minded in saying that he would "bomb the crap
out of ISIS," but he has also taken on the Republican establishment by specifically condemning the
George W. Bush invasion of Iraq and has more than once indicated that he is not interested in either
being the world's policeman or in new wars in the Middle East. He has repeatedly stated that he supports
NATO but it should not be construed as hostile to Russia. He would work with Putin to address concerns
over Syria and Eastern Europe. He would demand that NATO countries spend more for their own defense
and also help pay for the maintenance of U.S. bases.
Trump's controversial call to stop all Muslim immigration has been rightly condemned but it contains
a kernel of truth in that the current process for vetting new arrivals in this country is far from
transparent and apparently not very effective. The Obama Administration has not been very forthcoming
on what might be done to fix the entire immigration process but Trump is promising to shake things
up, which is overdue, though what exactly a Trump Administration would try to accomplish is far from
clear.
Continuing on the negative side, Trump, who is largely ignorant of the world and its leaders,
has relied on a mixed bag of advisors. Former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael
Flynn appears to be the most prominent. Flynn is associated with arch neocon Michael Ledeen and both
are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should
be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course, a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran
in his sights. The advice of Ledeen and Flynn may have been instrumental in Trump's vehement denunciation
of the Iran nuclear agreement, which he has called a "disgrace," which he has said he would "tear
up." It is vintage dumb-think. The agreement cannot be canceled because there are five other signatories
to it and the denial of a nuclear weapons program to Tehran benefits everyone in the region, including
Israel. It is far better to have the agreement than to scrap it, if that were even possible.
Trump has said that he would be an even-handed negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians
but he has also declared that he is strongly pro-Israel and would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
which is a bad idea, not in America's interest, even if Netanyahu would like it. It would produce
serious blowback from the Arab world and would inspire a new wave of terrorism directed against the
U.S.
Regarding the rest of the Middle East, Trump would prefer strong leaders, i.e. autocrats, who
are friendly rather than chaotic reformers. He rejects arming rebels as in Syria because we know
little about whom we are dealing with and find that we cannot control what develops. He is against
foreign aid in principle, particularly to countries like Pakistan where the U.S. is strongly disliked.
In East Asia, Trump would encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals
to deter North Korea. It is a very bad idea, a proliferation nightmare. Like Hillary, he would prefer
that China intervene in North Korea and make Kim Jong Un "step down." He would put pressure on China
to devalue its currency because it is "bilking us of billions of dollars" and would also increase
U.S. military presence in the region to limit Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea.
So there you have it as you enter the voting booth. President Obama is going around warning that
"the fate of the world is teetering" over the electoral verdict, which he intends to be a ringing
endorsement of Hillary even though the choice is not nearly that clear cut. Part of the problem with
Trump is that he has some very bad ideas mixed in with a few good ones and no one knows what he would
actually do if he were president. Unfortunately, it is all too clear what Hillary would do.
Posted on
March 7, 2016
by
comehomeamerica
by
Joe Scarry
I think if you asked most people, they would say that (a) war is deeply
ingrained in society; and (b) society over and over again decides to engage
in war.
There is a growing discourse around point (a): people are starting
to unpack the idea that "war is deeply ingrained in society," and growing in
understanding that this is not the same as saying "war is part of human
nature."
I worry that there is less insight around point (b). At least in the
United States, I think people continue to believe that war is a societal
choice. I think this is not true.
In theory our Constitution is all about
the people
- through
Congress - maintaining control over the decision to go to war. As it stands
now, as a practical matter, that's not really what's happening.
I invite people to study the graph of historical US military spending
below. It shows that there was a time when military spending went up when
the US began to engage in a specific war, and then went back down after that
war. Later, that pattern changed.
Posted on
March 7, 2016
by
comehomeamerica
by
Joe Scarry
I think if you asked most people, they would say
that (a) war is deeply ingrained in society; and (b)
society over and over again decides to engage in
war.
There is a growing discourse around point
(a): people are starting to unpack the idea that
"war is deeply ingrained in society," and growing in
understanding that this is not the same as saying
"war is part of human nature."
I worry that there is less insight around point
(b). At least in the United States, I think people
continue to believe that war is a societal choice. I
think this is not true.
In theory our Constitution is all about
the
people
- through Congress - maintaining control
over the decision to go to war. As it stands now, as
a practical matter, that's not really what's
happening.
I invite people to study the graph of historical
US military spending below. It shows that there was
a time when military spending went up when the US
began to engage in a specific war, and then went
back down after that war. Later, that pattern
changed.
It is very interesting to consider
why
this change occurred. (Perhaps that's a topic for a
later blog post or two.)
But I think the more fundamental point is:
at
some point
US society
stopped being the
"decider" about war.
The US began to engage in
war, and more war, and more war . . . but
US
society
was no longer really making that
decision in any real way.
(Think about US military action during your
lifetime. In what ways, if any, did society at large
determine what happened?)
If we confront this reality, what might this
cause us to do differently?
(Think about US military action during your lifetime. In what ways, if
any, did society at large determine what happened?)
If we confront this reality, what might this cause us to do differently?
This neocon propagandists (or more correctly neocon provocateur) got all major facts wrong. And
who unleashed Flame and
Stuxnet I would like to ask him.
Was it Russians? And who invented the concept of "color revolution" in which influencing of election
was the major part of strategy ? And which nation instituted the program of covert access to email boxes
of all major webmail providers? He should study the history of malware and the USA covert operations
before writing this propagandist/provocateur opus to look a little bit more credible...
Notable quotes:
"... Email, a main conduit of communication for two decades, now appears so vulnerable that the nation seems to be wondering whether its bursting inboxes can ever be safe. ..."
The 2016 presidential race will be remembered for many ugly moments, but the most lasting historical
marker may be one that neither voters nor American intelligence agencies saw coming: It is the first
time that a foreign power has unleashed cyberweapons to disrupt, or perhaps influence, a United States
election.
And there is a foreboding sense that, in elections to come, there is no turning back.
The steady drumbeat of allegations of Russian troublemaking - leaks from stolen emails and probes
of election-system defenses - has continued through the campaign's last days. These intrusions, current
and former administration officials agree, will embolden other American adversaries, which have been
given a vivid demonstration that, when used with some subtlety, their growing digital arsenals can
be particularly damaging in the frenzy of a democratic election.
"Most of the biggest stories of this election cycle have had a cybercomponent to them - or the
use of information warfare techniques that the Russians, in particular, honed over decades," said
David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of Foreign Policy, who has written two histories of
the National Security Council. "From stolen emails, to WikiLeaks, to the hacking of the N.S.A.'s
tools, and even the debate about how much of this the Russians are responsible for, it's dominated
in a way that we haven't seen in any prior election."
The magnitude of this shift has gone largely unrecognized in the cacophony of a campaign dominated
by charges of groping and pay-for-play access. Yet the lessons have ranged from the intensely personal
to the geostrategic.
Email, a main conduit of communication for two decades, now appears so vulnerable that the
nation seems to be wondering whether its bursting inboxes can ever be safe. Election systems,
the underpinning of democracy, seem to be at such risk that it is unimaginable that the United States
will go into another national election without treating them as "critical infrastructure."
But President Obama has been oddly quiet on these issues. He delivered a private warning to President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during their final face-to-face encounter two months ago, aides say.
Still, Mr. Obama has barely spoken publicly about the implications of foreign meddling in the election.
His instincts, those who have worked with him on cyberissues say, are to deal with the problem by
developing new norms of international behavior or authorizing covert action rather than direct confrontation.
After a series of debates in the Situation Room, Mr. Obama and his aides concluded that any public
retaliation should be postponed until after the election - to avoid the appearance that politics
influenced his decision and to avoid provoking Russian counterstrikes while voting is underway. It
remains unclear whether Mr. Obama will act after Tuesday, as his aides hint, or leave the decision
about a "proportional response" to his successor.
Cybersleuths, historians and strategists will debate for years whether Russia's actions reflected
a grand campaign of interference or mere opportunism on the part of Mr. Putin. While the administration
has warned for years about the possibility of catastrophic attacks, what has happened in the past
six months has been far more subtle.
Russia has used the techniques - what they call "hybrid war," mixing new technologies with old-fashioned
propaganda, misinformation and disruption - for years in former Soviet states and elsewhere in Europe.
The only surprise was that Mr. Putin, as he intensified confrontations with Washington as part of
a nationalist campaign to solidify his own power amid a deteriorating economy, was willing to take
them to American shores.
The most common theory is that while the Russian leader would prefer the election of Donald J.
Trump - in part because Mr. Trump has suggested that NATO is irrelevant and that the United States
should pull its troops back to American shores - his primary motive is to undercut what he views
as a smug American sense of superiority about its democratic processes.
Madeleine K. Albright, a former secretary of state who is vigorously supporting Hillary Clinton,
wrote recently that Mr. Putin's goal was "to create doubt about the validity of the U.S. election
results, and to make us seem hypocritical when we question the conduct of elections in other countries."
If so, this is a very different use of power than what the Obama administration has long prepared
the nation for.
Four years ago, Leon E. Panetta, the defense secretary at the time, warned of an impending "cyber
Pearl Harbor" in which enemies could "contaminate the water supply in major cities or shut down the
power grid across large parts of the country," perhaps in conjunction with a conventional attack.
"... From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies. ..."
"... These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly approaching the "critical mass" where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo. ..."
"... We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. ..."
"... We must resist those who are preaching "interventionism-lite" and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect our "interests" overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is not what the military is for. We must stick to our non-interventionist guns. No more regime change. No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. Just come home. ..."
I have said throughout this presidential campaign that it doesn't matter much which candidate
wins. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are authoritarians and neither can be expected to roll
back the leviathan state that destroys our civil liberties at home while destroying our economy and
security with endless wars overseas. Candidates do not matter all that much, despite what the media
would have us believe. Ideas do matter, however. And regardless of which of these candidates is elected,
the battle of ideas now becomes critical.
The day after the election is our time to really focus our efforts on making the case for a peaceful
foreign policy and the prosperity it will bring. While we may not have much to cheer in Tuesday's
successful candidate, we have learned a good deal about the state of the nation from the campaigns.
From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke
all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what
we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as
usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies.
Last month a fascinating poll was conducted by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles
Koch Institute. A broad ranging 1,000 Americans were asked a series of questions about US foreign
policy and the 15 year "war on terror." You might think that after a decade and a half, trillions
of dollars, and thousands of lives lost, Americans might take a more positive view of this massive
effort to "rid the world of evil-doers," as then-president George W. Bush promised. But the poll
found that only 14 percent of Americans believe US foreign policy has made them more safe! More than
50 percent of those polled said the next US president should use less force overseas, and 80 percent
said the president must get authorization from Congress before taking the country to war.
These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly
approaching the "critical mass" where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo.
We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will
fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists
will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. But this
election and many recent polls demonstrate that their time has passed. They may not know it yet,
but their failures are too obvious and Americans are sick of paying for them.
What is to be done? We must continue to educate ourselves and others. We must resist those
who are preaching "interventionism-lite" and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect
our "interests" overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is
not what the military is for. We must stick to our non-interventionist guns. No more regime change.
No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military
budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on.
Just come home.
Americans want change, no matter who wins. We need to be ready to provide that alternative.
The author is a neocon...
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty was deeply unfair as it did not eliminated see based missiles, only ground based
one. It is essentially a trap Gorbachov went into.
Notable quotes:
"... On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) ..."
"... No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president. ..."
By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and
the author, most recently, of The Race
for What's Left . A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available
from the Media Education Foundation . Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published
at TomDispatch
... ... ..
With passions running high on both sides in this year's election and rising fears about Donald
Trump's impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton's hawkish one, it's hardly surprising that the "nuclear
button" question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. In one of the more pointed exchanges
of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure
for the job. "A man who can be provoked by a tweet," she
commented , "should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes." Donald Trump has reciprocated
by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. "You're going to end up in World War III
over Syria," he told
reporters in Florida last month.
For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated
discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate
is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes. There is, however, a more important
reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment,
for a variety of reasons, the "nuclear threshold" - the point at which some party to a "conventional"
(non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons - seems to be
moving dangerously lower.
Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power - the United States, Russia, or
China - would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario. No longer. Worse
yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will
face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have
thought possible just a year or two ago - with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all.
No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of
acquiring new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still. These include
a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in "limited" nuclear
wars - atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one
area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate.
The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type
and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington's likely adversaries.
Lowering the Nuclear Threshold
During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet
Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and
their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat
to, in the end, the use of "battlefield" nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same
to avert defeat. In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding "tactical" or
battlefield weaponry - nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or
Moscow - and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but
still sub-apocalyptic level. (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this
lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy .) Eventually, leaders
on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents
to the use of such weaponry by the other side. This was, of course, the concept of "
mutually assured
destruction ," or - in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD. It would,
in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers.
Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the
Soviet Union began deploying the
SS-20 intermediate-range
ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded
with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the
Pershing-II ballistic missile
in Europe. The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe
and the United States. On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear
conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President
Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty.
That historic agreement - the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems -
banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and
5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR's treaty obligations and pledged to
uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. In the view of most observers,
the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep
cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others,
including the
New START , the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010.
... ... ...
To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a
U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence. They
point, in particular, to the
build-up
of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions
in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of
promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so. As a result, Russia has been bolstering
its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and
training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there.
... ... ...
On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a
new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also
known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed
in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what
might be heading their way.
In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis,
leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. Put another way, such missiles make for
twitchy trigger fingers
and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn
take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust.
No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed
piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles
are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap
of the next president.
scanning it, it keeps referring to the obama administration's beliefs about russia, and
claims by american officials. given the hysteria about putin allegedly hacking the us election,
and the propaganda surrounding the war on terror, i'm reluctant to rely on this kind of evidence.
But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is
likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise
in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward
Russia.
"Even" is a little rich, given that the Clinton campaign has systematically - I hate to
use the word, but - demonized* Putin. One can regard the political class as cynically able to
turn on a dime when the election is done, but Clinton has also induced her base of "NPR
tote baggers" to buy in, and the more massive base is harder to turn. And then of course the neo-cons
have gone over to her, and they certainly know which side their bread has blood on.
So, if Clinton wins, the dominant faction of the Democrat Party is - from the leadership
through the nomenklatura to the base - committed to a "muscular" foreign policy, including a "No
Fly Zone" in Syria, where shooting down a Russian plane would be an act of war, so far as Russia
is concerned. (In the last debate, Clinton pointedly didn't answer what she would do in that eventuality.)
It is what it is. We are where we are.
NOTE * I mean, come on. Trump and Comey as Putin's agents of influence? Beyond bizarre.
UPDATE One of the salient features of the bureaucratic infighters who brought about World War
I is their utter mediocrity; see
this review of The Sleepwalkers , a diplomatic history of how World War I came out. If you
want to see real mediocrity in today's terms, read the Podesta emails.
Agreed. Klare's order of presentation creates a questionable sense of causality by talking
first about Russian tech and strategy and then about what appear to be US responses. For example,
my understanding of recent developments of low yield nuclear weapons - I'm thinking of the "dial
a bomb" - has the US once again opening up a new strategic front the Russians feel compelled to
duplicate. His discussion of the Iskander M similarly elides the question of how the Russians
think about the B52-based cruise missiles the US has had for years.
He also seems to lose track of a point he introduces by referring to Kissinger's advocacy of
the use of low yield nukes. Kissinger's book came out in 1957, and afair only the US had battlefield
nuclear missile delivery systems back in early 60s. After Kissinger gained power in the Nixon
administration, they both thought that it was useful to look rationally irrational, to set out
a logic for dangerous policies in order to make opponents fearful of a catastrophic reaction.
The Russians are likely doing the same thing. I'm sure, too, that talking of a low first use threshold
is a way to split Europe from the US.
This article on nuclear strategy makes no mention of the single most destabilizing thing
that happened in nuclear affairs in this century: the USA's unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty.
How could the author make such an omission?
The biggest nuclear problem we face is that there are "serious" military and political leaders
in the USA who think that their new ABM systems will allow them to burst the shackles of assured-destruction,
and thus to actively employ escalation dominance as a foreign policy tool..
The author puts too much emphasis on anti-cities warfare at a pre-strategic level. A strike
will be more likely to be an EMP anti-infrastructure strike. In modern societies, one doesn't
need to kill people to break their resolve. Disrupting the provision of electricity, mobile, cable
and internet connection is amply enough to eliminate the appetite for overseas military adventures.
The nukes run on a dead-man switch. If one EMP's "everything", the periodic "please do not
launch today, sir"-signal will not reach the silos/submarines and missiles will launch automatically.
We can be pretty sure that the last missiles launched will be salted with some "well, fuck
you too!"-concoction to create massive fallout and maybe even some bio-weapons on top for all
those weakened immune systems (from the gamma radiation). The USSR did a lot of very high quality
research on biological weapons, obviously, everyone else has whatever they had in the 1980's.
People who ingest radioactive dust are goners sooner or later. Sooner with bio-weapons on top
of the radiation poisoning.
People, especially people "on top" who should be informed and know better, yet still think
ABM systems work effectively for any other purpose than moving billions of USD to into the pockets
of defense industry cronies, are simply deluded. Even with cooked tests, where the speed and trajectory
of the opposition missile is known to the missile defence in advance, the odds of an intercept
are low.
Why would the elites not want to win, compared to the first 70 years of the nuclear age?
They are like 70-80 years old, geriatrics already, soon diaper-cases. All thes powerful people
are in a desparate race with time to "set things right", before they lose all of their faculties
(or start smelling of poo so no-one invites them anymore).
Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use
of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable
measures in response. The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly.
Of course this is the exact mirror image of the US policy during the Cold War. We relied
on the threat of "theater nuclear war" to deter the huge Soviet conventional forces that NATO
had little chance of stopping with conventional forces. Of course the Germans joked that the definition
of a "theater" nuclear weapon was one that went off in Germany.
Does the Right Hold the Economy Hostage to Advance Its Militarist Agenda?
That's one way to read Tyler Cowen's New York Times column * noting that wars have often been
associated with major economic advances which carries the headline "the lack of major wars may
be hurting economic growth." Tyler lays out his central argument:
"It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American
history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear
power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager
to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed
to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military
contracting, not today's entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik
satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic
growth."
This is all quite true, but a moment's reflection may give a bit different spin to the story.
There has always been substantial support among liberals for the sort of government sponsored
research that he describes here. The opposition has largely come from the right. However the right
has been willing to go along with such spending in the context of meeting national defense needs.
Its support made these accomplishments possible.
This brings up the suggestion Paul Krugman made a while back (jokingly) that maybe we need
to convince the public that we face a threat from an attack from Mars. Krugman suggested this
as a way to prompt traditional Keynesian stimulus, but perhaps we can also use the threat to promote
an ambitious public investment agenda to bring us the next major set of technological breakthroughs.
1. Baker's peaceful spending scenario is not likely because of human nature.
2. Even if Baker's scenario happened, a given dollar will be used more efficiently in a war.
If there is a threat of losing, you have an incentive to cut waste and spend on what produces
results.
3. The United States would not exist at all if we had not conquered the territory.
US Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting
Summary of Costs of the US Wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Homeland Security
By Neta C. Crawford
Summary
Wars cost money before, during and after they occur - as governments prepare for, wage, and
recover from them by replacing equipment, caring for the wounded and repairing the infrastructure
destroyed in the fighting. Although it is rare to have a precise accounting of the costs of war
- especially of long wars - one can get a sense of the rough scale of the costs by surveying the
major categories of spending.
As of August 2016, the US has already appropriated, spent, or taken on obligations to spend
more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria
and on Homeland Security (2001 through fiscal year 2016). To this total should be added the approximately
$65 billion in dedicated war spending the Department of Defense and State Department have requested
for the next fiscal year, 2017, along with an additional nearly $32 billion requested for the
Department of Homeland Security in 2017, and estimated spending on veterans in future years. When
those are included, the total US budgetary cost of the wars reaches $4.79 trillion.
But of course, a full accounting of any war's burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger....
The War Party called the Peace Party Nazis in 1941, Communists in 1951, Soviet dupes in 1961,
dirty hippies in 1971 … must I go on? In 2011, those who heed George Washington's counsel to seek
"peace and harmony with all" will be called mullah-headed appeasers of Irano-fascism.
We live in an age in which one is free to view pornography that would make de Sade wince and gore
that would make Leatherface retch, yet we have less "free speech," as the Founders would have conceived
it, than ever before. The range of permissible political opinions has narrowed to encompass the rat-hair's
breadth separating Mitt Romney from Joe Lieberman, and woe betide the straggler who wanders away
from the cage.
Blame war. Blame TV. Blame the nationalization of political discourse, as regional variations
and individual peculiarities are washed away by the generic slime of poli-talk shows. Radicals-even
naïve Tea Partiers or idealistic left-wing kids-are dehumanized in ways unthinkable when America
was a free country. No one was barred from the conversation back when there was a conversation. No
dispatch ever read, "Wingnut Henry David Thoreau today issued a manifesto from his compound near
Walden Pond…"
... ... ...
The squeezing out even of establishment dissent-especially since 9/11-has left us with an antiwar
movement so feeble it makes the Esperanto lobby look like the AARP. Enter the new organization Come
Home, America, its name taken from the magnificent 1972 acceptance speech delivered by George McGovern
in the last unscripted Democratic convention.
Discussed in recent issues of this magazine, Come Home, America is based on the now decidedly
radical premise that young men and women belong home, with their families and in their communities,
rather than fighting needless wars on the other side of the globe. I am a small part of what I hope
will become a chorus of patriotic dissent ringing from Main Street and Copperhead Road and Martin
Luther King Boulevard, from farm and church and coffeehouse.
"... Well, two can play at tendentiousness. I'd say that American populism, in its various guises, has been distinguished by three basic beliefs: ..."
"... Concentrated wealth and power are pernicious, so widespread distribution of both is the proper condition; ..."
"... War and militarism are ruinous to the republic and to the character (not to mention physical health) of the people; and ..."
"... Ordinary people can be trusted to make their own decisions. ..."
"... The Democratic candidate this time around is the most hawkish nominee of her party since LBJ in 1964 and its most pro-Wall Street standard bearer since John W. Davis in 1924. She is, in every way, including her "the peasants are revolting" shtick, the compleat anti-populist. ..."
"... Place-based populism, seeded in love, defends a people against the powerful external forces that would crush or corrupt or subjugate them. It's Jane Jacobs and her "bunch of mothers" fighting Robert Moses on behalf of Greenwich Village. It's the people of Poletown, assisted by Ralph Nader, defending their homes and churches against the depredations of General Motors and the execrable Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. It's parents-whether in South Boston, Brooklyn, or rural America-championing their local schools against berobed bussers, education bureaucrats, and Cold War consolidators. ..."
With every generational populist efflorescence (those who disapprove call it a "recrudescence")
two things are guaranteed:
First, the prosy men with leaden eyes of the New York Times will rouse themselves from
complacent torpor into a Cerberus-like defense of the ruling class against the intruder. The Times
of 1896 on William Jennings Bryan (a "cheap and shallow … blatherskite" with an "unbalanced and
unsound mind," though whether or not Bryan was "insane," the Times editorialist of 1896 conceded,
"is a question for expert alienists") is no different than the Times in 2016 on Donald Trump.
For his part, Trump probably thinks Bryan's Cross of Gold would make a classy adornment to the Mar-a-Lago
Club chapel.
The second certainty is that middlebrow thumb-suckers and chin-pullers will invoke midcentury
historian Richard Hofstadter, whose 1964 essay that refuses to die, "The Paranoid Style in American
Politics," ascribed dissent from the Cold War Vital Center consensus to mental illness. In your guts,
as LBJ backers said of Barry Goldwater, you know he's nuts.
Or they'll quote Hofstadter's The Age of Reform , winner of the Pulitzer Prize-always a
bad sign-in which populism is merely "the simple virtues and unmitigated villainies of a rural melodrama"
writ large, and it ulcerates with "nativist phobias," "hatred of Europe and Europeans," and resentment
of big business, intellectuals, the Eastern seaboard, the other bulwarks of Time-Life culture,
circa 1955. (Only a Vital Centurion could believe that wishing to refrain from killing Europeans
in wars is evidence of "hatred of Europe and Europeans.")
Well, two can play at tendentiousness. I'd say that American populism, in its various guises,
has been distinguished by three basic beliefs:
Concentrated wealth and power are pernicious, so
widespread distribution of both is the proper condition;
War and militarism are ruinous to the
republic and to the character (not to mention physical health) of the people; and
Ordinary people
can be trusted to make their own decisions.
The Democratic candidate this time around is the most hawkish nominee of her party since LBJ in
1964 and its most pro-Wall Street standard bearer since John W. Davis in 1924. She is, in every way,
including her "the peasants are revolting" shtick, the compleat anti-populist.
But Hillary's awfulness should not obscure the truth that a healthy populism requires anchorage.
It must be grounded in a love of the particular-one's block, one's town, one's neighbors (of all
shapes and sizes and colors)-or else it is just a grab bag of resentments, however valid they may
be.
An unmoored populism leads to scapegoating and the sputtering fury of the impotent. Breeding with
nationalism, it submerges local loyalties and begets a blustering USA! USA! twister of nothingness.
From out of that whirlwind spin the faux-populists of the Beltway Right: placeless mountebanks
banking the widow's mite in Occupied Northern Virginia. To a man they are praying for a Hillary Clinton
victory, which would be the Clampetts' oil strike and the winning Powerball ticket all rolled into
one. President Clinton the Second would be the most lucrative hobgoblin for the ersatz populists
of Birther Nation since Teddy Kennedy crossed his last bridge.
Place-based populism, seeded in love, defends a people against the powerful external forces that
would crush or corrupt or subjugate them. It's Jane Jacobs and her "bunch of mothers" fighting Robert
Moses on behalf of Greenwich Village. It's the people of Poletown, assisted by Ralph Nader, defending
their homes and churches against the depredations of General Motors and the execrable Detroit Mayor
Coleman Young. It's parents-whether in South Boston, Brooklyn, or rural America-championing their
local schools against berobed bussers, education bureaucrats, and Cold War consolidators.
For a span in the early 1990s, Jerry Brown dabbled in populism. Alas, the protean Brown, once
returned to California's governorship, became his father, the numbingly conventional liberal hack
Pat Brown, though the chameleonic Jesuit may have one final act left him, perhaps as a nonagenarian
desert ascetic.
A quarter-century ago, Brown spoke of the populists' struggle against "a global focus over which
we have virtually no control. We have to force larger institutions to operate in the interest of
local autonomy and local power. Localism, if you really take it seriously, is going to interrupt
certain patterns of modern growth and globalism."
The harder they come, the harder they fall, as Jimmy Cliff sang.
The two self-styled populists who made 2016 interesting never so much as glanced at, let alone
picked up, the localist tool recommended by Jerry Brown in one of his previous lives. Their populism,
dismissive of the local, is hollow. It's all fury and no love. But tomorrow, as a Georgia lady once
wrote, is another day.
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
Pretty good Trump ad tying together his themes of Hillary's corruption and globalism. Rather than
just attack Hillary over idiosyncratic scandals, he's pulling together the threads of how Hillary's
ideology and self-interest support each other.
It's funny how Trump is developing a more coherent big picture framework.
My recollection of Romney's campaign is that he generally lacked an intellectual framework for
tying together his a la carte issues.
With McCain, he had Invade the World / Invite the World. Sure, it doesn't make much sense, but
at least it's an ethos.
Romney, though, was a more reasonable man than McCain, so he was kind of stuck in nowhere land
in the middle.
In contrast to the remarkable spectacle of Donald Trump, of all people, evolving into an insightful
critic of the conventional wisdom of the zeitgeist , Hillary's big intellectual breakthrough
in 2016 was realizing how much she really hates people who don't vote for her due to their
irredeemable deplorableness.
That doesn't mean, however, the details will necessarily work together for Trump. For example,
industrial protectionism was likely pretty good for America on the whole during the "infant industries"
era (to quote the non-rap Alexander Hamilton). But you didn't really want to see how the sausage
is made. Tariff battles in Congress tended to gross out everybody who wasn't a hired lobbyist or
wardheeler.
Jerry Pournelle has proposed a modest tariff (e.g., 10%) on everything, no exceptions, as a way
around the corruption problem. Of course, that's the opposite approach to Trump's Art of the Deal
inclinations.
"... He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors, the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary." ..."
"... "She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another lesser of two evils, there's no point." ..."
Just a few days before the general election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham
Clinton and her running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) still can't unite her party. Supporters of
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic primary rival, are disrupting her campaign's
efforts to take on GOP nominee Donald J. Trump, and in Iowa on Saturday one prominent Sanders
backer was actually escorted out of a Clinton campaign event for urging those present not to vote
for Clinton-for which he was cheered by the crowd.
Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of Iowa State University's Students for Bernie chapter, bashed
Hillary Clinton and told rally-goers at her own campaign event not to vote for her. He was
cheered.
He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly
turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care
about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors,
the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman
Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good
friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary."
The crowd at the Clinton-Kaine event erupted in applause.
"She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what
it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another
lesser of two evils, there's no point."
At that point, a Clinton staffer rushed on stage and grabbed the young man by the arm to
escort him off the stage and out of the event.
Pretty good Trump ad tying together his themes of Hillary's corruption and globalism. Rather than
just attack Hillary over idiosyncratic scandals, he's pulling together the threads of how Hillary's
ideology and self-interest support each other.
It's funny how Trump is developing a more coherent big picture framework.
My recollection of Romney's campaign is that he generally lacked an intellectual framework for
tying together his a la carte issues.
With McCain, he had Invade the World / Invite the World. Sure, it doesn't make much sense, but
at least it's an ethos.
Romney, though, was a more reasonable man than McCain, so he was kind of stuck in nowhere land
in the middle.
In contrast to the remarkable spectacle of Donald Trump, of all people, evolving into an insightful
critic of the conventional wisdom of the zeitgeist , Hillary's big intellectual breakthrough
in 2016 was realizing how much she really hates people who don't vote for her due to their
irredeemable deplorableness.
That doesn't mean, however, the details will necessarily work together for Trump. For example,
industrial protectionism was likely pretty good for America on the whole during the "infant industries"
era (to quote the non-rap Alexander Hamilton). But you didn't really want to see how the sausage
is made. Tariff battles in Congress tended to gross out everybody who wasn't a hired lobbyist or
wardheeler.
Jerry Pournelle has proposed a modest tariff (e.g., 10%) on everything, no exceptions, as a way
around the corruption problem. Of course, that's the opposite approach to Trump's Art of the Deal
inclinations.
"... He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors, the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary." ..."
"... "She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another lesser of two evils, there's no point." ..."
Just a few days before the general election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham
Clinton and her running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) still can't unite her party. Supporters of
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic primary rival, are disrupting her campaign's
efforts to take on GOP nominee Donald J. Trump, and in Iowa on Saturday one prominent Sanders
backer was actually escorted out of a Clinton campaign event for urging those present not to vote
for Clinton-for which he was cheered by the crowd.
Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of Iowa State University's Students for Bernie chapter, bashed
Hillary Clinton and told rally-goers at her own campaign event not to vote for her. He was
cheered.
He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly
turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care
about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors,
the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman
Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good
friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary."
The crowd at the Clinton-Kaine event erupted in applause.
"She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what
it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another
lesser of two evils, there's no point."
At that point, a Clinton staffer rushed on stage and grabbed the young man by the arm to
escort him off the stage and out of the event.
Wall Street and the Pentagon greeted the onset of 2016 as a 'banner year', a glorious turning
point in the quest for malleable regimes willing to sell-off the most lucrative economic resources,
to sign off on onerous new debt to Wall Street and to grant use of their strategic military bases
to the Pentagon.
Brazil and Argentina, the most powerful and richest countries in South America and the Philippines,
Washington's most strategic military platform in Southeast Asia, were the objects of intense US political
operations in the run-up to 2016.
In each instance, Wall Street and the Pentagon secured smashing successes leading to premature
ejaculations over the 'new golden era' of financial pillage and unfettered military adventures. Unfortunately,
the early ecstasy has turned to agony: Wall Street made easy entries and even faster departures once
the 'honeymoon' gave way to reality. ; The political procurers persecuted center-left incumbents
but, were soon to have their turn facing prosecution. The political prostitutes, who had decreed
the sale of sovereignty, were replaced by nationalists who would turn the bordello back into a sovereign
nation state.
This essay outlines the rapid rise and dramatic demise of these erstwhile 'progeny' of Wall Street
and the Pentagon in Argentina and Brazil, and then reviews Washington's shock and awe as the newly
elected Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte embraced new ties with China while proclaiming, 'We
are no one's 'tuta' (puppy dog)!'
Argentina and Brazil: Grandiose Schemes and Crapulous Outcomes
The international financial press was ecstatic over the election of President Mauricio Macri in
Argentina and the appointment of former Wall Street bankers to his cabinet. They celebrated the ouster
of the 'evil populists', accusing them of inflating economic results, reneging on debt obligations
and discouraging foreign lenders and investors. Under the Macri regime all market obstacles were
to be removed and all the bankers trembled with anticipation at the 'good times' to come.
After taking office in December 2015, President Macri unleashed the 'animal instincts' of the
market and the carrion birds flocked in. US 'vulture funds' scooped up and demanded payment for on
old Argentine debt 'valued' at $3.5 billion – constituting a 1,000% return on their initial investment.
A devaluation of the peso of 50% tripled inflation and drove down wages by 20%.
Firing over 200,000 public sector employees, slapping 400% price increases on utilities and transport,
driving small and medium size firms into bankruptcy and enraged consumers into the streets ended
the honeymoon with the Argentine electorate quite abruptly. This initial massive dose of free enterprise
'medicine' was prescribed by the local and Wall Street bankers and investors who had promised a new
golden era for capitalism!
Now that he had banished the 'populists', Macri was free to tap into the international financial
markets. Argentina raised $16.5 billion from a bond sale taken up by the big bankers and speculators,
mostly from Wall Street, who were eager to cash in on the high rates in the belief that there was
no risk with their champion President Macri at the helm. Wall Street based its giddy predictions
on a mere three-month experience with Mauricio!
But then… some of the hedge fund managers began to raise questions about the viability of Mauricio
Macri's presidency. Instead of reducing the fiscal deficit, Macri began to increase public spending
to offset mass discontent over his triple digit increases in utility fees and transportation, the
mass layoffs in the public sector and the slashing of pension funds.
The major banks had counted on the abrupt devaluation of the currency to invest in the export
sector, but instead they were confronted with a sudden 11% appreciation of the peso and a skyrocketing
inflation of 40% leading to high interest rates. As a result, the economy fell even deeper in recession
exceeding minus 3% for the year.
While most Wall Street bankers still retain some faith in the Macri regime, they are not willing
to fork-over the kind of cash that might allow this increasingly unpopular regime to survive. What
keep Wall Street on board the sinking ship are the political and ideological commitments rather than
any objective assessment of their protégée's dismal economic performance. Wall Street counts on free
market bankers appointed to the ministries, the massive purge of social services (health and education)
personnel and the lucrative bond sales to cover the burgeoning deficit. They hope the vast increase
in profits resulting from increased utility fees and the sharp cuts in salaries, pensions and subsidies
will ultimately lead them into the promised land.
Wall Street has expressed dismay over Macri's failure to stimulate growth – in fact GDP is falling.
Furthermore, their 'golden boy' failed to attract productive investments. Instead thousands of Argentine
small and medium businesses have 'gone under' as consumer spending tanked and extortionate tariffs
were slapped on vital public utilities and transport – devastating profits. Inflation has undermined
the purchasing power of the vast majority of households. Wall Street speculators, concentrating on
fixed-rate peso denominated debt, are at risk of losing their shirts.
In other words, the administration's 'free enterprise' regime is based largely on attracting foreign
loans, plundering the national treasury, firing tens of thousands of public sector workers and slashing
spending on social services and business-friendly subsidies. Macri has yet to generate any large-scale
investment in new innovative productive sectors, which might sustain long-term growth.
Already facing growing discontent and a general strike of private and public sector workers, the
'bankers' regime' lacks the political links with the trade unions to neutralize the growing opposition.
ORDER IT NOW
To hold back the growing tidal wave of discontent, President Macri had to betray his overseas
investors by boosting fiscal spending, which has had little or no impact on the national economy.
Wall Street's hopes that President Mauricio Macri would inaugurate a 'golden era' of free market
capitalism lasted less than a year and is turning into a real fiasco. Rising foreign debt, economic
depression and class warfare ensures Macri's rapid demise.
Brazil: Wall Street's Three Month 'Whirl-Wind' Honeymoon
Most of the current elected members of the Brazilian Congress, Senate and the recently-installed
(rather than elected) President, as well as his cabinet, are in trouble: The hero, Michael Temer
and his argonauts, chosen by Wall Street to privatize the Brazilian economy and usher in another
'golden dawn' for finance capital, now all face criminal changes, arrest and long prison sentences
for money laundering, bribery, fraud, tax evasion and corruption.
In less than four months, the entire political edifice constructed to impeach the elected President
Dilma Rousseff and then de-nationalize key sectors of the economy, is shaking. So much for the financial
press's proclamation of a new era of "business friendly" policies in Brazilia.
The pundits, politicians, journalists and editors, who prematurely celebrated the appointment
of Michael Temer to the Presidency by legislative coup, now have to face a new reality. The key to
understanding the rapid collapse of the New Right project in Brazil lies in the growing 'rap sheets'
of the very same politicians who engineered the ouster of Rousseff.
Eduardo Cunha, the ex-president of the Congress in Brasilia, used his influence to ensure the
super majority of Congressional votes for the impeachment. Cunha was godfather to ensuring the appointment
of Michael Temer as interim president.
Cunha's influence and control over the Congress was based on his wide network of bribes and corruption
involving over a hundred members of congress, including the newly anointed President Temer.
Once Cunha secured the ouster of Rousseff, the Brazilian elite washed their collective hands of
the 'fixer', overwhelmed by the stench of his corruption. In September 2016, Cunha was suspended
from Congress and lost his immunity. One month later, he was arrested on over a dozen charges, including
fraud and tax evasion. It was public knowledge that Cunha had squirreled away a 'tidy nest' of over
$70 million in Swiss banks.
Cunha directed (extorted) public and private firms to finance the campaigns of many of his political
colleagues. He had intervened to secure bribes for President Temer, his foreign minister and even
the next presidential hopeful, Jose Serra. One of the most powerful representatives of the new regime,
Moreira Franco, Grand Wizard of the Privatization Program, was 'in hock' to Cunha.
As all this has come to light, Cunha has been negotiating a plea bargain with the prosecutor and
judges in return for his 'singing' a few arias. He is facing over a hundred years in jail; his wife
and daughter face trial; Eduardo Cunha is prepared to talk and finger political leaders to save his
own neck. Most knowledgeable observers and judicial experts fully expect Cunha to bring down the
Temer Administration with him and devastate the leadership of Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement
Party, as well as ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Brazilian Social Democratic Party.
The Brazilian elite, Wall Street bankers and their mass media propagandists, who wrote and directed
the impeachment plot scenario are now discredited and bereft of political front men. Their expectations
of a new 'golden era of free market capitalism' in Brazil has turned into a political mad scramble
with every politico and corporate leader desperate to save his own skin and illicit fortune by denouncing
each other.
With the demise of the 'Brazilian takeover', Wall Street and Washington are bereft of key markets
and allies in Latin America.
The Philippines: The Duterte turn from the US to China
In April 2014, Washington 'secured' an agreement granting access to five strategic military bases
in the Philippines critical to its 'pivot to target' China. Under the outgoing President 'Noynoy'
Aquino, Jr. the Pentagon believed it had an 'iron-clad' agreement to organize the Philippines as
its satrap and military springboard throughout Southeast Asia. Washington even prodded the Aquino
government to bring its Spratly Island dispute with China before the obscure Permanent Court of Arbitration
in the Hague. Washington anticipated using the Court's 'favorable' ruling as a pretext to confront
the Chinese.
All this has changed with the June 2016 ascent to the Presidency of Rodrigo Duterte: In only four
months, all Washington's imperial designs had been swept off the table. By October 21, 2016 President
Duterte announced he would end military exercises with Washington because they threatened Philippine
sovereignty and made his country vulnerable to a military confrontation with China. He promised to
end sea patrols of disputed waters that the US uses to harass China in the South China Sea.
In advance of the Philippines President's meeting with China, he had already declared that he
would not press the Dutch-based ruling over the South China Sea island dispute against Beijing but
rely on diplomacy and compromise. During the China meeting President Duterte declared that the two
countries would engage in a constructive dialogue to resolve the Spratly Islands as well as other
outstanding issues. The 'agreement' over US access to bases in the Philippines was put in doubt as
the President declared "a separation from the US" and promised long-term, large scale economic and
investment ties with China. Undergirding the Philippines pivot to China were 13 trade and investment
agreements worth more than $20 billion, covering financing of infrastructure, transport, social projects,
tourism, industry and agriculture.
The military base agreement, signed by the notoriously servile ex-President Aquino without Congressional
approval, was review by the Philippine Supreme Court and can be revoked by the new President Duterte
by decree.
Inside of four months, the US strategy of armed encirclement and intervention against China has
been dealt a major blow. The newly emerging China-Philippines linkage strikes a fatal blow to Washington's
overtly militarist 'pivot' against China.
Conclusion
2016 opened with great fanfare: The defeat of the two major center-left governments (Argentina
and Brazil) and the advent of hard-right US-backed regimes would inaugurate a 'golden era of free
market capitalism'. This promised to usher in a prolonged period of profit and pillage by rolling
back 'populist' reforms and creating a bankers paradise. In Southeast Asia, US officials and pundits
would proclaim another 'golden era', this time of rampant militarism, encircling and provoking China
on its vital sea lanes, and operating from five strategic military bases obtained through a Philippine
Presidential decree by an unpopular and recently replaced puppet, 'Noynoy' Aquino, Jr.
These dreams of 'golden eras' lasted a few months before objective reality intruded.
By the autumn of 2016 the rightist regimes had been replaced in the Manila by a colorful ardent
nationalist, while the 'banker boys' in Brasilia faced prison, and the 'Golden Boys' of Buenos Aires
were mired in deep crisis. The notion of an easy Rightist restoration was based on several profound
misunderstandings:
The belief that the reversal of social reforms and denial of popular demands would smoothly
give way to an explosion of foreign financing and investment was shattered when private bond purchases
profited the financial sector but did not bring in large-scale productive investment. Devaluation
of the currency was followed by skyrocketing inflation, which led to fiscal deficits and the loss
of business confidence.
Washington's promotion of 'corruption investigations' started with prosecuting democratically
elected center-left politicians and ended up with the arrest of Wall Street's own protégés encompassing
the entire right-wing political class and decimating the 'Golden' regimes.
The belief that long-term hegemonic relations, based on client regimes in Asia, could resist
the attraction of signing trade and investment agreements with the rising Chinese mega-economy,
while sacrificing vital economic development, and relegating their masses to more stagnation and
unemployment, collapsed with the massive electoral of nationalist Rodrigo Duterte as President
of the Philippines.
In fact, these and other political assessments among the decision makers in Washington and on
Wall Street were proven wrong leading to a strategic retreat of the empire in both Latin America
and Asia. The policy failures were not merely 'mistakes' but the inevitable results of changing structural
conditions embedded in a declining empire.
These decisions were based on a calculus of power, rooted in class and national relations that
may have held true two decades ago. At the dawn of the new millennium the US still dominated Asia
and China was not yet an economic alternative for its neighbors eager for investment. Washington
could and did dictate policy in Southeast Asia.
Twenty years ago, the US had the economic leverage to sustain the neoliberal policies of the Washington
Consensus throughout Latin America.
Today the US continues to pursue policies based on anachronistic power relations, seeming to ignore
the fact that China is now a world power and a viable economic trade and investment alternative successfully
competing for markets and influence in Asia. Washington is failing to compete in that marketplace
and, therefore, can no longer rely on docile client state.
Washington cannot effectively control and direct large-scale capital flows to shore-up its newly
installed rightist regimes in Argentina and Brazil as they crumble under their own corruption and
incompetence. Meanwhile the world is watching a domestic US economy, mired in stagnation with its
own political elites torn by corruption and scandals at the highest level, and staging the most bizarre
presidential campaign in its history. Corruption has become the mode of governing under conditions
of deregulation and rule by political warlords. Political allegiance to the empire and open doors
to foreign pillage do not attract capital when those making political decisions are facing prison
and the business 'doormen' are busy stuffing their suitcases with cash and making a mad-dash for
the airports!
For Wall Street and the Pentagon, Latin America and Asia are lost opportunities – betrayals to
be mourned at the officers clubs and exclusive Manhattan restaurants. For the people in mass social
movements these are emerging opportunities for struggle and change.
The strenuous US effort to rebuild its empire in Latin America and Southeast Asia has suffered
a rapid succession of blows. Washington can still seize power but it lacks the talent and the favorable
conditions to hold it.
The vision of a Brazilian state, build on the edifice of the privatized oil giant, Petrobras,
and the political incarceration of its left adversaries, with foreign capital attracted and seduced
by political procurers, pimps and prostitutes, has ended in a debacle.
In this vacuum, it will be up to the new governments and peoples' movements to seize the opportunity
to advance their struggles and explore political and economic alternatives. The aborted rightist
power grab inadvertently has done the peoples' movements a great favor by exposing and ousting the
corrupt and compromised center-left regimes opening the door for a genuine anti-imperialist transformation.
Wall Street and the Pentagon greeted the onset of 2016 as a 'banner year', a glorious turning
point in the quest for malleable regimes willing to sell-off the most lucrative economic resources,
to sign off on onerous new debt to Wall Street and to grant use of their strategic military bases
to the Pentagon.
Brazil and Argentina, the most powerful and richest countries in South America and the Philippines,
Washington's most strategic military platform in Southeast Asia, were the objects of intense US political
operations in the run-up to 2016.
In each instance, Wall Street and the Pentagon secured smashing successes leading to premature
ejaculations over the 'new golden era' of financial pillage and unfettered military adventures. Unfortunately,
the early ecstasy has turned to agony: Wall Street made easy entries and even faster departures once
the 'honeymoon' gave way to reality. ; The political procurers persecuted center-left incumbents
but, were soon to have their turn facing prosecution. The political prostitutes, who had decreed
the sale of sovereignty, were replaced by nationalists who would turn the bordello back into a sovereign
nation state.
This essay outlines the rapid rise and dramatic demise of these erstwhile 'progeny' of Wall Street
and the Pentagon in Argentina and Brazil, and then reviews Washington's shock and awe as the newly
elected Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte embraced new ties with China while proclaiming, 'We
are no one's 'tuta' (puppy dog)!'
Argentina and Brazil: Grandiose Schemes and Crapulous Outcomes
The international financial press was ecstatic over the election of President Mauricio Macri in
Argentina and the appointment of former Wall Street bankers to his cabinet. They celebrated the ouster
of the 'evil populists', accusing them of inflating economic results, reneging on debt obligations
and discouraging foreign lenders and investors. Under the Macri regime all market obstacles were
to be removed and all the bankers trembled with anticipation at the 'good times' to come.
After taking office in December 2015, President Macri unleashed the 'animal instincts' of the
market and the carrion birds flocked in. US 'vulture funds' scooped up and demanded payment for on
old Argentine debt 'valued' at $3.5 billion – constituting a 1,000% return on their initial investment.
A devaluation of the peso of 50% tripled inflation and drove down wages by 20%.
Firing over 200,000 public sector employees, slapping 400% price increases on utilities and transport,
driving small and medium size firms into bankruptcy and enraged consumers into the streets ended
the honeymoon with the Argentine electorate quite abruptly. This initial massive dose of free enterprise
'medicine' was prescribed by the local and Wall Street bankers and investors who had promised a new
golden era for capitalism!
Now that he had banished the 'populists', Macri was free to tap into the international financial
markets. Argentina raised $16.5 billion from a bond sale taken up by the big bankers and speculators,
mostly from Wall Street, who were eager to cash in on the high rates in the belief that there was
no risk with their champion President Macri at the helm. Wall Street based its giddy predictions
on a mere three-month experience with Mauricio!
But then… some of the hedge fund managers began to raise questions about the viability of Mauricio
Macri's presidency. Instead of reducing the fiscal deficit, Macri began to increase public spending
to offset mass discontent over his triple digit increases in utility fees and transportation, the
mass layoffs in the public sector and the slashing of pension funds.
The major banks had counted on the abrupt devaluation of the currency to invest in the export
sector, but instead they were confronted with a sudden 11% appreciation of the peso and a skyrocketing
inflation of 40% leading to high interest rates. As a result, the economy fell even deeper in recession
exceeding minus 3% for the year.
While most Wall Street bankers still retain some faith in the Macri regime, they are not willing
to fork-over the kind of cash that might allow this increasingly unpopular regime to survive. What
keep Wall Street on board the sinking ship are the political and ideological commitments rather than
any objective assessment of their protégée's dismal economic performance. Wall Street counts on free
market bankers appointed to the ministries, the massive purge of social services (health and education)
personnel and the lucrative bond sales to cover the burgeoning deficit. They hope the vast increase
in profits resulting from increased utility fees and the sharp cuts in salaries, pensions and subsidies
will ultimately lead them into the promised land.
Wall Street has expressed dismay over Macri's failure to stimulate growth – in fact GDP is falling.
Furthermore, their 'golden boy' failed to attract productive investments. Instead thousands of Argentine
small and medium businesses have 'gone under' as consumer spending tanked and extortionate tariffs
were slapped on vital public utilities and transport – devastating profits. Inflation has undermined
the purchasing power of the vast majority of households. Wall Street speculators, concentrating on
fixed-rate peso denominated debt, are at risk of losing their shirts.
In other words, the administration's 'free enterprise' regime is based largely on attracting foreign
loans, plundering the national treasury, firing tens of thousands of public sector workers and slashing
spending on social services and business-friendly subsidies. Macri has yet to generate any large-scale
investment in new innovative productive sectors, which might sustain long-term growth.
Already facing growing discontent and a general strike of private and public sector workers, the
'bankers' regime' lacks the political links with the trade unions to neutralize the growing opposition.
ORDER IT NOW
To hold back the growing tidal wave of discontent, President Macri had to betray his overseas
investors by boosting fiscal spending, which has had little or no impact on the national economy.
Wall Street's hopes that President Mauricio Macri would inaugurate a 'golden era' of free market
capitalism lasted less than a year and is turning into a real fiasco. Rising foreign debt, economic
depression and class warfare ensures Macri's rapid demise.
Brazil: Wall Street's Three Month 'Whirl-Wind' Honeymoon
Most of the current elected members of the Brazilian Congress, Senate and the recently-installed
(rather than elected) President, as well as his cabinet, are in trouble: The hero, Michael Temer
and his argonauts, chosen by Wall Street to privatize the Brazilian economy and usher in another
'golden dawn' for finance capital, now all face criminal changes, arrest and long prison sentences
for money laundering, bribery, fraud, tax evasion and corruption.
In less than four months, the entire political edifice constructed to impeach the elected President
Dilma Rousseff and then de-nationalize key sectors of the economy, is shaking. So much for the financial
press's proclamation of a new era of "business friendly" policies in Brazilia.
The pundits, politicians, journalists and editors, who prematurely celebrated the appointment
of Michael Temer to the Presidency by legislative coup, now have to face a new reality. The key to
understanding the rapid collapse of the New Right project in Brazil lies in the growing 'rap sheets'
of the very same politicians who engineered the ouster of Rousseff.
Eduardo Cunha, the ex-president of the Congress in Brasilia, used his influence to ensure the
super majority of Congressional votes for the impeachment. Cunha was godfather to ensuring the appointment
of Michael Temer as interim president.
Cunha's influence and control over the Congress was based on his wide network of bribes and corruption
involving over a hundred members of congress, including the newly anointed President Temer.
Once Cunha secured the ouster of Rousseff, the Brazilian elite washed their collective hands of
the 'fixer', overwhelmed by the stench of his corruption. In September 2016, Cunha was suspended
from Congress and lost his immunity. One month later, he was arrested on over a dozen charges, including
fraud and tax evasion. It was public knowledge that Cunha had squirreled away a 'tidy nest' of over
$70 million in Swiss banks.
Cunha directed (extorted) public and private firms to finance the campaigns of many of his political
colleagues. He had intervened to secure bribes for President Temer, his foreign minister and even
the next presidential hopeful, Jose Serra. One of the most powerful representatives of the new regime,
Moreira Franco, Grand Wizard of the Privatization Program, was 'in hock' to Cunha.
As all this has come to light, Cunha has been negotiating a plea bargain with the prosecutor and
judges in return for his 'singing' a few arias. He is facing over a hundred years in jail; his wife
and daughter face trial; Eduardo Cunha is prepared to talk and finger political leaders to save his
own neck. Most knowledgeable observers and judicial experts fully expect Cunha to bring down the
Temer Administration with him and devastate the leadership of Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement
Party, as well as ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's Brazilian Social Democratic Party.
The Brazilian elite, Wall Street bankers and their mass media propagandists, who wrote and directed
the impeachment plot scenario are now discredited and bereft of political front men. Their expectations
of a new 'golden era of free market capitalism' in Brazil has turned into a political mad scramble
with every politico and corporate leader desperate to save his own skin and illicit fortune by denouncing
each other.
With the demise of the 'Brazilian takeover', Wall Street and Washington are bereft of key markets
and allies in Latin America.
The Philippines: The Duterte turn from the US to China
In April 2014, Washington 'secured' an agreement granting access to five strategic military bases
in the Philippines critical to its 'pivot to target' China. Under the outgoing President 'Noynoy'
Aquino, Jr. the Pentagon believed it had an 'iron-clad' agreement to organize the Philippines as
its satrap and military springboard throughout Southeast Asia. Washington even prodded the Aquino
government to bring its Spratly Island dispute with China before the obscure Permanent Court of Arbitration
in the Hague. Washington anticipated using the Court's 'favorable' ruling as a pretext to confront
the Chinese.
All this has changed with the June 2016 ascent to the Presidency of Rodrigo Duterte: In only four
months, all Washington's imperial designs had been swept off the table. By October 21, 2016 President
Duterte announced he would end military exercises with Washington because they threatened Philippine
sovereignty and made his country vulnerable to a military confrontation with China. He promised to
end sea patrols of disputed waters that the US uses to harass China in the South China Sea.
In advance of the Philippines President's meeting with China, he had already declared that he
would not press the Dutch-based ruling over the South China Sea island dispute against Beijing but
rely on diplomacy and compromise. During the China meeting President Duterte declared that the two
countries would engage in a constructive dialogue to resolve the Spratly Islands as well as other
outstanding issues. The 'agreement' over US access to bases in the Philippines was put in doubt as
the President declared "a separation from the US" and promised long-term, large scale economic and
investment ties with China. Undergirding the Philippines pivot to China were 13 trade and investment
agreements worth more than $20 billion, covering financing of infrastructure, transport, social projects,
tourism, industry and agriculture.
The military base agreement, signed by the notoriously servile ex-President Aquino without Congressional
approval, was review by the Philippine Supreme Court and can be revoked by the new President Duterte
by decree.
Inside of four months, the US strategy of armed encirclement and intervention against China has
been dealt a major blow. The newly emerging China-Philippines linkage strikes a fatal blow to Washington's
overtly militarist 'pivot' against China.
Conclusion
2016 opened with great fanfare: The defeat of the two major center-left governments (Argentina
and Brazil) and the advent of hard-right US-backed regimes would inaugurate a 'golden era of free
market capitalism'. This promised to usher in a prolonged period of profit and pillage by rolling
back 'populist' reforms and creating a bankers paradise. In Southeast Asia, US officials and pundits
would proclaim another 'golden era', this time of rampant militarism, encircling and provoking China
on its vital sea lanes, and operating from five strategic military bases obtained through a Philippine
Presidential decree by an unpopular and recently replaced puppet, 'Noynoy' Aquino, Jr.
These dreams of 'golden eras' lasted a few months before objective reality intruded.
By the autumn of 2016 the rightist regimes had been replaced in the Manila by a colorful ardent
nationalist, while the 'banker boys' in Brasilia faced prison, and the 'Golden Boys' of Buenos Aires
were mired in deep crisis. The notion of an easy Rightist restoration was based on several profound
misunderstandings:
The belief that the reversal of social reforms and denial of popular demands would smoothly
give way to an explosion of foreign financing and investment was shattered when private bond purchases
profited the financial sector but did not bring in large-scale productive investment. Devaluation
of the currency was followed by skyrocketing inflation, which led to fiscal deficits and the loss
of business confidence.
Washington's promotion of 'corruption investigations' started with prosecuting democratically
elected center-left politicians and ended up with the arrest of Wall Street's own protégés encompassing
the entire right-wing political class and decimating the 'Golden' regimes.
The belief that long-term hegemonic relations, based on client regimes in Asia, could resist
the attraction of signing trade and investment agreements with the rising Chinese mega-economy,
while sacrificing vital economic development, and relegating their masses to more stagnation and
unemployment, collapsed with the massive electoral of nationalist Rodrigo Duterte as President
of the Philippines.
In fact, these and other political assessments among the decision makers in Washington and on
Wall Street were proven wrong leading to a strategic retreat of the empire in both Latin America
and Asia. The policy failures were not merely 'mistakes' but the inevitable results of changing structural
conditions embedded in a declining empire.
These decisions were based on a calculus of power, rooted in class and national relations that
may have held true two decades ago. At the dawn of the new millennium the US still dominated Asia
and China was not yet an economic alternative for its neighbors eager for investment. Washington
could and did dictate policy in Southeast Asia.
Twenty years ago, the US had the economic leverage to sustain the neoliberal policies of the Washington
Consensus throughout Latin America.
Today the US continues to pursue policies based on anachronistic power relations, seeming to ignore
the fact that China is now a world power and a viable economic trade and investment alternative successfully
competing for markets and influence in Asia. Washington is failing to compete in that marketplace
and, therefore, can no longer rely on docile client state.
Washington cannot effectively control and direct large-scale capital flows to shore-up its newly
installed rightist regimes in Argentina and Brazil as they crumble under their own corruption and
incompetence. Meanwhile the world is watching a domestic US economy, mired in stagnation with its
own political elites torn by corruption and scandals at the highest level, and staging the most bizarre
presidential campaign in its history. Corruption has become the mode of governing under conditions
of deregulation and rule by political warlords. Political allegiance to the empire and open doors
to foreign pillage do not attract capital when those making political decisions are facing prison
and the business 'doormen' are busy stuffing their suitcases with cash and making a mad-dash for
the airports!
For Wall Street and the Pentagon, Latin America and Asia are lost opportunities – betrayals to
be mourned at the officers clubs and exclusive Manhattan restaurants. For the people in mass social
movements these are emerging opportunities for struggle and change.
The strenuous US effort to rebuild its empire in Latin America and Southeast Asia has suffered
a rapid succession of blows. Washington can still seize power but it lacks the talent and the favorable
conditions to hold it.
The vision of a Brazilian state, build on the edifice of the privatized oil giant, Petrobras,
and the political incarceration of its left adversaries, with foreign capital attracted and seduced
by political procurers, pimps and prostitutes, has ended in a debacle.
In this vacuum, it will be up to the new governments and peoples' movements to seize the opportunity
to advance their struggles and explore political and economic alternatives. The aborted rightist
power grab inadvertently has done the peoples' movements a great favor by exposing and ousting the
corrupt and compromised center-left regimes opening the door for a genuine anti-imperialist transformation.
For the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a
reexamination of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United
States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates
the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report
on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate
key players like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite
of considerable evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced
back in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11
and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change
is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at
least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
Loose Change
describes how leading hawkish
Republicans were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country
would be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American
Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something,"
that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document
wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11.
Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include
the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality.
In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives.
This is, I believe,
the strength of
Loose Change
as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch
Loose Change
as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy.
After watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge
from any examination of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by
every White House since 2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into
9/11 a lie, a conclusion that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has
seen an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but
there are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence
agencies, and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror
largesse coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State,
which controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am
now convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself.
If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly
set up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such
a powerful reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so
gravely damaged our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place,
but it is at least something to hope for.
NosytheDuke, October 25, 2016 at 4:36 am GMT • 100 Words
Only by constantly repeating to all and sundry the blatant falsehoods, frauds and meddling
that are evident which absolutely contradict the official narrative of what happened can a tipping
point be reached and the demands for a new, open and independent investigation be the unavoidable
topic in political and social life.
Only after a new, open and independent investigation and a ruthless holding to account of those
responsible has taken place can America go about its business of being great because it is good.
Good luck with that.
3.MarkinLA, October 25, 2016 at 4:39 am GMT • 200 Words
Remember Korean Air flight 007. At that time the conspiracy theory was that the US and South
Korean governments got the pilot to invade Soviet air space while the Space Shuttle was in the
vicinity along with the electronic surveillance plane that crossed KAL007′s path in order to light
up USSR air defenses and collect data.
Whether it was true or not, the Reagan administration used it to vilify the USSR and push it's
hawkish agenda.
9/11 doesn't have to have been done by the government for Deep State entities to take advantage.
Any preplanning of what to do afterward could also be explained by them knowing what was going
to happen (ala Pearl Harbor) and letting it happen. There were plenty of intelligence reports
in the commission proceedings that have indicated something was up but not acted upon. They didn't
have an admiral they could blame like they did at Pearl so the whole system was blamed which made
expanding the security apparatus so much easier.
Too few people know, that the New York Times itself, a few weeks before the NYC towers fell,
photographed 'Israeli art students' (!) working in-between the walls of the those towers, amidst
stacks of boxes with certain markings which … identify the box contents as components of bomb
detonators
World Trade Center's Infamous
91st-Floor Israeli 'Art Student' Project
Also, too few people know that Osama Bin Laden himself denied being involved in the 11 Sep.
2001 NYC towers destruction, & that the 'Osama Bin Laden' videos & tapes shown for several years
afterwards, are clearly-proven fakes with actors
The claimed discoverer of those 'bin Laden' videos & tapes – allegedly scouring the 'Jihadi
YouTubes' for material no one else 'finds' – is Israeli-American Rita Katz of the laughable 'SITE'
– 'Search for International Terrorist Entities'
Dissident US military-intel veterans tell us:
" The truth about [Osama] Bin Laden, that his last known communication was December 3rd, 2001,
received by the CIA / NSA intercept facility in Doha, in which he accused American Neocons of
staging 9-11.
" This was less than two weeks before his death, as reported in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Iran
and even by Fox News, until Rita Katz brought him back to life in the guise of a Mercedes repair
shop owner of Somali parentage living in Haifa, Israel.
" The new short, fat Bin Laden, who lost his ability to speak Oxford English, continued to
drop audio tapes in the dumpster behind Katz's Brooklyn apartment for years, until his frozen
corpse was dumped into the Indian Ocean. "
- Gordon Duff, Veterans Today
Hans Vogel,
October 25, 2016 at 9:07 am GMT
If I recall correctly, it was Thierry Meyssan who in 2002 in his book La terrible imposture
first suggested that 9/11 was a coup. John Kerry's brother-in-law Sarkozy later forced Meyssan
into exile, because he was becoming a nuisance to the US and their French puppets.
Rehmat, October 25, 2016 at 12:35 pm GMT • 200 Words
Dr. Giraldi is missing the point. While Washington and Zionist-controlled mainstream media
had blamed the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran, and lately Saudi Arabia – they never mentioned the 800-pound
Gorilla – the Zionist regime.
The most vilified person had been head of Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul,
who pointed his finger to Israel Mossad two weeks after the 9/11 – even before media ridiculously
blamed Osama Bin Laden in order to invade and occupy Afghanistan – a country which did not had
a single tank, helicopter, fighter jet or even a commercial plane to defend itself from the so-called
ONLY WORLD POWER.
Hamid Gul's claim on September 26, 2001, is now supported by thousands of scientists, scholars,
politicians, architects and even a Jewish member of the so-called 9/11 COMISSION, Philip Zelikow
(Zionist Jew) admitted in 2004 that America invaded Iraq in 2003 because Saddam Hussein became
an existential threat to the Zionist entity.
In December 2001, US historian Michael Collins Piper claimed that the so-called "19 Arab hijackers"
could have been Israeli agents.
On September 10, 2016, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts posted an article, entitled, 9/11: 15 years of
a transparent lie.
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Diogenes,
October 25, 2016 at 2:24 pm GMT
9/11 was an amazing sociological event for what it can tell us about human psychology. The
vast majority of people uncritically swallowed the official explanation, a few critical observers
cast suspicions on the official story, then a group of chronically suspicious people, known as
conspiracy theorists, who believe the government cannot be trusted had a cause celebre, then a
group of anti conspiracy theorists and pro-government reactionaries devoted their energies to
discredit the 9/11 Truthers while the vast majority of people are as a result confused and paralyzed
into indecision and apathy. I will take note of who in these comments are 9/11 naysayers and observe
what they say about other controversial topics!
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or
at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
we now know that they set the Waco compound on fire, and that they were firing machine guns
into the only exit once the flames had engulfed the building. Bodies were piled up at the site
of the exit that the coroner ruled were homicide deaths from bullet wounds. Homicides that our
government committed. Most American yawn at such news. 'Those people (including the children)
were 'whackos'.
Recently our government has murdered or maimed or displaced millions upon millions of innocent
men, women and children in the Middle East, and destroyed several countries, all based on by now
well-established lies. Most Americans yawn at such knowledge. Those people 'hate our freedom'.
Our government is also running a permanent torture camp. A 'Ministry of Love', or Minluv, in
Orwell's Newspeak parlance.
The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was
needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being
an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior
positions in the Bush Administration.
the "something" that these neocon Zionists demanded from their "new Pearl Harbor like event"
was for America to set about destroying all Muslim nations considered inconvenient to Israel.
Without the 'event', Americans just were not willing to sacrifice their children to the Zionist
cause.
One of the central figures demanding that America act in Israel's interest was a one Phillip
D. Zelikow. A neocon insider extraordinaire.
This from his Wiki page:
In the November–December 1998 issue of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article Catastrophic
Terrorism, with
Ashton B. Carter
, and John M. Deutch, in which they speculated that if
the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, "the resulting horror and chaos would
have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed
event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime
and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United
States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance
of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either
future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders
negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently." [24]
Yes,
that
Ashton Carter, our current Secretary of Defense. And John Deutch was the director
of the CIA at one time. (perhaps Mr. Giraldi knows of him)
This Jewish neocon war mongering Zionist who called for a Peal Harbor like event to catalyze
Americans to go to war for Israel, ended up being the executive director of the 911 Commission.
The same 911 Commission that is universally recognized as a fraud and a cover up. Even by some
of the men who were on it.
I'm going to stop here. My head simply swims from the sheer evil of these people.
Miro23,
October 25, 2016 at 3:20 pm
@Fred Reed
A simpler 9/11 questionnaire for Fred;
"Did right wing elements in Israel close to Likud, and US Neocons close to the Bush administration
engineer the attacks to enable the Iraq war?" Yes____ No____ Don't know____
Essay question: Are there any similarities between these events and other False Flag attacks
aimed at Great Britain and the US such as 1) The King David Hotel bombing 2) Operation Susannah
– Lavon Affair 3) USS Liberty?
9/11 Family Members, Jersey Girls, and member of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee Lorie Van
Auken and Mindy Kleinberg released a report showing how poorly the 9/11 Commission answered their
questions:
The September Eleventh Advocates (Jersey Girls) have released a multitude of press releases
over the years bringing attention to and calling into question certain aspects of 9/11:
Here are the 9/11 Family Steering Committee's list of unanswered questions. The final statement
from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee states "the report did not answer all of our questions…":
Here are all of the different statements released by the 9/11 Family Steering Committee during
the time of the 9/11 Commission. They show extremely well the corruption and compromise within
the 9/11 Commission:
@Fred Reed
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making the
President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the two were
not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed, and
the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
no, Israel was also responsible
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
No, elements in the US gov and controlled media were also responsible
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se, but
elements
in those governments. Like "the orders still stand"
Dick Cheney, but certainly not all the assorted minions of the US or Israeli governments.
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se. If you restrict the question to this broadly defined blanket condemnation,
then the answer would be 'yes'.
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
there's zero reason for thinking so
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
at the highest levels, yes, but there again, that certainly doesn't mean every single employee
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
there's no evidence of it. And if it had, they'd show us one of the scores (hundreds?) of videos
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
the reason the flights were wildly diverted was probably to land the planes, liquidate the
passengers and crew, and then send up specially outfitted jets for the purpose of crashing into
the towers. (as the pretext for them to collapse, as the pretext to start the Eternal Wars for
Israel and to turn us all into Palestinians)
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
it looks like it
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know. And again, it wouldn't be "the military", as in some monolithic entity that is
fully aware of everything that "it' does. There are fringe sub-sets of the military that are often
engaged in illegal and covert ops.
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Don't know
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
what data?!
From what I understand, we have not been made privy to any of the information on any of the
flight data recorders. If you're aware of any data from the flight data recorders then you should
give us a link!
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
yes
it's *obvious* that building seven was thus demolished, and so it follows that the other two
were also.
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
two of them, yes. The third was not hit by a plane, it simply plopped down in nicely cut pieces
ready for shipment to China.
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
In all likelihood, remote control. Check out the comptroller of the Pentagon at the time and
his sundry organizations. Nice little rabbit hole of its own.
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
horror
they needed to horrify and anger the American people to rally us to war on Israel's neighbors.
(+ there was the added benefit to lucky Larry of a few billion shekels and an opportunity to get
rid of a couple of financial boondoggles. Such a deal!)
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
this is silly
we don't need to know the exact caliber of bullet that hit JFK to know that the government
and Warren commission was lying. And they likely used military type crap that we're not even privy
to. Come on Fred.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
elements, sure
like the people that went around and collected all the videos that might have showed what hit
the Pentagon. Certainly the people at the top were and are privy to the crime and cover up. Just
like with JFK.
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Yes, of course he was
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
not your local channel seven, but the media as it's controlled from the top, and lie about
EVERTYING. Yes Fred, that media was complicit. And still are. And are the ones that are going
to hand the reins of this nations to Hillary Clinton. That media, you betcha.
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
of course not. There again you're being silly Fred.
what America should do is the same thing is should (and still needs to) do as regards the other
cowardly and treacherous false flag that *elements* in the Israeli government and security forces
were responsible for- the attack on the USS Liberty. We should have a real investigation that
ferrets out these uber-criminals and brings them to justice.
911 was a coup to turn the US into Israel's rabid dog in the Levant. And create a police state
for any Americans that object, even with our very own torture camp. Isn't that something?
You should write about it someday Fred. I can't think of a person more suited to mock the American
idea of the free and the brave running a torture camp for goat herders and Afghans who don't want
America making them free too.
as for 911, all you have to know is that building seven was an obvious controlled demolition.
From there it doesn't matter if George Dubya Bush was in on it or what type of materials specifically
were used to bring the buildings down. That shit is all academic. We know they lied, and are lying.
Only a deluded fool or moral coward (or worse) would pretend to themselves otherwise once he's
seen the irrefutable evidence that they're lying.
There are multiple ways to engineer a "False Flag" attack:
1. You do it yourself, flying someone else's "flag" and hope no one notices. (Very primitive
… rarely works unless you are a wooden frigate at sea attacking enemy maritime commerce.)
2. You hire someone else to do it and hope none of them get caught. (Moderately primitive …
but it worked for awhile in the Kennedy assassination.)
3. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, take control, and redirect it to the attack.
(Very difficult to do … but this was done in the NATO-sponsored Gladio terrorist attacks in Europe
in the 1960s as well as the Black Hand attacks that precipitated WWI.)
4. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, discover what they have planned, and QUIETLY
remove all of YOUR obstacles that would otherwise have prevented the attack. (This is the best
if you can pull it off since you leave no fingerprints. You might, as in 911, be accused of incompetent
but, okay, you missed that one, so what!)
BTW: #4 doesn't mean you don't help the terrorists with a little demolition work to make sure
the spectacle unfolds as planned. You really need grand firework displays in these things to get
them the attention they deserve.
Si1ver1ock, October 25, 2016 at 5:04 pm GMT
For those just coming into the 911 Truth movement, you should probably look at the hard evidence
first to see if it merits further consideration. After that, you can go to he circumstantial evidence.
The question isn't whether this theory or that theory is absolutely correct. The question is whether
there is sufficient cause for a new investigation. I never hear a good argument from the anti-Truth
crowd as to why we shouldn't have another investigation.
We want a new investigation. They don't want one. Why?
Miro23, October 25, 2016 at 7:17 pm GMT
A key to instant identification of the faith-based C-theorist is the loud claim that
"steel-framed buildings" don't collapse as a result of fire. Fact is, yes they do - known,
verified, fully-explained using real, verifiable data.
Here's a list of steel framed high rises and other high rises that experienced major fires:
– One New York Plaza, New York. 50 stories steel. Dropped beams on 33rd & 34th floors.
– Alexis Nihon Plaza, Montreal. 15 stories steel. Partial collapse on 11th floor.
– Windsor Tower, Madrid. 29 stories steel/concrete. Partial collapse.
– One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia. 38 stories. No collapse.
– Broadgate Phase 8, London. 14 stories. No collapse.
– First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles. 62 stories. No collapse.
– MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas. 26 stories. No collapse.
– Joelma Building, Sao Paulo. 25 stories. No collapse.
– Andraus Building, Sao Paulo. 31 stories. No collapse.
These fires were much longer lasting and more intense than the WTC fires and none of these
buildings experienced a complete collapse.
Can you give a list of modern steel frame 20 storey+ buildings similar to WTC 1, 2 & 7 that have
experienced a complete collapse due to fire – known and verified.
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential
foreign government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia,
and Pakistan just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11
but the only investigation that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look
at the possible Saudi role, the notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a
redacted form.
It might have been worth checking out Israel a bit more closely. They have been running False
Flag operations against the British and the US for years, aimed at engaging them in war against
Arab states. For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government of
Palestine) in which Zionists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with explosives against
the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed British
and American cinemas, libraries and educational centres in Egypt to destabilize the country and
keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or on June 8th 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following nine
hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an
elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all lives lost on
the Egyptians and draw the US into the 6 Day War.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the more recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that carries
a lot of kudos with old ex-terrorist Likudniks. In any event, Israelis were sent to film the historic
day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations including photos of themselves
with a background of the burning towers.
CanSpeccy
says: • Website October 25, 2016 at 9:57 pm GMT •
@War for Blair Mountain
add in the fact that the steel support beams only had to be softened not melted to cause catastrophic
structural failure.
You are absolutely correct about that. If the beams had melted, or even softened, then the building
would have collapsed. But not straight down at near free-fall speed into its own footprint, while
crushing all the concrete to dust.
If the columns had melted, or merely softened, they would not have melted or softened uniformly
across the the building, so the result would have been an asymetric collapse resulting in the
top of the building toppling over and crashing onto the roof of adjacent buildings. The portion
of the building beneath the fire zone would have been left standing.
Pretty much my response. Something, I know not what, is amiss with Our Favorite Expatriate.
Not being sure of what really happened in an event this pivotal is a reason to proceed with
further discussion and investigation- not to shut it down.
The most successful, by far, commando operation in history performed flawlessly by a bunch
of guys with boxcutters directed by cell phone by a fugitive hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan
?
On the the face of it, that matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
On the the face of it, that [the theory about 19 guys with box-cutters under the direction
of fugitive in a cave in Afghanistan] matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
And even the members of the 9/11 Commission have admitted they don't really believe it.
Thus:
The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton)
said
that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation".
For the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a
reexamination of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United
States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates
the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report
on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate
key players like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite
of considerable evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced
back in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11
and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change
is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at
least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
Loose Change
describes how leading hawkish
Republicans were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country
would be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American
Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something,"
that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document
wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11.
Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include
the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality.
In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives.
This is, I believe,
the strength of
Loose Change
as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch
Loose Change
as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy.
After watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge
from any examination of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by
every White House since 2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into
9/11 a lie, a conclusion that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has
seen an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but
there are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence
agencies, and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror
largesse coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State,
which controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am
now convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself.
If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly
set up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such
a powerful reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so
gravely damaged our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place,
but it is at least something to hope for.
NosytheDuke, October 25, 2016 at 4:36 am GMT • 100 Words
Only by constantly repeating to all and sundry the blatant falsehoods, frauds and meddling
that are evident which absolutely contradict the official narrative of what happened can a tipping
point be reached and the demands for a new, open and independent investigation be the unavoidable
topic in political and social life.
Only after a new, open and independent investigation and a ruthless holding to account of those
responsible has taken place can America go about its business of being great because it is good.
Good luck with that.
3.MarkinLA, October 25, 2016 at 4:39 am GMT • 200 Words
Remember Korean Air flight 007. At that time the conspiracy theory was that the US and South
Korean governments got the pilot to invade Soviet air space while the Space Shuttle was in the
vicinity along with the electronic surveillance plane that crossed KAL007′s path in order to light
up USSR air defenses and collect data.
Whether it was true or not, the Reagan administration used it to vilify the USSR and push it's
hawkish agenda.
9/11 doesn't have to have been done by the government for Deep State entities to take advantage.
Any preplanning of what to do afterward could also be explained by them knowing what was going
to happen (ala Pearl Harbor) and letting it happen. There were plenty of intelligence reports
in the commission proceedings that have indicated something was up but not acted upon. They didn't
have an admiral they could blame like they did at Pearl so the whole system was blamed which made
expanding the security apparatus so much easier.
Too few people know, that the New York Times itself, a few weeks before the NYC towers fell,
photographed 'Israeli art students' (!) working in-between the walls of the those towers, amidst
stacks of boxes with certain markings which … identify the box contents as components of bomb
detonators
World Trade Center's Infamous
91st-Floor Israeli 'Art Student' Project
Also, too few people know that Osama Bin Laden himself denied being involved in the 11 Sep.
2001 NYC towers destruction, & that the 'Osama Bin Laden' videos & tapes shown for several years
afterwards, are clearly-proven fakes with actors
The claimed discoverer of those 'bin Laden' videos & tapes – allegedly scouring the 'Jihadi
YouTubes' for material no one else 'finds' – is Israeli-American Rita Katz of the laughable 'SITE'
– 'Search for International Terrorist Entities'
Dissident US military-intel veterans tell us:
" The truth about [Osama] Bin Laden, that his last known communication was December 3rd, 2001,
received by the CIA / NSA intercept facility in Doha, in which he accused American Neocons of
staging 9-11.
" This was less than two weeks before his death, as reported in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Iran
and even by Fox News, until Rita Katz brought him back to life in the guise of a Mercedes repair
shop owner of Somali parentage living in Haifa, Israel.
" The new short, fat Bin Laden, who lost his ability to speak Oxford English, continued to
drop audio tapes in the dumpster behind Katz's Brooklyn apartment for years, until his frozen
corpse was dumped into the Indian Ocean. "
- Gordon Duff, Veterans Today
Hans Vogel,
October 25, 2016 at 9:07 am GMT
If I recall correctly, it was Thierry Meyssan who in 2002 in his book La terrible imposture
first suggested that 9/11 was a coup. John Kerry's brother-in-law Sarkozy later forced Meyssan
into exile, because he was becoming a nuisance to the US and their French puppets.
Rehmat, October 25, 2016 at 12:35 pm GMT • 200 Words
Dr. Giraldi is missing the point. While Washington and Zionist-controlled mainstream media
had blamed the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran, and lately Saudi Arabia – they never mentioned the 800-pound
Gorilla – the Zionist regime.
The most vilified person had been head of Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul,
who pointed his finger to Israel Mossad two weeks after the 9/11 – even before media ridiculously
blamed Osama Bin Laden in order to invade and occupy Afghanistan – a country which did not had
a single tank, helicopter, fighter jet or even a commercial plane to defend itself from the so-called
ONLY WORLD POWER.
Hamid Gul's claim on September 26, 2001, is now supported by thousands of scientists, scholars,
politicians, architects and even a Jewish member of the so-called 9/11 COMISSION, Philip Zelikow
(Zionist Jew) admitted in 2004 that America invaded Iraq in 2003 because Saddam Hussein became
an existential threat to the Zionist entity.
In December 2001, US historian Michael Collins Piper claimed that the so-called "19 Arab hijackers"
could have been Israeli agents.
On September 10, 2016, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts posted an article, entitled, 9/11: 15 years of
a transparent lie.
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Diogenes,
October 25, 2016 at 2:24 pm GMT
9/11 was an amazing sociological event for what it can tell us about human psychology. The
vast majority of people uncritically swallowed the official explanation, a few critical observers
cast suspicions on the official story, then a group of chronically suspicious people, known as
conspiracy theorists, who believe the government cannot be trusted had a cause celebre, then a
group of anti conspiracy theorists and pro-government reactionaries devoted their energies to
discredit the 9/11 Truthers while the vast majority of people are as a result confused and paralyzed
into indecision and apathy. I will take note of who in these comments are 9/11 naysayers and observe
what they say about other controversial topics!
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or
at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything.
we now know that they set the Waco compound on fire, and that they were firing machine guns
into the only exit once the flames had engulfed the building. Bodies were piled up at the site
of the exit that the coroner ruled were homicide deaths from bullet wounds. Homicides that our
government committed. Most American yawn at such news. 'Those people (including the children)
were 'whackos'.
Recently our government has murdered or maimed or displaced millions upon millions of innocent
men, women and children in the Middle East, and destroyed several countries, all based on by now
well-established lies. Most Americans yawn at such knowledge. Those people 'hate our freedom'.
Our government is also running a permanent torture camp. A 'Ministry of Love', or Minluv, in
Orwell's Newspeak parlance.
The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was
needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being
an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior
positions in the Bush Administration.
the "something" that these neocon Zionists demanded from their "new Pearl Harbor like event"
was for America to set about destroying all Muslim nations considered inconvenient to Israel.
Without the 'event', Americans just were not willing to sacrifice their children to the Zionist
cause.
One of the central figures demanding that America act in Israel's interest was a one Phillip
D. Zelikow. A neocon insider extraordinaire.
This from his Wiki page:
In the November–December 1998 issue of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article Catastrophic
Terrorism, with
Ashton B. Carter
, and John M. Deutch, in which they speculated that if
the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, "the resulting horror and chaos would
have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed
event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime
and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United
States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance
of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either
future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders
negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently." [24]
Yes,
that
Ashton Carter, our current Secretary of Defense. And John Deutch was the director
of the CIA at one time. (perhaps Mr. Giraldi knows of him)
This Jewish neocon war mongering Zionist who called for a Peal Harbor like event to catalyze
Americans to go to war for Israel, ended up being the executive director of the 911 Commission.
The same 911 Commission that is universally recognized as a fraud and a cover up. Even by some
of the men who were on it.
I'm going to stop here. My head simply swims from the sheer evil of these people.
Miro23,
October 25, 2016 at 3:20 pm
@Fred Reed
A simpler 9/11 questionnaire for Fred;
"Did right wing elements in Israel close to Likud, and US Neocons close to the Bush administration
engineer the attacks to enable the Iraq war?" Yes____ No____ Don't know____
Essay question: Are there any similarities between these events and other False Flag attacks
aimed at Great Britain and the US such as 1) The King David Hotel bombing 2) Operation Susannah
– Lavon Affair 3) USS Liberty?
9/11 Family Members, Jersey Girls, and member of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee Lorie Van
Auken and Mindy Kleinberg released a report showing how poorly the 9/11 Commission answered their
questions:
The September Eleventh Advocates (Jersey Girls) have released a multitude of press releases
over the years bringing attention to and calling into question certain aspects of 9/11:
Here are the 9/11 Family Steering Committee's list of unanswered questions. The final statement
from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee states "the report did not answer all of our questions…":
Here are all of the different statements released by the 9/11 Family Steering Committee during
the time of the 9/11 Commission. They show extremely well the corruption and compromise within
the 9/11 Commission:
@Fred Reed
Nine-Eleven Conspiracy Exam (Note: This was written when Israel was the most popular culprit.
Some questions may need to be changed to reflect changes in guilt. Failure to answer all questions
will result in a grade of F.)
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making the
President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the two were
not used together
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed, and
the source of your information.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't know___
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
Was the US government solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
no, Israel was also responsible
Was Israel solely responsible for the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
No, elements in the US gov and controlled media were also responsible
Did Israel and the US government together engineer the attacks? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se, but
elements
in those governments. Like "the orders still stand"
Dick Cheney, but certainly not all the assorted minions of the US or Israeli governments.
Was neither Israel nor the US government responsible? yes___no___Don't know___
not governments per se. If you restrict the question to this broadly defined blanket condemnation,
then the answer would be 'yes'.
Were Saudis involved in any way in the plot? yes___no___Don't know___
there's zero reason for thinking so
If Israel was responsible, did the CIA know? yes___no___Don't know___
at the highest levels, yes, but there again, that certainly doesn't mean every single employee
Was President Bush, through the CIA or otherwise, aware of the Israeli participation, making
the President and the CIA part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know
Did AA77 hit the Pentagon. yes___no___Don't know___
there's no evidence of it. And if it had, they'd show us one of the scores (hundreds?) of videos
Essay question: If no, What happened to AA77? ____________ Don't know___
the reason the flights were wildly diverted was probably to land the planes, liquidate the
passengers and crew, and then send up specially outfitted jets for the purpose of crashing into
the towers. (as the pretext for them to collapse, as the pretext to start the Eternal Wars for
Israel and to turn us all into Palestinians)
If not AA77, did a missile hit the Pentagon? yes___no___Don't know___
it looks like it
If a missile, was ws it fired by the US military, making the military part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
Don't know. And again, it wouldn't be "the military", as in some monolithic entity that is
fully aware of everything that "it' does. There are fringe sub-sets of the military that are often
engaged in illegal and covert ops.
If no, fired by whom? ____________ Don't know___
Don't know
Did the NTSB fake the data from the flight data recorders, making it part of the conspiracy?
yes___no___Don't know___
what data?!
From what I understand, we have not been made privy to any of the information on any of the
flight data recorders. If you're aware of any data from the flight data recorders then you should
give us a link!
Were the Towers destroyed by a controlled demolition? yes___no___Don't know___
yes
it's *obvious* that building seven was thus demolished, and so it follows that the other two
were also.
Did aircraft hit the the Towers? yes___no___Don't know___
two of them, yes. The third was not hit by a plane, it simply plopped down in nicely cut pieces
ready for shipment to China.
If so, who flew them? ____________ Don't know__
In all likelihood, remote control. Check out the comptroller of the Pentagon at the time and
his sundry organizations. Nice little rabbit hole of its own.
Essay question: Why both controlled demolition and aircraft? Ignore this question if the
two were not used together
horror
they needed to horrify and anger the American people to rally us to war on Israel's neighbors.
(+ there was the added benefit to lucky Larry of a few billion shekels and an opportunity to get
rid of a couple of financial boondoggles. Such a deal!)
Essay question: If a controlled demolition, describe the placement and quantities needed,
and the source of your information.
this is silly
we don't need to know the exact caliber of bullet that hit JFK to know that the government
and Warren commission was lying. And they likely used military type crap that we're not even privy
to. Come on Fred.
Was the FBI involved in the cover-up, and therefore part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't
know___
elements, sure
like the people that went around and collected all the videos that might have showed what hit
the Pentagon. Certainly the people at the top were and are privy to the crime and cover up. Just
like with JFK.
Was Larry Silverstein, owner of the Towers, part of the conspiracy? yes___no___Don't know___
Yes, of course he was
Did the media cover up the conspiracy, thereby making them part of it? yes___no___Don't
know___
not your local channel seven, but the media as it's controlled from the top, and lie about
EVERTYING. Yes Fred, that media was complicit. And still are. And are the ones that are going
to hand the reins of this nations to Hillary Clinton. That media, you betcha.
Essay question: If Israel was involved, should America bomb Tel Aviv?
of course not. There again you're being silly Fred.
what America should do is the same thing is should (and still needs to) do as regards the other
cowardly and treacherous false flag that *elements* in the Israeli government and security forces
were responsible for- the attack on the USS Liberty. We should have a real investigation that
ferrets out these uber-criminals and brings them to justice.
911 was a coup to turn the US into Israel's rabid dog in the Levant. And create a police state
for any Americans that object, even with our very own torture camp. Isn't that something?
You should write about it someday Fred. I can't think of a person more suited to mock the American
idea of the free and the brave running a torture camp for goat herders and Afghans who don't want
America making them free too.
as for 911, all you have to know is that building seven was an obvious controlled demolition.
From there it doesn't matter if George Dubya Bush was in on it or what type of materials specifically
were used to bring the buildings down. That shit is all academic. We know they lied, and are lying.
Only a deluded fool or moral coward (or worse) would pretend to themselves otherwise once he's
seen the irrefutable evidence that they're lying.
There are multiple ways to engineer a "False Flag" attack:
1. You do it yourself, flying someone else's "flag" and hope no one notices. (Very primitive
… rarely works unless you are a wooden frigate at sea attacking enemy maritime commerce.)
2. You hire someone else to do it and hope none of them get caught. (Moderately primitive …
but it worked for awhile in the Kennedy assassination.)
3. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, take control, and redirect it to the attack.
(Very difficult to do … but this was done in the NATO-sponsored Gladio terrorist attacks in Europe
in the 1960s as well as the Black Hand attacks that precipitated WWI.)
4. You infiltrate a hostile terrorist organization, discover what they have planned, and QUIETLY
remove all of YOUR obstacles that would otherwise have prevented the attack. (This is the best
if you can pull it off since you leave no fingerprints. You might, as in 911, be accused of incompetent
but, okay, you missed that one, so what!)
BTW: #4 doesn't mean you don't help the terrorists with a little demolition work to make sure
the spectacle unfolds as planned. You really need grand firework displays in these things to get
them the attention they deserve.
Si1ver1ock, October 25, 2016 at 5:04 pm GMT
For those just coming into the 911 Truth movement, you should probably look at the hard evidence
first to see if it merits further consideration. After that, you can go to he circumstantial evidence.
The question isn't whether this theory or that theory is absolutely correct. The question is whether
there is sufficient cause for a new investigation. I never hear a good argument from the anti-Truth
crowd as to why we shouldn't have another investigation.
We want a new investigation. They don't want one. Why?
Miro23, October 25, 2016 at 7:17 pm GMT
A key to instant identification of the faith-based C-theorist is the loud claim that
"steel-framed buildings" don't collapse as a result of fire. Fact is, yes they do - known,
verified, fully-explained using real, verifiable data.
Here's a list of steel framed high rises and other high rises that experienced major fires:
– One New York Plaza, New York. 50 stories steel. Dropped beams on 33rd & 34th floors.
– Alexis Nihon Plaza, Montreal. 15 stories steel. Partial collapse on 11th floor.
– Windsor Tower, Madrid. 29 stories steel/concrete. Partial collapse.
– One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia. 38 stories. No collapse.
– Broadgate Phase 8, London. 14 stories. No collapse.
– First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles. 62 stories. No collapse.
– MGM Grand Hotel, Las Vegas. 26 stories. No collapse.
– Joelma Building, Sao Paulo. 25 stories. No collapse.
– Andraus Building, Sao Paulo. 31 stories. No collapse.
These fires were much longer lasting and more intense than the WTC fires and none of these
buildings experienced a complete collapse.
Can you give a list of modern steel frame 20 storey+ buildings similar to WTC 1, 2 & 7 that have
experienced a complete collapse due to fire – known and verified.
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential
foreign government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia,
and Pakistan just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11
but the only investigation that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look
at the possible Saudi role, the notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a
redacted form.
It might have been worth checking out Israel a bit more closely. They have been running False
Flag operations against the British and the US for years, aimed at engaging them in war against
Arab states. For example:
The Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British Mandate Government of
Palestine) in which Zionists dressed as Arabs placed milk churns filled with explosives against
the main columns of the building killing 91 people and injuring 44. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
attended a celebration to commemorate the event.
Operation Susannah (Lavon Affair) where Israeli operatives impersonating Arabs bombed British
and American cinemas, libraries and educational centres in Egypt to destabilize the country and
keep British troops committed to the Middle East.
Or on June 8th 1967, the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty with unmarked aircraft and torpedo
boats. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded, with the attack in international waters following nine
hours of close surveillance. When the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an
elaborate story to cover the crime. Original plan to blame the sinking with all lives lost on
the Egyptians and draw the US into the 6 Day War.
Or Israelis and U.S. Zionists appearing all over the more recent WTC 9/11 "Operation" with
Israelis once again impersonating Arabs in a historic deception/terror action of a type that carries
a lot of kudos with old ex-terrorist Likudniks. In any event, Israelis were sent to film the historic
day (as they later admitted on Israeli TV), with the celebrations including photos of themselves
with a background of the burning towers.
CanSpeccy
says: • Website October 25, 2016 at 9:57 pm GMT •
@War for Blair Mountain
add in the fact that the steel support beams only had to be softened not melted to cause catastrophic
structural failure.
You are absolutely correct about that. If the beams had melted, or even softened, then the building
would have collapsed. But not straight down at near free-fall speed into its own footprint, while
crushing all the concrete to dust.
If the columns had melted, or merely softened, they would not have melted or softened uniformly
across the the building, so the result would have been an asymetric collapse resulting in the
top of the building toppling over and crashing onto the roof of adjacent buildings. The portion
of the building beneath the fire zone would have been left standing.
Pretty much my response. Something, I know not what, is amiss with Our Favorite Expatriate.
Not being sure of what really happened in an event this pivotal is a reason to proceed with
further discussion and investigation- not to shut it down.
The most successful, by far, commando operation in history performed flawlessly by a bunch
of guys with boxcutters directed by cell phone by a fugitive hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan
?
On the the face of it, that matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
On the the face of it, that [the theory about 19 guys with box-cutters under the direction
of fugitive in a cave in Afghanistan] matches the goofiest of any of the conspiracy theories.
And even the members of the 9/11 Commission have admitted they don't really believe it.
Thus:
The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton)
said
that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation".
"... The roster of retired military officers endorsing Hillary Clinton in September glittered with decoration and rank. One former general led the American surge in Anbar, one of the most violent provinces in Iraq. Another commanded American-led allied forces battling the Taliban in Afghanistan . Yet another trained the first Iraqis to combat Islamic insurgents in their own country. ..."
"... After 15 years at war, many who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are proud of their service but exhausted by its burdens. They distrust the political class that reshaped their lives and are frustrated by how little their fellow citizens seem to understand about their experience. ..."
"... "When we jump into wars without having a real plan, things like Vietnam and things like Iraq and Afghanistan happen," said William Hansen, a former Marine who served two National Guard tours in Iraq. "This is 16 years. This is longer than Vietnam." ..."
The roster of retired military officers endorsing
Hillary Clinton in September glittered with decoration and rank. One former general led the American
surge in Anbar, one of the most violent provinces in Iraq. Another commanded American-led allied
forces battling the Taliban in
Afghanistan . Yet another trained the first Iraqis to combat Islamic insurgents in their own
country.
But as Election Day approaches, many veterans are instead turning to
Donald
J. Trump , a businessman who avoided the Vietnam draft and has boasted of gathering foreign policy
wisdom by watching television shows.
Even as other voters abandon Mr. Trump, veterans remain among his most loyal supporters, an unlikely
connection forged by the widening gulf they feel from other Americans.
After 15 years at war, many who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are proud of their service but
exhausted by its burdens. They distrust the political class that reshaped their lives and are frustrated
by how little their fellow citizens seem to understand about their experience.
Perhaps most strikingly, they welcome Mr. Trump's blunt attacks on America's entanglements overseas.
"When we jump into wars without having a real plan, things like Vietnam and things like Iraq
and Afghanistan happen," said William Hansen, a former Marine who served two National Guard tours
in Iraq. "This is 16 years. This is longer than Vietnam."
In small military towns in California and North Carolina, veterans of all eras cheer Mr. Trump's
promises to fire officials at the
Department of Veterans Affairs . His attacks on political correctness evoke their frustrations
with tortured rules of engagement crafted to serve political, not military, ends. In Mr. Trump's
forceful assertion of strength, they find a balm for wounds that left them broken and torn.
"He calls it out," said Joshua Macias, a former Navy petty officer and fifth-generation veteran
who lives in the Tidewater region of Virginia, where he organized a "Veterans for Trump" group last
year. "We have intense emotion connected to these wars. The way it was politicized, the way they
changed the way we fight in a war setting - it's horrible how they did that."
"... The military-industrial complex is alive and well, and it's gobbling up your tax dollars. Through good times and bad, regardless of what's actually happening in the world, one thing is certain: In the long run, the Pentagon budget won't go down. ..."
"... Pillar one supporting that edifice: ideology. As long as most Americans accept the notion that it is the God-given mission and right of the United States to go anywhere on the planet and do more or less anything it cares to do with its military, you won't see Pentagon spending brought under real control. Think of this as the military corollary to American exceptionalism-or just call it the doctrine of armed exceptionalism, if you will. ..."
"... The second pillar supporting lavish military budgets (and this will hardly surprise you): the entrenched power of the arms lobby and its allies in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. The strategic placement of arms production facilities and military bases in key states and Congressional districts has created an economic dependency that has saved many a flawed weapons system from being unceremoniously dumped in the trash bin of history. ..."
"... Take as an example the M-1 tank, which the Army actually wanted to stop buying. Its plans were thwarted by the Ohio congressional delegation, which led a fight to add more M-1s to the budget in order to keep the General Dynamics production line in Lima, Ohio, up and running. In a similar fashion, prodded by the Missouri delegation, Congress added two different versions of Boeing's F-18 aircraft to the budget to keep funds flowing to that company's St. Louis area plant. ..."
"... The one-two punch of an environment in which the military can do no wrong, while being outfitted for every global task imaginable, and what former Pentagon analyst Franklin "Chuck" Spinney has called " political engineering ," has been a tough combination to beat. ..."
"... The overwhelming consensus in favor of a "cover the globe" military strategy has been broken from time to time by popular resistance to the idea of using war as a central tool of foreign policy. In such periods, getting Americans behind a program of feeding the military machine massive sums of money has generally required a heavy dose of fear. ..."
"... As Wayne Biddle has noted in his seminal book Barons of the Sky , the US aerospace industry produced an astonishing 300,000-plus military aircraft during World War II. Not surprisingly, major weapons producers struggled to survive in a peacetime environment in which government demand for their products threatened to be a tiny fraction of wartime levels. ..."
"... With the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Washington decisively renewed its practice of responding to perceived foreign threats with large-scale military interventions. That quick victory over Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein's forces in Kuwait was celebrated by many hawks as the end of the Vietnam-induced malaise. Amid victory parades and celebrations, President George H.W. Bush would enthusiastically exclaim : "And, by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all." ..."
"... In reality, he underestimated the Pentagon's ability to conjure up new threats. Military spending did indeed drop at the end of the Cold War, but the Pentagon helped staunch the bleeding relatively quickly before a "peace dividend" could be delivered to the American people. Instead, it put a firm floor under the fall by announcing what came to be known as the "rogue state" doctrine . ..."
"... Take Lockheed Martin Vice President Bruce Jackson, for example. In 1997, he became a director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and so part of a gaggle of hawks including future Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and future Vice President Dick Cheney. In those years, PNAC would advocate the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as part of its project to turn the planet into an American military protectorate. ..."
"... The Afghan and Iraq wars would prove an absolute bonanza for contractors as the Pentagon budget soared. Traditional weapons suppliers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing prospered, as did private contractors like Dick Cheney's former employer , Halliburton, which made billions providing logistical support to US troops in the field. ..."
"... Recent terror attacks against Western targets from Brussels, Paris, and Nice to San Bernardino and Orlando have offered the national security state and the Obama administration the necessary fear factor that makes the case for higher Pentagon spending so palatable. This has been true despite the fact that more tanks, bombers , aircraft carriers , and nuclear weapons will be useless in preventing such attacks. ..."
The military-industrial complex is alive and well, and it's gobbling up your tax dollars.
Through good times and bad, regardless of what's actually happening in the world, one thing is
certain: In the long run, the Pentagon budget won't go down.
It's not that that budget has never been reduced. At pivotal moments, like the end of World War
II as well as war's end in Korea and Vietnam, there were indeed temporary downturns, as there was
after the Cold War ended. More recently, the
Budget Control Act of 2011
threw a monkey wrench into the Pentagon's plans for funding that would go ever onward and upward
by putting a cap on the money Congress could pony up for it. The remarkable thing, though, is not
that such moments have occurred, but how modest and short-lived they've proved to be.
Take the current budget. It's down slightly from its peak in 2011, when it reached the highest
level since World War II, but this year's budget for the Pentagon and related agencies is nothing
to sneeze at. It comes in at roughly
$600 billion -
more
than the peak year of the massive arms build-up initiated by President Ronald Reagan back in
the 1980s. To put this figure in perspective: Despite troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan dropping
sharply over the past eight years, the Obama administration has still managed to
spend
more on the Pentagon than the Bush administration did during its two terms in office.
What accounts for the Department of Defense's ability to keep a stranglehold on your tax dollars
year after endless year?
Pillar one supporting that edifice: ideology. As long as most Americans accept the
notion that it is the God-given
mission and right of the United States to go anywhere on the planet and do more or less anything
it cares to do with its military, you won't see Pentagon spending brought under real control. Think
of this as the military corollary to American exceptionalism-or just call it the doctrine of armed
exceptionalism, if you will.
The second pillar supporting lavish military budgets (and this will hardly surprise you): the
entrenched power of the arms lobby and its allies in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. The strategic
placement of arms production facilities and military bases in key states and Congressional districts
has created an economic dependency that has saved many a flawed weapons system from being unceremoniously
dumped in the trash bin of history.
Lockheed Martin, for instance, has put together a handy
map of how its troubled
F-35 fighter jet has created 125,000 jobs in 46 states. The
actual figures are, in fact, considerably lower, but the principle holds: Having subcontractors
in dozens of states makes it harder for members of Congress to consider cutting or slowing down even
a failed or failing program. Take as an example the M-1 tank, which the Army actually wanted to stop
buying. Its plans were thwarted by the Ohio congressional delegation, which led a
fight to add more M-1s to the budget in order to keep the General Dynamics production line in
Lima, Ohio, up and running. In a similar fashion, prodded by the Missouri delegation, Congress
added two different versions of Boeing's F-18 aircraft to the budget to keep funds flowing to
that company's St. Louis area plant.
The one-two punch of an environment in which the military can do no wrong, while being outfitted
for every global task imaginable, and what former Pentagon analyst Franklin "Chuck" Spinney has called
"
political engineering ," has been a tough combination to beat.
"SCARE THE HELL OUT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE"
The overwhelming consensus in favor of a "cover the globe" military strategy has been broken from
time to time by popular resistance to the idea of using war as a central tool of foreign policy.
In such periods, getting Americans behind a program of feeding the military machine massive sums
of money has generally required a heavy dose of fear.
For example, the last thing most Americans wanted after the devastation and hardship unleashed
by World War II was to immediately put the country back on a war footing. The demobilization of millions
of soldiers and a sharp cutback in weapons spending in the immediate postwar years rocked what President
Dwight Eisenhower would later dub
the "military-industrial complex."
As Wayne Biddle has noted in his seminal book
Barons
of the Sky , the US aerospace industry
produced an astonishing 300,000-plus military aircraft during World War II. Not surprisingly,
major weapons producers struggled to survive in a peacetime environment in which government demand
for their products threatened to be a tiny fraction of wartime levels.
Lockheed President Robert Gross was terrified by the potential impact of war's end on his company's
business, as were many of his industry cohorts. "As long as I live," he
said
, "I will never forget those short, appalling weeks" of the immediate postwar period. To be clear,
Gross was appalled not by the war itself, but by the drop off in orders occasioned by its end. He
elaborated in a 1947 letter to a friend: "We had one underlying element of comfort and reassurance
during the war. We knew we'd get paid for anything we built. Now we are almost entirely on our own."
The postwar doldrums in military spending that worried him so were reversed only after the American
public had been fed a steady, fear-filled diet of anti-communism.
NSC-68 , a secret memorandum the National Security Council prepared for President Harry Truman
in April 1950, created the template for a policy based on the global "containment" of communism and
grounded in a plan to encircle the Soviet Union with US military forces, bases, and alliances. This
would, of course, prove to be a strikingly expensive proposition. The concluding paragraphs of that
memorandum underscored exactly that point,
calling for a "sustained buildup of US political, economic, and military strength… [to] frustrate
the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will."
Senator Arthur Vandenberg put the thrust of this new Cold War policy in far simpler terms when
he bluntly
advised President Truman to "scare the hell out of the American people" to win support for a
$400 million aid plan for Greece and Turkey. His suggestion would be put into effect not just for
those two countries but to generate support for what President Eisenhower would later
describe
as "a permanent arms establishment of vast proportions."
Industry leaders like Lockheed's Gross were poised to take advantage of such planning. In a draft
of a 1950 speech, he
noted , giddily enough, that "for the first time in recorded history, one country has assumed
global responsibility." Meeting that responsibility would naturally mean using air transport to deliver
"huge quantities of men, food, ammunition, tanks, gasoline, oil and thousands of other articles of
war to a number of widely separated places on the face of the earth." Lockheed, of course, stood
ready to heed the call.
The next major challenge to armed exceptionalism and to the further militarization of foreign
policy came after the disastrous Vietnam War, which drove many Americans to question the wisdom of
a policy of permanent global interventionism. That phenomenon would be
dubbed the "Vietnam syndrome" by interventionists, as if opposition to such a military policy
were a disease, not a position. Still, that "syndrome" carried considerable, if ever-decreasing,
weight for a decade and a half, despite the Pentagon's Reagan-inspired arms build-up of the 1980s.
With the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Washington decisively renewed its practice of responding to perceived
foreign threats with large-scale military interventions. That quick victory over Iraqi autocrat Saddam
Hussein's forces in Kuwait was
celebrated by many hawks as the end of the Vietnam-induced malaise. Amid
victory parades and celebrations,
President George H.W. Bush would enthusiastically
exclaim : "And, by God,
we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all."
However, perhaps the biggest threat since World War II to an "arms establishment of vast proportions"
came with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, also in 1991. How to mainline
fear into the American public and justify Cold War levels of spending when that other superpower,
the Soviet Union, the primary threat of the previous nearly half-a-century, had just evaporated and
there was next to nothing threatening on the horizon? General Colin Powell, then chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, summed up the fears of that moment within the military and the arms complex
when he
said , "I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villains. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il-sung."
In reality, he underestimated the Pentagon's ability to conjure up new threats. Military spending
did indeed drop at the end of the Cold War, but the Pentagon helped staunch the bleeding relatively
quickly before a "peace dividend" could be delivered to the American people. Instead, it put a firm
floor under the fall by announcing what came to be known as the
"rogue state"
doctrine . Resources formerly aimed at the Soviet Union would now be focused on "regional hegemons"
like Iraq and North Korea.
FEAR, GREED, AND HUBRIS WIN THE DAY
After the 9/11 attacks, the rogue state doctrine morphed into the "Global War on Terror" (GWOT),
which neoconservative pundits soon labeled "
World War IV ." The
heightened fear campaign that went with it, in turn, helped sow the seeds for the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, which was promoted by
visions of mushroom clouds rising over American cities and a
drumbeat of Bush administration
claims (all false) that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda.
Some administration officials including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld even
suggested that Saddam was like Hitler, as if a modest-sized Middle Eastern state could somehow
muster the resources to conquer the globe.
The administration's propaganda campaign would be supplemented by the work of right-wing corporate-funded
think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. And no one should
be surprised to learn that the military-industrial complex and its money, its lobbyists, and its
interests were in the middle of it all. Take Lockheed Martin Vice President Bruce Jackson, for example.
In 1997, he became a director of the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC) and so part of a gaggle of hawks including future Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, future Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and future Vice
President Dick Cheney. In those years, PNAC would advocate the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as part
of its project to turn the planet into an American military protectorate. Many of its members would,
of course, enter the Bush administration in crucial roles and become architects of the GWOT and the
invasion of Iraq.
The Afghan and Iraq wars would prove an absolute
bonanza for contractors as the Pentagon budget soared. Traditional weapons suppliers like Lockheed
Martin and Boeing prospered, as did private contractors like Dick Cheney's
former employer , Halliburton, which made billions providing logistical support to US troops
in the field. Other major beneficiaries included firms like
Blackwater and
DynCorp , whose employees guarded US facilities and oil pipelines while training Afghan and Iraqi
security forces. As much as
$60 billion of the funds funneled to such contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan would be "wasted,"
but not from the point of view of companies for which waste could generate as much profit as a job
well done. So Halliburton and its cohorts weren't complaining.
On entering the Oval Office, President Obama would ditch the term GWOT in favor of "countering
violent extremism"-and then essentially settle for a no-name global war. He would shift gears from
a strategy focused on large numbers of "boots on the ground" to an emphasis on
drone strikes , the use of
Special Operations forces , and
massive
transfers of arms to US allies like Saudi Arabia. In the context of an increasingly militarized
foreign policy, one might call Obama's approach "politically sustainable warfare," since it involved
fewer (American) casualties and lower costs than Bush-style warfare, which peaked in Iraq at more
than 160,000 troops and a comparable number of private contractors.
Recent terror attacks against Western targets from Brussels, Paris, and Nice to San Bernardino
and Orlando have offered the national security state and the Obama administration the necessary fear
factor that makes the case for higher Pentagon spending so palatable. This has been true despite
the fact that more tanks, bombers ,
aircraft carriers
, and
nuclear
weapons will be useless in preventing such attacks.
The majority of what the Pentagon spends, of course, has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.
But whatever it has or hasn't been called, the war against terror has proven to be a cash cow for
the Pentagon and contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon.
The "war budget"-money meant for the Pentagon but not included in its regular budget-has been
used to add on tens of billions of dollars more. It has proven to be an effective "
slush fund " for weapons and activities that have nothing to do with immediate war fighting and
has been the Pentagon's preferred method for evading the caps on its budget imposed by the Budget
Control Act. A Pentagon spokesman admitted as much recently by
acknowledging that more than half of the $58.8 billion war budget is being used to pay for non-war
costs.
The abuse of the war budget leaves ample room in the Pentagon's main budget for items like the
overpriced, underperforming F-35 combat aircraft, a plane that, at a
price tag of $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, is on track to be the most expensive weapons program
ever undertaken. That slush fund is also enabling the Pentagon to spend billions of dollars in seed
money as a down payment on the department's proposed
$1 trillion
plan to buy a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines. Shutting it
down could force the Pentagon to do what it likes least: live within an actual budget rather continuing
to push its top line ever upward.
Although rarely discussed due to the focus on Donald Trump's abominable behavior and racist rhetoric,
both candidates for president are in favor of increasing Pentagon spending. Trump's "
plan " (if one can call it that) hews closely to a blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation
that, if implemented, could increase Pentagon spending by a cumulative $900 billion over the next
decade. The size of a
Clinton buildup is less clear, but she has also pledged to work toward lifting the caps on the
Pentagon's regular budget. If that were done and the war fund continued to be stuffed with non-war-related
items, one thing is certain: The Pentagon and its contractors will be sitting pretty.
As long as fear, greed, and hubris are the dominant factors driving Pentagon spending, no matter
who is in the White House, substantial and enduring budget reductions are essentially inconceivable.
A wasteful practice may be eliminated here or an unnecessary weapons system cut there, but more
fundamental change would require taking on the fear factor, the doctrine of armed exceptionalism,
and the way the military-industrial complex is embedded in Washington.
Only such a culture shift would allow for a clear-eyed assessment of what constitutes "defense"
and how much money would be needed to provide it. Unfortunately, the military-industrial complex
that Eisenhower warned Americans about more than 50 years ago is alive and well, and gobbling up
your tax dollars at an alarming rate.
The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each
of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi
was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.
The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an "agreement" that demanded
the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was
prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable.
As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected
an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.
From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics –
the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage.
Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible
for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: "We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence,
or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked."
The West's medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the US and Britain sell billions of dollars'
worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half
the children are malnourished.
All of this loses sight of how much the framing effects have skewed this entire discussion.
Bush's signature use of military force and the defining initiative of his presidency-the invasion
of Iraq-was an unusually extreme act as measured either by past U.S. foreign policy or standards
of international conduct that the United States expects of others.
One of the many flaws in the idea that the U.S. should seek a "middle ground" between Bush and
Obama is that it treats their respective records as offering equally damaging and extreme alternatives.
Of course, the cost to the U.S. from the two presidencies is drastically different. Bush's legacy
was to launch wars that have cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives, while Obama's
has been his failure to extricate the U.S. from them at a significant but much reduced cost. Obama
has certainly made some very serious and even indefensible mistakes (supporting the war on Yemen
being among the worst), but in terms of the damage done to U.S. interests the costs have been much
lower.
To believe that the U.S. needs to "moderate" between Bush's disasters and Obama's failures
is to believe that the U.S. needs a foreign policy that will be even more costly in American lives
and money than the one we have right now.
That is not only not a "moderate" position to take, but it is also a highly ideological one
that insists on the necessity of U.S. "leadership" no matter how much it costs us.
The 'middle ground" that Clinton offers is no middle ground at all, but rather represents moving
the U.S. in the direction of one of the worst foreign policy records in our history. Obama's great
foreign policy failure was that he could not or would not move the U.S. away from the disastrous
policies of the Bush era, and under Clinton there won't even be the pretense that the U.S. should
try to do this.
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
"... A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. ..."
"... The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest, in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser, that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and the country. ..."
"... The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent answer to any number of problems. ..."
"... Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US. ..."
"... And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'. ..."
"... The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. ..."
"... To achieve wider support in the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension. ..."
"... They would include the element of messianism embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism. ..."
"... Red Storm Rising ..."
"... Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus. ..."
"... Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society. ..."
"... British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority, small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North America. ..."
"... As Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. ..."
"... Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years to do so. ..."
"... The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused strategy. ..."
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by
Andrew Bacevich
Oxford, 270 pp, £16.99, August 2005, ISBN 0 19 517338 4
A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the
Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore
eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. Yet, as Andrew Bacevich
points out in one of the most acute analyses of America to have appeared in recent years, the United
States itself is in many ways a militaristic country, and becoming more so:
at the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The skepticism about arms
and armies that informed the original Wilsonian vision, indeed, that pervaded the American experiment
from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamoured
with military might.
The ensuing affair had, and continues to have, a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued
in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue.
The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest,
in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser,
that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and
the country. Compared to German and other past militarisms, however, the contemporary American
variant is extremely complex, and the forces that have generated it have very diverse origins and
widely differing motives:
The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little
in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military
officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence
at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed
by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of
a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors
of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent
answer to any number of problems.
Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring
American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary
success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US.
And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and
what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'.
The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global
military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. Jobs and patronage
also ensure the support of much of the Congress, which often authorizes defense spending on weapons
systems the Pentagon doesn't want and hasn't asked for, in order to help some group of senators and
congressmen in whose home states these systems are manufactured. To achieve wider support in
the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign
nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension.
That's not the same, however, as having an actual desire for war, least of all for a major conflict
which might ruin the international economy. US ground forces have bitter memories of Vietnam, and
no wish to wage an aggressive war: Rumsfeld and his political appointees had to override the objections
of the senior generals, in particular those of the army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, before
the attack on Iraq. The navy and air force do not have to fight insurgents in hell-holes like Fallujah,
and so naturally have a more relaxed attitude.
To understand how the Bush administration was able to manipulate the public into supporting the
Iraq war one has to look for deeper explanations. They would include the element of messianism
embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless
validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest
of the world. This leads to a genuine belief that American soldiers can do no real wrong because
they are spreading 'freedom'. Also of great importance – at least until the Iraqi insurgency rubbed
American noses in the horrors of war – has been the development of an aesthetic that sees war as
waged by the US as technological, clean and antiseptic; and thanks to its supremacy in weaponry,
painlessly victorious. Victory over the Iraqi army in 2003 led to a new flowering of megalomania
in militarist quarters. The amazing Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal – an armchair commentator,
not a frontline journalist – declared that the US victory had made 'fabled generals such as Erwin
Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison'. Nor was this kind of talk restricted
to Republicans. More than two years into the Iraq quagmire, strategic thinkers from the Democratic
establishment were still declaring that 'American military power in today's world is practically
unlimited.'
Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism.
Take Bacevich on the popular novelist Tom Clancy:
In any Clancy novel, the international order is a dangerous and threatening place, awash with
heavily armed and implacably determined enemies who threaten the United States. That Americans
have managed to avoid Armageddon is attributable to a single fact: the men and women of America's
uniformed military and its intelligence services have thus far managed to avert those threats.
The typical Clancy novel is an unabashed tribute to the skill, honor, extraordinary technological
aptitude and sheer decency of the nation's defenders. To read Red Storm Rising is to
enter a world of 'virtuous men and perfect weapons', as one reviewer noted. 'All the Americans
are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country. Their officers are uniformly
competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.'
Indeed, in the contract that he signed for the filming of Red October, Clancy stipulated
that nothing in the film show the navy in a bad light.
Such attitudes go beyond simply glorying in violence, military might and technological prowess.
They reflect a belief – genuine or assumed – in what the Germans used to call Soldatentum:
the pre-eminent value of the military virtues of courage, discipline and sacrifice, and explicitly
or implicitly the superiority of these virtues to those of a hedonistic, contemptible and untrustworthy
civilian society and political class. In the words of Thomas Friedman, the ostensibly liberal foreign
affairs commentator of the ostensibly liberal New York Times, 'we do not deserve these people.
They are so much better than the country they are fighting for.' Such sentiments have a sinister
pedigree in modern history.
In the run-up to the last election, even a general as undistinguished as Wesley Clark could see
his past generalship alone as qualifying him for the presidency – and gain the support of leading
liberal intellectuals. Not that this was new: the first president was a general and throughout the
19th and 20th centuries both generals and more junior officers ran for the presidency on the strength
of their military records. And yet, as Bacevich points out, this does not mean that the uniformed
military have real power over policy-making, even in matters of war. General Tommy Franks may have
regarded Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense, as 'the stupidest fucking guy on the planet',
but he took Feith's orders, and those of the civilians standing behind him: Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld
and the president himself. Their combination of militarism and contempt for military advice recalls
Clemenceau and Churchill – or Hitler and Stalin.
Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring
contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and
the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many
American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich
brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous
with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point
of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to
Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.
Its symbols may be often childish and its methods brutish, but American belief in 'freedom' is
a real and living force. This cuts two ways. On the one hand, the adherence of many leading intellectuals
in the Democratic Party to a belief in muscular democratization has had a disastrous effect on the
party's ability to put up a strong resistance to the policies of the administration. Bush's messianic
language of 'freedom' – supported by the specifically Israeli agenda of Natan Sharansky and his allies
in the US – has been all too successful in winning over much of the opposition. On the other hand,
the fact that a belief in freedom and democracy lies at the heart of civic nationalism places certain
limits on American imperialism – weak no doubt, but nonetheless real. It is not possible for the
US, unlike previous empires, to pursue a strategy of absolutely unconstrained Machtpolitik.
This has been demonstrated recently in the breach between the Bush administration and the Karimov
tyranny in Uzbekistan.
The most important contradiction, however, is between the near worship of the military in much
of American culture and the equally widespread unwillingness of most Americans – elites and masses
alike – to serve in the armed forces. If people like Friedman accompanied their stated admiration
for the military with a real desire to abandon their contemptible civilian lives and join the armed
services, then American power in the world really might be practically unlimited. But as Bacevich
notes,
having thus made plain his personal disdain for crass vulgarity and support for moral rectitude,
Friedman in the course of a single paragraph drops the military and moves on to other pursuits.
His many readers, meanwhile, having availed themselves of the opportunity to indulge, ever so
briefly, in self-loathing, put down their newspapers and themselves move on to other things. Nothing
has changed, but columnist and readers alike feel better for the cathartic effect of this oblique,
reassuring encounter with an alien world.
Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to
serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves
in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society.
This combination of a theoretical adulation with a profound desire not to serve is not of course
new. It characterized most of British society in the 19th century, when, just as with the US today,
the overwhelming rejection of conscription – until 1916 – meant that, appearances to the contrary,
British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority,
small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries
in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North
America.
Despite spending more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and despite enjoying
overwhelming technological superiority, American military power is actually quite limited. As
Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it
cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population
as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. As for invading and occupying a country the size of Iran, this is
coming to seem as unlikely as an invasion of mainland China.
In other words, when it comes to actually applying military power the US is pretty much where
it has been for several decades. Another war of occupation like Iraq would necessitate the restoration
of conscription: an idea which, with Vietnam in mind, the military detests, and which politicians
are well aware would probably make them unelectable. It is just possible that another terrorist attack
on the scale of 9/11 might lead to a new draft, but that would bring the end of the US military empire
several steps closer. Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering
citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot
approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years
to do so.
Facing these dangers squarely, Bacevich proposes refocusing American strategy away from
empire and towards genuine national security. It is a measure of the degree to which imperial thinking
now dominates US politics that these moderate and commonsensical proposals would seem nothing short
of revolutionary to the average member of the Washington establishment.
They include a renunciation of messianic dreams of improving the world through military force,
except where a solid international consensus exists in support of US action; a recovery by Congress
of its power over peace and war, as laid down in the constitution but shamefully surrendered in recent
years; the adoption of a strategic doctrine explicitly making war a matter of last resort; and a
decision that the military should focus on the defense of the nation, not the projection of US power.
As a means of keeping military expenditure in some relationship to actual needs, Bacevich suggests
pegging it to the combined annual expenditure of the next ten countries, just as in the 19th century
the size of the British navy was pegged to that of the next two largest fleets – it is an index of
the budgetary elephantiasis of recent years that this would lead to very considerable spending reductions.
This book is important not only for the acuteness of its perceptions, but also for the identity
of its author. Colonel Bacevich's views on the military, on US strategy and on world affairs were
profoundly shaped by his service in Vietnam. His year there 'fell in the conflict's bleak latter
stages long after an odor of failure had begun to envelop the entire enterprise'. The book is dedicated
to his brother-in-law, 'a casualty of a misbegotten war'.
Just as Vietnam shaped his view of how the US and the US military should not intervene in the
outside world, so the Cold War in Europe helped define his beliefs about the proper role of the military.
For Bacevich and his fellow officers in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, defending the West from possible
Soviet aggression, 'not conquest, regime change, preventive war or imperial policing', was 'the American
soldier's true and honorable calling'.
In terms of cultural and political background, this former soldier remains a self-described Catholic
conservative, and intensely patriotic. During the 1990s Bacevich wrote for right-wing journals, and
still situates himself culturally on the right:
As long as we shared in the common cause of denouncing the foolishness and hypocrisies of the
Clinton years, my relationship with modern American conservatism remained a mutually agreeable
one But my disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the Bush
administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. Fiscal irresponsibility, a buccaneering
foreign policy, a disregard for the constitution, the barest lip service as a response to profound
moral controversies: these do not qualify as authentically conservative values.
On this score my views have come to coincide with the critique long offered by the radical
left: it is the mainstream itself, the professional liberals as well as the professional conservatives,
who define the problem The Republican and Democratic Parties may not be identical,
but they produce nearly identical results.
Bacevich, in other words, is skeptical of the naive belief that replacing the present administration
with a Democrat one would lead to serious changes in the US approach to the world. Formal party allegiances
are becoming increasingly irrelevant as far as thinking about foreign and security policy is concerned.
Bacevich also makes plain the private anger of much of the US uniformed military at the way in
which it has been sacrificed, and its institutions damaged, by chickenhawk civilian chauvinists who
have taken good care never to see action themselves; and the deep private concern of senior officers
that they might be ordered into further wars that would wreck the army altogether. Now, as never
before, American progressives have the chance to overcome the knee-jerk hostility to the uniformed
military that has characterized the left since Vietnam, and to reach out not only to the soldiers
in uniform but also to the social, cultural and regional worlds from which they are drawn. For if
the American left is once again to become an effective political force, it must return to some of
its own military traditions, founded on the distinguished service of men like George McGovern, on
the old idea of the citizen soldier, and on a real identification with that soldier's interests and
values. With this in mind, Bacevich calls for moves to bind the military more closely into American
society, including compulsory education for all officers at a civilian university, not only at the
start of their careers but at intervals throughout them.
Or to put it another way, the left must fight imperialism in the name of patriotism. Barring a
revolutionary and highly unlikely transformation of American mass culture, any political party that
wishes to win majority support will have to demonstrate its commitment to the defense of the country.
The Bush administration has used the accusation of weakness in security policy to undermine its opponents,
and then used this advantage to pursue reckless strategies that have themselves drastically weakened
the US. The left needs to heed Bacevich and draw up a tough, realistic and convincing alternative.
It will also have to demonstrate its identification with the respectable aspects of military culture.
The Bush administration and the US establishment in general may have grossly mismanaged the threats
facing us, but the threats are real, and some at least may well need at some stage to be addressed
by military force. And any effective military force also requires the backing of a distinctive military
ethic embracing loyalty, discipline and a capacity for both sacrifice and ruthlessness.
In the terrible story of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, one of the most morally disgusting
moments took place at a Senate Committee hearing on 29 April 2004, when Paul Wolfowitz – another
warmonger who has never served himself – mistook, by a margin of hundreds, how many US soldiers had
died in a war for which he was largely responsible. If an official in a Democratic administration
had made a public mistake like that, the Republican opposition would have exploited it ruthlessly,
unceasingly, to win the next election. The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this
says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused
strategy.
Because they are the ones who pay the price for reckless warmongering and geopolitical megalomania,
soldiers and veterans of the army and marine corps could become valuable allies in the struggle to
curb American imperialism, and return America's relationship with its military to the old limited,
rational form. For this to happen, however, the soldiers have to believe that campaigns against the
Iraq war, and against current US strategy, are anti-militarist, but not anti-military. We have needed
the military desperately on occasions in the past; we will definitely need them again.
"... The United States is already the most militaristic country in recent history and the danger is that during Hillary Clinton administration it might become even more militaristic. ..."
"... Even in this slightly more academic then usual forum we have dozen or so of open jingoistic crazies who are so brainwashed that dutifully reproduce the worst excesses of the neocon/neoliberal propaganda about Russia and evil Putin regime. And do not care one bit about the real strategic interests on the US and its population, which are somewhat different from interests of weapon manufactures, transnational corporations and financial oligarchy. ..."
"... And this traditional since the collapse of the USSR for American "helecentric" view on foreign policy, when the USA is the center of the world order and other states just rotate around it on various orbits, is very difficult to discard. The US population is by-and-large-completely brainwashed into this vision. ..."
"... The De Facto US/Al Qaeda Alliance: Buried deep inside Saturday's New York Times was a grudging acknowledgement that the U.S.-armed "moderate" rebels in Syria are using their U.S. firepower to back an Al Qaeda offensive. ..."
"... Though Al Qaeda got the ball rolling on America's revenge wars in the Middle East 15 years ago by killing several thousand Americans and others in the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group has faded into the background of U.S. attention, most likely because it messes up the preferred "good guy/bad guy" narrative regarding the Syrian war. ..."
"... For instance, the conflict in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and rebels operating primarily under Al Qaeda's command is treated in the Western media as simply a case of the barbaric Assad and his evil Russian ally Vladimir Putin mercilessly bombing what is portrayed as the east Aleppo equivalent of Disney World, a place where innocent children and their families peacefully congregate until they are targeted for death by the Assad-Putin war-crime family ..."
"... The photos sent out to the world by skillful rebel propagandists are almost always of wounded children being cared for by the "White Helmet" rebel civil defense corps, which has come under growing criticism for serving as a public-relations arm of Al Qaeda and other insurgents. (There also are allegations that some of the most notable images have been staged, like a fake war scene from the 1997 dark comedy, "Wag the Dog.") ..."
The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global
military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. Jobs and patronage
also ensure the support of much of the Congress, which often authorizes defense spending on
weapons systems the Pentagon doesn't want and hasn't asked for, in order to help some group
of senators and congressmen in whose home states these systems are manufactured. To achieve
wider support in the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion
that certain foreign nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level
of international tension.
Russia was chosen by neocons for the role of scapegoat as it does want to become a vassal country
and represents an obstacle on establishing the US world hegemony by being the nuclear armed state.
Even in this slightly more academic then usual forum we have dozen or so of open jingoistic
crazies who are so brainwashed that dutifully reproduce the worst excesses of the neocon/neoliberal
propaganda about Russia and evil Putin regime. And do not care one bit about the real strategic
interests on the US and its population, which are somewhat different from interests of weapon
manufactures, transnational corporations and financial oligarchy.
Hillary worldview includes messianism of Southern Baptist variety, a flavor of American nationalism
based on quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of the USA [pseudo]democratic
system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world.
So her election meads continued megalomania in militarist quarters while the infrastructure
crumbles under the growing costs on maintaining the global neoliberal empire ruled by the USA.
And this traditional since the collapse of the USSR for American "helecentric" view on
foreign policy, when the USA is the center of the world order and other states just rotate around
it on various orbits, is very difficult to discard. The US population is by-and-large-completely
brainwashed into this vision.
Opposition to the US militarism is almost non-existent due contemporary US popular culture
infused with the language of militarism and American exceptionalism. As Bacevich on noted:
In any Clancy novel, the international order is a dangerous and threatening place, awash
with heavily armed and implacably determined enemies who threaten the United States. That Americans
have managed to avoid Armageddon is attributable to a single fact: the men and women of America's
uniformed military and its intelligence services have thus far managed to avert those threats.
The typical Clancy novel is an unabashed tribute to the skill, honor, extraordinary technological
aptitude and sheer decency of the nation's defenders. To read Red Storm Rising is to enter
a world of 'virtuous men and perfect weapons', as one reviewer noted. 'All the Americans are
paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country. Their officers are uniformly
competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.'
Indeed, in the contract that he signed for the filming of Red October, Clancy stipulated that
nothing in the film show the navy in a bad light.
So while the election of Trump is a very dangerous experiment with its own considerable risks,
especially on domestic front, the election of Hillary would be a tragedy.
The De Facto US/Al Qaeda Alliance: Buried deep inside Saturday's New York Times was
a grudging acknowledgement that the U.S.-armed "moderate" rebels in Syria are using their U.S.
firepower to back an Al Qaeda offensive.
By Robert Parry
A curious aspect of the Syrian conflict – a rebellion sponsored largely by the United States
and its Gulf state allies – is the disappearance in much of the American mainstream news media
of references to the prominent role played by Al Qaeda in seeking to overthrow the secular
Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
There's much said in the U.S. press about ISIS, the former "Al Qaeda in Iraq" which splintered
off several years ago, but Al Qaeda's central role in commanding Syria's "moderate" rebels
in Aleppo and elsewhere is the almost unspoken reality of the Syrian war. Even in the U.S.
presidential debates, the arguing between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton
has been almost exclusively about ISIS, not Al Qaeda.
Though Al Qaeda got the ball rolling on America's revenge wars in the Middle East 15
years ago by killing several thousand Americans and others in the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist
group has faded into the background of U.S. attention, most likely because it messes up the
preferred "good guy/bad guy" narrative regarding the Syrian war.
For instance, the conflict in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and rebels operating
primarily under Al Qaeda's command is treated in the Western media as simply a case of the
barbaric Assad and his evil Russian ally Vladimir Putin mercilessly bombing what is portrayed
as the east Aleppo equivalent of Disney World, a place where innocent children and their families
peacefully congregate until they are targeted for death by the Assad-Putin war-crime family.
The photos sent out to the world by skillful rebel propagandists are almost always of
wounded children being cared for by the "White Helmet" rebel civil defense corps, which has
come under growing criticism for serving as a public-relations arm of Al Qaeda and other insurgents.
(There also are allegations that some of the most notable images have been staged, like a fake
war scene from the 1997 dark comedy, "Wag the Dog.")
Rare Glimpse of Truth
Yet, occasionally, the reality of Al Qaeda's importance in the rebellion breaks through,
even in the mainstream U.S. media, although usually downplayed and deep inside the news pages,
such as the article * in Saturday's New York Times by Hwaida Saad and Anne Barnard describing
a rebel offensive in Aleppo. It acknowledges:
"The new offensive was a strong sign that rebel groups vetted by the United States were
continuing their tactical alliances with groups linked to Al Qaeda, rather than distancing
themselves as Russia has demanded and the Americans have urged. The rebels argue that they
cannot afford to shun any potential allies while they are under fire, including well-armed
and motivated jihadists, without more robust aid from their international backers." (You might
note how the article subtly blames the rebel dependence on Al Qaeda on the lack of "robust
aid" from the Obama administration and other outside countries – even though such arms shipments
violate international law.)
What the article also makes clear in a hazy kind of way is that Al Qaeda's affiliate, the
recently renamed Nusra Front, and its jihadist allies, such as Ahrar al-Sham, are waging the
brunt of the fighting while the CIA-vetted "moderates" are serving in mostly support roles.
The Times reported:
"The insurgents have a diverse range of objectives and backers, but they issued statements
of unity on Friday. Those taking part in the offensive include the Levant Conquest Front, a
militant group formerly known as the Nusra Front that grew out of Al Qaeda; another hard-line
Islamist faction, Ahrar al-Sham; and other rebel factions fighting Mr. Assad that have been
vetted by the United States and its allies."
The article cites Charles Lister, a senior fellow and Syria specialist at the Middle East
Institute in Washington, and other analysts noting that "the vast majority of the American-vetted
rebel factions in Aleppo were fighting inside the city itself and conducting significant bombardments
against Syrian government troops in support of the Qaeda-affiliated fighters carrying out the
brunt of front-line fighting."
Lister noted that 11 of the 20 or so rebel groups conducting the Aleppo "offensive have
been vetted by the CIA and have received arms from the agency, including anti-tank missiles.
"In addition to arms provided by the United States, much of the rebels' weaponry comes from
regional states, like Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Mr. Lister said, including truck-borne
multiple-rocket launcher systems and Czech-made Grad rockets with extended ranges."
The U.S./Al Qaeda Alliance
In other words, the U.S. government and its allies have smuggled sophisticated weapons into
Syria to arm rebels who are operating in support of Al Qaeda's new military offensive against
Syrian government forces in Aleppo. By any logical analysis, that makes the United States an
ally of Al Qaeda....
The success of [civil rights and anti-apartheid] movements did not end racism, but drove
it underground, allowing neoliberals to exploit racist and tribalist political support while
pursuing the interests of wealth and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white)
poor.
That coalition has now been replaced by one in which the tribalists and racists are dominant.
For the moment at least, [hard] neoliberals continue to support the parties they formerly controlled,
with the result that the balance of political forces between the right and the opposing coalition
of soft neoliberals and the left has not changed significantly.
There's an ambiguity in this narrative and in the three-party analysis.
Do we acknowledge that the soft neoliberals in control of the coalition that includes the inchoate
left also "exploit racist and tribalist political support while pursuing the interests of wealth
and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white) poor."? They do it with a different
style and maybe with some concession to economic melioration, as well as supporting anti-racist
and feminist policy to keep the inchoate left on board, but . . .
The new politics of the right has lost faith in the hard neoliberalism that formerly furnished
its policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich, war in the Middle East and so on, leaving the impure
resentment ungoverned and unfocused, as you say.
The soft neoliberals, it seems to me, are using anti-racism to discredit economic populism
and its motivations, using the new politics of the right as a foil.
The problem of how to oppose racism and tribalism effectively is now entangled with soft neoliberal
control of the remaining party coalition, which is to say with the credibility of the left party
as a vehicle for economic populism and the credibility of economic populism as an antidote for
racism or sexism. (cf js. @ 1,2)
The form of tribalism used to mobilize the left entails denying that an agenda of economic
populism is relevant to the problems of sexism and racism, because the deplorables must be deplored
to get out the vote. And, because the (soft) neoliberals in charge must keep economic populism
under control to deliver the goods to their donor base.
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
"... A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. ..."
"... The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest, in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser, that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and the country. ..."
"... The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent answer to any number of problems. ..."
"... Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US. ..."
"... And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'. ..."
"... The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. ..."
"... To achieve wider support in the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension. ..."
"... They would include the element of messianism embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism. ..."
"... Red Storm Rising ..."
"... Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus. ..."
"... Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society. ..."
"... British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority, small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North America. ..."
"... As Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. ..."
"... Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years to do so. ..."
"... The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused strategy. ..."
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by
Andrew Bacevich
Oxford, 270 pp, £16.99, August 2005, ISBN 0 19 517338 4
A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the
Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore
eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. Yet, as Andrew Bacevich
points out in one of the most acute analyses of America to have appeared in recent years, the United
States itself is in many ways a militaristic country, and becoming more so:
at the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The skepticism about arms
and armies that informed the original Wilsonian vision, indeed, that pervaded the American experiment
from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamoured
with military might.
The ensuing affair had, and continues to have, a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued
in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue.
The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest,
in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser,
that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and
the country. Compared to German and other past militarisms, however, the contemporary American
variant is extremely complex, and the forces that have generated it have very diverse origins and
widely differing motives:
The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little
in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military
officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence
at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed
by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of
a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors
of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent
answer to any number of problems.
Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring
American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary
success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US.
And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and
what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'.
The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global
military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. Jobs and patronage
also ensure the support of much of the Congress, which often authorizes defense spending on weapons
systems the Pentagon doesn't want and hasn't asked for, in order to help some group of senators and
congressmen in whose home states these systems are manufactured. To achieve wider support in
the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign
nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension.
That's not the same, however, as having an actual desire for war, least of all for a major conflict
which might ruin the international economy. US ground forces have bitter memories of Vietnam, and
no wish to wage an aggressive war: Rumsfeld and his political appointees had to override the objections
of the senior generals, in particular those of the army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, before
the attack on Iraq. The navy and air force do not have to fight insurgents in hell-holes like Fallujah,
and so naturally have a more relaxed attitude.
To understand how the Bush administration was able to manipulate the public into supporting the
Iraq war one has to look for deeper explanations. They would include the element of messianism
embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless
validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest
of the world. This leads to a genuine belief that American soldiers can do no real wrong because
they are spreading 'freedom'. Also of great importance – at least until the Iraqi insurgency rubbed
American noses in the horrors of war – has been the development of an aesthetic that sees war as
waged by the US as technological, clean and antiseptic; and thanks to its supremacy in weaponry,
painlessly victorious. Victory over the Iraqi army in 2003 led to a new flowering of megalomania
in militarist quarters. The amazing Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal – an armchair commentator,
not a frontline journalist – declared that the US victory had made 'fabled generals such as Erwin
Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison'. Nor was this kind of talk restricted
to Republicans. More than two years into the Iraq quagmire, strategic thinkers from the Democratic
establishment were still declaring that 'American military power in today's world is practically
unlimited.'
Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism.
Take Bacevich on the popular novelist Tom Clancy:
In any Clancy novel, the international order is a dangerous and threatening place, awash with
heavily armed and implacably determined enemies who threaten the United States. That Americans
have managed to avoid Armageddon is attributable to a single fact: the men and women of America's
uniformed military and its intelligence services have thus far managed to avert those threats.
The typical Clancy novel is an unabashed tribute to the skill, honor, extraordinary technological
aptitude and sheer decency of the nation's defenders. To read Red Storm Rising is to
enter a world of 'virtuous men and perfect weapons', as one reviewer noted. 'All the Americans
are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country. Their officers are uniformly
competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.'
Indeed, in the contract that he signed for the filming of Red October, Clancy stipulated
that nothing in the film show the navy in a bad light.
Such attitudes go beyond simply glorying in violence, military might and technological prowess.
They reflect a belief – genuine or assumed – in what the Germans used to call Soldatentum:
the pre-eminent value of the military virtues of courage, discipline and sacrifice, and explicitly
or implicitly the superiority of these virtues to those of a hedonistic, contemptible and untrustworthy
civilian society and political class. In the words of Thomas Friedman, the ostensibly liberal foreign
affairs commentator of the ostensibly liberal New York Times, 'we do not deserve these people.
They are so much better than the country they are fighting for.' Such sentiments have a sinister
pedigree in modern history.
In the run-up to the last election, even a general as undistinguished as Wesley Clark could see
his past generalship alone as qualifying him for the presidency – and gain the support of leading
liberal intellectuals. Not that this was new: the first president was a general and throughout the
19th and 20th centuries both generals and more junior officers ran for the presidency on the strength
of their military records. And yet, as Bacevich points out, this does not mean that the uniformed
military have real power over policy-making, even in matters of war. General Tommy Franks may have
regarded Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense, as 'the stupidest fucking guy on the planet',
but he took Feith's orders, and those of the civilians standing behind him: Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld
and the president himself. Their combination of militarism and contempt for military advice recalls
Clemenceau and Churchill – or Hitler and Stalin.
Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring
contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and
the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many
American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich
brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous
with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point
of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to
Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.
Its symbols may be often childish and its methods brutish, but American belief in 'freedom' is
a real and living force. This cuts two ways. On the one hand, the adherence of many leading intellectuals
in the Democratic Party to a belief in muscular democratization has had a disastrous effect on the
party's ability to put up a strong resistance to the policies of the administration. Bush's messianic
language of 'freedom' – supported by the specifically Israeli agenda of Natan Sharansky and his allies
in the US – has been all too successful in winning over much of the opposition. On the other hand,
the fact that a belief in freedom and democracy lies at the heart of civic nationalism places certain
limits on American imperialism – weak no doubt, but nonetheless real. It is not possible for the
US, unlike previous empires, to pursue a strategy of absolutely unconstrained Machtpolitik.
This has been demonstrated recently in the breach between the Bush administration and the Karimov
tyranny in Uzbekistan.
The most important contradiction, however, is between the near worship of the military in much
of American culture and the equally widespread unwillingness of most Americans – elites and masses
alike – to serve in the armed forces. If people like Friedman accompanied their stated admiration
for the military with a real desire to abandon their contemptible civilian lives and join the armed
services, then American power in the world really might be practically unlimited. But as Bacevich
notes,
having thus made plain his personal disdain for crass vulgarity and support for moral rectitude,
Friedman in the course of a single paragraph drops the military and moves on to other pursuits.
His many readers, meanwhile, having availed themselves of the opportunity to indulge, ever so
briefly, in self-loathing, put down their newspapers and themselves move on to other things. Nothing
has changed, but columnist and readers alike feel better for the cathartic effect of this oblique,
reassuring encounter with an alien world.
Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to
serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves
in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society.
This combination of a theoretical adulation with a profound desire not to serve is not of course
new. It characterized most of British society in the 19th century, when, just as with the US today,
the overwhelming rejection of conscription – until 1916 – meant that, appearances to the contrary,
British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority,
small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries
in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North
America.
Despite spending more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and despite enjoying
overwhelming technological superiority, American military power is actually quite limited. As
Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it
cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population
as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. As for invading and occupying a country the size of Iran, this is
coming to seem as unlikely as an invasion of mainland China.
In other words, when it comes to actually applying military power the US is pretty much where
it has been for several decades. Another war of occupation like Iraq would necessitate the restoration
of conscription: an idea which, with Vietnam in mind, the military detests, and which politicians
are well aware would probably make them unelectable. It is just possible that another terrorist attack
on the scale of 9/11 might lead to a new draft, but that would bring the end of the US military empire
several steps closer. Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering
citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot
approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years
to do so.
Facing these dangers squarely, Bacevich proposes refocusing American strategy away from
empire and towards genuine national security. It is a measure of the degree to which imperial thinking
now dominates US politics that these moderate and commonsensical proposals would seem nothing short
of revolutionary to the average member of the Washington establishment.
They include a renunciation of messianic dreams of improving the world through military force,
except where a solid international consensus exists in support of US action; a recovery by Congress
of its power over peace and war, as laid down in the constitution but shamefully surrendered in recent
years; the adoption of a strategic doctrine explicitly making war a matter of last resort; and a
decision that the military should focus on the defense of the nation, not the projection of US power.
As a means of keeping military expenditure in some relationship to actual needs, Bacevich suggests
pegging it to the combined annual expenditure of the next ten countries, just as in the 19th century
the size of the British navy was pegged to that of the next two largest fleets – it is an index of
the budgetary elephantiasis of recent years that this would lead to very considerable spending reductions.
This book is important not only for the acuteness of its perceptions, but also for the identity
of its author. Colonel Bacevich's views on the military, on US strategy and on world affairs were
profoundly shaped by his service in Vietnam. His year there 'fell in the conflict's bleak latter
stages long after an odor of failure had begun to envelop the entire enterprise'. The book is dedicated
to his brother-in-law, 'a casualty of a misbegotten war'.
Just as Vietnam shaped his view of how the US and the US military should not intervene in the
outside world, so the Cold War in Europe helped define his beliefs about the proper role of the military.
For Bacevich and his fellow officers in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, defending the West from possible
Soviet aggression, 'not conquest, regime change, preventive war or imperial policing', was 'the American
soldier's true and honorable calling'.
In terms of cultural and political background, this former soldier remains a self-described Catholic
conservative, and intensely patriotic. During the 1990s Bacevich wrote for right-wing journals, and
still situates himself culturally on the right:
As long as we shared in the common cause of denouncing the foolishness and hypocrisies of the
Clinton years, my relationship with modern American conservatism remained a mutually agreeable
one But my disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the Bush
administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. Fiscal irresponsibility, a buccaneering
foreign policy, a disregard for the constitution, the barest lip service as a response to profound
moral controversies: these do not qualify as authentically conservative values.
On this score my views have come to coincide with the critique long offered by the radical
left: it is the mainstream itself, the professional liberals as well as the professional conservatives,
who define the problem The Republican and Democratic Parties may not be identical,
but they produce nearly identical results.
Bacevich, in other words, is skeptical of the naive belief that replacing the present administration
with a Democrat one would lead to serious changes in the US approach to the world. Formal party allegiances
are becoming increasingly irrelevant as far as thinking about foreign and security policy is concerned.
Bacevich also makes plain the private anger of much of the US uniformed military at the way in
which it has been sacrificed, and its institutions damaged, by chickenhawk civilian chauvinists who
have taken good care never to see action themselves; and the deep private concern of senior officers
that they might be ordered into further wars that would wreck the army altogether. Now, as never
before, American progressives have the chance to overcome the knee-jerk hostility to the uniformed
military that has characterized the left since Vietnam, and to reach out not only to the soldiers
in uniform but also to the social, cultural and regional worlds from which they are drawn. For if
the American left is once again to become an effective political force, it must return to some of
its own military traditions, founded on the distinguished service of men like George McGovern, on
the old idea of the citizen soldier, and on a real identification with that soldier's interests and
values. With this in mind, Bacevich calls for moves to bind the military more closely into American
society, including compulsory education for all officers at a civilian university, not only at the
start of their careers but at intervals throughout them.
Or to put it another way, the left must fight imperialism in the name of patriotism. Barring a
revolutionary and highly unlikely transformation of American mass culture, any political party that
wishes to win majority support will have to demonstrate its commitment to the defense of the country.
The Bush administration has used the accusation of weakness in security policy to undermine its opponents,
and then used this advantage to pursue reckless strategies that have themselves drastically weakened
the US. The left needs to heed Bacevich and draw up a tough, realistic and convincing alternative.
It will also have to demonstrate its identification with the respectable aspects of military culture.
The Bush administration and the US establishment in general may have grossly mismanaged the threats
facing us, but the threats are real, and some at least may well need at some stage to be addressed
by military force. And any effective military force also requires the backing of a distinctive military
ethic embracing loyalty, discipline and a capacity for both sacrifice and ruthlessness.
In the terrible story of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, one of the most morally disgusting
moments took place at a Senate Committee hearing on 29 April 2004, when Paul Wolfowitz – another
warmonger who has never served himself – mistook, by a margin of hundreds, how many US soldiers had
died in a war for which he was largely responsible. If an official in a Democratic administration
had made a public mistake like that, the Republican opposition would have exploited it ruthlessly,
unceasingly, to win the next election. The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this
says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused
strategy.
Because they are the ones who pay the price for reckless warmongering and geopolitical megalomania,
soldiers and veterans of the army and marine corps could become valuable allies in the struggle to
curb American imperialism, and return America's relationship with its military to the old limited,
rational form. For this to happen, however, the soldiers have to believe that campaigns against the
Iraq war, and against current US strategy, are anti-militarist, but not anti-military. We have needed
the military desperately on occasions in the past; we will definitely need them again.
"... Time is running short for President Obama to make good on his 2009 promise "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet as both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times recently reported, Obama's advisers may have just nixed the single most important reform advocated by arms control advocates: a formal pledge that the United States will never again be the first country to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. ..."
"... Two-thirds of adult Americans surveyed support such a policy. So do 10 U.S. senators who wrote President Obama in July, proposing a no-first-use declaration to "reduce the risk of accidental nuclear conflict" and seeking cut-backs in his trillion dollar plan for nuclear modernization over the next 30 years. ..."
"... In a 2007 manifesto, Carter, Moniz, and other centrist Democratic foreign policy experts rejected the old claim that nuclear weapons are still needed to deter non-nuclear attacks. ..."
"... They also gave strong implicit support to a no-first-use doctrine, stating that "nuclear weapons must be seen as a last resort, when no other options can ensure the security of the U.S. and its allies." ..."
"... "Using nuclear weapons first against Russia and China would endanger our and our allies' very survival by encouraging full-scale retaliation," he and a colleague wrote. "Such use against North Korea would be likely to result in the blanketing of Japan and possibly South Korea with deadly radioactive fallout." ..."
"... As two senior officials at the Arms Control Association observed recently in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , "Among other advantages, a clear US no-first-use policy would reduce the risk of Russian or Chinese nuclear miscalculation during a crisis by alleviating concerns about a devastating US nuclear first-strike. ..."
"... Why would anyone believe the US would not strike first with nukes, pledge or no pledge? This country has lied so much. Nobody cares anymore. To Americans there are worse things in the world than slaughtering millions of people in war by "mistake", and that's the prospect of not looking tough. ..."
"... Before considering the relative merits of a "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons, it would first be necessary to consider whether words like "policy" actually mean anything relative to the U.S. history of the last seventy years. ..."
"... The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be "harmless to the surrounding civilian population". Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a "humanitarian undertaking". ..."
"... Overkill has been part of the American war strategy for some time and could be a sign of fear-inspired paranoia. People with a lot to lose are prone to magnifying threats. ..."
The U.S. threat to launch a first-strike nuclear attack has little real strategic value – though
it poses a real risk to human survival – but President Obama fears political criticism if he changes
the policy, as Jonathan Marshall explains.
Time is running short for President Obama to make good on his 2009
promise "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," for which he won
the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet as both the
Wall Street Journal and
New York Times recently reported, Obama's advisers may have just nixed the single most important
reform advocated by arms control advocates: a formal pledge that the United States will never again
be the first country to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
Ever since President Truman ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, the United States
has reserved the right to initiate nuclear war against an overwhelming conventional, chemical or
biological attack on us or our allies. But peace advocates - and more than a few senior military
officers - have long warned that resorting to nuclear weapons would ignite a global holocaust, killing
hundreds of millions
of people .
President Barack Obama uncomfortably accepting the Nobel Peace Prize from Committee Chairman
Thorbjorn Jagland in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009. (White House photo)
In a
talk to the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association on June 6, Deputy National Security
Advisor Benjamin Rhodes promised that President Obama would continue to review ways to achieve his
grand vision of a nuclear-free world during his last months in office. Obama was
reportedly considering a "series of executive actions" to that end, including a landmark shift
to a "no first use" policy.
Two-thirds of adult Americans surveyed
support such a policy. So do 10 U.S. senators who
wrote President Obama in July, proposing a no-first-use declaration to "reduce the risk of accidental
nuclear conflict" and seeking cut-backs in his
trillion dollar plan for nuclear modernization over the next 30 years.
But Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (who oversees the
nuclear stockpile), and Secretary of State John Kerry all warned during a National Security Council
meeting in July that declaring a policy of "no first use" would alarm America's allies, undercut
U.S. credibility, and send a message of weakness to the Kremlin at a time of tense relations with
Russia.
Yet until they took charge of giant bureaucracies whose funding depends on keeping the threat
of nuclear war alive, both Carter and Moniz were on record supporting "a new strategy for
reducing nuclear threats" and achieving security "at significantly lower levels of nuclear forces
and with less reliance on nuclear weapons in our national security strategy."
In a 2007 manifesto, Carter, Moniz, and other centrist Democratic foreign policy experts rejected
the old claim that nuclear weapons are still needed to deter non-nuclear attacks.
"Nuclear weapons are much less credible in deterring conventional, biological, or chemical weapon
attacks," they wrote. "A more effective way of deterring and defending against such non-nuclear attacks
– and giving the President a wider range of credible response options – would be to rely on a robust
array of conventional strike capabilities and strong declaratory policies."
They also gave strong implicit support to a no-first-use doctrine, stating that "nuclear weapons
must be seen as a last resort, when no other options can ensure the security of the U.S. and its
allies."
Risk of Overreaction
Why does a no-first-use policy matter? In a New York Times
column last month, Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
head of the United States Strategic Command, emphasized the folly of introducing nuclear weapons
into any conflict.
"Using nuclear weapons first against Russia and China would endanger our and our allies' very
survival by encouraging full-scale retaliation," he and a colleague wrote. "Such use against North
Korea would be likely to result in the blanketing of Japan and possibly South Korea with deadly radioactive
fallout."
A policy of no first use, backed up by a reconfiguration of U.S. nuclear forces to reduce their
offensive capabilities, would lower the chance of a rival nuclear power rushing to launch early in
a crisis and unleashing World War III. Today some nuclear powers like Russia have their forces on
hair-trigger alert for fear of being wiped out by a U.S. surprise attack; as a result, the world
is just one
false alarm away from all-out nuclear war.
As two senior officials at the Arms Control Association
observed recently
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , "Among other advantages, a clear US no-first-use
policy would reduce the risk of Russian or Chinese nuclear miscalculation during a crisis by alleviating
concerns about a devastating US nuclear first-strike.
"Such risks could grow in the future as Washington develops cyber offensive capabilities that
can confuse nuclear command and control systems, as well as new strike capabilities and strategic
ballistic missile interceptors that Russia and China believe may degrade their nuclear retaliatory
potential."
They also discounted the claim that U.S. allies such as Japan or Korea would rebel against such
a change of policy: "They are highly likely to accept such a decision, since no first use will in
no way weaken US military preparedness to confront non-nuclear threats to their security. . . Many
US allies, including NATO members Germany and the Netherlands, support the adoption of no-first-use
policies by all nuclear-armed states."
Warnings by nuclear hawks that a common-sense doctrine of no-first-use would undercut U.S. "credibility"
or project "weakness" are simply business-as-usual attempts by national security bureaucrats to inflate
threats and keep the war machine in high gear. If they succeed in blocking reform, America and the
rest of the world will remain at real risk of annihilation through accidental nuclear escalation.
The question now is whether President Obama will listen to the fear-mongers in his cabinet, or
remember
what he said in May at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial: "Among those nations like my own that hold
nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without
them."
I almost forgot about the "Obama gets a Nobel Prize" joke.
Why would anyone believe the US would not strike first with nukes, pledge or no pledge?
This country has lied so much. Nobody cares anymore. To Americans there are worse things in the
world than slaughtering millions of people in war by "mistake", and that's the prospect of not
looking tough.
exiled off mainstreet September 8, 2016 at 1:10 pm
Unfortunately, nuclear blackmail is central to the Yankee imperium maintaining its claim on
total power. It is Lord Acton's absolute power on steroids. The demonization of Putin on behalf
the harpy's campaign by many whom at one time themselves showed skepticism of the power structure
reveals the complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of exponents of the Yankee regime.
F. G. Sanford September 8, 2016 at 4:09 pm
Before considering the relative merits of a "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons, it
would first be necessary to consider whether words like "policy" actually mean anything relative
to the U.S. history of the last seventy years.
I don't even have to mention "conspiracy theories" in order to illustrate the point. Gulf of
Tonkin, Operation Phoenix, MK Ultra, Bay of Pigs, Operation Northwoods, subversion of the Paris
Peace Talks, Watergate, October Surprise, Iran Contra, the Church Committee findings, The House
Select Committee on Assassinations, Cointelpro, numerous regime changes and illegal wars – including
the falsified case for invasion of Iraq – all highlight the complete lawlessness of the U.S.A.
According to international law, The Constitution, numerous treaties and United States public
law, there should be no first use of CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS. Their "first use" constitutes war of
aggression, "The Supreme International Crime" according to Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor, Robert
H. Jackson. What has been missing in the United States for the last seventy years is simply SPECIFICATION
OF CHARGES. All seven of the (known) countries in which we are currently conducting hostile military
operations constitute examples of illegal wars based on our own Constitution and International
Law. Retaliation against the United States for conducting these wars, should some country be willing
or able, WOULD NOT BE ILLEGAL. Keep in mind, we haven't "won" a war since WWII unless you count
Grenada. Even then, you'd have to ignore the fact that the Russians practically, if not politically,
won WWII.
I realize the good intentions of the author, and I respect his credentials, but this analysis
represents the typical tendency in the U.S. to devolve discourse into specks of sand while drowning
in quicksand. It contributes to official propaganda without realization or intent. SPECIFICATION
OF CHARGES is the topic no journalist seems willing to tackle. Let me give an example. When the
2000 Florida vote recount was underway, Jeb Bush got on the phone to the five biggest law firms
in the state and told them not to represent Al Gore. THAT IS A FELONY. But, rather than discuss
SPECIFICATION OF CHARGES, American journalists were content to stand by and watch an unindicted
felon run for the highest office in the land. After finding out that his brother lied to us, they
abrogated their duty and stood by while he was reelected…by another statistically impossible election
result.
Americans may be oblivious to all this, but the rest of the world certainly isn't. They don't
believe a damn thing we say. That will only worsen with the election of a bona fide war monger
in November. NOBODY overseas believes ANY of our "official" narratives. We've stirred up trouble
in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Now, we're working on the Asian Pacific. Europe is overrun
by a refugee crisis we created. Does any rational person not see the risk posed by these unfettered
abuses? Since they cannot match us conventionally, and they see no end to the onslaught of disastrous
U.S. foreign intervention, at least two countries are likely to view a nuclear "first strike"
as their only hope to salvage some semblance of national sovereignty. If anyone has read this
far, thanks for listening. I'm at the point of giving up on further commentary; it all looks pretty
hopeless at this point.
Bill Bodden September 8, 2016 at 5:22 pm
Excellent points.
Joe Tedesky September 9, 2016 at 12:11 am
F.G. We all get fed up and frustrated with our country's sad performances it displays on our world's
stage, but whatever you do don't quit posting commentaries. This evening I was going over archived
articles on this site from the past, and you were one of the commenters going back to around 2011
or maybe it was 2012, but no matter you were there. What I do like about this site, is it is an
oasis in a desert when it comes to the commenters, and you are one of them I totally enjoy. Oh,
and the articles are priceless.
Now, what gets me going of late, isn't just how treaties mean nothing to our American government,
but how things come and go,,and then disappear down a black news hold. For instance, back in 2014
the torture files were brought up in our news media. The Panetta Review, and all that kind of
garbage was finally being exposed. That was until the whole thing vanished like it never existed.
Kind of like going to war to find WMD's, and then when we find there are none, well we just up
and go on about our way, as if nothing ever happened.
The U.S. doesn't respect treaties, and there is never anyone to hold to accountability. We
are the nation who creates the reality. As you have heard, we are the nation who is indispensable
and exceptional. Your either with us, or against us. Another nations sovereignty doesn't mean
a thing when it comes to waging war, if we are right well then we are right. There are no questions
to be answered. What law is there, what legal system can enforce any law national or international,
when it comes to what America does?
To all the commenters on this site, I can't say how much it means to me, to not only comment
here, but more importantly what a pleasure it is to read all your comments and take in the knowledge
I get by reading what you all have to say. Even the comments I don't agree with often leave food
for thought…so yes I'm thanking everyone.
We need more not less of the unblinkered and sober assessments like this one you have educated
and enlightened us with here.
Now is not a good time to allow Dr. Feelgood to run amok especially with faux concern governing
the passing contests and ego driven games that endanger not only people, but every living creature
on the planet, except perhaps cock roaches… the only ones who will benefit from an unfettered
nuclear policy of when in doubt go nuclear……
Abe September 10, 2016 at 10:27 pm
The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity.
US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said
to be "harmless to the surrounding civilian population". Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed
as a "humanitarian undertaking".
Thank you….the piece about Jeb Bush near the end was, something that I didn't know. The paragraph
about the "Specifications of charges" was another aspect of which I've never seen mentioned. I
really enjoy well written posts where I can keep filling in bits of the big picture ,as I call
it.
M. September 8, 2016 at 4:32 pm
Nuclear war preparedness and the use of nuclear weapons have already affected so many and will
continue to do so. Nuclear waste disposal alone is a huge problem. Since a nuclear war, limited
or otherwise, will affect the entire world one way or another, it would seem that all nations
should be brought together to have S.A.L.T.- like talks, not just the current nuclear powers,
but the presumed and potential nuclear powers, as well as those nations who will in all likelihood
never have them. Everyone on the planet has a stake in this. It could lead to great reductions
in other kinds of weapons, and possibly, to the most important discussion of all – how to have
and maintain real peace in the world. It isn't too late for President Obama to remember what he
said in Hiroshima, as Mr. Marshall stated, and not too late for him to be a true leader and to
act on those words.
Bill Bodden September 8, 2016 at 5:36 pm
Overkill has been part of the American war strategy for some time and could be a sign of fear-inspired
paranoia. People with a lot to lose are prone to magnifying threats.
Obama's recent remarks referring to the insane bombing of Laos that was an example of Nixon's
madness brought reminders of this lunacy. "Over 270 million cluster bombs were dropped on Laos
during the Vietnam War (210 million more bombs than were dropped on Iraq in 1991, 1998 and 2006
combined); up to 80 million did not detonate." –
http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/
– That was probably more than a dozen cluster bombs for each Laotian – man, woman and child.
In addition to suggesting this was insanity on the part of the Nixon-Kissinger administration
it probably also indicates gross incompetence or a lack of moral courage on the part of the leadership
in the Air Force.
"... Like all modern presidents, Obama quickly learned the political economy of the entrenched nuclear establishment, committing a trillion dollars to the "modernization" of the arsenal and its delivery systems 30 years beyond his presidency. ..."
"... Such staggering expenditures are, however, even more unlikely to purchase the order and security that Secretary Carter promised than when Mumford issued his warning. That was well before thousands of thermonuclear weapons waited on hair-trigger alert for the order to launch or a glitch that would do so without an order. ..."
"... In his recently published book My Journey At the Nuclear Brink, Bill Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry detailed the numerous close calls by which the world has dodged partial or all-out Armageddon and claimed that the likelihood of disaster is growing rather than diminishing. Most of these events are unknown to the public. ..."
"... Obama changed the US nuclear weapon policy by adopting "first strike doctrine". ..."
"... That, along with aggressive moves to install anti missile systems (which are of dual use and can be retrofitted with offensive weapons) in Poland, Romania and South Korea changed the strategic balance in the USA favor. ..."
Almost goofily, behind Official Washington's latest
warmongering "group think," the U.S. has plunged into a New
Cold War against Russia with no debate about the enormous
costs and the extraordinary risks of nuclear annihilation.
By Gray Brechin
When Lewis Mumford heard that a primitive atomic bomb had
obliterated Hiroshima, the eminent urban and technology
historian experienced "almost physical nausea." He instantly
understood that humanity now had the means to exterminate
itself.
On March 2, 1946, seven months later, he published an
essay titled "Gentlemen: You Are Mad!" Not only did madmen,
Mumford insist, "govern our affairs in the name of order and
security," but he called his fellow Americans equally mad for
viewing "the madness of our leaders as if it expressed a
traditional wisdom and common sense" even as those leaders
readied the means for "the casual suicide of the human race."
In the 70 years since the Saturday Review of Literature
published Mumford's warning, that madness has grown to be
normative so that those who question the cost, safety and
promised security of the nuclear stockpile are regarded as
the Trojans did Cassandra - if they are noticed at all.
"The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the
president gives the order it must be followed," insisted
Hillary Clinton in the third presidential debate as a means
of affirming her own - rather than her opponent's -
qualifications to give that order. "There's about four
minutes between the order being given and the people
responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so."
Four minutes to launch is a minute more than the three to
midnight at which the Doomsday Clock now stands. Clinton no
doubt calculated that voters would be more comfortable with
her own steady finger on the nuclear trigger. I can think of
no better proof of Mumford's contention than the fact that
those voters would give any individual the power to abruptly
end life on Earth unless it is that her statement went
unremarked by those keeping score.
The Nobel Mistake
Less than nine months into Barack Obama's presidency,
Norway's Nobel Institute bestowed the Nobel Peace Prize on
him largely on the strength of his pledge during his first
major foreign policy speech in Prague to rid the world of
nuclear weapons. In a 2015 memoir, former secretary of the
Institute Geir Lundestad expressed remorse for doing so,
saying "We thought that it would strengthen Obama and it
didn't have that effect."
Like all modern presidents, Obama quickly learned the
political economy of the entrenched nuclear establishment,
committing a trillion dollars to the "modernization" of the
arsenal and its delivery systems 30 years beyond his
presidency.
As Obama prepared to leave office, his Defense Secretary
Ashton Carter rejected pleas for reducing the stockpile and
announced that the Pentagon planned to spend $108 billion
over five years to "correct decades of underinvestment in
nuclear deterrence … dating back to the Cold War." The last
Cold War, that is.
Such staggering expenditures are, however, even more
unlikely to purchase the order and security that Secretary
Carter promised than when Mumford issued his warning. That
was well before thousands of thermonuclear weapons waited on
hair-trigger alert for the order to launch or a glitch that
would do so without an order.
In his recently published book My Journey At the Nuclear
Brink, Bill Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry
detailed the numerous close calls by which the world has
dodged partial or all-out Armageddon and claimed that the
likelihood of disaster is growing rather than diminishing.
Most of these events are unknown to the public.
Former head of the U.S. Strategic Command General James
Cartwright bolstered Perry's claim when he told a San
Francisco audience that "It makes no sense to keep our
nuclear weapons online 24 hours a day" since "You've either
been hacked and are not admitting it, or you're being hacked
and don't know it." One of those hackers, he said, could get
lucky.
A Non-existent Debate
When Hillary Clinton was asked at a town hall event in
Concord, New Hampshire, if she would reduce expenditures for
nuclear arms and rein in the corporations that sell the
government those weapons, she replied "I think we are overdue
for a very thorough debate in our country about what we need
and how we are willing to pay for it."
Such a debate has never been held and - given the peril,
complexity and cost of nuclear technology - it is never
likely to happen unless a president of exceptional courage
and independence demands it. The profits of weapons
production are simply too great and few of the prospective
victims understandably want to dwell on the unthinkable when
so much more diverting entertainment is available on their
Smartphones.
Nuclear weapons by their nature are inimical to
transparency and thus to the public discussion, control and
democracy they ostensibly protect. Nor does Doomsday make for
winning dinner banter.
The Brookings Institute in 1998 published a study of the
cumulative costs of nuclear weapons entitled Atomic Audit. It
put the bill to date at $5.5 trillion, virtually none of
which was known by the public or even to members of Congress
or the President. The cost simply grew and continues to grow
in the dark, precluding spending on so much else that might
otherwise return in public works and services to those who
unwittingly pay for the weapons while also mitigating the
causes of war abroad....
Dr. Gray Brechin is the Project Scholar of the Living New
Deal University at the UC Berkeley Department of Geography.
That, along with aggressive moves to install anti missile
systems (which are of dual use and can be retrofitted with
offensive weapons) in Poland, Romania and South Korea changed
the strategic balance in the USA favor.
I wonder how Russia and China would react on this.
Currently they still stick to "no first use" principle.
Russia and China would react on this. Currently they still
stick to "no first use" principle.
"
A Fate Worse Than Death
During the inquisition Catholic Priests logically assumed
that living within a community of Jews would be a fate worse
than death thus chose death instead of integration. Sure!
They didn't need to kill all the Jews. They only needed to
kill the ones that didn't convert to Christianity during
their stint with torture.
During the final weeks of Second World War Victory, 33rd
President decided that the American Voters would consider
life with Japanese a fate worse than death thus resolved to
kill off bunch of them even though the execution had nothing
to do with final victory. Hell!
A simple blockade of the industrial island nation would
have starved Japanese of raw materials enough to send the
Japanese straight back to the stone ages thus render them
harmless in less than 2 years. Hell!
The blockade was already in place.
During the Cold War our leaders decided that American
Voters would find it a fate worse than death to be conquered
by communists, a fate worse than death to live without
capitalism. Decided, then fabricated thousands of nuclear
devices, enough devices to provide the kind of strontium
isotope fall out that would allow cockroaches to survive but
render all of humanity forever extinct .
Today, by contrast, we see that Russian Communism has
imploded, Chinese Communism has morphed into Bankster/Capitalism,
and Vietnamese Communism is not trying to subjugate the
World.
In other words, the fear of being conquered does not
logically indicate the need for WoMD, weapons of mass
destruction that could annihilate the entire human race.
Yet the Democrats continue to follow in the foot steps of
33rd President, continue to walk in his footprints. Hell!
What I do not get is how one can call himself/herself a democrat and be jingoistic monster.
That's the problem with Democratic Party and its supporters. Such people for me are DINO ("Democrats
only in name"). Closet neocons, if you wish. The level of militarism in the current US society
and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of
draft) and are limited for libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives. There is almost
completely empty space on the left. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few exceptions
(see
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/must-read-of-the-day-dennis-kucinich-issues-extraordinary-warning-on-d-c-s-think-tank-warmongers/
)
I think that people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney can now proudly join
Democratic Party and feel themselves quite at home.
BTW Hillary is actually very pleasant with people of the same level. It's only subordinates,
close relatives and Security Service agents, who are on the receiving end of her wrath. A typical
"kiss up, kick down personality".
The right word probably would not "nasty", but "duplicitous".
Or "treacherous" as this involves breaking of previous agreements (with a smile) as the USA
diplomacy essentially involves positioning the country above the international law. As in "I am
the law".
Obama is not that different. I think he even more sleazy then Hillary and as such is more difficult
to deal with. He also is at his prime, while she is definitely past hers:
== quote ==
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current
U.S. administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people
chose, and to discuss any problem.
== end of quote ==
Syria is an "Obama-approved" adventure, is not it ? The same is true for Libya. So formally
he is no less jingoistic then Hillary, Nobel Peace price notwithstanding.
Other things equal, it might be easier for Putin to deal with Hillary then Obama, as she
has so many skeletons in the closet and might soon be impeached by House.
"... Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid pro quo, Clinton tells us. ..."
"... Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue to surge and will win on November 8th. ..."
"... Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton. ..."
"... The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question. ..."
"... Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls were all for naught. ..."
"... More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs, deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker. ..."
"... A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster. ..."
"... Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war? ..."
"... Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets. ..."
"... Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from documented Clinton corruption. ..."
"... The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks. ..."
"... Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard, corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office. Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of a political and personal wreck. ..."
Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been
sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half
of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid
pro quo, Clinton tells us.
Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised money for
the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge fees for Bill's
speeches.
What were the corporations buying if not influence? What were the foreign contributors buying,
if not influence with an ex-president, and a secretary of state and possible future president?
Did none of the big donors receive any official favors?
"There's a lot of smoke and there's no fire," says Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps, but there seems to be more smoke every day.
If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress, Clinton
were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special prosecutor,
as was Nixon's.
And, with the election over, the investigative reporters of the adversary press, Pulitzers beckoning,
would be cut loose to go after her.
The Republican House is already gearing up for investigations that could last deep into Clinton's
first term.
There is a vast trove of public and sworn testimony from Hillary, about the server, the emails,
the erasures, the Clinton Foundation. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, there are tens of thousands of emails
to sift through, and perhaps tens of thousands more to come.
What are the odds that not one contains information that contradicts her sworn testimony? Rep.
Jim Jordan contends that Clinton may already have perjured herself.
And as the full-court press would begin with her inauguration, Clinton would have to deal with
the Syrians, the Russians, the Taliban, the North Koreans, and Xi Jinping in the South China Sea-and
with Bill Clinton wandering around the White House with nothing to do.
This election is not over. But if Hillary Clinton wins, a truly hellish presidency could await
her, and us.
Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue
to surge and will win on November 8th.
Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either
a Trump lead or a statistical dead-heat.
The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed
by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest
level since Gallup began asking the question.
Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will
show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls
were all for naught.
Thus, fortunately, the American people will avoid the spectacle of a "truly hellish" Clinton
presidency.
More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs,
deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage
stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker.
A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster.
James Polk, no charmer, was a one-term president, but a great one, victorious in the Mexican
War, annexing California and the Southwest, negotiating a fair division of the Oregon territory
with the British.
Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is
defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?
The only people responsible for that "cloud" are conservatives. If you wish to prevent the horrid
fate that you're describing, Pat, you need to apologize and concede that these investigations
are groundless. You can't say "where there's smoke, there's fire" if we can all see your smoke
machine.
The Visigoths will continue their advance on Rome by the millions. The Supreme Court and Fed will
shy away from diversity in their numbers. The alternative media will go bonkers, but to no avail.
The military will provide employment (endless wars) to those displaced by a permissive immigration
policy. Elizabeth I – will look down (up) in envy.
Re: "Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised
money for the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge
fees for Bill's speeches."
Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets.
Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or
Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless
red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from
documented Clinton corruption.
The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos
do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling
the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically
inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks.
Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard,
corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office.
Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of
a political and personal wreck.
Agree with Pat though that it's going to be a wild ride for the rest of us – straight down.
P.S. A Republican Congress does have the power of the purse and could shave away Clinton's
Imperial use of the executive branch. But the feckless Congress has never been intelligent enough
to utilize that power effectively.
SteveM makes excellent points about the mainstream media cover-up of the Wikileaks revelations:
"Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets."
Alex Pfeiffer (The Daily Caller) expands upon SteveM's critique in "The Anatomy Of A Press
Cover-Up." Great stuff:
@William N. Grigg: "Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential
"greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?"
Yes, that's one aspect of PJB's thought that has long disturbed me. Granted, PJB is a nationalist,
and I can see why an old-fashioned nationalist would admire Polk. But PJB also advocates an "enlightened
nationalism." There's nothing enlightened about stealing someone else's land. Frankly, I fail
to see how Polk's actions are any different from Hitler's actions a century later. I don't want
to offend anyone but, I'm sorry… this needs to be said.
I greatly admire Pat Buchanan, but this article is rather ridiculous.
"If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress,
Clinton were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special
prosecutor, as was Nixon's."
Translation: "I want revenge for Watergate."
Look, I admire Nixon. I think he was one of our greatest Presidents. I really mean that. I
also think that he was unfairly subjected to a witch hunt and that there was no valid reason for
him to have faced the prospect of impeachment (and the same is true, in my view, for both of the
Presidents who were actually impeached, interestingly enough). Nixon should have been allowed
to finish his second term.
I think Hillary Clinton is also facing a witch hunt. I don't agree with her foreign policy
views or with many of her domestic policy views, but this vicious attempt by the GOP to take her
down needs to stop. There is no evidence that she is any more corrupt than anybody else.
And, in any case, if she gets elected, she will be entitled to serve as President. To deliberately
try to sabotage her Presidency by hounding her with these investigations would be to show profound
contempt for democratic norms.
Enough already. I don't support Clinton or Trump. Jill Stein is my gal now. But I hope that
whoever wins does a great job and that all goes well for them. Nothing else would be in the best
interests of the country or the world.
"Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either a Trump
lead or a statistical dead-heat."
We heard this in 2012. Go back and read the Free Republic election night thread to see how
such comforting thoughts came crashing down as the night went on. Then read the posts today…all
the exact same people saying all the exact same things.
For a society to work well and to succeed, the good-will (trust and support) of it's productive,
tax-paying citizens is of paramount importance. The corrupt politics in DC for the last 25 years
has used up this good-will. Only few trust these elitists , as evidenced by the success of
the socialist, Sanders, and Trump.
With the election of the corrupt, lying, unaccomplished politician, the legitimacy of the
D.C. "Leaders" will be gone. It would be a disaster!
" She would enter office as the least-admired president in history, without a vision or a mandate.
She would take office with two-thirds of the nation believing she is untruthful and untrustworthy.
"
Funny you should go there. Sure, HRC has historically high unfavorability ratings. Fact: DJT's
unfavorability ratings are even higher. Check any reasonably non-partisan site such as RCP or
538.
Pretty much all the negatives about HRC are trumped by Trump. His flip-flopping makes hers
look amateur: he used to be a pro-choice Democrat; has publicly espoused admiration for HRC and
declared that WJC was unfairly criticized for his transgressions. Integrity: he's stiffed countless
businesses, small and large; he's been sued by his own lawyers for non-payment. Character: he
behaves like a child, 'nuff said.
Corruption: his daddy illegally bailed him out of a financial jam; Trump's foundation makes
the Clintons' look legit by comparison.
With HRC, the GOP had a huge chance to take back the WH: she has plenty of genuine baggage
to go along with the made-up stuff. However the GOP managed to nominate the one candidate who
makes her transgressions appear tolerable. The end result is that a significant number of moderate
Republicans are supporting no one, Johnson, or even HRC. Trump is so toxic that very few progressive
Dems will stray from HRC, despite being horrified by her corporate connections.
Re today: The FBI is not investigating her server. Servers don't send emails on their own. They
are investigating Hillary Clinton. They just don't like to say that. I wonder if it's in order
to – once again – announce Hillary's "innocence," just before the end of early voting and voting
day. We'll see.
For those interested in a functional government, note that this is three straight elections
– over twelve years – where the incoming president is a priori deemed illegitimate, regardless
of the scale of the victory, and the opposing political party has no interest in working with
that president.
In fact, some senators and representatives (Cruz, Gowdy, Issa, etc.) seem to take joy and pride
in noting the extent and length of these investigations, regardless of what they find. It is the
very process of governmental obstruction they seek, not necessarily justice or truth.
Could we have a new historic first if Hillary wins, the First Woman President to be impeached
by Congress? And the first couple in the history of the Republic to both be impeached?
At some point the Republicans have to be for something. I suppose they will be tempted to go after
Ms. Clinton for what she has elided or attempted to, but I think that is a major mistake. You
wrote: "Yet the hostility Clinton would face the day she takes office would almost seem to ensure
four years of pure hell.
The reason: her credibility, or rather her transparent lack of it."
There are a few assumptions in this – first, that any investigations into her past behavior
will be impartial. True or not, the impression will be hard to pull off – I expect they will easily
be framed as misogynist. And some most likely will be, so it takes a bit of thought and study
to determine which are motivated by misogyny and which are not. News cycles are too fast for that
sort of reflection, and in any event more or less all the major papers and television networks
are in her camp, so can't really expect journalism out of them anymore. It will be a called a
misogynist, partisan investigation and that will be the end of it.
Second, it assumes that the people doing the investigation have credibility. That's a big if
– the GOP went from Bush 43's two terms of military adventurism, increasing income inequality
and economic catastrophe to no introspection or admission of error in the ensuing 8 years of apparently
mindless, vindictive opposition. That is a long time of being kind of – well – less than thoughtful.
And it's had tremendous costs. Mr. Obama presents as a decent man in his profiles, but he was
very inexperienced when elected and in my opinion has more or less been bumbling around for almost
8 years now, kind of like Clouseau in those old Pink Panther movies. Only a lot of people of died,
lost their homes or have seen their communities consumed by despair. Government has been very
ineffective for many Americans, and the Republicans have a lot to answer for with the way they've
chosen to spend their time and direct their energy over the last 8 years. It's been a waste going
after Obama, and going after Clinton will just be more of the same.
And the last assumption is that with all that might be going on in the next few years, this
is important. Ms. Clinton has made some statements, some good, some bad. The bad, though, are
remarkably bad – she's for invading a Middle Eastern country and establishing control over their
airspace, as an example. In 2017. It's pure crazy. She has Democratic support. Hate to think if
she is elected the Republicans will be focusing on email.
"... Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid pro quo, Clinton tells us. ..."
"... Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue to surge and will win on November 8th. ..."
"... Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton. ..."
"... The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question. ..."
"... Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls were all for naught. ..."
"... More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs, deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker. ..."
"... A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster. ..."
"... Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war? ..."
"... Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets. ..."
"... Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from documented Clinton corruption. ..."
"... The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks. ..."
"... Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard, corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office. Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of a political and personal wreck. ..."
Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been
sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half
of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid
pro quo, Clinton tells us.
Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised money for
the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge fees for Bill's
speeches.
What were the corporations buying if not influence? What were the foreign contributors buying,
if not influence with an ex-president, and a secretary of state and possible future president?
Did none of the big donors receive any official favors?
"There's a lot of smoke and there's no fire," says Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps, but there seems to be more smoke every day.
If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress, Clinton
were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special prosecutor,
as was Nixon's.
And, with the election over, the investigative reporters of the adversary press, Pulitzers beckoning,
would be cut loose to go after her.
The Republican House is already gearing up for investigations that could last deep into Clinton's
first term.
There is a vast trove of public and sworn testimony from Hillary, about the server, the emails,
the erasures, the Clinton Foundation. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, there are tens of thousands of emails
to sift through, and perhaps tens of thousands more to come.
What are the odds that not one contains information that contradicts her sworn testimony? Rep.
Jim Jordan contends that Clinton may already have perjured herself.
And as the full-court press would begin with her inauguration, Clinton would have to deal with
the Syrians, the Russians, the Taliban, the North Koreans, and Xi Jinping in the South China Sea-and
with Bill Clinton wandering around the White House with nothing to do.
This election is not over. But if Hillary Clinton wins, a truly hellish presidency could await
her, and us.
Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue
to surge and will win on November 8th.
Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either
a Trump lead or a statistical dead-heat.
The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed
by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest
level since Gallup began asking the question.
Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will
show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls
were all for naught.
Thus, fortunately, the American people will avoid the spectacle of a "truly hellish" Clinton
presidency.
More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs,
deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage
stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker.
A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster.
James Polk, no charmer, was a one-term president, but a great one, victorious in the Mexican
War, annexing California and the Southwest, negotiating a fair division of the Oregon territory
with the British.
Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is
defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?
The only people responsible for that "cloud" are conservatives. If you wish to prevent the horrid
fate that you're describing, Pat, you need to apologize and concede that these investigations
are groundless. You can't say "where there's smoke, there's fire" if we can all see your smoke
machine.
The Visigoths will continue their advance on Rome by the millions. The Supreme Court and Fed will
shy away from diversity in their numbers. The alternative media will go bonkers, but to no avail.
The military will provide employment (endless wars) to those displaced by a permissive immigration
policy. Elizabeth I – will look down (up) in envy.
Re: "Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised
money for the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge
fees for Bill's speeches."
Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets.
Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or
Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless
red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from
documented Clinton corruption.
The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos
do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling
the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically
inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks.
Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard,
corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office.
Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of
a political and personal wreck.
Agree with Pat though that it's going to be a wild ride for the rest of us – straight down.
P.S. A Republican Congress does have the power of the purse and could shave away Clinton's
Imperial use of the executive branch. But the feckless Congress has never been intelligent enough
to utilize that power effectively.
SteveM makes excellent points about the mainstream media cover-up of the Wikileaks revelations:
"Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets."
Alex Pfeiffer (The Daily Caller) expands upon SteveM's critique in "The Anatomy Of A Press
Cover-Up." Great stuff:
@William N. Grigg: "Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential
"greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?"
Yes, that's one aspect of PJB's thought that has long disturbed me. Granted, PJB is a nationalist,
and I can see why an old-fashioned nationalist would admire Polk. But PJB also advocates an "enlightened
nationalism." There's nothing enlightened about stealing someone else's land. Frankly, I fail
to see how Polk's actions are any different from Hitler's actions a century later. I don't want
to offend anyone but, I'm sorry… this needs to be said.
I greatly admire Pat Buchanan, but this article is rather ridiculous.
"If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress,
Clinton were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special
prosecutor, as was Nixon's."
Translation: "I want revenge for Watergate."
Look, I admire Nixon. I think he was one of our greatest Presidents. I really mean that. I
also think that he was unfairly subjected to a witch hunt and that there was no valid reason for
him to have faced the prospect of impeachment (and the same is true, in my view, for both of the
Presidents who were actually impeached, interestingly enough). Nixon should have been allowed
to finish his second term.
I think Hillary Clinton is also facing a witch hunt. I don't agree with her foreign policy
views or with many of her domestic policy views, but this vicious attempt by the GOP to take her
down needs to stop. There is no evidence that she is any more corrupt than anybody else.
And, in any case, if she gets elected, she will be entitled to serve as President. To deliberately
try to sabotage her Presidency by hounding her with these investigations would be to show profound
contempt for democratic norms.
Enough already. I don't support Clinton or Trump. Jill Stein is my gal now. But I hope that
whoever wins does a great job and that all goes well for them. Nothing else would be in the best
interests of the country or the world.
"Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either a Trump
lead or a statistical dead-heat."
We heard this in 2012. Go back and read the Free Republic election night thread to see how
such comforting thoughts came crashing down as the night went on. Then read the posts today…all
the exact same people saying all the exact same things.
For a society to work well and to succeed, the good-will (trust and support) of it's productive,
tax-paying citizens is of paramount importance. The corrupt politics in DC for the last 25 years
has used up this good-will. Only few trust these elitists , as evidenced by the success of
the socialist, Sanders, and Trump.
With the election of the corrupt, lying, unaccomplished politician, the legitimacy of the
D.C. "Leaders" will be gone. It would be a disaster!
" She would enter office as the least-admired president in history, without a vision or a mandate.
She would take office with two-thirds of the nation believing she is untruthful and untrustworthy.
"
Funny you should go there. Sure, HRC has historically high unfavorability ratings. Fact: DJT's
unfavorability ratings are even higher. Check any reasonably non-partisan site such as RCP or
538.
Pretty much all the negatives about HRC are trumped by Trump. His flip-flopping makes hers
look amateur: he used to be a pro-choice Democrat; has publicly espoused admiration for HRC and
declared that WJC was unfairly criticized for his transgressions. Integrity: he's stiffed countless
businesses, small and large; he's been sued by his own lawyers for non-payment. Character: he
behaves like a child, 'nuff said.
Corruption: his daddy illegally bailed him out of a financial jam; Trump's foundation makes
the Clintons' look legit by comparison.
With HRC, the GOP had a huge chance to take back the WH: she has plenty of genuine baggage
to go along with the made-up stuff. However the GOP managed to nominate the one candidate who
makes her transgressions appear tolerable. The end result is that a significant number of moderate
Republicans are supporting no one, Johnson, or even HRC. Trump is so toxic that very few progressive
Dems will stray from HRC, despite being horrified by her corporate connections.
Re today: The FBI is not investigating her server. Servers don't send emails on their own. They
are investigating Hillary Clinton. They just don't like to say that. I wonder if it's in order
to – once again – announce Hillary's "innocence," just before the end of early voting and voting
day. We'll see.
For those interested in a functional government, note that this is three straight elections
– over twelve years – where the incoming president is a priori deemed illegitimate, regardless
of the scale of the victory, and the opposing political party has no interest in working with
that president.
In fact, some senators and representatives (Cruz, Gowdy, Issa, etc.) seem to take joy and pride
in noting the extent and length of these investigations, regardless of what they find. It is the
very process of governmental obstruction they seek, not necessarily justice or truth.
Could we have a new historic first if Hillary wins, the First Woman President to be impeached
by Congress? And the first couple in the history of the Republic to both be impeached?
At some point the Republicans have to be for something. I suppose they will be tempted to go after
Ms. Clinton for what she has elided or attempted to, but I think that is a major mistake. You
wrote: "Yet the hostility Clinton would face the day she takes office would almost seem to ensure
four years of pure hell.
The reason: her credibility, or rather her transparent lack of it."
There are a few assumptions in this – first, that any investigations into her past behavior
will be impartial. True or not, the impression will be hard to pull off – I expect they will easily
be framed as misogynist. And some most likely will be, so it takes a bit of thought and study
to determine which are motivated by misogyny and which are not. News cycles are too fast for that
sort of reflection, and in any event more or less all the major papers and television networks
are in her camp, so can't really expect journalism out of them anymore. It will be a called a
misogynist, partisan investigation and that will be the end of it.
Second, it assumes that the people doing the investigation have credibility. That's a big if
– the GOP went from Bush 43's two terms of military adventurism, increasing income inequality
and economic catastrophe to no introspection or admission of error in the ensuing 8 years of apparently
mindless, vindictive opposition. That is a long time of being kind of – well – less than thoughtful.
And it's had tremendous costs. Mr. Obama presents as a decent man in his profiles, but he was
very inexperienced when elected and in my opinion has more or less been bumbling around for almost
8 years now, kind of like Clouseau in those old Pink Panther movies. Only a lot of people of died,
lost their homes or have seen their communities consumed by despair. Government has been very
ineffective for many Americans, and the Republicans have a lot to answer for with the way they've
chosen to spend their time and direct their energy over the last 8 years. It's been a waste going
after Obama, and going after Clinton will just be more of the same.
And the last assumption is that with all that might be going on in the next few years, this
is important. Ms. Clinton has made some statements, some good, some bad. The bad, though, are
remarkably bad – she's for invading a Middle Eastern country and establishing control over their
airspace, as an example. In 2017. It's pure crazy. She has Democratic support. Hate to think if
she is elected the Republicans will be focusing on email.
As
an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart
of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every
boomer lefty.
One of his finer moments for me, which I've never seen mentioned (including among this week's
encomia) since he wrote it, was his 2006
article
, published on CounterPunch with an introduction by Alexander Cockburn, in which he apologized
for a "descent into moral ambiguity and realpolitick that still haunts me today." It would be respectful
of Hayden's admirers and critics, on the occasion of his passing, to remember which of his actions
"haunted" him the most.
The title of the article says it clearly: "I Was Israel's Dupe." In the essay, Hayden apologizes
for his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was for him that "descent into
moral ambiguity" More importantly, he explains why he did it, in a detailed narrative that everyone
should read.
Hayden sold out, as he tells it, because, in order to run as a Democratic candidate for the California
State Assembly, he had get the approval of the influential Democratic congressman Howard Berman.
Berman is a guy who, when he became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was proud to
tell the
Forward that he took the job because of his "interest in the Jewish state" and that: "Even before
I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist."
Hayden had to meet with Howard's brother Michael, who, acting as "the gatekeeper protecting
Los Angeles' Westside for Israel's political interests," told Hayden: "I represent the Israeli Defense
Forces"-a sentence that could serve as the motto of most American congress critters today. The "Berman-Waxman
machine," Hayden was told, would deign to "rent" him the Assembly seat on the "one condition: that
I always be a 'good friend of Israel.'"
But American congressmen were not the only "gatekeepers" through whose hands Hayden had to pass
before being allowed to run for Congress. Other "certifiers" included "the elites, beginning with
rabbis and heads of the multiple mainstream Jewish organizations, the American-Israel Political
Action Committee (AIPAC), [and].. Israeli ambassadors, counsels general and other officials."
In fact, Hayden had to, in his words, be "declared 'kosher' by the ultimate source, the region's
representative of the state of Israel," Benjamin Navon, Israel's Counsul-general in Los Angeles.
In other words, in this article Hayden was describing, in an unusually concrete way, how the
state of Israel, through its state officials and their compliant American partners, was effectively
managing-exercising veto power over Democratic Party candidates, at the very least-American elections
down to the level of State Assembly . In any constituency "attuned to the question of Israel,
even in local and state elections," Hayden knew he "had to be certified 'kosher,' not once but over
and over again."
This experience prompted Hayden to express a "fear that the 'Israeli lobby' is working overtime
to influence American public opinion on behalf of Israel's military effort to 'roll back the clock'
and 'change the map' of the region." Hayden warned of the "trepidation and confusion among rank-and-file
voters and activists, and the paralysis of politicians, especially Democrats," over support of Israel.
He vowed to "not make the same mistake again," and said: "Most important, Americans must not be timid
in speaking up, as I was 25 years ago."
Whatever else he did-and he was never particularly radical about Palestine-this article was a
genuinely honest and unusual intervention, and it deserves a lot more notice-as a moment in Tom Hayden's
history and that of the American left-than it has got. Looking back and regretfully acknowledging
that one had been duped and morally compromised by what seemed the least troublesome path 25 years
earlier, saying "I woulda, shoulda, coulda done the right thing," is a haunting moment for anyone.
Doing it in a way that exposes in detail how a foreign country constantly manipulates American elections
over decades is worthy of everyone's notice.
I doubt Hillary and her Democratic supporters will have anything to say about this "interference
"in American elections, even local and state. But I do hope many of those who are touched by the
loss of Tom Hayden heed these words from him, and don't wait another 25 years to overcome their "fear
and confusion" about saying and doing the right thing regarding the crimes of Israel, troublesome
as that might be.
Instead, there's the very real possibility that as millennials age, they are less apt to stomach
a thing called hope. The Obama presidency did not usher in a new age of cooperation. Nancy Pelosi and
John Boehner did not announce they would be going on a nationwide concert tour performing the hits of
the Carpenters.
Racial tension, climate change, gun violence, terrorism, and poverty persist. Easy answers do
not exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't be coming from one of the two major political parties
– groups often more concerned with their own survival than practical solutions to tangible issues. As
the global situation appears to become more and more hopeless – thanks to actual horrors, plus the media
saturation that occurs after every tragedy, which amplifies our malaise – it should come as no surprise
that millennials as a group and the nation at large disagree on how to turn things around.
Consensus might just be a thing of the past; MTV is far from the unchallenged thought leader for
American youth. What this election might be remembered for is the moment when the American political
system became so ossified and incapable of solutions that we decided, at last, to junk it and start
from scratch.
"... Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them. ..."
"... Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. ..."
"... As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. ..."
"... According to the front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal" hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO. ..."
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and
the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority
of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit
of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the
warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for
the American people to stop them.
Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality
by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests,
including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life
concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings
where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking
devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to
reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged
a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and
foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city's so called bipartisan foreign policy
elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened
Pandora's box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military
contractors. DC's think "tanks" should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles
and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the
front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends
the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal"
hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya
along with allied powers working through NATO.
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own
analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and
easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress
and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made
from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States
and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat
pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq
and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall
of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi's
murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, "We came, we saw, he
died." President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy
establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal
Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America's
current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on "mission accomplished."
CAP, according to
a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing,
who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister
jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The
Brookings Institute,
in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom,
where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think
tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department
of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously
told Colin
Powell , "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we
can't use it," predictably
says of this current moment , "We do think there needs to be more American action." A former
Bush administration top adviser is also
calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering,
propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d'être for stone-cold
warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world
domination.
It's infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast
a fictional show that contemplated
WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic
Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia's targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder
that by the summer of 2016
a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM's launching a nuclear
strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year's presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating
the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly
more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with
a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry.
I'm fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts,
at the cost of other people's lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by
a list of the think tank's sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of
the report's authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors
have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of
the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians
alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America,
to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its
media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as
inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the
White House, must face visible opposition.
Just like Ron Paul (with whom he agrees on matters of foreign policy and the Fed), he was painted
by MSM as a kook. I wonder why. While I understand that many here would never vote for him because
he believes in things like social programs, so do all of the Republicans in Congress. He would
have made a far better president than zero or McCain.
Instead, there's the very real possibility that as millennials age, they are less apt
to stomach a thing called hope. The Obama presidency did not usher in a new age of
cooperation. Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner did not announce they would be going on a
nationwide concert tour performing the hits of the Carpenters.
Racial tension, climate change, gun violence, terrorism, and poverty persist. Easy
answers do not exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't be coming from one of the
two major political parties – groups often more concerned with their own survival
than practical solutions to tangible issues. As the global situation appears to
become more and more hopeless – thanks to actual horrors, plus the media saturation
that occurs after every tragedy, which amplifies our malaise – it should come as no
surprise that millennials as a group and the nation at large disagree on how to turn
things around.
Consensus might just be a thing of the past; MTV is far from the unchallenged
thought leader for American youth. What this election might be remembered for is the
moment when the American political system became so ossified and incapable of
solutions that we decided, at last, to junk it and start from scratch.
"... Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. ..."
"... In the end, Putin will be done in by his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs. ..."
This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization
is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.
There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal
elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare"
trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient
bogeyman.
As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction of secular stagnation, kind of trump card put
into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability
in the USA is under real threat.
But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might make her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo male
politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution for neoliberal elite problems, she is a part
of the problem
Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by
Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with
Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful
China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.
Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient
to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), strong
network of NGO and ability to distribute cash to selected members of the fifth column of neoliberal
globalization. All those condition were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland
China. In Russia the US adventurism in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation
of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html
)) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent
a viable political force.
Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering
into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would
like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy
and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime,
mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interests, the regime that produced misery
for so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)
Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to
make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility
of the next "White Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low
oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several
percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning
higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.
In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution"
measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization
due to some bubble burst.
That means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might
speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines.
Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and that event might change "pro-Atlantic"
balance in Europe.
Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for
attempts of further neoliberalization beyond Brexit and TPP troubles.
So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march
of neoliberalism with the USA as the hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over, or soon
will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine)
and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.
So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as a social system, the ideology
itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA
population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.
My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members
toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad
as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted
by Republican establishment.
#70 But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her
male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made by
commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
' .makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely '
Any analysis which arrives at this conclusion is profoundly ignorant.
Meta-comment: Is it permitted to say that a moderation scheme which objects to engels as a
troll, while permitting this tripe from likbez has taken a wrong turn somewhere. Seriously, some
explanation called for.
Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made
by commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.
I would like to apologize about the number of typos, but I stand by statements made. Your implicit
assumption that I am lying was not specific, so let's concentrate on three claims made:
1. "Hillary has serious neurological disease for at least four years", 2. "Obama and Hillary tried to stage color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 interfering in Russian
Presidential elections" 3. "Hillary Clinton is a neocon, a warmonger similar to John McCain"
1. Hillary Health : Whether she suffers from Parkinson disease or not in unclear, but signs
of some serious neurological disease are observable since 2012 (for four years). Parkinson is just
the most plausible hypothesis based on symptoms observed. Those symptoms suggests that she is at
Stage 2 of the disease due to an excellent treatment she gets:
http://www.viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/news/100312.htm
The average time taken to progress from Stage 1 (mild) to Stage 2 (mild but various symptoms)
was 1 year 8 months. The average time taken to progress from Stage 2 to Stage 3 (typical) was
7 years and 3 months. From Stage 3 to Stage 4 (severe) took 2 years. From Stage 4 to Stage 5 (incapacitated)
took 2 years and 2 months. So the stage with typical symptoms lasts the longest. Those factors
associated with faster progression were older age at diagnosis, and longer disease duration. Gender
and ethnicity were not associated with the rate of Parkinson's Disease progression.
These figures are only averages. Progression is not inevitable. Some people with Parkinson's
Disease have either : stayed the same for decades, reduced their symptoms, rid their symptoms,
or worsened at a rapid rate. For more current news go to Parkinson's Disease News.
Concern about Hillary health were voiced in many publications and signs of her neurological disease
are undisputable:
3. The opinion that Hillary as a neocon is supported by facts from all her career , but
especially during her tenure as the Secretary of State. She voted for Iraq war and was instrumental
in unleashing Libya war and Syria war. The amount of evidence can't be ignored:
If you have more specific concerns please voice them and I will try to support my statements with
references and known facts.
stevenjohnson 10.26.16 at 1:50 pm
likbez @70 Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great
deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social
Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using
the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's
belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. But whether mine
is actually a deep analysis seems doubtful even to me.
But the OP is really limiting itself solely to domestic politics, and in that context the
resistance to "neoliberal globalization," (Why not use the term "imperialism?") is more or
less irrelevant. The OP seems to have some essentialist notion of the "Right" as openly aimed
at restoring the past, ignoring the content of policies. Reaction would be something blatant
like restoring censorship of TV and movies, instead of IP laws that favor giant
telecommunications companies, or abolition of divorce, instead of discriminatory enforcement
of child protection laws that break up poor families. This
cultural/psychological/moralizing/spiritual approach seems to me to be fundamentally a
diversion from a useful understanding.
There may be some sort of confused notions about popular morals and tastes clearly evolving
in a more leftish direction. Free love was never a conservative principle for instance, yet
many of its tenets are now those of the majority of the population. Personally I can only
observe that there's nothing quite like the usefulness of laws and law enforcement,
supplemented by the occasional illicit violence, to change social attitudes. The great model
of course is the de facto extermination of the Left by "McCarthyism." No doubt the
disappearance of the left targeted by "McCarthyism" is perceived to be a purification of the
real left. It is customary for the acceptable "left" to agree with the McCarthys that
communism lost its appeal to the people, rather than being driven out by mass repression. As
to populism, such reactionary goals as the abolition of public education are notoriously sold
as service to the people against the hifalutin' snobs, starting of course with lazy ass
teachers. It seems to me entirely mistaken to see the populist reactionaries as out of
ammunition because the old forms of race-baiting aren't working so well.
By the way, there already is a Chinese bourgeoisie, in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, as well as elements in SEZs in China proper and select circles
in various financial capitals. Restoration of capitalism in China has run into the difficulty
that capitalism isn't holding up its end. President Xi Jinping is finding it difficult for
capitalism to keep the mainland economy growing at a sufficiently rapid rate to keep the
working class pacific, much less generate the so-called middle class whose stock market
portfolios will bind them to the new ruling class forever. These are the sources for a
revolution in China, not NGOs or a color revolution. In the end, Putin will be done in by
his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain
from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs.
Val @72 I remember that there were only rare, vague hints about Reagan, not factual
evidence. So unless you are committed to the proposition his Alzheimer's disease only set in
January 21, 1992, demanding factual evidence about the mental and physical health of our
elective divinities seems unduly restrictive I think.
Layman @79 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization alone makes an analysis that a military
alliance between Russia and China reasonable enough. Even if incorrect in the end, it is not
"profoundly ignorant."
Meta-comment: Engels post was perceived as mocking, which was its offense. As for "trolling,"
that's an internet thing...
"... There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare" trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient bogeyman. ..."
"... But it looks like newly formed shadow "Committee for Saving [neo]Liberal Order" (with participation of three latter agencies, just read the recent "Red scare" memorandum ( https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement ) want Hillary to be the POTUS. ..."
1. An ABC news poll says that Clinton has 50% of somebody (the electorate, likely voters?)
supporting her rabidly reactionary rhetoric. She demonizes Putin, imputes treason to a major party
candidate in a way hitherto seen only in Birch Society attacks on Eisenhower, shrieks that it
is utterly impossible to even hint that the current electoral system has no real legitimacy.
The only real criticisms acceptable in the face of her reactionary screeds are hints that
she is a traitor for Clinton Foundation cash and that she is lax on security . (The claim
that Clinton is pro-war are regressions to the Obama primary campaign in 2008. Since he promptly
proved the irrelevance of an anti-war rhetoric, the observations that Clinton has none are equally
irrelevant.)
2. The high levels of indecision suggest that a Trump defeat may well leave the Republican
establishment more or less as it was. Depending on turnout, which even at this late date is highly
uncertain, it is entirely possible the Republicans will maintain control of the Senate. At this
point it is probable they will keep the House. In any event, Clinton has openly committed to
a bipartisan a campaign against the Trump hijacking of the Republican party.
3. Consider the longevity of reactionary leaderships in the major parties. The Democratic
Leadership Council approach has dominated its party for decades. The Republican party projects
like ALEC, the Federalist Society, the Mighty Wurlitzer, the designated superstar talk personality
(no, shifting from Limbaugh to Beck is not a sea change,) everywhere you look behind the scenes
you see the same faces. What new faces appear turn out (like Obama) to be employees of the same
old political establishments. Alleged exceptions like Sanders and Warren are notable primarily
for their lack of commitment.
4. There are bold thinkers willing to imagine the conservative future. Think Jason Brennan
and his book Against Democracy. Even worse, the real strength of the conservatives lies in the
bottom line, not in polemics. Tragically, it's when the bottom line is written in read that it
shrieks the loudest, with the most conviction and the most urgent desire for the masters to unite
against the rest of us.
5. California politics has set the pace once again, demonstrating the absolute irrelevance
of a "Left" defined as a spiritual posture. The annihilation of an ugly materialist Left by "McCarthyism"
has purified the souls of the righetous, leaving socialism/communism unthinkable. California leftism
is entirely safe for capitalism, imperialism and a free market of ideas where the refined consumers
of ideas can have their gated neighborhoods of ideas.
6. The majority support for a more tolerant society makes no difference in policy. Being nicer
is not politics.
There is a fundamental reason for despair, the failures of the right to win the Holy Grail
of a functional capitalist society. Despite their successes in destroying organized labor (with
the help of counter-revolutionary "leftists" to be sure,) in limiting women's rights, in blunting
the real world effects of desegregation, the short-run prospects of capital are disquieting. And
the long run prospects, insofar as these people can see past the quarterly statement, are even
more frightening. Urged by their fears, the system will be ever more destabilized by desperate
adventures. The replacement of Social Security of course will be high on the agenda. The absolutely
vital need for ever more control over the world, including regime change in Russia and China,
has driven foreign policy in direct support of the dollar and banking since at least Bush 41.
But in the end, it is not the madness of the owners that is the cause for despair, but the
absolute indifference of the spiritual leftists who have joined in the rabidly reactionary campaign
against Clinton from the right. (You would have thought it rather difficult to criticize Clinton
from the right, but never underestimate the exigencies of struggle against totalitarianism.) Win
or lose, this campaign has endorsed reaction, top to bottom. On the upside, the likelihood of
a Clinton impeachment offers much value for your entertainment dollar.
likbez 10.26.16 at 1:10 am
stevenjohnson
@58
This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization
is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.
There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal
elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare"
trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient
bogeyman.
As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction to secular stagnation, kind of trump card put
into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability
in the USA is under a real threat.
But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her
male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution of neoliberal elite problems, she is a part
of the problem
Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by
Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with
Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful
China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.
Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient
to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), NGO and
ability to distribute cash to selection members of fifth column of neoliberalism. All those condition
were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland China. In Russia the US adventurism
in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by
some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html
) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent
a viable political force.
Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering
into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would
like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy
and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime,
mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interest, the regime that produced misery for
so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)
Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to
make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility
of the next "While Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low
oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several
percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning
higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.
In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution"
measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization
due to some bubble burst.
that means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might
speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines.
Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and change "pro-Atlantic" balance
in Europe.
Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for
attempts of further neoliberalization - Brexit and TPP troubles.
So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march
of neoliberalism with the USA as a hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over or soon
will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine)
and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.
So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as social system, the ideology
itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA
population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.
My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members
toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad
as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted
by Republican establishment.
likbez :
October 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM
My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote
for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible
with democratic principles.
She is way too militant, and is not that different in this
respect from Senator McCain. That creates a real danger of
unleashing the war with Russia.
Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some
kind of détente with Russia.
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after
the election.
But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going
to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us
the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.
Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this
article in 2014 and 2015:
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political
wilderness, the neoconservative movement is back, using the
turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President
Obama, not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that
dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears
responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be
preparing a more brazen feat: aligning themselves with
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign,
in a bid to return to the driver's seat of American foreign
policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older
generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer
III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently
buried in the sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to
switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The
Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would
"be a dutiful chaperone of further American decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction - one
that might allow them to restore the neocon brand, at a time
when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning
away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the
historian Robert Kagan, the author of a recent, roundly
praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a
neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only avoided the vitriolic
tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but
also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group
during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at
standard-issue neocon think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by
Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate
to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article
"magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism into the
liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have
insisted on maintaining the link between modern
neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War
liberalism. Among other things, he has frequently praised
Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a
line from him straight to the neocons' favorite president:
"It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan whose
policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism
and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations,noted in The New Republic
this year that "it is clear that in administration councils
she was a principled voice for a strong stand on
controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or
the intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton
voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian
rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to
Adolf Hitler...
This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely
destroy pretty nice European county, unleashing the horror of
real starvation on the population.
Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the
middle of the Europe. Retirees often live on less then $1 a
day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day.
$6 a day is considered a high salary. At the same time
"oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.
Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession"
that prospered since "Maydan".
Young people try to get university education and emigrate
to any county that would accept them (repeating the story of
Baltic countries and Poland).
Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get
out of the hole.
Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the
USA ambassador as the real, de-facto ruler of the country.
Much like Kosovo is.
Standard of living dropped approximately three times since
2014.
"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's
reformist governor Mikheil Saakashvili has noted
sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had
under former president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen
years"
"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine,
payment arrears for electricity have risen by 32 percent
since the beginning of this year."
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the neoconservative movement
is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama, not the movement's
interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears
responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen feat: aligning
themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to return
to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz,
L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently buried in the sands of
Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of
The Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further
American decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction - one that might allow them to restore
the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning away
from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound.
Consider the historian Robert Kagan, the author
of a recent, roundly praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto.
He has not only avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren
but also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the
State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon think tanks like
the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,
that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under President
Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public
baptism into the liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on maintaining the link between
modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among other things, he has
frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line from him
straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan
whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max
Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in The New Republic this year
that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand
on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported
sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler...
Anne and I have seen this for a while.
Nothing new Strobe Talbott was closeted [neocon], and
brought Mrs Kagan aka Victoria Nuland in to State in 1993.
Bill bearded the bear breaking Kosovo and Bosinia out of Serbia... The down payment for
Kyiv in 2012 was in 1996.
This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely destroy pretty nice European county,
unleashing the horror of real starvation on the population.
Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the middle of the Europe. Retirees often
live on less then $1 a day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day. $6 a day is
considered a high salary. At the same time "oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.
Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession" that prospered since "Maydan".
Young people try to get university education and emigrate to any county that would accept them
(repeating the story of Baltic countries and Poland).
Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get our the hole.
Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the USA ambassador as the real, de-facto
ruler of the county. Much like Kosovo is.
Standard of living dropped approximately three times since 2014.
"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's reformist governor Mikheil
Saakashvili has noted sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had under former
president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen years"
"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine, payment arrears for electricity
have risen by 32 percent since the beginning of this year."
I thought I'd never say this, but Glenn
Beck gave a very thoughtful interview with Charley Rose last night. He raised a lot of issues that
the other Glenn (Glenn Greenwald) has been raising --
the moral bankruptcy of each political
party and the tendency of each to attack the other for things that they themselves would deny, excuse,
and say that it doesn't
matter when their own party does it.
Glenn is not supporting Trump. But he gives the example
of the many Republicans who viciously attacked Bill Clinton for his sexual behavior but now deny,
excuse and say that it doesn't matter when Trump does it.
The flip side, of course, is found with the many Democrats who viciously attack Trump but denied,
excused, and said that it didn't matter when Bill Clinton did it.
Glenn says that to restore trust with the American people, both parties need to clean their
houses and become parties that put laws and principles first, which implies criticizing their own
instead of shielding them when they misbehave.
The for-profit media thrive and depend on controversy and generally
content that is emotionally engaging. Racism is only a small
part of it, it is much more broadly appealing - it is essentially
"addressing", channeling, amplifying, and redirecting existing
grievances of a large part of the public. If economy and society
would be doing great and a large majority of people would be
happy/contented, these anger-based media formats wouldn't find
an audience.
The same underlying causes as the success of Trump.
The reason why he can maintain considerable success despite of
grave shortcomings is because he continues to be a channel for
the anger that is not disappearing. (With the support of the
media, who are also interested in an ongoing controversy with
details as scandalous as possible.)
"... This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven to be lies ..."
"The 2016 election campaign was dominated for many months by explosive popular disaffection with
the whole political and corporate establishment. But it has concluded in a contest between two candidates
who personify that establishment-one a billionaire from the criminal world of real-estate swindling,
the other the consensus choice of the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street.
This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the
capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of
big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to
reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven
to be lies."
"... Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. ..."
"... A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back in 2005. It is called Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently more accessible. ..."
"... Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books, but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption of emergency powers by the respective heads of state. ..."
"... The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything. ..."
"... The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration. ..."
"... The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality. ..."
"... the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios. ..."
"... I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania, a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed. Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact. ..."
11 Truth? Was it an "American coup?"
Leave a Comment For
the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a reexamination
of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government
examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians
and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report on the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate key players like
Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite of considerable
evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back
in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least
parts of it, is capable of almost anything.Loose Change describes how leading hawkish Republicans
were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country would
be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century
paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that
"something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound
up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the
way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality. In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives. This is, I believe, the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy. After
watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge from any examination
of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by every White House since
2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into 9/11 a lie, a conclusion
that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has seen
an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but there
are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies,
and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror largesse
coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State, which
controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am now
convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself. If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly set
up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such a powerful
reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so gravely damaged
our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place, but it is
at least something to hope for.
"... The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10% in the US. ..."
"... The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch. ..."
"... There's British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example. ..."
"... One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration and granting legal status to those who have come illegally. ..."
"... The government bailouts from the banking crash of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. ..."
"... For the record, Sanders voted against the bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course. And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there. ..."
"... A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable. ..."
"... voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination (Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement of the voter. ..."
It's a bigly trend
with enormous consequences for fiscal and monetary policy. But the rise of voter rage in advanced
democracies is a hard narrative to chart, what with the lack of data and the abundance of anecdote.
However, this seems a pretty decent attempt:
That's from Barclay's Marvin Barth - who has set out to measure "voter rage as a drop in the combined
vote share of the centre-right and centre-left parties as voters shift to parties that they believe
better reflect their frustrations," in a 73-page note.
And the exercise perhaps demonstrates that Brexit wasn't much of an exception after all:
Interesting/telling that commodity exporters such as Norway and Australia bucked the general trend,
no? Although you have to wonder how long that will last as the commodity boom fades.
Another interesting question ( asked by Joseph, with his hat on as Southern Africa correspondent
): is South Africa - where unemployment is over 30 per cent and the economy is really feeling
the pain of the commodity bust - part of the politics of rage?
The rising number of violent
'service delivery protests' and the current unrest on university campuses both suggest that South
Africa could be. On the other hand, in party politics itself, one curious thing about the fracturing
of the African National Congress is that there hasn't been more support for radical alternatives.
There are the Economic Freedom Fighters of course - but the party didn't do well enough capture
any municipalities in recent local elections. The centre-focused Democratic Alliance took the prizes
instead. Disaffected ANC voters are if anything staying home instead. Of course South Africa is full
of political risk in several other ways. But it may be an interesting exception to the voter rage
narrative.
Anyway, elsewhere, in European democracies, Barclays say that the drop in centre-party support
has actually been more like a collapse :
Greece (GR), perhaps unsurprisingly, has had roughly a 50pp drop in its centre vote share on
all three measures. But the 44-64pp drop in Austria (AT) is more shocking. In relative terms,
the 24-37pp drop in the Netherlands (NL) is even more startling given that the centre vote share
rarely ever has topped 50%; similarly striking is the 15-22pp drop in Belgium (BE), a country
famous for its linguistically divided parliament. Even in countries that traditionally have fewer
competitive parties, the declines have been large: Germany (DE) 20-27pp, France (FR) 18-32pp,
and Spain (ES) 15-28pp.
The broad-based decline also is unprecedented. Figure 3 charts a time series of the centre
vote share in advanced economies, grouped by type, from 1970 to the present. While there has been
a longer-term trend of mild erosion, a cross-country collapse in the political centre of the current
scale has not occurred previously. Reviewing the entire post-WWII period, there is no other similar
event. Nor was such a wide-ranging drop in the political centre visible during the inter-war,
Great Depression years.
… Figure 3 and Figure 4 also highlight another noteworthy point: voter rage does not seem to
be due (solely) to severe economic distress, contrary to one popular notion. Not only did the
Great Depression fail to provoke a similar collapse in the political centre among ongoing democracies
in the 1930s, but the current bout of political rage appears to pre-date the Global Financial
Crisis (GFC). As Figure 3 shows, the peak in the centre vote share was 2008 for Southern Europe,
but in the US, non-euro area Europe and the northern euro area, the deterioration of the political
centre began in 2003-05.
There's more in
the usual place for those that want it, as we're loath to rerun the full list of potential reasons
for this phenomenon here. Demographics, globalisation, xenophobia all get an airing and all get assigned
to a "yeah, probably, but where does one begin and another end" bucket.
For what it's worth, Barc's underlying contention is that the "biggest source of voter rage appears
to be a sense of economic and political disenfranchisement due to imperfect representation in national
governments and delegation of sovereignty to supranational and intergovernmental organizations."
Apparently 16 of 17 parties Barc looked at demanded "greater protection of, or retaking of, national
sovereignty."
Taking back control is more universal a wish than you might have imagined. It doesn't make
you very confident about globalisation's fate.
In the other direction, Barc suggest "the label 'populist' does not appear to fit the economic
policies of a majority of the parties challenging the political centre." Also in that direction,
"redistribution and corporate taxation, issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality
appear to be lower-order campaign issues for most alternative parties even if it is of primary importance
for the remainder."
It all seems plausible enough as theories go, but we reserve the right to grab on to any other
narrative that comes along and which does a better job of grouping together what is a large number
of competing, non-mutually exclusive, narratives. Tracking voter-to-party preferences in immigration,
free trade, inequality (and so on) yield confusing results and, anyway, it seems unlikely to us that
party policy as presented is always fully understood or taken at face value by supporters.
Still, Barc themselves are humble about the data being used here and say they are "left to use
logic and narrative to analyse numerous bivariate relationships" and the direction of causality is
often impossible to determine.
In short, this is a worthy exercise - but handle with care.
10 hours ago
Interesting too that the decline from Chart 5
seems to coincide with the emergence and growth of the world wide web and the many distinct/fractious
perspectives and opinions instead of the more consensual/centralized editorial hubs typical of the
previous "age". Also- it seems the concept of "enlightened self-interest" has been displaced a more
dog-eat-dog-materialism where the winner takes all. The roots of rebellion and revolution have not
changed so it is good to see some thought by a "winning" organization is seeking an explanation.
Pi1010 5pts Featured
11 hours ago
Entrenched political alignment does not change much within a population, left and right winged-ness
follows a normal distribution. Around the early 80's political parties got scientific and professional,
they realised they only needed to win over the centrally minded swing voters but could ignore those
outside the center who would vote for them anyway. At the same time politicians became stage managed
by their media minders, Tony Blair being the master of this.
Voters outside the center, taken for granted have gone elsewhere and also find the rare genuine
politician appealing (Farage, Trump, Sanders, Corbyn). If voter rage is a problem, and I'm not convinced
it is, then mainstream parties need to broaden their appeal away from the center, they won't though
in case they lose to the other side, prisoners dilemma indeed.
The late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky apparently proposed to Vladimir Putin that the oligarchs
fund and control two parties, which would play out bitterly contested elections, while the same
groups kept control behind the scenes. Putin in the end betrayed the oligarchs for his conception
of Russian national interest (which may still involve oligarchs).
As Russia Insider noted
"(In) the U.S we have two capitalist parties that largely agree on everything. The exceptions
are issues that matter a lot to the regular people who make up the two parties' bases, but are largely
irrelevant to party elites who fund and run both of them."
Which is why Trump, an outsider who cares about these issues, Is Literally Hitler as far as the
corporate media are concerned, and why the DNC cheated Sanders.
In defense of labantall. First, the earlier citation of Frost was apposite; thought-provoking,
if not completely convincing. Second, that both of the 2 parties are (usually) professional and (possibly)
competent servants of their (admittedly disparate sets of) clients ought not be in dispute.
The alleged
Russian plan would be a sham, in that the clientele of the 2 parties would be the same - which is
not the case in America - but I defend the observation as germane, even if it is fallacious in fact.
The Russians just don't get it, and why would that be a surprise. I don't agree that Trump gets bad
press only because he is an outsider, I think he's doing himself in; but that's not an absurd opinion.
Regardless of the source.... The analysis is largely correct.
The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big
banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10%
in the US.
Simultaneous, anti-establishment movements happened in both primaries (Sanders & Trump). While "The
Wall" stands as very different as a policy, both candidates agreed on some big issues impacting the
bulk of the american populace such as,
Mass immigration = Wage suppression
Banks are too big. Sanders advocates the re-imposition of Glass Stegall
The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been
heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone
outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch.
@ Londo
@ Paul Murphy
@ rj1
@ labantall
As the child of Labour-voting parents in the Eisenhower era, both US parties seemed
pretty much alike to me. So when my aunt who lived in the US came over to visit, I asked her why
they had two such similar parties?
She replied "Because every office door has an inside and an outside..."
Russia Insider is a website run by Western expats in Russia. I suppose it could be a fake site.
I just found it by googling "Berezovsky two parties". You can find the original Berezovsky interview
by Masha Gessen, who is as far from a Putin mouthpiece as you can get.
"The idea that US democrats and republicans largely agree on everything is absurd"
I think you have to distinguish between those at the top of the parties (and their funders) and
the rank and file.
Thanks to those commenters who defended my right to a different opinion ;-)
@ labantall
@ Paul Murphy
Erm, the Dems and GOP are so in agreement we've had close to legislative grid-lock
for the past eight years. All this wing-nuttery about global elites being in bed with the media,
keeping a boot on the throat of the common man, etc etc, doesn't really have a place here on FTAV.
So take a rest from this post -- and the site -- please.
Not convinced that they can quantify this accurately. Assessing the vote of "centre-x" parties
is both highly subjective, and also affected by longer-term trends in the parties themselves.
Just to take the example of the UK. You might argue that the rise of UKIP, and perhaps the Green
party, reflected an increased vote for more extreme parties. But maybe it reflected instead a move
to the centre ground by the two main parties (big tents re-pitched so they no longer cover the extremes).
Both Labour and the Conservatives have dramatically shifted positions over the years, in both
directions. Was Michael Foot's Labout party a "centre-left" party? Were Michael Howard's Conservatives
"centre-right"? I am sure for the purposes of this analysis, the answer was "yes" both times, but
I would answer with two "no"s.
@ Pharma
The terms themselves lose meaning when we go to a country-by-country basis. There's
British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example.
I've always wished someone could break down for me the difference between center, center-right,
right, and far-right (ditto moving left) as 4 separate viewpoints.
Hmm. 'New Podesta Email Exposes Playbook For Rigging Polls Through "Oversamples"' on Zero Hedge
seems to have more than one million page views at the moment.
The U.S. numbers are a bit misleading, since significant numbers of independent voters are
actually in between the two parties on political views.
One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position
on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration
and granting legal status to those who have come illegally.
Hence, a lot of independent voters are up for grabs by whichever party happens to strike a more
moderate tone. The challenge for the parties is in getting moderate candidates through the primary
process, which of late has been dominated by hardliners and party loyalists who are not in tune with
the general public's views (hence how both parties succeeded in nominating the candidate with the
lowest favorability rating).
Along with economic and political disenfranchisement (see the billionaires response "Guess
it takes a study to point out the obvious" to research concluding the US is no longer a democracy)
don't forget demographic disenfranchisement.
As the Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost puts it :
"In late capitalism, the elites are no longer restrained by ties of national identity and are
thus freer to enrich themselves at the expense of their host society. This clash of interests lies
at the heart of the globalist project: on the one hand, jobs are outsourced to low-wage countries;
on the other, low-wage labor is insourced for jobs that cannot be relocated, such as in the construction
and service industries. This two-way movement redistributes wealth from owners of labor to owners of capital. Business people
benefit from access to lower-paid workers and weaker labor and environmental standards. Working people
are meanwhile thrown into competition with these other workers. As a result, the top 10% of society
is pulling farther and farther ahead of everyone else, and this trend is taking place throughout
the developed world. The rich are getting richer … not by making a better product but by making the
same product with cheaper and less troublesome inputs of labor."
In order for a government to achieve anything constructive, a significant proportion of the
population have to reach broad agreement on what policies are desirable, and what means of implementing
them are acceptable. The political centre is where this broad agreement normally occurs.
We appear to have entered a period where a majority of the population can agree on what they don't
like (banker/CEO salaries, zero-hour contracts, housing shortage), but cannot agree on policies to
expunge these outrages from our society. This fills me with foreboding.
@ Patience
Well, in the United States, for the first time ever, entitlement "reform" was not
an issue during a presidential campaign. Trump has vowed to not touch Medicare or Social Security,
while HRC has promised to perhaps enhance both entitlement programs.
I believe that a consensus has developed in the United States that, due to income inequality,
th budget for entitlement programs must be increased, not "streamlined".
Regardless of what happens in two weeks, I doubt that a GOP presidential nominee can ever run
on a platform to "reform" entitlement programs.
The government bailouts from the banking crash
of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. Don't know if you can ever find an
identifiable cause across multiple democracies, but that's a key one common to the U.S. and Europe.
For the record, Sanders voted against the
bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course.
And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there.
" issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality appear to be lower-order campaign
issues for most alternative parties "
This is because the f**k-witted managerial metropolitan centrists (as exemplified by the FT) fail
to realise that income inequality (poverty) is seen as analogous to 'immigration' because right wing
parties hijack the agenda and centrist governments are either 1) monumentally incompetent or 2) wholly
captured by financial interests. (the answer is '2' btw)
What people see are bankers back to getting paid millions, house prices rocketing out of any normal
persons reach, wages stagnating and immigrants flooding in. Their lives are half what they used to
be and the real, actual ignoramuses - politicians and media - sneer at people and telling them that
_they_ are ignorant.
'Dont believe your own eyes or experiences - believe us - youre worthless and ignorant'. . If
this occured in a soap opera there'd be an outcry. Its the mantra of the abuser, writ national.
And applauded by the FT.
What youre observing is an economic revolt against the Reification Fallacy promulgated and promoted
by the media.
Economic models are notional constructs, they are neither real nor accurate. By messing around
with the management of the country these bull*hit artists have cost ordinary people a decade of their
productive lives. Enough is enough.
People dont realise why this has happened but when they do - when its explained to them properly
that a combination of 'professionals' fixated on imaginary models (how is this different from a mental
illness?) and 'regulatory capture' (corruption) by financial interests has made them homeless/pensionless/savingsless
there will be wholesale revolt.
In addition, the increasingly shrill and unhinged demonisation by politicians and the media of
peoples correctly expressed (if wrongly rooted) frustrations is evidence that the establishment realise
their error. Yet they _still_ refuse to call for or enact a reversal of the Odious policies they
operate!
Looking forward to the Austrian election re-run and the Italian referendum, on top of general
elections across Europe next year, I can only quote a recent noble laureate 'I dont need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows'
(And I dont need a bank or a newspaper to tell me either.)
@ ceraunavolta
I find these ideas about RWAs and the order/authoritarian openness axis very
unsavoury. To me it just looks like de-humanising pejorative tribalism/categorisation dressed
up as quantitative/objective analysis. A world neatly divided between nice clever open outward
looking groovy people (like US) and horrid narrow-minded inward looking vengeful people (like
THEM).
This stuff is surely skirting the borders of medicalising dissent – which seldom ends well.
Also – it's pretty lightweight if you think about it for more than about thirty seconds: On Brexit,
for example, it surely could be argued that, for some, supporting continued EU membership actually
represented a vote *for* order and an expression of a lack of openness to the possibility of change.
Surely one person's order can be another's chaos – and one person's perception of what is 'other'
can be another person's 'familiar' – so even if there is an intrinsic and fixed difference between
people in their preference for order or openness you wouldn't necessarily expect such an intrinsic
bias to be strongly predicative on any binary issue unless everyone's circumstances were the same
(with regards to what for them constituted 'order' and 'other').
I'm wondering if anyone's looked for evidence of a distinct personality type (perhaps at higher
prevalence among academics) characterised by an over willingness to believe that people are automaton-like
with inflexible fixed character traits (a view of humanity which, as it happens, is conveniently
susceptible to simple numerical modelling and the production of impressive looking true-because-numbers/sciencey
graphs)?
I'm thinking we could call such people NHDs – 'naive human determinists' or possibly 'numerical human
determinists'?
Excellent – I applaud your caution/scepticism David.
Could it perhaps be that the reason the 'rise of the angry voter' is hard to chart is because
it is not actually an independently identifiable thing? Most people, on all sides, tend to try lazily
to medicalise/infantilise people who don't agree with them as being stupid, ill-educated/over-educated,
indoctrinated by the evil media (left-wing or right-wing media respectively), angry/complacent, left-behind-socially-excluded/out-of-touch-wealthy-elitists
and/or suffering from cognitive biases etc. Everyone but themselves, apparently, is susceptible to
these sorts of factors – but I think it is basically pretty lazy (and dangerous!) for people to try
to 'metta' out of (often difficult, complicated, non-simple right/wrong goody/baddy) arguments over
the actual issues, and instead go for a kind of class-action-ad-hominem 'you only think that because
you are this-that-or-the-other'.
From a parochial perspective, back in the eighties, the 'variance' of mainstream politics in the
UK was massive – people like Norman Tebbit on the one hand, and Michael Foot on the other were mainstream
political figures – there was a massive absence of consensus. There was a lot of anger. The anger,
presumably, was a *downstream* consequence of the realities. By the standards of the subsequent anodyne
managerialist political/media merry-go-round we'd arrived at by the mid 2000s the gulf across the
entire mainstream of UK politics was virtually infinitesimally small by comparison. Things have started
to heat up again. This is all part of the process. This is how it is supposed to work. It ebbs and
it flows – I imagine – for good reason. I'm inclined to think that trying to identify some sort of
new thing – 'identity politics' or 'the new politics of rage' is mostly just displacement behaviour
by people who, for a variety of reasons, don't really want to get their hands dirty with the real
issues.
I remember, I think it was Peter Mandelson, said back during the New Labour years something like
'politics doesn't really matter when times are good'. I think perhaps some people are starting to
discover (some of them for the first time in their lives) why it is that we actually have politics.
I think the SA example from Joseph is also very good – it illustrates that 'things are complicated'
and that simple 'narratives' are no substitute for actually being on the ground and trying to understand
what's actually going on.
@ Skwosh
A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern
clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this
class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable.
@ DaniaDelendaEst
@ Skwosh
I'd briefly add that voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination
(Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement
of the voter.
I don't disagree – and I take the point made by you and other commenters about 'chasing the centre
ground' in political/electoral strategy – but I'm not so sure it is avoidable. For sure, when the
electoral conditions are right then you can win by appealing to a small number of often centrist
swing voters, but it only works *if* those conditions already exist – and when those conditions exist
then people who use that strategy will prevail and get to make policy (inclined to pander to the
centre) – and if they instead fall on their swords and decided to loose honourably then another,
different (and possibly less honourable) lot will play to the centre ground and win instead. It works
until it doesn't. I grant that this approach is likely to end up going on for too long, allowing
polarization and genuine disenfranchisement to build – but I think this is unfortunately all part
of the process – one of the unavoidable costs of democracy's least-worst-ness. These electoral conditions
wax and wane – there is only so far-apart or ill-balanced the political spectrum can get before there
is no centre that can swing it. When it breaks – when the centre cannot (and probably should not)
hold any longer then the particular reasons for this will presumably be many, varied, complicated
and messy in any given instance and at any given point in political history – difficult to generalise
about – and difficult to unify into a single 'narrative'.
I am certainly not saying that there is no anger or disgust – and I'm not saying that these things
are not justified. That there is anger and disgust is part of why things are heating up politically
– and this is as it should be; this is what shifts a consensus that may have outlived its utility
and/or establishes a new consensuses in an area where there was none before. During the transition
such processes are inevitably shouty. My problem is with the idea that the 'anger' or the 'disgust'
is somehow the causative thing that is making politics all 'freaky'. For one thing I don't really
accept that politics has yet become *that* freaky (yet anyway). It is certainly freakier than of
late, but I think some people need to get out more (in terms of historical perspective) if they think
that this sort of thing is somehow unprecedented. It seems obvious to me that the anger and disgust
is an inevitable consequence of the underlying grievances that people have – so if someone wants
to understand 'what is going on' then they need to look at these underlying grievances rather than
trying to understand it all in terms of being 'anger-driven'. Anger is something people naturally
feel and express when they're unhappy about stuff and/or they think they (or others) are being treated
unfairly, marginalised, patronised etc. (not that I'm implying either of you would disagree with
this).
"... There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's foreign policy? ..."
"... Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies." ..."
"... according to Mearsheimer, the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle barrel is almost impossible." ..."
"... "It's remarkably difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject failure." ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world." ..."
There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China
Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East
are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national
security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host
a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's
foreign policy?
Watch the rest of the videos in the "Grand Strategy" series.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago doesn't shy away from a bold answer: The most pressing
issue is that the United States has a "fundamentally misguided foreign policy." Mearsheimer argues
that there are two dimensions to U.S. foreign policy that get the United States into "big trouble."
First, he says, "We believe that we can dominate the globe, that we can control what happens in every
nook and cranny of the world." The problem with this is that "the world is simply too big and nationalism
is much too powerful of a force to make it possible for us to come close to doing that."
Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United
States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe
that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal
democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies."
The United States has engaged in numerous international military interventions over the past fifteen
years, primarily in the Middle East. Proponents of these interventions argue that they are necessary
in order to build stable democracies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. However, according to Mearsheimer,
the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that
promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle
barrel is almost impossible."
So why has the United States continued to pursue policies and strategies that fail to convert
U.S. military might into political ends?
Eugene Gholz of the University of Texas at Austin suggests that the root of the issue could be
American hubris. The United States has made the mistake of "thinking we can control things we can't
control." Mearsheimer agrees with Gholz, although he finds the situation perplexing: "It's remarkably
difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same
foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject
failure."
Several other scholars chime in to offer their own thoughts on this thorny issue. Boston University's
Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are
and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris
is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world."
Harvard University's Stephen Walt offers yet another possibility. Walt asks if the U.S. commitment
to its current misguided and damaging foreign policy is due to "deep culture" or if it is result
of "the national security apparatus we built after World War II." Walt thinks it is the latter: the
United States "was not a highly interventionist country until after the Second World War." After
World War II, "we built a large national security state, we had bases everywhere, and then we discovered
that we can't let go of any of that, even though the original reason for building it is gone."
Did the other panelists agree with Walt? Did anyone suggest a different problem as a candidate
for the most pressing issue? Watch the full video above to see and be sure to check out the other
videos of CNI and CKI's panel of nationally acclaimed foreign policy scholars addressing additional
questions.
"... My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders. ..."
"... Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude. ..."
"... Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me. ..."
"... In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh. ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans. Trump blames immigration
and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true. They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting
worse. They've been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc. But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war.
That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be
otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.
"... This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven to be lies ..."
"The 2016 election campaign was dominated for many months by explosive popular disaffection with
the whole political and corporate establishment. But it has concluded in a contest between two candidates
who personify that establishment-one a billionaire from the criminal world of real-estate swindling,
the other the consensus choice of the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street.
This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the
capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of
big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to
reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven
to be lies."
"... Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians and the federal bureaucracy. ..."
"... A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back in 2005. It is called Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently more accessible. ..."
"... Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books, but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption of emergency powers by the respective heads of state. ..."
"... The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least parts of it, is capable of almost anything. ..."
"... The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that "something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound up in senior positions in the Bush Administration. ..."
"... The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality. ..."
"... the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios. ..."
"... I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania, a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed. Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact. ..."
11 Truth? Was it an "American coup?"
Leave a Comment For
the first time a presidential candidate, admittedly from a fringe party, is calling for a reexamination
of 9/11. Jill Stein of the Green Party has recognized that exercises in which the United States government
examines its own behavior are certain to come up with a result that basically exonerates the politicians
and the federal bureaucracy. This has been the case since the Warren Commission report on the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy, which, inter alia, failed to thoroughly investigate key players like
Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby and came up with a single gunman scenario in spite of considerable
evidence to the contrary.
When it comes to 9/11, I have been reluctant to enter the fray largely because I do not have the
scientific and technical chops to seriously assess how buildings collapse or how a large passenger
airliner might be completely consumed by a fire. In my own area, of expertise, which is intelligence,
I have repeatedly noted that the Commission investigators failed to look into the potential foreign
government involvement in the events that took place that day. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
just for starters may have been involved in or had knowledge relating to 9/11 but the only investigation
that took place, insofar as I can determine, was a perfunctory look at the possible Saudi role, the
notorious 28 pages, which have recently been released in a redacted form.
A friend recently recommended that I take a look at a film on 9/11 that was first produced back
in 2005. It is called
Loose Change 9/11 and is available on Amazon Video or in DVD form as well as elsewhere in
a number of updated versions. The first version reportedly provides the most coherent account, though
the later updates certainly are worth watching, add significantly to the narrative, and are currently
more accessible.
Loose Change is an examination of the inconsistencies in the standard 9/11 narrative, a
subject that has been thoroughly poked and prodded in a number of other documentaries and books,
but it benefits from the immediacy of the account and the fresh memories of the participants in the
events who were interviewed by the documentary's director Dylan Avery starting in 2004. It also includes
a bit of a history lesson for the average viewer, recalling Hitler's Reichstag fire, Pearl Harbor
and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all of which were essentially fraudulent and led to the assumption
of emergency powers by the respective heads of state.
The underlying premise of most 9/11 revisionism is that the United States government, or at least
parts of it, is capable of almost anything.Loose Change describes how leading hawkish Republicans
were, as early as 2000, pushing to increase U.S. military capabilities so that the country would
be able to fight multi-front wars. The signatories of the neocon Project for the New American Century
paper observed that was needed was a catalyst to produce a public demand to "do something," that
"something" being an event comparable to Pearl Harbor. Seventeen signatories of the document wound
up in senior positions in the Bush Administration.
The new Pearl Harbor turned out to be 9/11. Given developments since 9/11 itself, to include the
way the U.S. has persisted in going to war and the constant search for enemies worldwide to justify
our own form of Deep State government, I would, to a large extent, have to believe that PNAC was
either prescient or perhaps, more diabolically, actively engaged in creating a new reality.
That is not to suggest that either then or now most federal employees in the national security
industry were part of some vast conspiracy but rather an indictment of the behavior and values of
those at the top of the food chain, people who are characteristically singularly devoid of any ethical
compass and base their decisions largely on personal and peer group ambition.
9/11 Truthers are characteristically very passionate about their beliefs, which is part of their
problem in relating to a broader public. They frequently demand full adherence to their version of
what passes for reality. In my own experience of more than twenty years on the intelligence side
of government I have frequently found that truth is in fact elusive, often lying concealed in conflicting
narratives. This is, I believe, the strength of Loose Change as it identifies and challenges
inconsistencies in the established account without pontificating and, even though it has a definite
point of view and draws conclusions, it avoids going over to the dark side and speculating on any
number of the wilder "what-if" scenarios.
I recommend that readers watch Loose Change as it runs through discussions of U.S. military
exercises and inexplicable stand-downs that occurred on 9/11, together with convincing accounts of
engineering and technical issues related to how the World Trade Center and WTC7 collapsed. Particularly
intriguing are the initial eyewitness accounts from the site of the alleged downing of UA 93 in Pennsylvania,
a hole in the ground that otherwise showed absolutely no evidence of a plane having actually crashed.
Nor have I ever seen any traces of a plane in photos taken at the Pentagon point of impact.
The film describes the subsequent investigative failures that took place, perhaps deliberately
and arranged from inside the government, and concludes that the event amounts to an "American coup"
which changed the United States both in terms of its domestic liberties and its foreign policy. After
watching the film, one must accept that there are numerous inconsistencies that emerge from any examination
of the standard narrative promoted by the 9/11 Commission and covered up by every White House since
2001. The film calls the existing corpus of government investigations into 9/11 a lie, a conclusion
that I would certainly agree with.
The consequences of 9/11 are indeed more important than the event itself. Even those who have
come to accept the established narrative would have to concede that "that day of infamy" changed
America for the worse, as the film notes. While the United States government had previously engaged
in illegal activity directed against for suspected spies, terrorists and a variety of international
criminals, wholesale surveillance of what amounts to the entire population of the country was a new
development brought in by the Patriot Acts. And, for the first time, secret prisons were set up overseas
and citizens were arrested without being charged and held indefinitely. Under the authority of the
Military Commissions Act tribunals were established to try those individuals who were suspected of
being material supporters of terrorism, "material supporters" being loosely interpreted to make arrest,
prosecution and imprisonment easier.
More recently, executive authority based on the anti-terror legislation has been used to execute
American citizens overseas and, under the Authorization to Use Military Force, to attack suspects
in a number of countries with which the United States is not at war. This all takes place with hardly
a squeak from Congress or from the media. And when citizens object to any or all of the above they
are blocked from taking action in the courts by the government's invocation of State Secrets Privilege,
claiming that judicial review would reveal national secrets. Many believe that the United States
has now become a precursor police state, all as a result of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror
which developed from that event.
So who benefited from 9/11? Clearly the executive branch of the government itself, which has seen
an enormous expansion in its power and control over both the economy and people's lives, but there
are also other entities like the military industrial complex, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies,
and the financial services sector, all of which have gained considerably from the anti-terror largesse
coming from the American taxpayer. Together these entities constitute an American Deep State, which
controls both government and much of the private sector without ever being mentioned or seriously
contested.
Suggesting government connivance in the events of 9/11 inevitably raises the question of who exactly
might have ordered or carried out the attacks if they were in fact not fully and completely the work
of a handful of Arab hijackers? The film suggests that one should perhaps consider the possibility
of a sophisticated "false flag" operation, by which we mean that the apparent perpetrators of the
act were not, in fact, the drivers or originators of what took place. Blowing up huge buildings and
causing them to pancake from within, if indeed that is what took place, is the work of governments,
not of a handful of terrorists. Only two governments would have had that capability, the United States
itself and also Israel, unfortunately mentioned only once in passing in the film, a state player
heavily engaged in attempting to bring America into its fight with the Arab world, with Benjamin
Netanyahu subsequently
saying that "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and
Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq swung American public opinion in our favor."
To be honest I would prefer not to think that 9/11 might have been an inside job, but I am now
convinced that a new 9/11 Commission is in order, one that is not run and guided by the government
itself. If it can be demonstrated that the attacks carried out on that day were quite possibly set
up by major figures both inside and outside the political establishment it might produce such a powerful
reaction that the public would demand a reversal of the laws and policies that have so gravely damaged
our republic. It is admittedly unlikely that anything like that could ever take place, but it is
at least something to hope for.
"... The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10% in the US. ..."
"... The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch. ..."
"... There's British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example. ..."
"... One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration and granting legal status to those who have come illegally. ..."
"... The government bailouts from the banking crash of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. ..."
"... For the record, Sanders voted against the bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course. And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there. ..."
"... A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable. ..."
"... voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination (Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement of the voter. ..."
It's a bigly trend
with enormous consequences for fiscal and monetary policy. But the rise of voter rage in advanced
democracies is a hard narrative to chart, what with the lack of data and the abundance of anecdote.
However, this seems a pretty decent attempt:
That's from Barclay's Marvin Barth - who has set out to measure "voter rage as a drop in the combined
vote share of the centre-right and centre-left parties as voters shift to parties that they believe
better reflect their frustrations," in a 73-page note.
And the exercise perhaps demonstrates that Brexit wasn't much of an exception after all:
Interesting/telling that commodity exporters such as Norway and Australia bucked the general trend,
no? Although you have to wonder how long that will last as the commodity boom fades.
Another interesting question ( asked by Joseph, with his hat on as Southern Africa correspondent
): is South Africa - where unemployment is over 30 per cent and the economy is really feeling
the pain of the commodity bust - part of the politics of rage?
The rising number of violent
'service delivery protests' and the current unrest on university campuses both suggest that South
Africa could be. On the other hand, in party politics itself, one curious thing about the fracturing
of the African National Congress is that there hasn't been more support for radical alternatives.
There are the Economic Freedom Fighters of course - but the party didn't do well enough capture
any municipalities in recent local elections. The centre-focused Democratic Alliance took the prizes
instead. Disaffected ANC voters are if anything staying home instead. Of course South Africa is full
of political risk in several other ways. But it may be an interesting exception to the voter rage
narrative.
Anyway, elsewhere, in European democracies, Barclays say that the drop in centre-party support
has actually been more like a collapse :
Greece (GR), perhaps unsurprisingly, has had roughly a 50pp drop in its centre vote share on
all three measures. But the 44-64pp drop in Austria (AT) is more shocking. In relative terms,
the 24-37pp drop in the Netherlands (NL) is even more startling given that the centre vote share
rarely ever has topped 50%; similarly striking is the 15-22pp drop in Belgium (BE), a country
famous for its linguistically divided parliament. Even in countries that traditionally have fewer
competitive parties, the declines have been large: Germany (DE) 20-27pp, France (FR) 18-32pp,
and Spain (ES) 15-28pp.
The broad-based decline also is unprecedented. Figure 3 charts a time series of the centre
vote share in advanced economies, grouped by type, from 1970 to the present. While there has been
a longer-term trend of mild erosion, a cross-country collapse in the political centre of the current
scale has not occurred previously. Reviewing the entire post-WWII period, there is no other similar
event. Nor was such a wide-ranging drop in the political centre visible during the inter-war,
Great Depression years.
… Figure 3 and Figure 4 also highlight another noteworthy point: voter rage does not seem to
be due (solely) to severe economic distress, contrary to one popular notion. Not only did the
Great Depression fail to provoke a similar collapse in the political centre among ongoing democracies
in the 1930s, but the current bout of political rage appears to pre-date the Global Financial
Crisis (GFC). As Figure 3 shows, the peak in the centre vote share was 2008 for Southern Europe,
but in the US, non-euro area Europe and the northern euro area, the deterioration of the political
centre began in 2003-05.
There's more in
the usual place for those that want it, as we're loath to rerun the full list of potential reasons
for this phenomenon here. Demographics, globalisation, xenophobia all get an airing and all get assigned
to a "yeah, probably, but where does one begin and another end" bucket.
For what it's worth, Barc's underlying contention is that the "biggest source of voter rage appears
to be a sense of economic and political disenfranchisement due to imperfect representation in national
governments and delegation of sovereignty to supranational and intergovernmental organizations."
Apparently 16 of 17 parties Barc looked at demanded "greater protection of, or retaking of, national
sovereignty."
Taking back control is more universal a wish than you might have imagined. It doesn't make
you very confident about globalisation's fate.
In the other direction, Barc suggest "the label 'populist' does not appear to fit the economic
policies of a majority of the parties challenging the political centre." Also in that direction,
"redistribution and corporate taxation, issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality
appear to be lower-order campaign issues for most alternative parties even if it is of primary importance
for the remainder."
It all seems plausible enough as theories go, but we reserve the right to grab on to any other
narrative that comes along and which does a better job of grouping together what is a large number
of competing, non-mutually exclusive, narratives. Tracking voter-to-party preferences in immigration,
free trade, inequality (and so on) yield confusing results and, anyway, it seems unlikely to us that
party policy as presented is always fully understood or taken at face value by supporters.
Still, Barc themselves are humble about the data being used here and say they are "left to use
logic and narrative to analyse numerous bivariate relationships" and the direction of causality is
often impossible to determine.
In short, this is a worthy exercise - but handle with care.
10 hours ago
Interesting too that the decline from Chart 5
seems to coincide with the emergence and growth of the world wide web and the many distinct/fractious
perspectives and opinions instead of the more consensual/centralized editorial hubs typical of the
previous "age". Also- it seems the concept of "enlightened self-interest" has been displaced a more
dog-eat-dog-materialism where the winner takes all. The roots of rebellion and revolution have not
changed so it is good to see some thought by a "winning" organization is seeking an explanation.
Pi1010 5pts Featured
11 hours ago
Entrenched political alignment does not change much within a population, left and right winged-ness
follows a normal distribution. Around the early 80's political parties got scientific and professional,
they realised they only needed to win over the centrally minded swing voters but could ignore those
outside the center who would vote for them anyway. At the same time politicians became stage managed
by their media minders, Tony Blair being the master of this.
Voters outside the center, taken for granted have gone elsewhere and also find the rare genuine
politician appealing (Farage, Trump, Sanders, Corbyn). If voter rage is a problem, and I'm not convinced
it is, then mainstream parties need to broaden their appeal away from the center, they won't though
in case they lose to the other side, prisoners dilemma indeed.
The late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky apparently proposed to Vladimir Putin that the oligarchs
fund and control two parties, which would play out bitterly contested elections, while the same
groups kept control behind the scenes. Putin in the end betrayed the oligarchs for his conception
of Russian national interest (which may still involve oligarchs).
As Russia Insider noted
"(In) the U.S we have two capitalist parties that largely agree on everything. The exceptions
are issues that matter a lot to the regular people who make up the two parties' bases, but are largely
irrelevant to party elites who fund and run both of them."
Which is why Trump, an outsider who cares about these issues, Is Literally Hitler as far as the
corporate media are concerned, and why the DNC cheated Sanders.
In defense of labantall. First, the earlier citation of Frost was apposite; thought-provoking,
if not completely convincing. Second, that both of the 2 parties are (usually) professional and (possibly)
competent servants of their (admittedly disparate sets of) clients ought not be in dispute.
The alleged
Russian plan would be a sham, in that the clientele of the 2 parties would be the same - which is
not the case in America - but I defend the observation as germane, even if it is fallacious in fact.
The Russians just don't get it, and why would that be a surprise. I don't agree that Trump gets bad
press only because he is an outsider, I think he's doing himself in; but that's not an absurd opinion.
Regardless of the source.... The analysis is largely correct.
The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big
banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10%
in the US.
Simultaneous, anti-establishment movements happened in both primaries (Sanders & Trump). While "The
Wall" stands as very different as a policy, both candidates agreed on some big issues impacting the
bulk of the american populace such as,
Mass immigration = Wage suppression
Banks are too big. Sanders advocates the re-imposition of Glass Stegall
The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been
heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone
outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch.
@ Londo
@ Paul Murphy
@ rj1
@ labantall
As the child of Labour-voting parents in the Eisenhower era, both US parties seemed
pretty much alike to me. So when my aunt who lived in the US came over to visit, I asked her why
they had two such similar parties?
She replied "Because every office door has an inside and an outside..."
Russia Insider is a website run by Western expats in Russia. I suppose it could be a fake site.
I just found it by googling "Berezovsky two parties". You can find the original Berezovsky interview
by Masha Gessen, who is as far from a Putin mouthpiece as you can get.
"The idea that US democrats and republicans largely agree on everything is absurd"
I think you have to distinguish between those at the top of the parties (and their funders) and
the rank and file.
Thanks to those commenters who defended my right to a different opinion ;-)
@ labantall
@ Paul Murphy
Erm, the Dems and GOP are so in agreement we've had close to legislative grid-lock
for the past eight years. All this wing-nuttery about global elites being in bed with the media,
keeping a boot on the throat of the common man, etc etc, doesn't really have a place here on FTAV.
So take a rest from this post -- and the site -- please.
Not convinced that they can quantify this accurately. Assessing the vote of "centre-x" parties
is both highly subjective, and also affected by longer-term trends in the parties themselves.
Just to take the example of the UK. You might argue that the rise of UKIP, and perhaps the Green
party, reflected an increased vote for more extreme parties. But maybe it reflected instead a move
to the centre ground by the two main parties (big tents re-pitched so they no longer cover the extremes).
Both Labour and the Conservatives have dramatically shifted positions over the years, in both
directions. Was Michael Foot's Labout party a "centre-left" party? Were Michael Howard's Conservatives
"centre-right"? I am sure for the purposes of this analysis, the answer was "yes" both times, but
I would answer with two "no"s.
@ Pharma
The terms themselves lose meaning when we go to a country-by-country basis. There's
British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example.
I've always wished someone could break down for me the difference between center, center-right,
right, and far-right (ditto moving left) as 4 separate viewpoints.
Hmm. 'New Podesta Email Exposes Playbook For Rigging Polls Through "Oversamples"' on Zero Hedge
seems to have more than one million page views at the moment.
The U.S. numbers are a bit misleading, since significant numbers of independent voters are
actually in between the two parties on political views.
One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position
on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration
and granting legal status to those who have come illegally.
Hence, a lot of independent voters are up for grabs by whichever party happens to strike a more
moderate tone. The challenge for the parties is in getting moderate candidates through the primary
process, which of late has been dominated by hardliners and party loyalists who are not in tune with
the general public's views (hence how both parties succeeded in nominating the candidate with the
lowest favorability rating).
Along with economic and political disenfranchisement (see the billionaires response "Guess
it takes a study to point out the obvious" to research concluding the US is no longer a democracy)
don't forget demographic disenfranchisement.
As the Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost puts it :
"In late capitalism, the elites are no longer restrained by ties of national identity and are
thus freer to enrich themselves at the expense of their host society. This clash of interests lies
at the heart of the globalist project: on the one hand, jobs are outsourced to low-wage countries;
on the other, low-wage labor is insourced for jobs that cannot be relocated, such as in the construction
and service industries. This two-way movement redistributes wealth from owners of labor to owners of capital. Business people
benefit from access to lower-paid workers and weaker labor and environmental standards. Working people
are meanwhile thrown into competition with these other workers. As a result, the top 10% of society
is pulling farther and farther ahead of everyone else, and this trend is taking place throughout
the developed world. The rich are getting richer … not by making a better product but by making the
same product with cheaper and less troublesome inputs of labor."
In order for a government to achieve anything constructive, a significant proportion of the
population have to reach broad agreement on what policies are desirable, and what means of implementing
them are acceptable. The political centre is where this broad agreement normally occurs.
We appear to have entered a period where a majority of the population can agree on what they don't
like (banker/CEO salaries, zero-hour contracts, housing shortage), but cannot agree on policies to
expunge these outrages from our society. This fills me with foreboding.
@ Patience
Well, in the United States, for the first time ever, entitlement "reform" was not
an issue during a presidential campaign. Trump has vowed to not touch Medicare or Social Security,
while HRC has promised to perhaps enhance both entitlement programs.
I believe that a consensus has developed in the United States that, due to income inequality,
th budget for entitlement programs must be increased, not "streamlined".
Regardless of what happens in two weeks, I doubt that a GOP presidential nominee can ever run
on a platform to "reform" entitlement programs.
The government bailouts from the banking crash
of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. Don't know if you can ever find an
identifiable cause across multiple democracies, but that's a key one common to the U.S. and Europe.
For the record, Sanders voted against the
bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course.
And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there.
" issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality appear to be lower-order campaign
issues for most alternative parties "
This is because the f**k-witted managerial metropolitan centrists (as exemplified by the FT) fail
to realise that income inequality (poverty) is seen as analogous to 'immigration' because right wing
parties hijack the agenda and centrist governments are either 1) monumentally incompetent or 2) wholly
captured by financial interests. (the answer is '2' btw)
What people see are bankers back to getting paid millions, house prices rocketing out of any normal
persons reach, wages stagnating and immigrants flooding in. Their lives are half what they used to
be and the real, actual ignoramuses - politicians and media - sneer at people and telling them that
_they_ are ignorant.
'Dont believe your own eyes or experiences - believe us - youre worthless and ignorant'. . If
this occured in a soap opera there'd be an outcry. Its the mantra of the abuser, writ national.
And applauded by the FT.
What youre observing is an economic revolt against the Reification Fallacy promulgated and promoted
by the media.
Economic models are notional constructs, they are neither real nor accurate. By messing around
with the management of the country these bull*hit artists have cost ordinary people a decade of their
productive lives. Enough is enough.
People dont realise why this has happened but when they do - when its explained to them properly
that a combination of 'professionals' fixated on imaginary models (how is this different from a mental
illness?) and 'regulatory capture' (corruption) by financial interests has made them homeless/pensionless/savingsless
there will be wholesale revolt.
In addition, the increasingly shrill and unhinged demonisation by politicians and the media of
peoples correctly expressed (if wrongly rooted) frustrations is evidence that the establishment realise
their error. Yet they _still_ refuse to call for or enact a reversal of the Odious policies they
operate!
Looking forward to the Austrian election re-run and the Italian referendum, on top of general
elections across Europe next year, I can only quote a recent noble laureate 'I dont need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows'
(And I dont need a bank or a newspaper to tell me either.)
@ ceraunavolta
I find these ideas about RWAs and the order/authoritarian openness axis very
unsavoury. To me it just looks like de-humanising pejorative tribalism/categorisation dressed
up as quantitative/objective analysis. A world neatly divided between nice clever open outward
looking groovy people (like US) and horrid narrow-minded inward looking vengeful people (like
THEM).
This stuff is surely skirting the borders of medicalising dissent – which seldom ends well.
Also – it's pretty lightweight if you think about it for more than about thirty seconds: On Brexit,
for example, it surely could be argued that, for some, supporting continued EU membership actually
represented a vote *for* order and an expression of a lack of openness to the possibility of change.
Surely one person's order can be another's chaos – and one person's perception of what is 'other'
can be another person's 'familiar' – so even if there is an intrinsic and fixed difference between
people in their preference for order or openness you wouldn't necessarily expect such an intrinsic
bias to be strongly predicative on any binary issue unless everyone's circumstances were the same
(with regards to what for them constituted 'order' and 'other').
I'm wondering if anyone's looked for evidence of a distinct personality type (perhaps at higher
prevalence among academics) characterised by an over willingness to believe that people are automaton-like
with inflexible fixed character traits (a view of humanity which, as it happens, is conveniently
susceptible to simple numerical modelling and the production of impressive looking true-because-numbers/sciencey
graphs)?
I'm thinking we could call such people NHDs – 'naive human determinists' or possibly 'numerical human
determinists'?
Excellent – I applaud your caution/scepticism David.
Could it perhaps be that the reason the 'rise of the angry voter' is hard to chart is because
it is not actually an independently identifiable thing? Most people, on all sides, tend to try lazily
to medicalise/infantilise people who don't agree with them as being stupid, ill-educated/over-educated,
indoctrinated by the evil media (left-wing or right-wing media respectively), angry/complacent, left-behind-socially-excluded/out-of-touch-wealthy-elitists
and/or suffering from cognitive biases etc. Everyone but themselves, apparently, is susceptible to
these sorts of factors – but I think it is basically pretty lazy (and dangerous!) for people to try
to 'metta' out of (often difficult, complicated, non-simple right/wrong goody/baddy) arguments over
the actual issues, and instead go for a kind of class-action-ad-hominem 'you only think that because
you are this-that-or-the-other'.
From a parochial perspective, back in the eighties, the 'variance' of mainstream politics in the
UK was massive – people like Norman Tebbit on the one hand, and Michael Foot on the other were mainstream
political figures – there was a massive absence of consensus. There was a lot of anger. The anger,
presumably, was a *downstream* consequence of the realities. By the standards of the subsequent anodyne
managerialist political/media merry-go-round we'd arrived at by the mid 2000s the gulf across the
entire mainstream of UK politics was virtually infinitesimally small by comparison. Things have started
to heat up again. This is all part of the process. This is how it is supposed to work. It ebbs and
it flows – I imagine – for good reason. I'm inclined to think that trying to identify some sort of
new thing – 'identity politics' or 'the new politics of rage' is mostly just displacement behaviour
by people who, for a variety of reasons, don't really want to get their hands dirty with the real
issues.
I remember, I think it was Peter Mandelson, said back during the New Labour years something like
'politics doesn't really matter when times are good'. I think perhaps some people are starting to
discover (some of them for the first time in their lives) why it is that we actually have politics.
I think the SA example from Joseph is also very good – it illustrates that 'things are complicated'
and that simple 'narratives' are no substitute for actually being on the ground and trying to understand
what's actually going on.
@ Skwosh
A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern
clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this
class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable.
@ DaniaDelendaEst
@ Skwosh
I'd briefly add that voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination
(Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement
of the voter.
I don't disagree – and I take the point made by you and other commenters about 'chasing the centre
ground' in political/electoral strategy – but I'm not so sure it is avoidable. For sure, when the
electoral conditions are right then you can win by appealing to a small number of often centrist
swing voters, but it only works *if* those conditions already exist – and when those conditions exist
then people who use that strategy will prevail and get to make policy (inclined to pander to the
centre) – and if they instead fall on their swords and decided to loose honourably then another,
different (and possibly less honourable) lot will play to the centre ground and win instead. It works
until it doesn't. I grant that this approach is likely to end up going on for too long, allowing
polarization and genuine disenfranchisement to build – but I think this is unfortunately all part
of the process – one of the unavoidable costs of democracy's least-worst-ness. These electoral conditions
wax and wane – there is only so far-apart or ill-balanced the political spectrum can get before there
is no centre that can swing it. When it breaks – when the centre cannot (and probably should not)
hold any longer then the particular reasons for this will presumably be many, varied, complicated
and messy in any given instance and at any given point in political history – difficult to generalise
about – and difficult to unify into a single 'narrative'.
I am certainly not saying that there is no anger or disgust – and I'm not saying that these things
are not justified. That there is anger and disgust is part of why things are heating up politically
– and this is as it should be; this is what shifts a consensus that may have outlived its utility
and/or establishes a new consensuses in an area where there was none before. During the transition
such processes are inevitably shouty. My problem is with the idea that the 'anger' or the 'disgust'
is somehow the causative thing that is making politics all 'freaky'. For one thing I don't really
accept that politics has yet become *that* freaky (yet anyway). It is certainly freakier than of
late, but I think some people need to get out more (in terms of historical perspective) if they think
that this sort of thing is somehow unprecedented. It seems obvious to me that the anger and disgust
is an inevitable consequence of the underlying grievances that people have – so if someone wants
to understand 'what is going on' then they need to look at these underlying grievances rather than
trying to understand it all in terms of being 'anger-driven'. Anger is something people naturally
feel and express when they're unhappy about stuff and/or they think they (or others) are being treated
unfairly, marginalised, patronised etc. (not that I'm implying either of you would disagree with
this).
"... My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders. ..."
"... Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude. ..."
"... Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me. ..."
"... In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh. ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans. Trump blames immigration
and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true. They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting
worse. They've been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc. But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war.
That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be
otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.
More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though
they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald
keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.
Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned
using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.
Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.
likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler,
"War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.
All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was
expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that
could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.
The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the
American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist,
we might go to war with Russia or China.
The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people,
the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.
America: Consuming your future today.
====
Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am
faustusnotes
fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the
German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance.
It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.
1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations,
but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost.
Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.
Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation
post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the
damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.
===
Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )
The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates
on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.
There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the
families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political
future).
And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you
are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening
up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.
The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty
. In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .
Was it? I wonder about that.
Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case
as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this
point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership
across Europe failed.
It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder
without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment
in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.
It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the
wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed
it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.
And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against
war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary
attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first
weeks.
Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror
of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.
bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26
Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted
ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day
and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.
Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace.
The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.
Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping
western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.
I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally
reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?
The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for
a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist
aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial
power.
It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars
brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.
The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing
fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert
of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911,
Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).
It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts
had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations
of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.
If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't
that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.
It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and
Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course,
no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel
the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.
The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control
and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)
What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against
war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations
of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate
as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede
to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement
of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.
The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey,
Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism,
or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?
The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by
multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was
the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?
They are the same neocon creeps... They forgot nothing and learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles. ..."
"... Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of détente with Russia. ..."
"... In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. ..."
"... Why do you think "wet kiss with neocons" is compatible with democratic principles ? ..."
"... I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03. ..."
"... But most of the liberal bloggers obediently kept their mouths shut about it. ..."
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after the election.
But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same
creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.
Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this article in 2014 and 2015:
"... The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes. ..."
"... Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. ..."
"... "Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011. ..."
"... Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish." ..."
"... Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer. ..."
"... Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war. ..."
"... Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria. ..."
"... The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism. ..."
Hillary Clinton
can change her views in an instant on trade, guns, gay marriage, and all sorts of issues, but
she's consistent in this: she wants war.
The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined
with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in
Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes.
"I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria," Clinton said
Wednesday night. Totally separate from the fight against ISIS, Clinton's "no-fly zones and safe havens"
are U.S. military intervention in the bloody and many-sided conflict between Syria's brutal government,
terrorist groups, and rebel groups.
Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at
the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate that a no-fly zone created "the
potential of a direct conflict with the Syrian integrated air defense system or Syrian forces or,
by corollary, a confrontation with the Russians."
Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified in the same hearing that "safe zones" would require significant
U.S. boots on the ground.
So while Hillary says she doesn't want war with Russia or Syria, or boots on the ground in Syria,
she pushes policies that the Pentagon says risk war and require boots on the ground.
Hillary showed that same cavalier attitude toward war earlier this decade, laughingly
declaring "we came, we
saw, he died." This was her version of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, and Libya
was her smaller - and less legal - version of Bush's Iraq War.
"Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary
of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011.
Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war.
Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship
of this country's Libya policy from start to finish."
Sullivan listed, point-by-point, how Clinton helped bring about and shape the war. Before Obama's
attack on Moammar Gadhafi, "she [was] a leading voice for strong UNSC action and a NATO civilian
B5 protection mission," the memo explained.
Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization
for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in
the Atlantic last summer.
ISIS has spread, no stable government has arisen, and the chaos has led to refugee and terrorism
crises.
Clinton nevertheless calls her war "smart power at its best," declaring during the primary season,
"I think President
Obama made the right decision at the time."
Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya.
Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running
on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war.
Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war
was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson
to Libya or to Syria.
The pattern is clear:
Hillary Clinton
is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next
president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under
President Obama
. Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious
interventionism.
If Hillary wins big and sweeps in a Senate majority with her, we could be in for four more years
of even more war.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at
[email protected]. His column appears
Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .
Was it? I wonder about that.
Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case
as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this
point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership
across Europe failed.
It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder
without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment
in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.
It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the
wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed
it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.
And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against
war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary
attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first
weeks.
Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror
of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.
bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26
Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted
ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day
and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.
Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace.
The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.
Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping
western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.
I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally
reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?
The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for
a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist
aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial
power.
It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars
brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.
The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing
fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert
of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911,
Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).
It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts
had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations
of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.
If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't
that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.
It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and
Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course,
no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel
the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.
The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control
and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)
What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against
war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations
of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate
as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede
to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement
of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.
The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey,
Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism,
or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?
The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by
multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was
the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?
More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though
they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald
keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.
Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned
using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.
Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.
likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler,
"War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.
All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was
expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that
could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.
The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the
American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist,
we might go to war with Russia or China.
The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people,
the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.
America: Consuming your future today.
====
Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am
faustusnotes
fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the
German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance.
It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.
1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations,
but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost.
Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.
Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation
post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the
damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.
===
Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )
The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates
on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.
There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the
families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political
future).
And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you
are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening
up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.
The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty
. In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.
"... I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato ..."
"... A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior. ..."
"... it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes. ..."
I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal
Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato.
Reply
Monday, October 24, 2016 at 02:11 PM
> ...some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about
re-assessing Nato.
A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight
I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part
of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior.
I can't claim that a mere mortal like me actually has the slightest clue what is really going
on. All I will hazard is that, whatever it is, it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation
schemes.
Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence
services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient
prior.
"... US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US. ..."
"... Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as central to American greatness." ..."
"... President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas. Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency. ..."
"... The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism' because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term. ..."
"... I think we should embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense. ..."
"... Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+ severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E. ..."
"... Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost to the U.S. in human and non-human resources. ..."
Donald Trump played a wily capitalistic trick on his Republican opponents in the primary fights
this year-he served an underserved market.
By now it's a cliché that Trump, while on his way to the GOP nomination, tapped into an unnoticed
reservoir of right-of-center opinion on domestic and economic concerns-namely, the populist-nationalists
who felt left out of the reigning market-libertarianism of the last few decades.
Indeed, of the 17 Republicans who ran this year, Trump had mostly to himself the populist issues:
that is, opposition to open borders, to free trade, and to earned-entitlement cutting. When the other
candidates were zigging toward the familiar-and unpopular-Chamber of Commerce-approved orthodoxy,
Trump was zagging toward the voters.
Moreover, the same sort of populist-nationalist reservoir-tapping was evident in the realm of
foreign affairs. To put it in bluntly Trumpian terms, the New Yorker hit 'em where they weren't.
The fact that Trump was doing something dramatically different became clear in the make-or-break
Republican debate in Greenville, S.C., on February 13. Back in those early days of the campaign,
Trump had lost one contest (Iowa) and won one (New Hampshire), and it was still anybody's guess who
would emerge victorious.
During that debate, Trump took what seemed to be an extraordinary gamble: he ripped into George
W. Bush's national-security record-in a state where the 43rd president was still popular. Speaking
of the Iraq War, Trump said, "George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was
a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East."
And then Trump went further, aiming indirectly at the former president, while slugging his brother
Jeb directly: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign, remember that."
In response, Jeb intoned the usual Republican line, "He kept us safe." And others on the stage
in Greenville that night rushed to associate themselves with Bush 43.
In the aftermath of this verbal melee, many thought that Trump had doomed himself. As one unnamed
Republican "strategist" chortled to Politico , "Trump's attack on President George W. Bush
was galactic-level stupid in South Carolina."
Well, not quite: Trump triumphed in the Palmetto State primary a week later, winning by a 10-point
margin.
Thus, as we can see in retrospect, something had changed within the GOP. After 9/11, in the early
years of this century, South Carolinians had been eager to fight. Yet by the middle of the second
decade, they-or at least a plurality of them-had grown weary of endless foreign war.
Trump's victory in the Palmetto State was decisive, yet it was nevertheless only a plurality,
32.5 percent. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, running as an unabashed neocon hawk, finished second.
So we can see that the Republican foreign-policy "market" is now segmented. And while Trump proved
effective at targeting crucial segments, they weren't the only segments-because, in actuality, there
are four easily identifiable blocs on the foreign-policy right. And as we delineate these four segments,
we can see that while some are highly organized and tightly articulate, others are loose and inchoate:
First, the libertarians. That is, the Cato Institute and other free-market think tanks, Reason
magazine, and so on. Libertarians are not so numerous around the country, but they are strong
among the intelligentsia.
Second, the old-right "isolationists." These folks, also known as "paleocons," often find common
ground with libertarians, yet their origins are different, and so is their outlook. Whereas the libertarians
typically have issued a blanket anathema to all foreign entanglements, the isolationists have been
more selective. During World War I, for example, their intellectual forbears were hostile to U.S.
involvement on the side of the Allies, but that was often because of specifically anti-English or
pro-German sentiments, not because they felt guided by an overall principle of non-intervention.
Indeed, the same isolationists were often eager to intervene in Latin America and in the Far East.
More recently, the temperamentally isolationist bloc has joined with the libertarians in opposition
to deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Third, the traditional hawks. On the proverbial Main Street, USA, plenty of people-not limited
to the active-duty military, veterans, and law-enforcers-believe that America's national honor is
worth fighting for.
Fourth, the neoconservatives. This group, which takes hawkishness to an avant-garde extreme, is
so praised, and so criticized, that there's little that needs be added here. Yet we can say this:
as with the libertarians, they are concentrated in Washington, DC; by contrast, out beyond the Beltway,
they are relatively scarce. Because of their connections to big donors to both parties, however,
they have been powerful, even preeminent, in foreign-policy circles over the last quarter-century.
Yet today, it's the neocons who feel most threatened by, and most hostile to, the Trump phenomenon.
We can pause to offer a contextual point: floating somewhere among the first three categories-libertarians,
isolationists, hawks-are the foreign-policy realists. These, of course, are the people, following
in the tradition of the great scholar Hans Morgenthau, who pride themselves on seeing the world as
it is, regarding foreign policy as just another application of Bismarckian wisdom-"the art of the
possible."
The realists, disproportionately academics and think-tankers, are a savvy and well-credentialed
group-or, according to critics, cynical and world-weary. Yet either way, they have made many alliances
with the aforementioned trio of groups, even as they have usually maintained their ideological flexibility.
To borrow the celebrated wisdom of the 19th-century realpolitiker Lord Palmerston, realists don't
have permanent attachments; they have permanent interests. And so it seems likely that if Trump wins-or
anyone like Trump in the future-many realists will be willing to emerge from their wood-paneled precincts
to engage in the hurly-burly of public service.
Returning to our basic quartet of blocs, we can quickly see that two of them, the libertarians
and the neocons, have been loudly successful in the "battle of ideas." That is, almost everyone knows
where the libertarians and the neocons stand on the controversies of the moment. Meanwhile, the other
two groups-the isolationists and the traditional hawks-have failed to make themselves heard. That
is, until Trump.
For the most part, the isolationists and hawks have not been organized; they've just been clusters
of veterans, cops, gun owners, and like-minded souls gathering here and there, feeling strongly about
the issues but never finding a national megaphone. Indeed, even organized groups, such as the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, sizable as they might be, have had little impact, of late,
on foreign affairs.
This paradoxical reality-that even big groups can be voiceless, allowing smaller groups to carry
the day-is well understood. Back in 1839, the historian Thomas Carlyle observed of his Britain, "The
speaking classes speak and debate," while the "deep-buried [working] class lies like an Enceladus"-a
mythological giant imprisoned under a volcano. Yet, Carlyle continued, the giant under the volcano
will not stay silent forever; one day it will erupt, and the inevitable eruption "has to produce
earthquakes!"
In our time, Trump has provoked the Enceladus-like earthquake. Over the past year, while the mainstream
media has continued to lavish attention on the fine points of libertarianism and neoconservatism,
the Peoples of the Volcano have blown up American politics.
Trump has spoken loudly to both of his groups. To the isolationists, he has highlighted his past
opposition to the Iraq and Libya misadventures, as well as his suspicions about NATO and other alliances.
(Here the libertarians, too, are on board.) At the same time, he has also talked the language of
the hawks, as when he has said, "Take the oil" and "Bomb the [bleep] out of them." Trump has also
attacked the Iran nuclear agreement, deriding it as "one of the worst deals ever made."
Thus earlier this year Trump mobilized the isolationists and the hawks, leaving the libertarians
to Rand Paul and the neocons to Rubio.
Now as we move to the general election, it appears that Trump has kept the loyalty of his core
groups. Many libertarians, meanwhile, are voting for Gary Johnson-the former Republican governor
at the top of the Libertarian Party's ticket-and they are being joined, most likely as a one-off,
by disaffected Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the neocons, most of them, have become the objective
allies, if not the overt supporters, of Hillary Clinton.
Even if Trump loses, his energized supporters, having found their voice, will be a new and important
force within the GOP-a force that could make it significantly harder for a future president to, say,
"liberate" and "democratize" Syria.
♦♦♦
Yet now we must skip past the unknown unknowns of the election and ask: what might we expect if
Trump becomes president?
One immediate point to be borne in mind is that it will be a challenge to fill the cabinet and
the sub-cabinet-to say nothing of the thousands of "Schedule C" positions across the administration-with
true Trump loyalists. Yes, of course, if Trump wins that means he will have garnered 50 million or
more votes, but still, the number of people who have the right credentials and can pass all the background
checks-including, for most of the top jobs, Senate confirmation-is minuscule.
So here we might single out the foreign-policy realists as likely having a bright future in a
Trump administration: after all, they are often well-credentialed and, by their nature, have prudently
tended to keep their anti-Trump commentary to a minimum. (There's a piece of inside-the-Beltway realist
wisdom that seems relevant here: "You're for what happens.")
Yet the path to realist dominion in a Trump administration is not smooth. As a group, they have
been in eclipse since the Bush 41 era, so an entire generation of their cadres is missing. The realists
do not have long lists of age-appropriate alumni ready for another spin through the revolving door.
By contrast, the libertarians have lots of young staffers on some think-tank payroll or another.
And of course, the neocons have lots of experience and contacts-yes, they screwed up the last time
they were in power, but at least they know the jargon.
Thus, unless president-elect Trump makes a genuinely heroic effort to infuse his administration
with new blood, he will end up hiring a lot of folks who might not really agree with him-and who
perhaps even have strongly, if quietly, opposed him. That means that the path of a Trump presidency
could be channeled in an unexpected direction, as the adherents of other foreign-policy schools-including,
conceivably, schools from the left-clamber aboard. As they say in DC, "personnel is policy."
Still, Trump has a strong personality, and it's entirely possible that, as president, he will
succeed in imprinting his unique will on his appointees. (On the other hand, the career government,
starting with the State Department's foreign service officers, might well prove to be a different
story.)
Looking further ahead, as a hypothetical President Trump surveys the situation from the Sit Room,
here are nine things that will be in view:
1.
Trump will recall, always, that the Bush 43 presidency drove itself into a ditch on Iraq. So he
will surely see the supreme value of not sending U.S. ground troops-beyond a few advisors-into Middle
Eastern war zones.
2.
Trump will also realize that Barack Obama, for all his talk about hope and change, ended up preserving
the bulk of Bush 43's policies. The only difference is that Obama did it on the cheap, reducing defense
spending as he went along.
Obama similar to Bush-really? Yes. To be sure, Obama dropped all of Bush's democratic messianism,
but even with his cool detachment he kept all of Bush's alliances and commitments, including those
in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then he added a new international commitment: "climate change."
In other words, America now has a policy of "quintuple containment": Russia, China, Iran, ISIS/al-Qaeda,
and, of course, the carbon-dioxide molecule. Many would argue that today we aren't managing any of
these containments well; others insist that the Obama administration, perversely, seems most dedicated
to the containment of climate change: everything else can fall apart, but if the Obamans can maintain
the illusion of their international CO2 deals, as far as they are concerned all will be well.
In addition, Uncle Sam has another hundred or so minor commitments-including bilateral defense
treaties with countries most Americans have never heard of, along with special commitments to champion
the rights of children, women, dissidents, endangered species, etc. On a one-by-one basis, it's possible
to admire many of these efforts; on a cumulative basis, it's impossible to imagine how we can sustain
all of them.
3. A populist president like Trump will further realize that if the U.S. has just 4 percent of the
world's population and barely more than a fifth of world GDP, it's not possible that we can continue
to police the planet. Yes, we have many allies-on paper. Yet Trump's critique of many of them as
feckless, even faithless, resonated for one big reason: it was true.
So Trump will likely begin the process of rethinking U.S. commitments around the world. Do we
really want to risk nuclear war over the Spratly Islands? Or the eastern marches of Ukraine? Here,
Trump might well default to the wisdom of the realists: big powers are just that-big powers-and so
one must deal with them in all their authoritarian essentiality. And as for all the other countries
of the world-some we like and some we don't-we're not going to change them, either. (Although in
some cases, notably Iraq and Syria, partition, supervised by the great powers, may be the only solution.)
4.
Trump will surely see world diplomacy as an extension of what he has done best all his life-making
deals. This instinct will serve him well in two ways: first, he will be sharply separating himself
from his predecessors, Bush the hot-blooded unilateralist war-of-choicer and Obama the cool and detached
multilateralist leader-from-behind. Second, his deal-making desire will inspire him do what needs
to be done: build rapport with world leaders as a prelude to making things happen.
To cite one immediate example: there's no way that we will ever achieve anything resembling "peace
with honor" in Afghanistan without the full cooperation of the Taliban's masters in Pakistan. Ergo,
the needed deal must be struck in Islamabad, not Kabul.
Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not as rogue
states that must be single-handedly tamed by America.
Moreover, Trump's deal-making trope also suggests that instead of sacrificing American economic
interests on the altar of U.S. "leadership," he will view the strengthening of the American economy
as central to American greatness.
5.
Trump will further realize that his friends the realists have had a blind spot of late when it
comes to eco nomic matters. Once upon a time-that is, in the 19th century-economic nationalism was
at the forefront of American foreign-policy making. In the old days, as America's Manifest Destiny
stretched beyond the continental U.S., expansionism and Hamiltonianism went together: as they used
to say, trade follows the flag. Theodore Roosevelt's digging of the Panama Canal surely ranks as
one of the most successful fusions of foreign and economic policy in American history.
Yet in the past few decades, the economic nationalists and the foreign-policy realists have drifted
apart. For example, a Reagan official, Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute, has been
mostly ignored by the realists, who have instead embraced the conventional elite view of free trade
and globalization.
So a President Trump will have the opportunity to reunite realism and economic nationalism; he
can once again put manufacturing exports, for example, at the top of the U.S. agenda. Indeed, Trump
might consider other economic-nationalist gambits: for example, if we are currently defending such
wealthy countries as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Norway, why aren't they investing some of the trillions
of dollars in their sovereign-wealth funds into, say, American infrastructure?
6.
Trump will also come into power realizing that he has few friends in the foreign-policy establishment;
after all, most establishmentarians opposed him vehemently. Yet that could turn out to be a real
plus for the 45th president because it could enable him to discard the stodgy and outworn thinking
of the "experts." In particular, he could refute the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always
must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and
even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow. That was
always, of course, a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over
the well-being of the larger U.S. population-and maybe Trump can come up with a better and fairer
vision.
7.
As an instinctive deal-maker, Trump will have the capacity to clear away the underbrush of accumulated
obsolete doctrines and dogmas. To cite just one small but tragic example, there's the dopey chain
of thinking that has guided U.S. policy toward South Sudan. Today, we officially condemn both sides
in that country's ongoing civil war. Yet we might ask, how can that work out well for American interests?
After all, one side or the other is going to win, and we presumably want a friend in Juba, not a
Chinese-affiliated foe.
On the larger canvas, Trump will observe that if the U.S., China, and Russia are the three countries
capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to figure out a modus vivendi among this
threesome. Such practical deal-making, of course, would undermine the moralistic narrative that Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin are the potentates of new evil empires.
8.
Whether or not he's currently familiar with the terminology, Trump seems likely to recapitulate
the "multipolar" system envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Back then,
the multipolar vision included the U.S., the USSR, Western Europe, China, and Japan.
Yet multipolarity was lost in the '80s, as the American economy was Reaganized, the Cold War grew
colder, and the Soviet Union staggered to its self-implosion. Then in the '90s we had the "unipolar
moment," when the U.S. enjoyed "hyper-power" primacy.
Yet as with all moments, unipolarity soon passed, undone by the Iraq quagmire, America's economic
stagnation, and the rise of other powers. So today, multipolarity seems destined to re-emerge with
a slightly upgraded cast of players: the U.S., China, Russia, the European Union, and perhaps India.
9.
And, of course, Trump will have to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
♦♦♦
Some might object that I am reading too much into Trump. Indeed, the conventional wisdom, even
today, maintains that Trump is visceral, not intellectual, that he is buffoonish, not Kissingerian.
To such critics, this Trump supporter feels compelled to respond: when has the conventional wisdom
about the New Yorker been proven correct?
It's not easy to become president. In all of U.S. history, just 42 individuals have been elected
to the presidency-or to the vice presidency and succeeded a fallen president. That is, indeed, an
exclusive club. Or as Trump himself might say, it's not a club for dummies.
If Trump does, in fact, become the 45th president, then by definition, he will have proven himself
to be pretty darn strategic. And that's a portent that bodes well for his foreign policy.
James P. Pinkerton is a contributor to the Fox News Channel.
Among James Pinkerton's most compelling reasons to hope for a Trump presidency are these two:
[1] "Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not
as rogue states that must be single-handedly tamed by America…Trump will observe that if the U.S.,
China, and Russia are the three countries capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to
figure out amodus vivendi among this threesome…"
US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two
powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US.
[2] Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is,
and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its
allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits,
and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the
well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on
the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as
central to American greatness."
President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans
those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas.
Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency.<
The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons
proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism'
because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we
needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone
wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term.
I think we should
embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts
because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense.
Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's
walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+
severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E.
Trump just came across as different while maintaining conservative, albeit middle-American values.
Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish
their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme
Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost
to the U.S. in human and non-human resources.
The song goes on. Trump hit a real nerve. Even if he loses, the American people have had a
small but important victory. We are frustrated with the ruling cabal. A sleeping giant has been
awoken. This election could be the political Perl Harbor….
Pinkerton has spent thousands of words writing about someone who is not the Donald Trump anyone
has ever seen.
In this, he joins every other member of the Right, who wait in hopeful anticipation
to see a Champion for their cause in Donald Trump, and are willing to turn a blind eye to his
ignorance, outright stupidity, lack of self-discipline, and lack of serious intent.
Pinkerton, he will only follow your lead here if he sees what's in it for HIM, not for the
Right and certainly not for the benefit of the American people.
Flawed premise. This opine works its way through the rabbit hole pretzel of current methodologies
in D.C. The ones that don't work. The city of NY had a similar outcome building a certain ice
skating facility within the confines of a system designed to fail.
What Trump does is implode those failed systems, implements a methodology that has proven to
succeed, and then does it. Under budget and before the deadline. Finding the *right* bodies to
make it all work isn't as difficult as is surmised. What that shows is how difficult that task
would be for the author. Whenever I hear some pundit claim that Trump can't possibly do all that
means is the pundit couldn't possibly do it.
The current system is full of youcan'tdoits, what have you got to lose, more of the same?
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .
Was it? I wonder about that.
Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case
as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this
point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership
across Europe failed.
It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder
without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment
in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.
It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the
wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed
it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.
And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against
war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary
attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first
weeks.
Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror
of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.
bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26
Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted
ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day
and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.
Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace.
The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.
Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping
western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.
I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally
reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?
The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for
a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist
aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial
power.
It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars
brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.
The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing
fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert
of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911,
Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).
It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts
had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations
of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.
If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't
that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.
It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and
Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course,
no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel
the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.
The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control
and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)
What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against
war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations
of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate
as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede
to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement
of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.
The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey,
Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism,
or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?
The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by
multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was
the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?
More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though
they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald
keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.
Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned
using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.
Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.
likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler,
"War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.
All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was
expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that
could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.
The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the
American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist,
we might go to war with Russia or China.
The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people,
the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.
America: Consuming your future today.
====
Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am
faustusnotes
fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the
German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance.
It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.
1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations,
but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost.
Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.
Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation
post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the
damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.
===
Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )
The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates
on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.
There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the
families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political
future).
And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you
are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening
up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.
The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty
. In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.
"... The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes. ..."
"... Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. ..."
"... "Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011. ..."
"... Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish." ..."
"... Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer. ..."
"... Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war. ..."
"... Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria. ..."
"... The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism. ..."
Hillary Clinton
can change her views in an instant on trade, guns, gay marriage, and all sorts of issues, but
she's consistent in this: she wants war.
The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined
with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in
Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes.
"I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria," Clinton said
Wednesday night. Totally separate from the fight against ISIS, Clinton's "no-fly zones and safe havens"
are U.S. military intervention in the bloody and many-sided conflict between Syria's brutal government,
terrorist groups, and rebel groups.
Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at
the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate that a no-fly zone created "the
potential of a direct conflict with the Syrian integrated air defense system or Syrian forces or,
by corollary, a confrontation with the Russians."
Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified in the same hearing that "safe zones" would require significant
U.S. boots on the ground.
So while Hillary says she doesn't want war with Russia or Syria, or boots on the ground in Syria,
she pushes policies that the Pentagon says risk war and require boots on the ground.
Hillary showed that same cavalier attitude toward war earlier this decade, laughingly
declaring "we came, we
saw, he died." This was her version of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, and Libya
was her smaller - and less legal - version of Bush's Iraq War.
"Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary
of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011.
Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war.
Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship
of this country's Libya policy from start to finish."
Sullivan listed, point-by-point, how Clinton helped bring about and shape the war. Before Obama's
attack on Moammar Gadhafi, "she [was] a leading voice for strong UNSC action and a NATO civilian
B5 protection mission," the memo explained.
Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization
for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in
the Atlantic last summer.
ISIS has spread, no stable government has arisen, and the chaos has led to refugee and terrorism
crises.
Clinton nevertheless calls her war "smart power at its best," declaring during the primary season,
"I think President
Obama made the right decision at the time."
Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya.
Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running
on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war.
Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war
was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson
to Libya or to Syria.
The pattern is clear:
Hillary Clinton
is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next
president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under
President Obama
. Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious
interventionism.
If Hillary wins big and sweeps in a Senate majority with her, we could be in for four more years
of even more war.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at
[email protected]. His column appears
Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
"... Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia. ..."
Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox
News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers
that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United
States and Russia.
"... Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia. ..."
Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox
News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers
that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United
States and Russia.
"... I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite. ..."
"... But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid. ..."
"... In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to governance of such a huge country crook. ..."
The key problems with Democratic Party and Hillary is that they lost working class and middle
class voters, becoming another party of highly paid professionals and Wall Street speculators
(let's say top 10%, not just 1%), the party of neoliberal elite.
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time. I think it will not. Even upper middle class is very resentful
of Democrats and Hillary. So many votes will be not "for" but "against". This is the scenario
Democratic strategists fear the most, but they can do nothing about it.
She overplayed "identity politics" card. Her "identity politics" and her fake feminism are
completely insincere. She is completely numb to human suffering and interests of females and minorities.
Looks like she has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not
hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times (
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html ) revealed
that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces
whenever her opinion is solicited. "
Usually people are resentful about Party which betrayed them so many times. It would be interesting
to see how this will play this time.
Beverly Mann October 23, 2016 12:00 pm
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time?
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand over
to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC, the FCC,
the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including the Antitrust
Division)-to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
And then there's the incessant push to privatize Social Security and Medicare. It ain't the
Dems that are pushing that.
You're drinking wayyy too much Kool Aid, likbez. Or maybe just reading too much Ayn Rand, at
Paul Ryan's recommendation.
beene October 23, 2016 10:31 am
I would suggest despite most of the elite in both parties supporting Hillary, and saying
she has the election in the bag is premature. In my opinion the fact that Trump rallies still
has large attendance; where Hillary's rallies would have trouble filling up a large room is a
better indication that Trump will win.
Even democrats are not voting democratic this time to be ignored till election again.
likbez October 23, 2016 12:56 pm
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand
over to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC,
the FCC, the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including
the Antitrust Division) -- to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
=== end of quote ===
This is all true. But Trump essentially running not as a Republican but as an independent on
(mostly) populist platform (with elements of nativism). That's why a large part of Republican
brass explicitly abandoned him. That does not exclude that he easily will be co-opted after the
election, if he wins.
And I would not be surprised one bit if Dick Cheney, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz and Perle
vote for Hillary. Robert Kagan and papa Bush already declared such an intention. She is a neocon.
A wolf in sheep clothing, if we are talking about real anti-war democrats, not the USA brand of
DemoRats. She is crazy warmonger, no question about it, trying to compensate a complete lack of
diplomatic skills with jingoism and saber rattling.
The problem here might be that you implicitly idealize Hillary and demonize Trump.
I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests
complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite.
But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in
addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John
McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon
all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and
a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid.
That's what classic neoliberal DemoRats "bait and switch" maneuver (previously executed
by Obama two times) means. And that's why working class now abandoned Democratic Party. Even unions
members of unions which endorses Clinton are expected to vote 3:1 against her. Serial betrayal
of interests of working class (and lower middle class) after 25 years gets on nerve. Not that
their choice is wise, but they made a choice. This is "What's the matter with Kansas" all over
again.
It reminds me the situation when Stalin was asked whether right revisionism of Marxism (social
democrats) or left (Trotskyites with their dream of World revolution) is better. He answered "both
are worse" :-).
In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that
in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely
dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to
governance of such a huge country crook.
Of course, we need also remember about existence of "deep state" which make each of
them mostly a figurehead, but still the power of "deep state" is not absolute and this is a very
sad situation.
Beverly Mann, October 23, 2016 1:57 pm
Good grace.
Two points: First, you apparently are unaware of Trump's proposed tax plan, written by Heritage
Foundation economists and political-think-tank types. It's literally more regressively extreme
evn than Paul Ryan's. It gives tax cuts to the wealthy that are exponentially more generous percentage-wise
than G.W. Bush's two tax cuts together were, it eliminates the estate tax, and it gives massive
tax cuts to corporations, including yuge ones.
Two billionaire Hamptons-based hedge funders, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, have
been funding a super PAC for Trump and since late spring have met with Trump and handed him policy
proposals and suggestions for administrative agency heads and judicial appointments. Other yuge
funders are members of the Ricketts family, including Thomas Ricketts, CEO of TD Ameritrade and
a son of its founder.
Two other billionaires funding Trump: Forrest Lucas, founder of Lucas Oil and reportedly Trump's
choice for Interior Secretary if you and the working class and lower middle class folks whose
interests Trump has at heart get their way.
And then there's Texas oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Trump's very first billionaire mega-donor.
One of my recurring pet peeves about Clinton and her campaign is her failure to tell the public
that these billionaires are contributing mega-bucks to help fund Trump's campaign, and to tell
the public who exactly they are. As well as her failure to make a concerted effort to educate
the public about the the specifics of Trump's fiscal and deregulatory agenda as he has published
it.
As for your belief that I idealize Clinton, you obviously are very new to Angry Bear. I was
a virulent Sanders supporter throughout the primaries, to the very end. In 2008 I originally supported
John Edwards during the primaries and then, when it became clear that it was a two-candidate race,
supported Obama. My reason? I really, really, REALLY did not want to see another triangulation
Democratic administration. That's largely what we got during Obama's first term, though, and I
was not happy about it.
Bottom line: I'm not the gullible one here. You are.
likbez, October 23, 2016 2:37 pm
You demonstrate complete inability to weight the gravity of two dismal, but unequal in their
gravity options.
All your arguments about Supreme Court justices, taxes, inheritance and other similar things
make sense if and only if the country continues to exist.
Which is not given due to the craziness and the level of degeneration of neoliberal elite and
specifically Hillary ("no fly zone in Syria" is one example of her craziness). Playing chickens
with a nuclear power for the sake of proving imperial dominance in Middle East is a crazy policy.
Neocons rule the roost in both parties, which essentially became a single War Party with two
wings. Trump looks like the only chance somewhat to limit their influence and reach some détente
with Russia.
Looks like you organically unable to understand that your choice in this particular case is
between the decimation of the last remnants of the New Deal and a real chance of WWIII.
This is not "pick your poison" situation. Those are two events of completely difference magnitude:
one is reversible (and please note that Trump is bound by very controversial obligations to his
electorate and faces hostile Congress), the other is not.
We all should do our best to prevent the unleashing WWIII even if that means temporary decimation
of the remnants of New Deal.
Neoliberalism after 2008 entered zombie state, so while it is still strong, aggressive and
bloodthirsty it might not last for long. And in such case the defeat of democratic forces on domestic
front is temporary.
"... The oligarchy has spent decades on a project to "defund the Left," and they've succeeded in ways we're only just now grasping. "Defunding the Left" doesn't mean denying funds to the rotten Democratic Party; it means defunding everything that threatens the 1%'s hold on wealth and power. ..."
Yves here. Mark Ames wrote this post for our fundraiser five years ago. We've turned into a fundraiser
staple, since as long as Larry Summers is with us, this is the sort of classic worth reading regularly.
Think of it as our analogue to Christmas perennials like The Grinch That Stole Christmas or It's
a Wonderful Life. But not to worry, Ames being Ames and NC being NC, this is the antithesis of sappy.
(Mark, you are on notice that if by some miraculous bit of good fortune, Summers retreats from the
public sphere, we'll need you to provide an updated slant on elite venality).
And in the spirit of Christmas come a couple months early, we hope you'll leave something nice
in our stocking, um, Tip Jar -- We are raising our donor target to 1350 (Lambert has yet to update our thermometer) to help us
reach our final financial target for original reporting.
If you've been reading Naked Capitalism for any period of time without giving back in donations-and
most of us have been hooked from the time we discovered Yves Smith's powerful, sharp voice and brilliant
mind-then you you've been getting away with murder. Naked Capitalism is that rare blog that makes
you smarter. Smarter about a lot of things, but primarily about Yves' area of expertise, finance.
By a quirk of historical bad luck, the American Left has gone two generations without understanding
finance, or even caring to understand. It was the hippies who decided half a century ago that finance
was beneath them, so they happily ceded the entire field-finance, business, economics, money-otherwise
known as "political power"-to the other side. Walking away from the finance struggle was like that
hitchhiker handing the gun back to the Manson Family. There's a great line from Charles Portis's
anti-hippie novel, "Dog of the South" that captures the Boomers' self-righteous disdain for "figures":
He would always say-boast, the way those people do-that he had no head for figures and couldn't
do things with his hands, slyly suggesting the presence of finer qualities.
That part about the hands-that would refer to the hippies' other great failure, turning their
backs on Labor, because Labor didn't groove with the Hippies' Culture War. So the Left finds itself,
fifty years later, dealing with the consequences of all those years of ruinous neglect of finance
and labor-the consequences being powerlessness and political impotence.
That's why Yves Smith is so important to anyone who cares about politics and the bad direction
this country is taking. In 2008, the Left suddenly discovered that although it could bray with the
best of 'em about how bad foreign wars are, and how wrong racism and sexism an homophobia are, it
was caught completely and shamefully by surprise by the financial collapse of 2008. The ignorance
was paralyzing, politically and intellectually. Even the lexicon was alien. Unless of course you
were one of the early followers of Yves Smith's blog.
It wasn't always this way.
Back in the 1930s, the Left was firmly grounded in economics, money and finance; back then, the
Left and Labor were practically one. With a foundation in finance and economics, the Left understood
labor and political power and ideology and organization much better than the Left today, which at
best can parry back the idiotic malice-flak that the Right specializes in spraying us with. We're
only just learning how politically stunted and ignorant we are, how much time and knowledge we've
lost, and how much catching up we have to do.
Which is why Yves Smith's Naked Capitalism is one of the 99%'s most valuable asset in the long
struggle ahead: She is both analyst and educator, with a rare literary talent (especially for finance).
One thing that's protected the financial oligarchy is the turgid horrible prose that they camouflage
their toxic ideas and concepts in. Yves is one of the rare few who can make reading finance as emotionally
charged as it needs to be.
Naked Capitalism is our online university in finance and politics and ideology. Whereas other
online universities are set up to turn millions of gullible youths into debt-shackled Wall Street
feeding cows, Naked Capitalism is the opposite: Completely free, consistently brilliant, vital, and
necessary, making us smarter, teaching us how we might one day overthrow the financial oligarchy.
One other difference between Naked Capitalism and online university swindles: (Stanley Kaplan cough-cough!)
Your donations won't end up paying Ezra Klein's salary.
Which brings me back to my whole "Shame on you!" point I was trying to make earlier. When it comes
to fundraising, nothing works like shaming. That's how those late-night commercials work: You're
sitting there in your nice comfortable home, and then suddenly there's this three-legged dog hobbling
into its cage, with big wet eyes, and then some bearded pedophile comes on and says, "Poor Rusty
has endured more abuse and pain than you can ever imagine, and tomorrow, he will be gassed to death
in a slow, horrible poison death chamber. And you-look at you, sitting there with your Chunky Monkey
and your central heating, what kind of sick bastard are you? Get your goddamn Visa Mastercard out
and send money to Rusty, or else his death is on your head. I hope you sleep well at night."
Now I know that this sort of appeal wouldn't work on the Naked Capitalism crowd-too many economists
here, and as everyone knows, you can't appeal to economists' hearts because, well, see under "Larry
Summers World Bank Memo"… I can imagine Larry watching that late night commercial with the three-legged
dog, powering a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke and devouring a bag of Kettle Salt & Vinegar potato chips,
calculating the productive worth of the three-legged dog, unmoved by the sentimental appeal. Larry
grabs a dictaphone: "Item: How to end dog-gassings? Solution: Ship all three-legged stray dogs to
sub-Saharan Africa. Africans won't even notice. Dogs saved. Private capital freed up. Problem solved."
So some of you have no hearts, and some of us have no shame. But we all do understand how vital
Naked Capitalism has been in educating us. I'm sure that the other side knows how dangerous a site
like this is, because as we become more educated and more political, we become more and more of a
threat.
The oligarchy has spent decades on a project to "defund the Left," and they've succeeded in
ways we're only just now grasping. "Defunding the Left" doesn't mean denying funds to the rotten
Democratic Party; it means defunding everything that threatens the 1%'s hold on wealth and power.
One of their greatest successes, whether by design or not, has been the gutting of journalism,
shrinking it down to a manageable size where its integrity can be drowned in a bathtub. It's nearly
impossible to make a living as a journalist these days; and with the economics of the journalism
business still in free-fall like the Soviet refrigerator industry in the 1990s, media outlets are
even less inclined to challenge power, journalists are less inclined to rock the boat than ever,
and everyone is more inclined to corruption (see: Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly). A ProPublica
study in May put it in numbers: In 1980, the ratio of PR flaks to journalists was roughly 1:3. In
2008, there were 3 PR flaks for every 1 journalist. And that was before the 2008 shit hit the journalism
fan.
This is what an oligarchy looks like. I saw the exact same dynamic in Russia under Yeltsin: When
he took power in 1991, Russia had the most fearless and most ideologically diverse journalism culture
of any I've ever seen, a lo-fi, hi-octane version of American journalism in the 1970s. But as soon
as Yeltsin created a class of oligarchs to ensure his election victory in 1996, the oligarchs snapped
up all the free media outlets, and forced out anyone who challenged power, one by one. By the time
Putin came to power, all the great Russian journalists that I and Taibbi knew had abandoned the profession
for PR or political whoring. It was the oligarchy that killed Russian journalism; Putin merely mopped
up a few remaining pockets of resistance.
The only way to prevent that from happening to is to support the best of what we have left. Working
for free sucks. It can't hold, and it won't.
There are multiple ways to give. The first is here on the blog,
the Tip Jar , which takes you
to PayPal. There you can use a debit card, a credit card or a PayPal account (the charge will be
in the name of Aurora Advisors).
You can also send a check (or multiple post dated checks) in the name of Aurora Advisors Incorporated
to
Aurora Advisors Incorporated
903 Park Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10075
Please also send an e-mail to [email protected] with the headline "Check is in the mail"
(and just the $ en route in the message) to have your contribution included in the total number of
donations.
So donate now to Naked Capitalism
. If you can't afford much, give what you can. If you can afford more, give more. If you can
give a lot, give a lot. Whether you can contribute $5 or $5,000, it will pay for itself, I guarantee
you. This isn't just giving, it's a statement that you are want a different debate, a different society,
and a different culture.
Who knows, maybe we'll win; maybe we'll even figure out a way to seal Larry Summers in a kind
of space barge, and fire him off into deep space, to orbit Uranus for eternity. Yves? Could it be
financed?
And you-look at you, sitting there with your Chunky Monkey and your central heating, what
kind of sick bastard are you? Get your goddamn Visa Mastercard out and send money to Rusty,
or else his death is on your head. I hope you sleep well at night.
I'd already shelled out for the NC fundraiser, but this one got me to pull out the MasterCard
and finally get around to becoming a subscriber to Ames' fantastic Radio War Nerd podcast, which
I discovered thanks to the NC commentariat.
Interesting how people become the Other over time. Go back to the videos of crowds taunting
and attacking black kids being escorted by federal marshals into "white" schools, and you see
clean-shaven crew cuts and perms and wife-beater t-shirts and pegged pants and real boots. Go
look at the videos of redneck activity now, NASCAR and "mudding" (pickups with huge tires and
engines slogging through pits of slimy red Georgia mud" and gatherings of motorboats on Southern
lakes, and it's all beards and pony tails (on guys and gals? Says Jeff Foxworthy) and tie-died
clothing (along with the Confederate battle flags and gunz and all.
I got my BA in history from Lake Forest College, in a snotty sick-wealthy northern suburb of
Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Forest_College
My years there, '69-72, after my volunteer "service" in the US Army and a year doing "Racket"
duty in Vietnam, were a "hippie" tour de force. All social concerns and "anti-war" (actually "escape
the draft" by young people who were largely those who could not get into the really prestigious
Ivy League facilities, despite great family wealth, or who had been booted from the same. Heavy
drug use, supine administration ("laissez faire"), endless debates over Marxism Leninism Trotskyism
etc. Ineffectual "peace marches," to do stuff like "blocking" an unused entrance to Ft. Sheridan,
just down the road - a few TV reporters to document the tomfoolery - "Stop The War Machine!" Motions
toward communes, DOA when the practicalities of sharing, comity, ran up against the selfish consumerism
of the privileged: ""I don't get my own room and stereo? I get to copulate with others, but you,
my steady, must remain my sole property!" It helped the transformation that the daughter of the
Dean did a Janis Joplin at the very end of my matriculation there - all of a sudden the local
police were invited in, to search student rooms and cars and engage in all the funsies of "drug
enforcement" with stings, etc.
Lake Forest very quickly morphed, once the draft ended, into a very much focused "business
school," to teach the young budding not-ready-for-MIT-or-Wharton capitalists the rudiments of
their craft. Graduating about 450 looting-ready young folks a year. ?(Not all of them, of course…)
Pretty amazing, not surprising.
Neither the rednecks nor the "hippies" were much interested in what the parasites were doing
to "FIRE" over those decades and generations. That's the thing about parasites: most of what they
do is invisible until the infection gets severe and vital organs are damaged, while the host goes
about generating the nutrition that feeds the critters until whooops! Time to shed some segments
into the water supply, lay some eggs, encyst, find another host…
"... From Clinton to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies. The Fed is their stronghold. How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid "crazies in the basement"? ..."
"... When Putin came to power he inherited a Kremlin every bit as corrupt and traitor-infested as the White House nowadays. As for Russia, she was in pretty much the same sorry shape as the Independent Nazi-run Ukraine. Russia was also run by bankers and AngloZionist puppets and most Russians led miserable lives. ..."
Option two: Trump wins. Problem: he will be completely alone. The Neocons have total, repeat
total, control of the Congress, the media, banking and finance, and the courts. From Clinton
to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies.
The Fed is their stronghold. How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid "crazies in the
basement"?
When Putin came to power he inherited a Kremlin every bit as corrupt and traitor-infested
as the White House nowadays. As for Russia, she was in pretty much the same sorry shape as the
Independent Nazi-run Ukraine. Russia was also run by bankers and AngloZionist puppets and most
Russians led miserable lives.
"... Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed. ..."
"... After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach. ..."
"... Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy" among the "lesser breeds without the Law." ..."
"... By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy, and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots. ..."
"... For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic. ..."
"... Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it. ..."
"... Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November. ..."
"... Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution." ..."
"... Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained. ..."
What explains the hysteria of the establishment? In a word, fear. The establishment is horrified
at the Donald's defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks
no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority. It may rule and run the country, and
may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is
never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it
rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment
finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers
came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political
religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.
Trump is "talking down our democracy," said a shocked Clinton.
After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment
installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools
began to teach.
Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England, and France to bring
Christianity to the New World.
Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy"
among the "lesser breeds without the Law."
Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to reestablish their true God.
And Allah is no democrat.
By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing
an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy,
and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.
For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.
When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of
government they had created, he answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old
republic; it is the corruption of it.
Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that
by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.
If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it. And if felons decide the electoral votes
of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that
election?
In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority,
the matter went to the House. There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency
to Adams-and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had
been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams himself. Were Jackson's people wrong to regard
as a "corrupt bargain" the deal that robbed the general of the presidency? The establishment also
recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke's declaration that it is now "torches and pitchforks
time."
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in
"Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition,
is also revolution."
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro
Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal
democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained.
"... Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed. ..."
"... After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach. ..."
"... Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy" among the "lesser breeds without the Law." ..."
"... By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy, and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots. ..."
"... For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic. ..."
"... Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it. ..."
"... Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November. ..."
"... Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution." ..."
"... Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained. ..."
What explains the hysteria of the establishment? In a word, fear. The establishment is horrified
at the Donald's defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks
no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority. It may rule and run the country, and
may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is
never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it
rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment
finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers
came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political
religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.
Trump is "talking down our democracy," said a shocked Clinton.
After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment
installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools
began to teach.
Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England, and France to bring
Christianity to the New World.
Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy"
among the "lesser breeds without the Law."
Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to reestablish their true God.
And Allah is no democrat.
By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing
an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy,
and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.
For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.
When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of
government they had created, he answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old
republic; it is the corruption of it.
Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that
by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.
If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it. And if felons decide the electoral votes
of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that
election?
In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority,
the matter went to the House. There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency
to Adams-and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had
been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams himself. Were Jackson's people wrong to regard
as a "corrupt bargain" the deal that robbed the general of the presidency? The establishment also
recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke's declaration that it is now "torches and pitchforks
time."
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in
"Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition,
is also revolution."
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro
Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal
democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained.
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce
that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its
constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly
forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do
not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to
be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's
easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian
jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of
a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.
Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo,
which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision,
to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb
them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded
citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."
Still full of shite, of course – Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's
only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal
beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In
Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek,
an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.
This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want
to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian
enthusiasm for a European future.
In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right
next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic
and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into
Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's
desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested
the USA was being belligerent.
The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today
is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it
non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice
no. Does the BBC?
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian
jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of
a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.
Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo,
which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision,
to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb
them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded
citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."
Still full of shite, of course – Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's
only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal
beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In
Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek,
an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.
This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want
to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian
enthusiasm for a European future.
In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right
next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic
and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into
Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's
desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested
the USA was being belligerent.
The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today
is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it
non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice
no. Does the BBC?
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce
that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its
constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly
forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do
not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to
be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's
easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.
"... I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism rather amusing. ..."
"... Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American nativist, ..."
"... Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act, I have this piece for you . ..."
"... Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme, mobilizing force in national life. ..."
"... In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are not only permissible; they are imperatives. ..."
"... The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine. I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist running a rather incompetent campaign. ..."
"... The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics. ..."
"... White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and customary advantages. ..."
"... The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy. ..."
"... The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more important groups. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity politics." ..."
"... The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders ..."
"... In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill. ..."
"... Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens. ..."
"... That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary GOP establishment away from Trump. ..."
"... "Identity politics" is near the core of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism. ..."
"... Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement. ..."
"... By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests. ..."
"... Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power. ..."
"... Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group, some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him. ..."
"... Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices. ..."
I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism
rather amusing.
For one thing, liberals don't crush fascism. Liberals appease fascism, then they exploit fascism.
In between there's a great big war, where communists crush fascism. That's pretty much the lesson
of WWII.
Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American
nativist, which is pretty much indistinguishable from old-fashioned racist when considering
the subjugation of native Americans and African-Americans and Asian immigrants, but requires that
touch of "nativist" nuance when considering indigenous bigotry against Irish, Italian, and Jewish
immigrants and citizens.
Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of
attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and
predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion
things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know
Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act,
I have this piece for you .
And for anybody who doesn't believe the US government does not already engage in intensive "extreme"
vetting and targeting of all Muslims immigrants, especially those from targeted countries, not only
to identify potential security risks but to groom potential intelligence assets, I got the Brooklyn
Bridge to sell you right here:
Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns
bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme,
mobilizing force in national life.
In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy
resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel
might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are
not only permissible; they are imperatives.
The need to seize state power and hold it while a fascist or Bolshevik agenda is implemented dictates
the need for a military force loyal to and subservient to the party and its leadership, not the state.
The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine.
I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political
movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist
running a rather incompetent campaign.
It's a little premature to throw dirt on the grave of the Trump candidacy, perhaps (I'll check
back in on November 9), but it looks like he spent too much time glorying in the adulation of his
white male nativist base and too little time, effort, and money trying to deliver a plausible message
that would allow other demographics to shrug off the "deplorable" tag and vote for him. I don't blame/credit
the media too much for burying Trump, a prejudice of mine perhaps. I blame Trump's inability to construct
an effective phalanx of pro-Trump messengers, a failure that's probably rooted in the fact that Trump
spent the primary and general campaign at war with the GOP establishment.
The only capital crime in politics is disunity, and the GOP and Trump are guilty on multiple counts.
The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to
the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between
big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics.
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed
lumpen . It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case
in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. The North's
abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War had more to do a
desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from the competition
of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.
White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American
labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and
customary advantages.
If anyone harbors illusions concerning the kumbaya solidarity between white and black labor
in the post-World War II era, I think the article The Problem of Race in American Labor History
by Herbert Hill ( a freebie on
JSTOR ) is a good place to start.
The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American
politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political
muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy.
However, in this campaign, the race wedge has cut the other way in a most interesting fashion.
White conservatives are appalled, and minority liberals energized, by the fact that the white guy,
despite winning the majority white male vote, lost to a black guy not once but twice, giving a White
Twilight/Black Dawn (TM) vibe to the national debate.
The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton
and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more
important groups.
The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching
and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity
politics."
The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary
Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie
Sanders.
My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I
never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders while announcing
the Black Congressional Caucus endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Bear in mind that during the 1960s,
Sanders had
affiliated his student group at the University of Chicago with Lewis' SNCC, the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee; during the same era, Hillary Clinton was at Wellesley
condemning
"the snicks" for their excessively confrontational tactics.
Ah, politics.
To understand the significance of this event, one should read Fracture by the guru of woke
Clintonism, Joy Reid. Or read
my piece on the subject . Or simply understand that after Hillary Clinton lost Lewis's endorsement,
the black vote, and the southern Democratic primaries to Barack Obama in 2008, and she was determined
above all to secure and exploit monolithic black support in the primaries and, later on, the general
in 2016.
So, in order to prevent Sanders from splitting the black vote to her disadvantage on ideological/class
lines, Clinton played the race card. Or, as we put it today when discussing the championing of historically
disadvantaged a.k.a. non white male heterosexual groups, celebrated "identity politics".
In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie
bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African
American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided
acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill.
Trump's populism draws its heat from American nativism, not "soak the rich" populism of the Sandernista
stripe, and it was easily submerged in the "identity politics" narrative.
Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for
his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against
blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe
the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists
subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens.
As an indication of the fungible & opportunistic character of the "identity politics" approach,
as far as I can tell from a recent visit to a swing state, as the Clinton campaign pivoted to the
general, the theme of Trump's anti-black racism has been retired in favor of pushing his offenses
against women and the disabled. Perhaps this reflects the fact that Clinton has a well-advertised
lock on the African-American vote and doesn't need to cater to it; also, racism being what it is,
playing the black card is not the best way to lure Republicans and indies to the Clinton camp.
The high water mark of the Clinton African-American tilt was perhaps the abortive campaign to
turn gun control into a referendum on the domination of Congress by white male conservatives. It
happened a few months ago, so who remembers? But John Lewis led a sit-in occupation of the Senate
floor in the wake of the Orlando shootings to highlight how America's future was being held hostage
to the whims of Trump-inclined white pols.
That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice
initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists
started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary
GOP establishment away from Trump.
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to screw
Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core of
the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand
of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In my view, a key tell is Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable
foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a
font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement.
By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative
crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider
to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ
the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests.
Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from
the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press
to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and
it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity
politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power.
In my view, the Trump and Clinton campaigns are both protofascist.
Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group,
some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him.
Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which
adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices.
But the bottom line is race. U.S. racism has stacked up 400 years of tinder that might take a
few hundred more years, if ever, to burn off. And until it does, every politician in the country
is going to see his or her political future in flicking matches at it. And that's what we're seeing
in the current campaign. A lot. Not fascism.
(Reprinted from
China Matters by permission of author or representative)
I keep trying to imagine what special interest is so invested in the no-fly zone that they
can force Hillary to keep proposing it, even though it is obviously no longer feasible. Is it
just inertia? She is so used to pushing the idea that she brings it up without thinking, and then
has to dodge out of the way? But the whole situation has passed out of the realm of rational thought.
It reminds me of Vietnam.
The idea the South and North Vietnam were separate countries was never
true, but John Foster Dulles insisted on repeating the lie at every opportunity and after a while
the Village all started to believe it.
None of the stated goals in Syria make any sense any longer
(if the ever did), but we keep pursuing them. Scary.
Democrats can beat populists, and usually have, by attending to what underlies the surface ugliness.
This offends me so deeply! The suggestion that Democrats
should
defeat populists dishonors
the history of the term and, perhaps inadvertently, betrays what the Democratic "leadership" has sunk
to.
"We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress,
honored in tradition, is also revolution."
Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion":
Unfortunately members of Japan's congress (the Diet) do from time to time put
in hammy displays of slanging matches and even the kind of stagey fisticuffs that
would have pro wrestling "competitors" complaining about bad acting. Perhaps it
is the Japanese people's way of reminding themselves and even outsiders that one
of their indisputable contributions to the performance arts is Kabuki.
The main audience is the constituents of the Diet members in question, and certainly not signifying
an attempt to steer policy responses (much to my chagrin if they do it in relation to the TPP debates).
As Europeans assess the fallout from the U.K.'s
Brexit referendum
, they face a series of elections that could equally shake the political establishment. In the
coming 12 months, four of Europe's five largest economies have votes that will almost certainly mean
serious gains for right-wing populists and nationalists. Once seen as fringe groups, France's National
Front, Italy's Five Star Movement, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have attracted legions
of followers by tapping discontent over immigration, terrorism, and feeble economic performance.
"The Netherlands should again become a country of and for the Dutch people," says Evert Davelaar,
a Freedom Party backer who says immigrants don't share "Western and Christian values."
... ... ....
The populists are deeply skeptical of European integration, and those in France and the Netherlands
want to follow Britain's lead and quit the European Union. "Political risk in Europe is now far more
significant than in the United States," says Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of macro research at Barclays.
... ... ...
...the biggest risk of the nationalist groundswell: increasingly fragmented parliaments that will
be unable or unwilling to tackle the problems hobbling their economies. True, populist leaders might
not have enough clout to enact controversial measures such as the Dutch Freedom Party's call to close
mosques and deport Muslims. And while the Brexit vote in June helped energize Eurosceptics, it's
unlikely that any major European country will soon quit the EU, Morgan Stanley economists wrote in
a recent report. But they added that "the protest parties promise to turn back the clock" on free-market
reforms while leaving "sclerotic" labour and market regulations in place. France's National Front,
for example, wants to temporarily renationalise banks and increase tariffs while embracing cumbersome
labour rules widely blamed for chronic double-digit unemployment. Such policies could damp already
weak euro zone growth, forecast by the International Monetary Fund to drop from 2 percent in 2015
to 1.5 percent in 2017. "Politics introduces a downside skew to growth," the economists said.
Please note that Hillary's path to the top was marked by proved beyond reasonable doubt DNC fraud.
With information contained in recent email leaks some DNC honchos probably might go to jail for
violation of elections laws. So for them this is a death match and people usually fight well when
they are against the wall. The same in true about Obama and his entourage.
And while this Nobel Peace Price winner managed to bomb just eight countries, Hillary might
improve this peace effort, which was definitely insufficient from the point of view of many diplomats
in State Department. Also the number of humanitarian bombs could be much greater. Here Hillary
election can really help.
From the other point of view this might well be a sign of the crisis of legitimacy of the US
ruling neoliberal elite (aka financial oligarchy).
After approximately 50 years in power the level of degeneration of the US neoliberal elite
reached the level when the quality of candidates reminds me the quality of candidates from the
USSR Politburo after Brezhnev death. Health-wise Hillary really bear some resemblance to Andropov
and Chernenko. And inability of the elite to replace either of them with a more viable candidate
speaks volumes.
The other factor that will not go away is that Obama effectively pardoned Hillary for emailgate
(after gentle encouragement from Bill via Loretta Lynch). Otherwise instead of candidate to POTUS,
she would be a viable candidate for orange suit too. Sure, the rule of law is not applicable to
neoliberal elite, so why Hilary should be an exception? But some naive schmucks might think that
this is highly improper. And be way too much upset with the fruits of neoliberal globalization.
Not that Brexit is easily repeatable in the USA, but vote against neoliberal globalization (protest
vote) might play a role.
Another interesting thing to observe is when (and if) the impeachment process starts, if she
is elected. With some FBI materials in hands of the Congress Republicans she in on the hook. A
simple majority of those present and voting is required for each article of impeachment, or the
resolution as a whole, to pass.
All-in-all her win might well be a Pyrrhic victory. And the unknown neurological disease that
she has (Parkinson?) makes her even more vulnerable after the election, then before. The role
of POTUS involves a lot of stress and requires substantial physical stamina as POTUS is the center
of intersection of all important government conflicts, conversations and communications. That's
a killing environment for anyone with Parkinson. And remember she was not able to survive the
pressure of the role of the Secretary of State when she was in much better health and has an earlier
stage of the disease.
Another interesting question, if the leaks continue after the election. That also can contribute
to the level of stress. Just anticipation is highly stressful. I do not buy the theory about "evil
Russians." This hypothesis does not survive Occam razor test. I think that there some anti-Hillary
forces within the USA ruling elite, possibly within the NSA or some other three letter agency
that has access to email boxes of major Web mail providers via NSA.
If this is a plausible hypothesis, that makes it more probable that the leaks continue. To
say nothing about possible damaging revelations about Bill (especially related to Clinton Foundation),
who really enjoyed his retirement way too much.
Those who vote for Hillary for the sake of stability need to be reminded that according to
the Minsky Theory stability sometimes can be very destabilizing
When Krugman is appointed to a top government post by Hillary Clinton we will be able to FOIA
his pay and attach a value to all the columns "electioneering" Krugman has written.
likbez -> anne...
Anne,
"An intolerably destructive essay that should never have been posted, and I assume no
such essay will be posted again on this blog. Shameful, shameful essay."
You mean that voting for the female warmonger with some psychopathic tendencies ("We came,
we saw, he died") is not shameful ?
An interesting approach I would say.
I am not fun of Trump, but he, at least, does not have the blood of innocent women and children
on his hands. And less likely to start WWIII unlike this completely out of control warmonger.
With the number of victims of wars of neoliberal empire expansion in Iraq, Libya and Syria,
you should be ashamed of yourself as a women.
Please think about your current position Anne. You really should be ashamed.
"... which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against, it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin. ..."
"... He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. ..."
"... Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it, murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more objective, of which you are even more capable of than me. ..."
"... It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent. ..."
"... And Robert Kagan explained it earlier much better ... I wonder if Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney vote for Hillary too. ..."
"...Mrs. Clinton won the Democratic nomination fairly easily..."
which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against,
it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine
if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin.
"Why do people like you pretend to love Sen Sanders so much!?"
Why do you say he is pretending? What did he write to make you think that?
Are you just a dishonest troll centrist totebagger like PGL.
Peter K. -> to pgl...
What does that have to do with anything?
He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during
the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. Are most
New Yorkers as dishonest as you, Trump, Guiliani, Christie, etc?
No. I am a fan of Sen Sanders, and not even he would believe your nonsense. History will not remember
it that way. What it will remember is how Putin Comrade meddled. And there is a price for that.
Sen Sanders wanted one, stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished
this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like you and Mr Putin
who seem to think that America is the root of all evil.
Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it,
murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing
directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more
objective, of which you are even more capable of than me.
Sen Sanders wanted one stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished
this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like --- and -- -----
who seem to think that America is the root of all evil....
[ Better to assume such an awful comment was never written, but the McCarthy-like tone to a
particular campaign has been disturbing and could prove lasting. ]
It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments
looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo
of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent.
BS, a remarkable.
No, I am sure he will be remembered more than that.
Bernard Sanders, last romantic politician to run his campaign on an average of $37 from 3,284,421
donations (or whatever Obama said at The Dinner). Remarkable but ineffectual. A good orator in
empty houses means he was practicing, not performing.
Why does Obama succeed and Sanders fail? Axelrod and co.
Peter K. -> cal... , -1
He was written off by the like of Krugman, PGL, you, KThomas etc.
He won what 13 million votes. Young people overwhelmingly voted for Sanders. He won New Hampshire,
Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, etc. etc. etc. And now the "unromantic"
complacent people have to lie about the campaign.
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
On September 28 the French mission to the UN claimed that two hospitals in east-Aleppo had been bombed.
It documented this in a tweet with
a picture of destroyed buildings in Gaza. The French later deleted that tweet.
It is not the first time such false claims and willful obfuscations were made by "western" officials.
But usually they shy away from outright lies.
Not so the US Secretary of State John Kerry. In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault about a new UN resolution,
he said (vid
@1:00) about Syria:
Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women.These are acts that beg for
an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be held
accountable for these actions.
No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press agency
has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably notes every
claimed casualty and is frequently cited in "western" media", has not said anything about such an
event anywhere in Syria.
The grave incident Kerry claimed did not happen. Kerry made it up. (Was it supposed to happen, got
canceled and Kerry missed the memo?) Kerry used the lie to call for war crime investigations and
punishment. This in front of cameras, at an official event with a foreign guest in the context of
a United Nations Security Council resolution.
This is grave. This is nearly as grave as Colin Powell's false claims of WMD in Iraq in front of
the UN Security Council.
Early reports, like
this one at CBSNEWS, repeat the Kerry claim:
Kerry said Syrian forces hit a hospital overnight, killing 20 people and wounding 100, describing
what would be the latest strike by Moscow or its ally in Damascus on a civilian target.
But the New York Times write up of the event, which includes Kerry's demand for war crime investigations,
does not mention the hospital bombing claim. Not at all. For the self-acclaimed "paper of record",
Kerry's lie did not happen. Likewise the Washington Post which in its own write up
makes no mention of the false Kerry claim.
The latest AP write up by Matthew Lee
also omits the lie. This is curious as Matt Lee is obviously aware of it. The State Departments
daily press briefing yesterday
had a whole section
on it. Video (@3:30)
shows that it is Matt who asks these questions:
QUESTION: Okay. On to Syria and the Secretary's comments earlier this morning, one is: Do you
know what strike he was talking about in his comments overnight on a hospital in Aleppo?
MR KIRBY: I think the Secretary's referring actually to a strike that we saw happen yesterday
on a field hospital in the Rif Dimashq Governorate. I'm not exactly positive that that's what
he was referring to, but I think he was referring to actually one that was --
QUESTION: Not one in Aleppo?
MR KIRBY: I believe it was – I think it was – I think he – my guess is – I'm guessing here that
he was a bit mistaken on location and referring to one --
...
QUESTION: But you don't have certainty, though?
MR KIRBY: I don't. Best I got, best information I got, is that he was most likely referring to
one yesterday in this governorate, but it could just be an honest mistake.
QUESTION: If we could – if we can nail that down with certainty what he was talking about --
MR KIRBY: I'll do the best I can, Matt.
...
This goes on for a while. But there was no hospital attack in Rif Dimashq nor in Aleppo. Later on
DoS spokesman Kirby basically admits that Kerry lied: "I can't corroborate that."
It also turns out that Kerry has no evidence for any war crimes and no plausible way to initiate
any official international procedure about such. And for what? To bully Russia? Fat chance, that
would be a hopeless endeavor and Kerry should know that.
Kerry is desperate. He completely lost the plot on Syria. Russia is in the lead and will do whatever
needs to be done. The Obama administration has, apart from starting a World War, no longer any way
to significantly influence that.
Kerry is only one tool of the Obama administration. Later that day the US Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, made other
accusations against Russia:
The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directedthe recent
compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by
the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed
efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.
Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across
Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope
and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized
these activities.
Translation: "WE DO NOT KNOW at all ("we are confident", "we believe", "directed") who did these
hacks and WE DO NOT HAVE the slightest evidence ("consistent with","based on the scope and sensitivity")
that Russia is involved, so let me throw some chaff and try to bamboozle you all."
The former British ambassador Craig Murray calls it
a
blatant neocon lie. It was obviously the DNC that manipulated the US election by, contrary to
its mandate, promoting Clinton over Sanders. The hackers only proved that. It is also easy to see
why these accusations are made now. Murray:
That the Obama administration has made a formal accusation of Russia based on no evidence is,
on one level, astonishing. But it is motivated by desperation. WikiLeaks have already announced
that they have a huge cache of other material relating to Hillary's shenanigans. The White House
is simply seeking to discredit it in advance by a completely false association with Russian intelligence.
The Obama administration is losing it. On Syria as well as on the election it can no longer assert
its will. Trump, despite all dirty boy's club talk he may do, has a significant chance to catch the
presidency. He (-44%) and Clinton (-41%) are
more disliked by the U.S electorate, than Putin (-38%). Any solution in Syria will be more in
Russia's than the Washington's favor.
Such desperation can be dangerous. Kerry is gasping at straws when he lies about Russia. The president
and his colleagues at the Pentagon and the CIA have more kinetic means to express themselves. Could
they order up something really stupid?
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
"... It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all. ..."
"... There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all." Of course there is - to rig elections. What do you think they are used for. ..."
"... The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida. ..."
"... There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio. ..."
"... Here's the best statistical analysis of US vote count irregularities to date. Not a pretty picture. ..."
"... There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors. ..."
"... At present the US seem to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private" club including a very small part of the population. ..."
"... for the 1 percent the system is not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should the peasants rebell. ..."
"... US citizens are reduced to vote in a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks any political progress there might be. ..."
"... There's lots of evidence that the 2004 election was stolen for Bush in Ohio. ..."
"... "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. ..."
"... Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof) this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often. ..."
"... obomber has a friend in the vote rigging business. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-18/robert-creamer ..."
"... Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream". ..."
"... Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children. ..."
"... We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s) to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable. ..."
"... paper vote or bust. Everything else hides an attempt at control and ultimately fraud. ..."
"... How does that help Trump? Most DNC *and* RNC Deep State insiders favor Hillary. ..."
"... Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the US. ..."
"... In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon, aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S." ..."
"... Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota of his policies being broadcast? ..."
"... Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in. ..."
"... Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this very topic. ..."
"... The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now ..."
"... Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's so plainly obvious it's painful. ..."
"... And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere. ..."
"... There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising' in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. ..."
"... Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged' to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.) ..."
"... Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of HRC. ..."
"... It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls. (Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from Wikileaks.) ..."
"... I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office. ..."
"... Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution stuff - the carrot revolution? ..."
"... "Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad, putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year. ..."
"... no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread ..."
"... Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility, and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major downsides. ..."
"... Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution. ..."
"... the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that chooses a president and vice-president. ..."
"... The process is "supposed" to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal was done. If not, go to the second person. ..."
"... And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range") voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines). ..."
"... Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition. Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity? ..."
"... it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the viciously dishonest Mainstream Media." ..."
"... "When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential candidate? What does that say about the media?" ..."
"... Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?" ..."
"... It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton: ..."
"... Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc ..."
"... All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER. ..."
"... To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition" or diversity of opinion where there is none. ..."
"... MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational thought and must be dismissed entirely. ..."
"... The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing. The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear. ..."
"... The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as: ..."
"... No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen as anybody who opens eyes can see. ..."
"... "The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy." ..."
"... Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?) to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it? ..."
"... Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia believes in. ..."
"... Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored Bernie Sanders by 17% ..."
"... Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results, may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines. 68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by 1.42 %. ..."
"... In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility crisis and everything went smooth. ..."
Obama was asked about Trump's voter fraud assertions on Tuesday [..] He responded with a blistering
attack on the Republican candidate, noting that U.S. elections are run and monitored by local
officials, who may well be appointed by Republican governors of states, and saying that cases
of significant voter fraud were not to be found in American elections.
Obama said there was "no serious" person who would suggest it was possible to rig American
elections , adding, "I'd invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."
That is curious. There are a lot of "non serious" persons in the Democratic Party who tell us
that Russia is trying to manipulate the U.S. elections. How is it going to that when it's not possible?
Is rigging the election only impossible when it is in favor of Hillary Clinton? This while rigging
the elections in favor of Donald Trump, by Russia or someone else, is entirely possible and even
"evident"?
Curious.
That said - I do believe that the U.S. election can be decided through manipulation. We have evidently
seen that in 2000 when Bush was "elected" by a fake "recount" and a Supreme Court decision.
The outcome of a U.S. presidential election can depend on very few votes in very few localities.
The various machines and processes used in U.S. elections can be influenced. It is no longer comprehensible
for the voters how the votes are counted and how the results created. *
The intense manipulation attempts by the Clinton camp, via the DNC against Sanders or by
creating a Russian boogeyman to propagandize against Trump, lets me believe that her side is well
capable of considering and implementing some vote count shenanigan. Neither are Trump or the Republicans
in general strangers to dirty methods and manipulations.
It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process
is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries
show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible
reason why machines should be used at all.
* (The German Constitutional Court prohibited the use of all voting machines in German
elections because for the general voters they institute irreproducible vote counting which leads
to a general loss of trust in the democratic process. The price to pay for using voting machines
is legitimacy.)
Posted by b on October 19, 2016 at 01:54 AM |
Permalink
I just found out that many states in the US use electronic voting systems made by Smartmatic which
is part of the SGO Group. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown is the chairman of SGO. This man is heavily
entangled with Soros. Hillary is Soros' candidate. You simply can't make this sh*t up
No. The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won
in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida.
There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio.
There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations
and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors.
And diverse political parties that present voters with a choice. At present the US seem
to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private"
club including a very small part of the population.
But democracy never meant the power of the poor. So, no, for the 1 percent the system is
not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should
the peasants rebell.
And in the end, this is the way things are run in Russia and China, with a lot less media circus.
Add - a limit to presidential power for one person. US citizens are reduced to vote in
a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks
any political progress there might be. The US are the oldest modern democracy. It is like
being stuck in the age of steam engines.
Good one, wj2! Here's some more info on Lord Malloch-Brown and George Soros, courtesy of WikiPedia:
Malloch Brown has been closely associated with billionaire speculator George Soros. Working
for Refugees International, he was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia in 1993–94,
formed by George Soros. He has since kept cordial relations with Soros, and rented an apartment
owned by Soros while working in New York on UN assignments. In May 2007, Soros' Quantum Fund
announced the appointment of Sir Mark as vice-president. In September 2007, The Observer reported
that he had resigned this position on becoming a government minister in the UK. Also in May
2007, Malloch Brown was named vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute,
two other important Soros organisations.
DOOOOOOOOOM! "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like
Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. With a population
so gleefully ignorant and self centered as D'uhmerica, you should be lowering your expectations
significantly.
Are honest elections even legal in Texas and Louisiana? How about Massachusetts and New York?
They may be legal there but it would be dangerous to try to enforce that.
Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof)
this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often.
PB 13 "Concerning attacks from both sides, Trump is definitely more hysterical."
Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the
trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream".
Trump's hysterical rants (and the smear campaign) are played up in a organized attempt to knock
him out. People are getting kneecapped (Billy Bush) to demonstrate to others the wrath that may
be visited upon them for supporting the wrong candidate.
Take Bill O'Reilly for example, He told a subordinate female employee (documented court record)
that he wanted to "get a few wines in her and soap up her tits in the shower with a loofah and
falafel. There was a settlement and the story was under-reported. Forgotten and forgiven. In fact
Bill O stands as an arbiter of moral virtue.
Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams
at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children.
It is simply "not in the script" to malign Hillary with her own words and obnoxious behavior.
By the way, she is also a drunk.
We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine
tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s)
to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable.
https://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/bushs-it-guy-killed-in-plane-crash/
Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself
unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of
shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the
US.
Daniel Ellsberg, in his book Secrets , recounts what he had learned during his government
service about the honesty of U.S. elections. As reported in
Counterpunch :
In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify
its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon,
aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the
White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent
most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention
to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to
the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S."
But Lodge's comments were downright uplifting compared with a meeting that Ellsberg attended
with former Vice President Richard Nixon, who was visiting Vietnam on a "fact-finding mission"
to help bolster his presidential aspirations. Former CIA operative Edward Lansdale told Nixon
that he and his colleagues wanted to help "make this the most honest election that's ever been
held in Vietnam." Nixon replied, "Oh, sure, honest, yes, honest, that's right … so long as
you win!" With the last words he did three things in quick succession: winked, drove his elbow
hard into Lansdale's arm, and slapped his own knee.
12,13,will you clowns keep your zippers closed? Your propaganda is unseemly, and we'll see just
whose victory will be huge Nov.8,won't we? Why does anyone put any credence in serial liar polls?
Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota
of his policies being broadcast?
That is his vote rigging angle, that the MSM is corrupt and is politically assassinating him
daily,not the polls themselves being a major factor in the rigging accusations.
Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned
about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in.
And only commie morons would oppose that.
Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator
and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this
very topic. I suggest those interested in learning more take the time to investigate his
site and its many years of accumulated evidence proving Election Fraud a very big problem,
http://bradblog.com/
The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now.
A bloviating bunko artist vers a grifting crypto neocon is not a 'choice', it's a suicide squad
lootfest it's taking America down.
In Humboldt County California we still use paper ballots. Our polling place also has one electronic
voting machine sitting in a corner for voters who can't use the paper ballots. I have never seen
it being used. There was a transparency program that I think they still do where all ballots were
scanned and the images made available online for the public to double check results. I'm no wiz
with machine vision but I think I could knock together enough code to do my own recount.
I'm not paying much attention but doesn't Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting
up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting
process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's
so plainly obvious it's painful.
And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere.
There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising'
in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. (See for ex. Adjuvant @ 6, john
@ 18)
Ideally, one would have to divide it into different types. It is also traditional, which some
forget, I only know about that from 'realistic' novels, I recently read Dos Passos' Manhattan
Transfer, and was amazed how little things change (despite horse-drawn carriages, rouge, spitoons,
cigars, sauerkraut, etc.) - see karlof1 @ 25.
Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is
easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged'
to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following
SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.)
Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet
sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of
HRC.
It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls.
(Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the
election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time
Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls
while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from
Wikileaks.)
This is also the reason for the mad accusations of Putin interference in US elections - if
somebody is doing illegit moves it is Trump's supporter Putin and so the 'bad stuff' is 'foreign
take-over' and not 'us', and btw NOT the Republicans, or Trump circle, which is very telling.
I didn't see the O Keefe, Project Veritas, vids mentioned. Here the first one. There is a second
one up and more coming.
I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going
quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest
the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office.
Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution
stuff - the carrot revolution?
It is an interesting experiment if you can make people vote for a candidate they don't like
by it being the only way to prevent a candidate they dislike even more. You just showed you aren't
able to.
"Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad,
putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year.
Any "no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian
and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread
Russia will not back down if we start shooting down its aircraft. Is Hillary willing to risk
nuclear war with Russia in order to protect al-Qaeda in Syria?
96% of disclosed campaign contributions from journalists went to the Clinton campaign.
From the MSM: TIME.
Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled
and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but
it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to
do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility,
and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major
downsides.
Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense
than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution.
If you want to know how badly rigged, ask any voter when they leave the voting venue: "What
is the name of the elector you just voted for?" You'll get either: 1) a dumb stare; 2) a laugh,
or 3) a "WTF is an elector?"
Under the Constitution, Americans vote for electors. They do not vote for presidents, and there's
a reason for that. It's called "mass stupidity."
The Fondling Fathers were smart enough to know that the people are too stupid to choose their
own leader. So the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote
for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that
chooses a president and vice-president.
There is not "supposed" to be any campaign, candidates, or polls. The process is "supposed"
to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate
the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would
be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal
was done. If not, go to the second person. Pretty much how the CEO of a large corporation
is chosen.
Having the people of a community vote for the local person who would be the most trustworthy
to deliberate on who should be president is a reasonable objective. I mean, essentially the question
for the voter would be reduced to: "What person in our community would be least likely to be bought
off?" But having a gang-bang of 60 million voting Americans who don't really know shit about the
morons they are voting into office . . . that, on its face, is a sign of mass self-deception and
insanity. It is mass stupidity perpetuating itself.
The circus that the US presidential election has turned into – including the grotesque primaries
– just goes to show how fucking stupid Americans are. The system is an embarrassment to the entire
country. And it is an act of flipping-off the Fondling Fathers and their better judgment every
four years. But worst of all, the present system is virtually certain to eventually produce the
most powerful person in the world who is a complete moron, and who will precipitate a global catastrophe
– economic, or military, or both.
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's
called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range")
voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines).
Just got my mail-in ballots from the postman. Voting against all Democrats except, for POTUS.
Take a few days and vote either Jill Stein or Donald Trump.
Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving
liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition.
Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity?
"For any minimally conscious American citizen, it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump
is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the
viciously dishonest Mainstream Media."
-Boyd D. Cathey, "The Tape, the Conspiracy, and the Death of the Old Politics", Unz Review
"When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential
candidate? What does that say about the media?"
Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are
inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?"
If Jill Stein needs 5% of the vote in order to be considered a legitimate candidate (or to bring
the Green party up to legitimate third-party status for the 2020 election), then you can rest
assured that no matter how many votes she actually gets, her percentage will never be above 4.99%.
Just like when Obama swept into office in 2008, the powers-that-be made sure the Democrats never
had a filibuster-proof majority. Give 'em just enough to believe that the system works, but never
enough to create a situation where the lack of change can't be explained away by "gridlock". Brilliant
in its malevolence, really.
It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq
(Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton:
Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka,
the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill
Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff,
John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc
All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless
war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER.
To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or
most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition"
or diversity of opinion where there is none.
Actually MOA is one of few, more or less independent, aligning itself with any sane ideology,
a welcome island of order in the ocean of media cacophony and I often disagreed with MOA but I
appreciate its logical consistency and integrity, hard facts based journalism,no matter from what
moral stand MOA writings are coming from. MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational
thought and must be dismissed entirely.
But there is much, much more rigging going on, on massive, even global scale. The fraud is
so massive and so visible that blinds people from the truth about it. From the truth of how massively
they are being controlled in their opinions and thoughts.
The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed
in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing.
The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear.
It may seem shocking for people under spell of overwhelming propaganda, but this government
run by Global oligarchs is dangerous to our physical and mental health and must be eradicated
as a matter of sanitary emergency.
Let's sweep all those political excretions into the sewage pipes where they belong. But first
we have to recognize the scale of their influence and their horrifying daily routine subversion
of social order, gross malfeasance or even horrendous crimes also war crimes covered up by MSM.
Only after we get rid of this abhorrent, brutal regime, cut the chains of enslavement we can
have decent democracy or voting, not before.
John Stuart Mill - "Government shapes our character, values, and intellect. It can affect
us positively or negatively. When political institutions are ill constructed, "the effect is
felt in a thousand ways in lowering the morality and deadening the intelligence and activity
of the people"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "I had come to see that everything was radically connected
with politics, and that however one proceeded, no people would be other than the nature of
its government.
And here we are, believing the shit those mofos and feeding us about freedom and democracy
citing bought and sold lies as "scientific research" concocted for one reason alone, to fuck us
up , exploit and discard when not needed.
Here is, in a small part, about how they do it, starting from phony polls that suppose to sway
you one way or another into following supposed projected winner anointed by the establishment.
Polls are routinely skewed, even MSM pundits say use polls they can trust i.e. which give them
results their bosses seek.
Now over hundred top newspapers and media outlets endorsed Hillary so you can safely remove
them from your list of polls you can rely on.
Anyway most polls are rigged even more than elections themselves, mostly by skewing the content
of a poling sample like in the above example. If you poll Dems about Reps that exactly you get
what you seek. But they are more insidious like doubling or tripling polling sample and then pick
an choose what answers they like, or focus sample on the area you know there is overall support
for your thesis or assertion of candidate regardless of official affiliation, and many more down
to raw rigging by fixing numbers or adjustments.
The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in
thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as:
By limiting selection of possible candidates and their access to statewide or national ballot
box via rigged undemocratic caucuses and primaries and other unreasonable requirements, goal-seeking
ad-hoc rules. by eliminating and/or confusing voters about voting at proper physical location
often changed in last moments, forcing into never counted provisional vote by purposely hiding
registered lists, purging made up "felons" from voter lists, requiring expensive or unavailable
or costly to obtain due to extensive travel, identifying documents, threatening citizen (of color)
with deportation, accusing them of voter fraud [baseless challenging that automatically pushes
voter into provisional vote], or strait offering meaningless provisional ballots instead of proper
ballot for people who can't read (English) well, eliminating students and military vote when needed
on phony registration issues, signature, pictures, purposefully misspelled names, mostly non-British
names etc., reducing number of polling places where majority votes for "rouge" candidate, forcing
people to stand in line for hours or preventing people from voting al together.
Selecting remote polling locations with obstructed public access by car or transit, paid parking,
exposed to weather elements, cold, wind and rain in November.
Hacking databases before and after vote, switching votes, adding votes for absent voters, and
switching party affiliations and vote at polling places as well up in the data collating chain,
county, state, filing in court last minute frivolous law suits aimed to block unwanted candidates
or challenging readiness of the polling places in certain neighborhoods deemed politically uncertain,
outrageous voting ON a WORKING DAY (everywhere else voting is on Sunday or a day free of work)
skewing that way votes toward older retired people.
Massive lying propaganda of whom we vote for, a fraudulent ballot supposedly voting for "candidates"
but in fact voting on unnamed electors, party apparatchiks instead, violating basic democratic
principle of transparency of candidates on the ballot and secrecy of a voter, outrageous electorate
college rules design to directly suppress democracy. Requirement of approval of the electoral
vote by congress is an outrageous thing illegal in quasi-democratic western countries due to division
of powers.
Outrageous, voting day propaganda to discourage voting by phony polling and predictions while
everywhere else there is campaigning ban, silence for two to three days before Election Day.
No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers
about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen
as anybody who opens eyes can see.
All the above fraud prepared by close group of election criminals on political party payroll,
months/years before election date often without any contribution from ordinary polling workers
who believe that nothing is rigged.
If somebody thinks that they would restrain themselves this time, think again. The regime,
in a form of mostly unsuspecting county registrars are tools of the establishment and will do
everything, everything they can and they can a lot, to defraud those elections and push an establishment
candidate down to our throats, without a thought crossing their comatose minds. "Just doing their
jobs like little Eichmanns of NAZI regime".
One way or another your vote will be stolen or manipulated up and down the ticket at will
and your participation would mean one thing legitimizing this abhorrent regime.
We must reject those rigged elections and demand that establishment must go, all of them GOP,
DNC and that including Hillary before any truly democratic electoral process worth participating
may commence.
"The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant
oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy."
C. Wright Mills,"The Power Elite" (1956)
Any sane person must thus conclude that an act of voting in the current helplessly tainted
and rigged political system is nothing but morally corrupting tool that divides us, conflicts
us, extorts from us an approval for the meaningless political puppets of the calcified, repugnant
oligarchic US regime, in a surrealistic act of utter futility aimed just to break us down,
to break our sense of human dignity, our individual will and self-determination since no true
choice is ever being offered to us and never will.
Idea of political/electoral boycott, unplugging from the system that corrupts us and ALTERNATIVE
POLITICAL PROCESS designed, developed and implemented for benefit of 99% of population is the
only viable idea to express our political views that are absent from official regime candidates'
agendas and from the rigged ballots. Let's not be afraid, it was already successfully done
in the past. It works." Without courage there is only slavery.
Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?)
to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like
he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it?
Grow up.
I took the time off (I'm a software engineer) after the primaries (having supported neither
BO or HRC) because that's who get got. We were coming off 8 years of BushCo which was, in summary...
a horror. The republicans were 100% unrepentant, and McCain was a far louder and steadfast supporter
of Iraq then Hillary... wasn't even close. McCain burried his Abramhoff investigation, sealed
their findings for 50 years. And his running mate was not just bereft of any policy expertise,
she was a loudmouth loon... even FOX canceled her post election show.
I was well aware of BO's questions/limitations. He didn't put his time in as a Senator and
sponsored no meaningful legislation. He played it safe. He had no real policy track record. And
as a Senator he quietly slipped away and hob-nobbed with Bush several times (no other Dem Senator
at the time did this that I was aware). So yeah, Obama was on open question.
I was going to pass on this election, but I've read a lot here about it and started to consider
what as a US voter I might do.
Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly
that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see
if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia
believes in.
I believe in voting. I believe in multiple parties. I believe the game is totally rigged but
sometimes you can win, except that you have to play for this to happen. I believe that you have
to be the thing you want.
I believe in a Green Party and I admire the sanity that comes from Dr. Jill Stein every time
I encounter her position. This is the world I believe in. This is the world I'll vote for and
support, with all tools that comes to hand, forever.
~~
I don't believe in the view that aspiring for betterment is foolish or naive, or the view that
current status cannot change or be changed. Such views fail to acknowledge the physical reality
of a new universe manifesting in each moment, always different in some way from that of the previous
moment. Such views are lost, bewildered, behind the curve, forever.
Term limits are useless. There could never be a Cynthia McKinney or a Dennis Kucinich -- Ever!
Term limited representatives would by definition be track record-free representatives. If you
really would like positive change, you simply need to get strategic hedge simple score voting:
SHSV
Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored
Bernie Sanders by 17%
Mar 06 2016
J.T. Waldron
Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results,
may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines.
68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference
of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine
vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by
1.42 %.
In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to
get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner
and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility
crisis and everything went smooth.
"... a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF) the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly even WWIII. ..."
"... One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness. ..."
"... Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of TBTF to rip people another four years. ..."
"... The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers, who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism to survive. ..."
"... And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the elections. ..."
Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do. That plus voter suppression may hand this to Trump yet. There was an LA Times poll this month
that showed a small Trump lead. An outlier, sure, but the same poll was right about Obama in 2012
when other polls were wrong. Just saying
likbez -> Adamski... , -1
> "Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do."
Yes. Thank you for making this point.
Also people over 50 have more chances to understand and reject all the neoliberal bullshit
MSM are pouring on Americans.
As well as a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF)
the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly
even WWIII.
One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that
remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness.
Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of
TBTF to rip people another four years.
Not that Trump is better, but on warmongering side he is the lesser evil, for sure.
The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal
media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers,
who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism
to survive.
And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts
is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the
elections.
That's why they supposedly pump Hillary with drugs each debate :-).
"... As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word for
maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political fixing,
price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated version of Medieval
feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines of wealth and governs
the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and taxes--all
of which benefit the financiers and political grifters. ..."
"... The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the privileged
ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry ) and political
influence. ..."
"... If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
..."
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed. This reality is being masked by
the mainstream media, mouthpiece of the ruling class, which is ceaselessly promoting two false narratives:
The "great divide" in American politics is between left and right, Democrat/Republican
The ruling Elite has delivered "prosperity" not just to the privileged few but to the unprivileged
many they govern.
Both of these assertions are false. The Great Divide in America is between the ruling Elite and
the governed that the Elite has stripmined. The ruling Elite is privileged and protected, the governed
are unprivileged and unprotected. That's the divide that counts and the divide that is finally becoming
visible to the marginalized, unprivileged class of debt-serfs.
The "prosperity" of the 21st century has flowed solely to the ruling Elite and its army of technocrat
toadies, factotums, flunkies, apparatchiks and apologists. The Elite's army of technocrats and its
media apologists have engineered and promoted an endless spew of ginned-up phony statistics (the
super-low unemployment rate, etc.) to create the illusion of "growth" and "prosperity" that benefit
everyone rather than just the top 5%. The media is 100% committed to promoting these two false narratives
because the jig is up once the bottom 95% wake up to the reality that the ruling Elite has been stripmining
them for decades.
As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word
for maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political
fixing, price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated
version of Medieval feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines
of wealth and governs the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit
cards, mortgages and taxes--all of which benefit the financiers and political grifters.
The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the
privileged ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry
) and political influence.
The cold truth is the ruling Elite has shredded the social contract by skimming the income/wealth
of the unprivileged. The fake-"progressive" pandering apologists of the ruling Elite--Robert Reich,
Paul Krugman and the rest of the Keynesian Cargo Cultists--turn a blind eye to the suppression of
dissent and the looting the bottom 95% because they have cushy, protected positions as tenured faculty
(or equivalent). They cheerlead for more state-funded bread and circuses for the marginalized
rather than demand an end to exploitive privileges of the sort they themselves enjoy.
Consider just three of the unsustainably costly broken systems that enrich the privileged Elite
by stripmining the unprivileged:
healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare because sickness is profitable, prevention is unprofitable),
higher education
Imperial over-reach (the National Security State and its partner the privately owned Military-Industrial
Complex).
While the unprivileged and unprotected watch their healthcare premiums and co-pays soar year after
year, the CEOs of various sickcare cartels skim off tens of millions of dollars annually in pay and
stock options. The system works great if you get a $20 million paycheck. If you get a 30% increase
in monthly premiums for fewer actual healthcare services--the system is broken.
If you're skimming $250,000 as under-assistant dean to the provost for student services (or equivalent)
plus gold-plated benefits, higher education is working great. If you're a student burdened with tens
of thousands of dollars in student loan debt who is receiving a low-quality, essentially worthless
"education" from poorly paid graduate students ("adjuncts") and a handful of online courses that
you could get for free or for a low cost outside the university cartel--the system is broken.
If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
If you joined the Armed Forces to escape rural poverty and served at the point of the spear somewhere
in the Imperial Project--your perspective may well be considerably different.
Unfortunately for the ruling Elite and their army of engorged enablers and apologists, they have
already lost the consent of the governed.
They have bamboozled, conned and misled the bottom 95% for decades, but their phony facade of
political legitimacy and "the rising tide raises all boats" has cracked wide open, and the machinery
of oppression, looting and propaganda is now visible to everyone who isn't being paid to cover their
eyes. Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this
epochal shift of the tides yet, either. They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own
declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday
life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately
self-destructive ruling Elite.
"... At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in
the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt
establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight
of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect
threats to their personal safety. ..."
"... The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. ..."
"... People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. ..."
"... They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences
for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner,
whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they
forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently
culled. ..."
"... The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from
connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out
organized forms of activism. ..."
"... In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced.
Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are
instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate
entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent
ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their
own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state. ..."
"... Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads
to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything
resembling a solution, even despotism. ..."
"... Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding
liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level
of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly
distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that
their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them. ..."
"... When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines
that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant
exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police
no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
..."
"... Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent
to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating
even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares
to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses. ..."
"... Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive
boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their
anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments
are able to kill two birds with one stone. ..."
"... Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen
spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities.
..."
"... Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think
..."
"... Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is
sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled
as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is done discretely,
but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it. ..."
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular
question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice
what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their
cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage
of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately,
such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day.
For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness
in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on
corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect
the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent
indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies,
and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless
herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment
and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have
to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition
a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger's
day is never quite done. In my recent article
'The
Essential Rules of Liberty' we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations
required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let's examine the frequently
wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually
confronted and defeated.
Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill
apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for
standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every
corner, whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal
that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have
been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another
religion, another political ideology, a "hidden" and ominous villain created out of thin air.
Autocrats assert that we "need them" in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters
bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken,
even those that dissolve our freedoms, are "for the greater good". Frightened people tend to shirk
their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective
is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality
almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked
for the sake of the group.
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public
gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount
to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms.
The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting
with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized
forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant's can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating
and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of
a nation on the verge of revolution. These "false paradigms" give us the illusion of proactive
organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us
from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into
meaningless battles over "left and right", or "Democrat versus Republican", for example. Only
movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of
their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to
the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are
enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required.
Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust
each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures
are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support.
People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore,
a potential risk to the state.
You'll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government
gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty,
and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly
hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine
upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake;
they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime
leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance
of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while
demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain
a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation
keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously
chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end
them.
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived
notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny
right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on
every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position.
Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed
nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation,
terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed.
The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority
emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of
the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards
out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and
small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers,
behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous
and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their
ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed,
and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person
or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the
minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders
of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already
disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media
in an attempt to make the public believe that "everyone else" must have the same exact views,
and those who express contrary positions must be "crazy", or "extremist". Events are even engineered
by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive
anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them
directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an
elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention,
and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the
truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself,
but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our
propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother
bureaucracies around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted
to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and "service" to this collective, sadly, is
the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and
soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for
power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate
the destinies of perfect strangers.
Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery.
Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons
of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly
unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with
persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and
a hero's status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin
to see "extremists" and "terrorists" everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start
to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members.
Free speech is effectively neutralized.
In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord
over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies
are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they
can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of
conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware.
However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put
in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America
today.
Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality
is sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those
labeled as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is
done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it.
All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within
their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real
question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At
what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and
take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities,
their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment
constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the
line, and how many will flee?
For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable
in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again
into the very best in us all.
Yet another attempt to explain Trump success... and Democratic Party disintegration because Dems
lost working class voters and substantial part of middle class voters.
Notable quotes:
"... I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. ..."
"... The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ..."
"... There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also all kinds of legitimate of anxieties. ..."
"... The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd, that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count. ..."
I also believe that people are fundamentally good, but this election cycle has tried that
hypothesis for me.
I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. When you listen to them talk
about feeling hurt, scared and left behind, they sound like the Black Lives Matter activists.
How so? The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens
of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system
is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ...
... ... ...
A lot of people are mocking the idea that you can explain the bigotry at a Trump rally
by writing it off as simply a response to economic anxiety.
There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also
all kinds of legitimate of anxieties.
The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that
doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to
feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We
see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd,
that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count.
"... Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the drives of imperialism. ..."
"... It was left to Veblen to deal with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role, extracting their wealth by imposing overhead charges on the rest of society. ..."
"... Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed, taxed out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the divergence between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market price (what today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial overhead as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized, putting financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest but to buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out as dividends, and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping assets and loading companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George Ackerlof and Paul Romer have characterized as looting. ..."
"... In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential, Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists ..."
Edited excerpt from Michael Hudson and Ahmet Oncu, eds.,
Absentee Ownership and its Discontents: Critical Essays on the legacy of Thorstein Veblen ....................
From Marx to Veblen
Early (and most non-Marxist) socialism aimed to achieve greater equality mainly by taxing away
unearned rentier income and keeping natural resources and monopolies in the public domain. The Marxist
focus on class conflict between industrial employers and workers relegated criticism of rentiers
to a secondary position, leaving that fight to more bourgeois reformers. Financial savings were treated
as an accumulation of industrial profits, not as the autonomous phenomenon that Marx himself emphasized
in Volume 3 of Capital.
Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the drives
of imperialism. The ruin of Persia and Egypt was notorious, and creditors installed collectors in
the customs houses in Europe's former Latin American colonies. The major problem anticipated was
war spurred by commercial rivalries as the world was being carved up. It was left to Veblen to deal
with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role, extracting their wealth by imposing
overhead charges on the rest of society. The campaign for land taxation and even financial reform
faded from popular discussion as socialists and other reformers became increasingly Marxist and focused
on the industrial exploitation of labor.
Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed, taxed
out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the divergence
between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market price (what
today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial overhead
as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized, putting
financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest but to
buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out as dividends,
and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping assets and loading
companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George Ackerlof and Paul
Romer have characterized as looting.
In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential,
Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists, and as rejecting of
the status quo. Technological innovation was reducing costs but breeding monopolies as the Finance,
Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sectors joined forces to create a financial symbiosis cemented by
political insider dealings – and a trivialization of economic theory as it seeks to avoid dealing
with society's failure to achieve its technological potential. The fruits of rising productivity
were used to finance robber barons who had no better use of their wealth than to reduce great artworks
to the status of ownership trophies and achieve leisure class status by funding business schools
and colleges to promote a self-congratulatory but deceptive portrayal of their wealth-grabbing behavior.
Absentee Ownership and its Discontents: Critical Essays on the legacy of Thorstein Veblen By
Michael Hudson and Ahmet Oncu
From Marx to Veblen
Early (and most non-Marxist) socialism aimed to achieve greater equality mainly by taxing away
unearned rentier income and keeping natural resources and monopolies in the public domain. The
Marxist focus on class conflict between industrial employers and workers relegated criticism of
rentiers to a secondary position, leaving that fight to more bourgeois reformers. Financial savings
were treated as an accumulation of industrial profits, not as the autonomous phenomenon that Marx
himself emphasized in Volume 3 of Capital.
Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the
drives of imperialism. The ruin of Persia and Egypt was notorious, and creditors installed
collectors in the customs houses in Europe's former Latin American colonies. The major problem
anticipated was war spurred by commercial rivalries as the world was being carved up.
It was left to Veblen to deal with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role,
extracting their wealth by imposing overhead charges on the rest of society. The campaign
for land taxation and even financial reform faded from popular discussion as socialists and other
reformers became increasingly Marxist and focused on the industrial exploitation of labor.
Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed,
taxed out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the
divergence between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market
price (what today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial
overhead as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized,
putting financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest
but to buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out
as dividends, and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping
assets and loading companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George
Ackerlof and Paul Romer have characterized as looting.
In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential,
Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists , and as rejecting
of the status quo. Technological innovation was reducing costs but breeding monopolies as the
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sectors joined forces to create a financial symbiosis
cemented by political insider dealings – and a trivialization of economic theory as it seeks to
avoid dealing with society's failure to achieve its technological potential.
The fruits of rising productivity were used to finance robber barons who had no better use
of their wealth than to reduce great artworks to the status of ownership trophies and achieve
leisure class status by funding business schools and colleges to promote a self-congratulatory
but deceptive portrayal of their wealth-grabbing behavior.
Populism on the March Why the West Is in Trouble … Trump is part of a broad populist upsurge
running through the Western world. It can be seen in countries of widely varying circumstances,
from prosperous Sweden to crisis-ridden Greece. In most, populism remains an opposition movement,
although one that is growing in strength; in others, such as Hungary, it is now the reigning ideology.
But almost everywhere, populism has captured the public's attention. What is populism? It means
different things to different groups, but all versions share a suspicion of and hostility toward
elites, mainstream politics, and established institutions. -Foreign Affairs
The "populism versus globalism" meme is gradually yielding the predictable result: "Enlightened"
government needs to take an active role in alleviating the "frustration" felt by those attracted
to "populism."
The next phase of this meme can be seen, among other places, in this extensive article in Foreign
Affairs magazine entitled, "Populism on the March."
Foreign Affairs is the mouthpiece for the the Council on Foreign Relations that provides globalist
instructions and legislation for US industrial and political leadership.
Since DB's focus is on elite memes, we follow the larger one on a regular basis and have predicted
that "populism vs. globalism" constitutes serious propaganda. It may even rise to the level of "global
warming" aka "climate change."
Elite memes are not necessarily false in their entirety but they are at least partially fake.
Populism, for instance, in both Europe and America, has more to do with cultural self-protection
than the mindless "me first" approach the nomenclature suggests.
Populism is really an outgrowth of greater awareness of how elites have targeted middle classes
in order to destroy them as part of globalism's implantation.
Elite, mainstream media won't explain the reality of what's going on. Instead, the mainstream
takes the rightful anger created by elite targeting and characterizes it as a political movement.
Additionally, the explanation for this anger is that certain segments of Western populations are
being "left out" of rising world-wide prosperity.
More:
Immigration is the final frontier of globalization. It is the most intrusive and disruptive
because as a result of it, people are dealing not with objects or abstractions; instead, they
come face-to-face with other human beings, ones who look, sound, and feel different.
And this can give rise to fear, racism, and xenophobia. But not all the reaction is noxious.
It must be recognized that the pace of change can move too fast for society to digest.
The ideas of disruption and creative destruction have been celebrated so much that it is easy
to forget that they look very different to the people being disrupted.
Western societies will have to focus directly on the dangers of too rapid cultural change.
That might involve some limits on the rate of immigration and on the kinds of immigrants who are
permitted to enter.
It should involve much greater efforts and resources devoted to integration and assimilation,
as well as better safety nets. Most Western countries need much stronger retraining programs for
displaced workers, ones more on the scale of the GI Bill: easily available to all, with government,
the private sector, and educational institutions all participating.
We can see here a tired litany of government responses to the initial false premise. So-called
middle classes in the US reportedly have $1,000 in savings and perhaps $100,000 or more in debt.
The same forces that have virtually bankrupted Western middle classes are now somehow supposed to
rectify the ruin.
The article even states that in addition to government activism, an effort must be made to "highlight
realities of immigration so that the public is dealing with facts and not phobias."
How is this to be done? Via"enlightened leadership … that "appeals to their better angels. Eventually,
we will cross this frontier as well."
We've already called "populism versus globalism" a "textbook meme" and indicated that it provides
ample opportunity for the kind of directed history that we can see suggested in this article.
The next step will surely involve legislation to implement these suggestions. We are already seeing
this with "extremists" as reported by The Washington Post:
The White House announced a plan Wednesday to help prevent Americans from falling prey to violent
ideologies of the sort that drove mass killings in New York, San Bernardino, Calif., Chattanooga,
Tenn., and Orlando in the past year. The effort ... seeks to mobilize teams of teachers, mental
health professionals and community leaders to deal with a problem that offers few easy solutions.
Conclusion: The "populism versus globalism" meme has a long way to travel but
implemented fully it has a chance to broadly affect a variety of Western institutions and behaviors.
It provides justification for a signficant array of authoritarian intrusions and justifies this action
on numerous levels.
Globalism is mututally exclusive to popularism ... if anything globalism is growing the popularism.
By more globalist government you mean slavery, removal of voice and right to object to all
the shit you are forced to live because the globalist government forces you into that position
for itself.
The globalist government no longer serves the people it serves itself and all manner of horrors
it does to ensure you know you place but it you protest or worse turn to violence you are called
terrorists.
One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and the only terrorist here is government
as it enforces servitude and slavery.
It is the ranking of money and its unabated influence history is lingering to come clear with.
Globalism means make the dictatorial power of money perfect.
Populism then, no. Not that perfect, and here a is broad range of adoption to consider on how
much its influence should be lamp posted.
You can try it with nationalism, right-wing-ism, genderism should do it well too and the like.
All this efforts can be cast as directed toward the inegalité business the power of money is
generating.
There they are fighting. In nightgowns or in tanks without to lay hands on the master of the
ranks.
The money order.
The fights then only can turn about the question who is allowed to issue it.
The holy cow of the game. The ultimate power of money, finally in your hand.
If the ranking of money is not perceived as what it is, stays untouched of all the shit what
fans can disseminate about the matter, then those with the most money will always stay in power.
And what we can expect of the coming is a clearance up to this question.
What money is allowed to claim.
You'll see there are no border issues to negotiate in dealing with that difficulty nor any
folklore is begged for a stunt on the political theater.
Just common sense about the question why someone is pulling of his clothes because another
is paying for.
i'm not sure that globalists is the best name for what we've got here. i think it is far too kind.
the (foreign policy) wars are started (and intentionally lost) by the likud/mossad zionists
who did 9-11, that seems clear enough with general clark's seven countries in five years revelation.
the (domestic) "economic team" is headed by the too big to jail banksters (some overlap with
above) and crony capitalists generally who are globalists in gang territory only.
"... Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S. militarism there. ..."
"... "We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going to put more of our fleet in the area." ..."
"... In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria, from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however, she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was required in Libya. ..."
"... Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it." ..."
"... Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]." Really? From whom? ..."
"... it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?" ..."
In the speech transcripts from June 4, 2013, October 29, 2013, and October 19, 2015, Clinton was
apparently paid sufficiently to do something she denies most audiences. That is, she took questions
that it appears likely she was not secretly briefed on or engaged in negotiations over ahead of time.
In part this appears to be the case because some of the questions were lengthy speeches, and in part
because her answers were not all the sort of meaningless platitudes that she produces if given time
to prepare.
Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and
virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination
of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than
the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy
that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now
show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from
thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing
all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan
Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S.
militarism there.
Yet, in these speeches, Clinton projects exactly that approach, accurately or not, on other nations
and accuses China of just the sort of thing that her "far left" critics accuse her of all the time,
albeit outside the censorship of U.S. corporate media. China, Clinton says, may use hatred of Japan
as a means of distracting Chinese people from unpopular and harmful economic policies. China, Clinton
says, struggles to maintain civilian control over its military. Hmm. Where else have we seen these
problems?
"We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going
to put more of our fleet in the area."
On Syria, Clinton says it's hard to figure out whom to arm - completely oblivious to any options
other than arming somebody. It's hard, she says, to predict at all what will happen. So, her advice,
which she blurts out to a room of bankers, is to wage war in Syria very "covertly."
In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria,
from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however,
she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was
required in Libya. "You're going to kill a lot of Syrians," she admits. She even tries to distance
herself from the proposal by referring to "this intervention that people talk about so glibly" -
although she, before and at the time of that speech and ever since has been the leading such person.
Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar.
In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was
now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton
said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each
other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it."
That's the view of many ill-meaning and many well-meaning people who have been persuaded that
the only two choices in foreign policy are bombing people and doing nothing. That clearly is the
understanding of the former Secretary of State, whose positions were more hawkish than those of her
counterpart at the Pentagon. It's also reminiscent of Harry Truman's comment that if the Germans
were winning you should help the Russians and vice versa, so that more people would die. That's not
exactly what Clinton said here, but it's pretty close, and it's something she would not say in a
scripted joint-media-appearance masquerading as a debate. The possibility of disarmament, nonviolent
peacework, actual aid on a massive scale, and respectful diplomacy that leaves U.S. influence out
of the resulting states is just not on Clinton's radar no matter who is in her audience.
On Iran, Clinton repeatedly hypes false claims about nuclear weapons and terrorism, even while
admitting far more openly than we're used to that Iran's religious leader denounces and opposes nuclear
weapons. She also admits that Saudi Arabia is already pursuing nuclear weapons and that UAE and Egypt
are likely to do so, at least if Iran does. She also admits that the Saudi government is far from
stable.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein asks Clinton at one point how a good war against Iran might
go - he suggesting that an occupation (yes, they use that forbidden word) might not be the best move.
Clinton replies that Iran can just be bombed. Blankfein, rather shockingly, appeals to reality -
something Clinton goes on at obnoxious length about elsewhere in these speeches. Has bombing a population
into submission ever worked, Blankfein asks. Clinton admits that it has not but suggests that it
just might work on Iranians because they are not democratic.
Regarding Egypt, Clinton makes clear her opposition to popular change.
Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim
ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have
told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]."
Really? From whom?
This is ugly stuff, at least as damaging to human lives as the filth coming from Donald Trump.
Yet it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her
identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political
system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?"
Et cetera.
In part their concern is the supposed gridlock created by differences between the two big parties,
whereas my biggest concern is the militarized destruction of people and the environment that never
seems to encounter even a slight traffic slowdown in Congress. But if you imagine that the people
Bernie Sanders always denounces as taking home all the profits are happy with the status quo, think
again. They benefit in certain ways, but they don't control their monster and it doesn't make them
feel fulfilled.
Who won or lost last night's debate doesn't really matter. What matters is that Trump wasn't able to score the knock-out
blows required to impact his declining polling numbers in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, of all the points made in last night's
debate, the only one that seems to matter to the mainstream media this morning is that Trump is somehow plotting to overthrow our
democracy by refusing to accept election results on November 8th.
Of course, facts do seem to support Trump's claim that the election is rigged and not just as a result of a biased mainstream
media that refuses to cover Hillary's various scandals. In fact, according to research conducted by the
Pew Research Center in 2012, the capacity for voter fraud in the U.S. is substantial with nearly 2mm dead people found to be
registered voters and nearly 3mm people registered in multiple states.
Approximately 24 million -one of every eight- voter registrations in the United States are
no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate
More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters
Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state
Add to that the recent Project Veritas videos showing democratic operatives paying people to incite violence at republican rallies
and actually bragging about "bussing" in out-of-state voters to commit massive voter fraud and Trump's claims of "election rigging"
seem hard to deny.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5IuJGHuIkzY
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hDc8PVCvfKs
After watching those videos, does this tweet really seem all that inaccurate?
Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going
on? So naive!
Of course, according to
The
Hill , republicans this morning are jumping at the opportunity to bash their own party's nominee with Lindsey Graham saying that
"Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice."
Many Republicans were tired of Trump's talk about a rigged election before his remarks on Wednesday night that he would not
commit to accepting the legitimacy of the vote count on Election Day.
Trump said there are "millions of people" who are registered to vote illegally, alleged that the media has "poisoned the minds
of the voters," and pledged to keep the nation in "suspense" over whether he'd concede the race to Clinton.
Trump's critics seized on his remarks after the debate, and Republicans down the ballot will be forced to weigh in
over the coming days.
Several jumped at the chance.
"Mr. Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice by continuing to suggest the outcome of this election
is out of his hands and 'rigged' against him," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "It will not be because the system
is 'rigged' but because he failed as a candidate."
. @realDonaldTrump saying that he might not accept election
results is beyond the pale
Of course, other topics were discussed during the debate with Trump seemingly scoring points during the abortion scuffle, the
supreme court discussion and Hillary's various FBI, email and foundation scandals. That said, we suspect none of it really matters
and is already forgotten.
The GOP nominee ably defended the conservative position against abortion and stayed on the attack against Clinton on her biggest
vulnerabilities, raising questions about the FBI's investigation into her private email server, donations from foreign governments
to the Clinton Foundation and revelations from the WikiLeaks email dumps.
Regardless, as we said in the beginning of this post, none it really matters as the key takeaway from last night was that
"Trump needed a campaign-altering moment, and it didn't happen."
He will enter the final three weeks before Election Day trailing badly and with his support teetering on the
edge of full collapse, stirring Republican fears that they could lose the House majority.
The days of Trump boasting about his polling numbers and his prospects in blue states are long gone.
Trump's attacks against Clinton and the message that turned him into a winner in the GOP primaries won't be enough to get him
back to that place.
So, outside of some new bombshell development from WikiLeaks or wherever, we suspect this one is in the bag.
Trump is right, the election is rigged. Not necessarily as in voting or vote counting fraud, but in more subtle
ways. The MSM is doing it's best to be completely one sided in "reporting" about the candidates. A billionaire supporter is welcome
to support Hillary, but if he is supporting Trump, he will be facing thinly veiled threats: The NYT for example went after Peter
Thiel by writing this:
"In Silicon Valley, technology executives are having to explain why they continue to do business with the billionaire investor
Peter Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Mr. Trump's campaign.
Mr. Thiel will address the controversy in a speech in Washington this month. But executives with ties to him have had to explain
why they have not cut them.
And they have faced criticism.
"We agree that people shouldn't be fired for their political views, but this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating
hatred and violence," wrote Ellen Pao, the head of Project Include, an organization that aims to increase diversity in the tech
industry. Project Include has severed ties with Y Combinator, where Mr. Thiel is a part-time partner, because of his involvement."
The message is: If you support Trump, shut up or face negative consequences to your business and private life.
"... At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in
the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt
establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight
of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect
threats to their personal safety. ..."
"... The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. ..."
"... People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. ..."
"... They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences
for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner,
whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they
forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently
culled. ..."
"... The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from
connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out
organized forms of activism. ..."
"... In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced.
Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are
instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate
entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent
ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their
own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state. ..."
"... Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads
to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything
resembling a solution, even despotism. ..."
"... Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding
liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level
of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly
distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that
their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them. ..."
"... When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines
that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant
exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police
no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
..."
"... Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent
to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating
even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares
to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses. ..."
"... Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive
boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their
anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments
are able to kill two birds with one stone. ..."
"... Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery. Citizen
spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons of their communities.
..."
"... Tyrannies are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think
..."
"... Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality is
sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those labeled
as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is done discretely,
but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it. ..."
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular
question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice
what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their
cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage
of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately,
such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day.
For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain
number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness
in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on
corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect
the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent
indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies,
and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless
herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment
and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have
to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process
of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition
a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger's
day is never quite done. In my recent article
'The
Essential Rules of Liberty' we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations
required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let's examine the frequently
wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political
will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant's power comes purely from the application
of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful,
and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually
confronted and defeated.
Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill
apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for
standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every
corner, whether it's actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal
that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have
been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another
religion, another political ideology, a "hidden" and ominous villain created out of thin air.
Autocrats assert that we "need them" in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters
bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken,
even those that dissolve our freedoms, are "for the greater good". Frightened people tend to shirk
their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective
is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality
almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked
for the sake of the group.
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public
gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount
to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms.
The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting
with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized
forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant's can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating
and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of
a nation on the verge of revolution. These "false paradigms" give us the illusion of proactive
organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us
from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into
meaningless battles over "left and right", or "Democrat versus Republican", for example. Only
movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of
their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to
the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are
enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required.
Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust
each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures
are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support.
People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore,
a potential risk to the state.
You'll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government
gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty,
and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly
hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine
upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake;
they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime
leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance
of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while
demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain
a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation
keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously
chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end
them.
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived
notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny
right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on
every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position.
Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed
nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation,
terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government
concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed.
The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority
emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of
the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards
out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and
small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers,
behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous
and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations
in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their
ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed,
and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person
or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the
minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders
of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already
disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media
in an attempt to make the public believe that "everyone else" must have the same exact views,
and those who express contrary positions must be "crazy", or "extremist". Events are even engineered
by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive
anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them
directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an
elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention,
and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the
truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Ultimately, the life of a totalitarian government is not prolonged by the government itself,
but by the very people it subjugates. Citizen spies are the glue of any police state, and our
propensity for sticking our noses into other peoples business is highly valued by Big Brother
bureaucracies around the globe.
There are a number of reasons why people participate in this repulsive activity. Some are addicted
to the feeling of being a part of the collective, and "service" to this collective, sadly, is
the only way they are able to give their pathetic lives meaning. Some are vindictive, cold, and
soulless, and actually get enjoyment from ruining others. And still, like elites, some long for
power, even petty power, and are willing to do anything to fulfill their vile need to dictate
the destinies of perfect strangers.
Citizen spying is almost always branded as a civic duty; an act of heroism and bravery.
Citizen spies are offered accolades and awards, and showered with praise from the upper echelons
of their communities. People who lean towards citizen spying are often outwardly and inwardly
unimpressive; physically and mentally inept. For the average moral and emotional weakling with
persistent feelings of inadequacy, the allure of finally being given fifteen minutes of fame and
a hero's status (even if that status is based on a lie) is simply too much to resist. They begin
to see "extremists" and "terrorists" everywhere. Soon, people afraid of open ears everywhere start
to watch what they say at the supermarket, in their own backyards, or even to family members.
Free speech is effectively neutralized.
In the end, it is not enough for a government fueled by the putrid sludge of iniquity to lord
over us. At some point, it must also influence us to forsake our most valued principles. Tyrannies
are less concerned with dominating how we live, so much as dominating how we think. If they
can mold our very morality, they can exist unopposed indefinitely. Of course, the elements of
conscience are inborn, and not subject to environmental duress as long as a man is self aware.
However, conscience can be manipulated if a person has no sense of identity, and has never put
in the effort to explore his own strengths and failings. There are many people like this in America
today.
Lies become "necessary" in protecting the safety of the state. War becomes a tool for "peace".
Torture becomes an ugly but "useful" method for gleaning important information. Police brutality
is sold as a "natural reaction" to increased crime. Rendition becomes normal, but only for those
labeled as "terrorists". Assassination is justified as a means for "saving lives". Genocide is
done discretely, but most everyone knows it is taking place. They simply don't discuss it.
All tyrannical systems depend on the apathy and moral relativism of the inhabitants within
their borders. Without the cooperation of the public, these systems cannot function. The real
question is, how many of the above steps will be taken before we finally refuse to conform? At
what point will each man and woman decide to break free from the dark path blazed before us and
take measures to ensure their independence? Who will have the courage to develop their own communities,
their own alternative economies, their own organizations for mutual defense outside of establishment
constructs, and who will break under the pressure to bow like cowards? How many will hold the
line, and how many will flee?
For every American, for every human being across the planet who chooses to stand immovable
in the face of the very worst in mankind, we come that much closer to breathing life once again
into the very best in us all.
Who won or lost last night's debate doesn't really matter. What matters is that Trump wasn't able to score the knock-out
blows required to impact his declining polling numbers in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, of all the points made in last night's
debate, the only one that seems to matter to the mainstream media this morning is that Trump is somehow plotting to overthrow our
democracy by refusing to accept election results on November 8th.
Of course, facts do seem to support Trump's claim that the election is rigged and not just as a result of a biased mainstream
media that refuses to cover Hillary's various scandals. In fact, according to research conducted by the
Pew Research Center in 2012, the capacity for voter fraud in the U.S. is substantial with nearly 2mm dead people found to be
registered voters and nearly 3mm people registered in multiple states.
Approximately 24 million -one of every eight- voter registrations in the United States are
no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate
More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters
Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state
Add to that the recent Project Veritas videos showing democratic operatives paying people to incite violence at republican rallies
and actually bragging about "bussing" in out-of-state voters to commit massive voter fraud and Trump's claims of "election rigging"
seem hard to deny.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5IuJGHuIkzY
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hDc8PVCvfKs
After watching those videos, does this tweet really seem all that inaccurate?
Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going
on? So naive!
Of course, according to
The
Hill , republicans this morning are jumping at the opportunity to bash their own party's nominee with Lindsey Graham saying that
"Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice."
Many Republicans were tired of Trump's talk about a rigged election before his remarks on Wednesday night that he would not
commit to accepting the legitimacy of the vote count on Election Day.
Trump said there are "millions of people" who are registered to vote illegally, alleged that the media has "poisoned the minds
of the voters," and pledged to keep the nation in "suspense" over whether he'd concede the race to Clinton.
Trump's critics seized on his remarks after the debate, and Republicans down the ballot will be forced to weigh in
over the coming days.
Several jumped at the chance.
"Mr. Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice by continuing to suggest the outcome of this election
is out of his hands and 'rigged' against him," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "It will not be because the system
is 'rigged' but because he failed as a candidate."
. @realDonaldTrump saying that he might not accept election
results is beyond the pale
Of course, other topics were discussed during the debate with Trump seemingly scoring points during the abortion scuffle, the
supreme court discussion and Hillary's various FBI, email and foundation scandals. That said, we suspect none of it really matters
and is already forgotten.
The GOP nominee ably defended the conservative position against abortion and stayed on the attack against Clinton on her biggest
vulnerabilities, raising questions about the FBI's investigation into her private email server, donations from foreign governments
to the Clinton Foundation and revelations from the WikiLeaks email dumps.
Regardless, as we said in the beginning of this post, none it really matters as the key takeaway from last night was that
"Trump needed a campaign-altering moment, and it didn't happen."
He will enter the final three weeks before Election Day trailing badly and with his support teetering on the
edge of full collapse, stirring Republican fears that they could lose the House majority.
The days of Trump boasting about his polling numbers and his prospects in blue states are long gone.
Trump's attacks against Clinton and the message that turned him into a winner in the GOP primaries won't be enough to get him
back to that place.
So, outside of some new bombshell development from WikiLeaks or wherever, we suspect this one is in the bag.
Trump is right, the election is rigged. Not necessarily as in voting or vote counting fraud, but in more subtle
ways. The MSM is doing it's best to be completely one sided in "reporting" about the candidates. A billionaire supporter is welcome
to support Hillary, but if he is supporting Trump, he will be facing thinly veiled threats: The NYT for example went after Peter
Thiel by writing this:
"In Silicon Valley, technology executives are having to explain why they continue to do business with the billionaire investor
Peter Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Mr. Trump's campaign.
Mr. Thiel will address the controversy in a speech in Washington this month. But executives with ties to him have had to explain
why they have not cut them.
And they have faced criticism.
"We agree that people shouldn't be fired for their political views, but this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating
hatred and violence," wrote Ellen Pao, the head of Project Include, an organization that aims to increase diversity in the tech
industry. Project Include has severed ties with Y Combinator, where Mr. Thiel is a part-time partner, because of his involvement."
The message is: If you support Trump, shut up or face negative consequences to your business and private life.
This guy is die hard neoliberal. That's why he is fond of Washington consensus. He does not understand
that the time is over for Washington consensus in 2008. this is just a delayed reaction :-)
Notable quotes:
"... after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic "experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly blame for their economic travails. ..."
"... Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. ..."
"... They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath – thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy. ..."
"... The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration will rise, making politics even more toxic. ..."
"... At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic interests -- now, it is simply owned by them. ..."
"... The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus began to break down". ..."
"... In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable. ..."
"... However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded out the ostensibly centrist politics... ..."
"... The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme. In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean. ..."
In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, the so-called Washington Consensus dominated policymaking
in much of the world...
... ... ...
But after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is
breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic
"experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly
blame for their economic travails.
Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using
inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to
disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. The United Kingdom proved
that in June, with its Brexit vote – a decision that directly defied the broad economic consensus
that remaining within the European Union was in Britain's best interest.
... ... ...
... speeches by Prime Minister Theresa May and members of her cabinet revealed an intention to
pursue a "hard Brexit," thereby dismantling trading arrangements that have served the economy well.
They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies
that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath
– thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy.
Several other advanced economies are experiencing analogous political developments. In Germany,
a surprisingly strong showing by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in recent state
elections already appears to be affecting the government's behavior.
In the US, even if Donald Trump's presidential campaign fails to put a Republican back in the
White House (as appears increasingly likely, given that, in the latest twist of this highly unusual
campaign, many Republican leaders have now renounced their party's nominee), his candidacy will likely
leave a lasting impact on American politics. If not managed well, Italy's constitutional referendum
in December – a risky bid by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to consolidate support – could backfire,
just like Cameron's referendum did, causing political disruption and undermining effective action
to address the country's economic challenges.
... ... ...
The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration
will rise, making politics even more toxic. ...
Mr El-Erian, I know you are a good man, but it seems as though everyone believes we can synthetically
engineer a way out of this never ending hole that financial engineering dug us into in the first
place.
Instead why don't we let this game collapse, you are a good man and you will play a role in
the rebuilding of better system, one that nurtures and guides instead of manipulate and lie.
The moral suasion you mention can only appear by allowing for the self annihilation of this
financial system. This way we can learn from the autopsies and leave speculative theories to third
rate economists
It is sadly true that "the relationship between politics and economics is changing," at least
in the U.S.. At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic
interests -- now, it is simply owned by them.
It seems to me that the best we can hope for now is some sort of modest correction in the relationship
after 2020 -- and that the TBTF banks won't deliver another economic disaster in the meantime.
Petey Bee OCT 15, 2016
1. The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus
began to break down".
2. In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than
a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central
feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable.
In the concluding paragraph, the author states that the reaction is going to be slow. That's absolutely
correct, the evidence has been pushed higher and higher above the icy water line since 2008.
However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that
the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded
out the ostensibly centrist politics...
Paul Daley OCT 15, 2016
The Washington consensus collapsed during the Great Recession but the latest "consensus" among
economists regarding "good economics" deserves respect.
atul baride OCT 15, 2016
The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme.
In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective
and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean.
"... First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market" rather than "single payer"; ..."
"... Clinton frames solutions exclusively ..."
"... Policy Sciences ..."
"... Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is the palace. ..."
"... SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that includes Wall Street and Main Street. ..."
"... Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution. ..."
"... One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework instead of building her own ideas with it. ..."
"... What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know? Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You know! ..."
"... I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing. No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate. But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money. ..."
"... A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid." ..."
"... in that context ..."
"... So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016, and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open question, but this post argues not. ..."
"... Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at 100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k for a single speech… ..."
"... Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction of her speeches as mindless drivel. ..."
"... Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and that was not the case, either. ..."
"... Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people. ..."
"... What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan B" Obama is pursuing in Syria? ..."
"... The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards. ..."
"... But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding little… ..."
"... Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large, however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility. A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article ..."
"... both of which present a clinical assessment that Hillary suffers from Parkinson's. Seems like an elephant in the room. ..."
"... The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory "so no quid pro quo ..."
"... The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades - that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake." ..."
"... basically, every real world policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem ..."
"... Most noticeable thing is her subservience to them like a fresh college grad afraid of his boss at his first job ..."
As readers know, WikiLeaks has
released transcripts
of the three speeches to Goldman Sachs that Clinton gave in 2013, and for which she was paid
the eyewatering sum of $675,000. (The link is to an email dated January 23, 2016, from Cllinton staffer
Tony Carrk , Clinton's research director, which pulls out
"noteworthy quotes" from the speeches. The speeches themselves are attachments to that email.)
Readers, I read them. All three of them. What surprises - and when I tell you I had to take a
little nap about halfway through, I'm not making it up! - is the utter mediocrity of Clinton's thought
and mode of expression[1]. Perhaps that explains Clinton's
otherwise inexplicable refusal to release them. And perhaps my sang froid is preternatural,
but I don't see a "smoking gun," unless forking over $675,000 for interminable volumes of shopworn
conventional wisdom be, in itself, such a gun. What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they
were paying for?
WikiLeaks has, however, done voters a favor - in these speeches, and in the DNC and Podesta email
releases generally - by giving us a foretaste of what a Clinton administration will be like, once
in power, not merely on policy (the "first 100 days"), but on how they will make decisions. I call
the speeches a "munitions dump," because the views she expresses in these speeches are bombs that
can be expected to explode as the Clinton administration progresses.
With that, let's contextualize and comment upon some quotes from the speeches
The Democrats Are the Party of Wall Street
Of course, you knew that, but it's nice to have the matter confirmed. This material was flagged
by Carrk (as none of the following material will have been). It's enormously prolix, but I decided
to cut only a few paragraphs. From
Clinton's second
Goldman speech at the AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium:
MR. O'NEILL: Let's come back to the US. Since 2008, there's been an awful lot of seismic activity
around Wall Street and the big banks and regulators and politicians.
Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now , what would be your
advice to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and
worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and a lot of respect for the work you
do and the people who do it, but I do - I think that when we talk about the regulators and the
politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating,
and they had repercussions throughout the world.
That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of '09, so people could, you
know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere.
Now, that's an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom [really?!].
And I think that there's a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding
and really politicizing [!] what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on
all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?
You guys help us figure it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time .
And I think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects institutionally,
governmentally, and there just wasn't that opportunity to try to sort this out, and that
came later .
I mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to, you know,
get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the agreements that are being
reached.
There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get
to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry
better than anybody are the people who work in the industry .
…
And we need banking. I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where
the banks are not doing what they need to do because they're scared of regulations , they're
scared of the other shoe dropping, they're just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way
it needs to to restart economic growth.
So people are, you know, a little - they're still uncertain, and they're uncertain both because
they don't know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they're also uncertain because
of changes in a global economy that we're only beginning to take hold of.
So first and foremost, more transparency, more openness, you know, trying to figure out,
we're all in this together , how we keep this incredible economic engine in this country
going. And this [finance] is, you know, the nerves, the
spinal column.
And with political people, again, I would say the same thing, you know, there was a lot
of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but there was also a need to do something because for political
reasons , if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were
losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of
Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing, but what you do is really important.
And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through
it all.
And, of course, I don't, you know, I know that banks and others were worried about continued
liability [oh, really?] and other problems down the road, so it would be better if we could
have had a more open exchange about what we needed to do to fix what had broken and then try to
make sure it didn't happen again, but we will keep working on it.
MR. O'NEILL: By the way, we really did appreciate when you were the senator from New York and
your continued involvement in the issues (inaudible) to be courageous in some respects to associated
with Wall Street and this environment. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be
an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that
includes Wall Street and Main Street.
And there's a big disconnect and a lot of confusion right now. So I'm not interested in,
you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers , but I am interested in trying to
figure out how we come together to chart a better way forward and one that will restore confidence
in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment
rate [five years into the recession!].
So it's something that I, you know, if you're a realist, you know that people have different
roles to play in politics, economics, and this is an important role, but I do think that there
has to be an understanding of how what happens here on Wall Street has such broad consequences
not just for the domestic but the global economy, so more thought has to be given to the process
and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate
on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power
that exists here.
"Moving forward." And not looking back. (It would be nice to know what "continued liability"
the banks were worried about;
accounting
control fraud ? Maybe somebody could ask Clinton.) Again, I call your attention to the weird
combination of certainty and mediocrity of it; readers, I am sure, can demolish the detail. What
this extended quotation does show is that Clinton and Obama are as one with respect to the
role of the finance sector. Politico describes Obama's famous meeting with the bankster CEOs:
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs
of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying
high salaries to their employees - and, by extension, to themselves.
"These are complicated companies," one CEO said. Offered another: "We're competing for talent
on an international market.".
But President Barack Obama wasn't in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and
offered a blunt reminder of the public's reaction to such explanations. "Be careful how you make
those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that.".
"My administration," the president added, "is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
And he did! He did! Clinton, however, by calling the finance sector the "the nerves, the spinal
column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did.
So, from the governance perspective, we can expect the FIRE sector to dominate a Clinton administration,
and the Clinton administration to service it. The Democrats are the Party of Wall Street. The bomb
that could explode there is corrupt dealings with cronies (for which the Wikileaks material provides
plenty of leads).
Clinton Advocates a "Night Watchman" State
The next quotes are shorter, I swear! Here's a quote from
Clinton's third
Goldman speech (not flagged by Carrk, no doubt because hearing drivel like this is perfectly
normal in HillaryLand):
SECRETARY CLINTON: And I tell you, I see any society like a three-legged stool. You have to
have an active free market that gives people the chance to live out their dreams by their own
hard work and skills. You have to have a functioning, effective government that provides
the right balance of oversight and protection of freedom and privacy and liberty and all the rest
of it that goes with it . And you have to have an active civil society. Because there's
so much about America that is volunteerism and religious faith and family and community activities.
So you take one of those legs away, it's pretty hard to balance it. So you've got to get back
to getting the right balance.
Apparently, the provision
of public services is not within government's remit -- What are Social Security and Medicare?
"All the rest of it"? Not only that, who said the free market was the only way to "live
out their dreams"? Madison, Franklin, even Hamilton would have something to say about that! Finally,
which one of those legs is out of balance? Civil society? Some would advocate less religion in politics
rather than more, including many Democrats. The markets? Not at Goldman? Government? Too much militarization,
way too little concrete material benefits, so far as I'm concerned, but Clinton doesn't say, making
the "stool" metaphor vacuous.
From a governance perspective, we can expect Clinton's blind spot on government's role in provisioning
servies to continue. Watch for continued privatization efforts (perhaps aided by Silicon Valley).
On any infrastructure projects, watch for "public-private partnerships." The bomb that could explode
there is corrupt dealings with a different set of cronies (even if the FIRE sector does
have a finger in every pie).
Clinton's Views on Health Care Reflect Market Fundamentalism
MR. O'NEILL: [O]bviously the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the supreme court. It's
clearly having limitation problems [I don't know what that means]. It's unsettling, people still
- the Republicans want to repeal it or defund it. So how do you get to the middle on that clash
of absolutes?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this is not the first time that we rolled out a big program with the
limitation problems [Clinton apparently does].
I was in the Senate when President Bush asked and signed legislation expanding Medicare benefits,
the Medicare Part D drug benefits. And people forget now that it was a very difficult implementation.
As a senator, my staff spent weeks working with people who were trying to sign up, because
it was in some sense even harder to manage because the population over 65, not the most computer-literate
group, and it was difficult. But, you know, people stuck with it, worked through it.
Now, this is on - it's on a different scale and it is more complex because it's trying to create
a market. In Medicare, you have a single market , you have, you know, the government
is increasing funding through government programs [sic] to provide people over 65 the drugs they
needed.
And there were a few variations that you could play out on it, but it was a much simpler market
than what the Affordable Care Act is aiming to set up.
Now, the way I look at this, Tim, is it's either going to work or it's not going to work.
First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market"
rather than "single payer"; but then
Clinton erases single payer whenever possible . Second, Clinton frames solutions exclusively
in terms of markets (and not the direct provision of services by government);
Obama does the same on health care in JAMA , simply erasing the possibility of single payer.
Third, rather than advocate a simple, rugged, and proven system like Canadian Medicare (single payer),
Clinton prefers to run an experiment ("it's either going to work or it's not going to work")
on the health of millions of people (and, I would urge, without their informed consent).
From a governance perspective, assume that if the Democrats propose
a "public option," it will be miserably inadequate. The bomb that could explode here is the ObamaCare
death spiral.
The Problems Are "Wicked," but Clinton Will Be Unable to Cope With Them
MR. BLANKFEIN: The next area which I think is actually literally closer to home but where American
lives have been at risk is the Middle East, I think is one topic. What seems to be the ambivalence
or the lack of a clear set of goals - maybe that ambivalence comes from not knowing what outcome
we want or who is our friend or what a better world is for the United States and of Syria, and
then ultimately on the Iranian side if you think of the Korean bomb as far away and just the Tehran
death spot, the Iranians are more calculated in a hotter area with - where does that go? And I
tell you, I couldn't - I couldn't myself tell - you know how we would like things to work out,
but it's not discernable to me what the policy of the United States is towards an outcome either
in Syria or where we get to in Iran.
MS. CLINTON: Well, part of it is it's a wicked problem , and it's a wicked
problem that is very hard to unpack in part because as you just said, Lloyd, it's not clear
what the outcome is going to be and how we could influence either that outcome or a different
outcome.
(I say "cope with" rather than "solve" for reasons that will become apparent.) Yes, Syria's bad,
as vividly shown by Blankfein's fumbling question, but I want to focus on the term "wicked problem,"
which comes from the the field of strategic planning, though it's also infiltrated
information technology
and management
theory . The concept originated in a famous paper by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber
entitled: "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning" (PDF), Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155-169.
I couldn't summarize the literature even if I had the time, but here is Rittel and Webber's introduction:
There are at least ten distinguishing properties of planning-type problems, i.e. wicked ones,
that planners had better be alert to and which we shall comment upon in turn. As you will see,
we are calling them "wicked" not because these properties are themselves ethically deplorable.
We use the term "wicked" in a meaning akin to that of "malignant" (in contrast to "benign") or
"vicious" (like a circle) or "tricky" (like a leprechaun) or "aggressive" (like a lion, in contrast
to the docility of a lamb). We do not mean to personify these properties of social systems by
implying malicious intent. But then, you may agree that it becomes morally objectionable for the
planner to treat a wicked problem as though it were a tame one, or to tame a wicked problem prematurely,
or to refuse to recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems.
And here is a list of Rittel and Webber's ten properties of a "wicked problem" (
and a critique ):
There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rule Solutions
to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. There is no immediate and no ultimate
test of a solution to a wicked problem. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation";
because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions,
nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the
plan. Every wicked problem is essentially unique. Every wicked problem can be considered to be
a symptom of another [wicked] problem. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous
ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution. [With wicked
problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong.
Of course, there's plenty of controversy about all of this, but if you throw these properties
against the Syrian clusterf*ck, I think you'll see a good fit, and can probably come up with other
examples. My particular concern, however, is with property #3:
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad
There are conventionalized criteria for objectively deciding whether the offered solution to
an equation or whether the proposed structural formula of a chemical compound is correct or false.
They can be independently checked by other qualified persons who are familiar with the established
criteria; and the answer will be normally unambiguous.
For wicked planning problems, there are no true or false answers. Normally, many parties are
equally equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge the solutions, although none has the power
to set formal decision rules to determine correctness. Their judgments are likely to differ widely
to accord with their group or personal interests, their special value-sets, and their ideological
predilections. Their assessments of proposed solutions are expressed as "good" or "bad" or, more
likely, as "better or worse" or "satisfying" or "good enough."
(Today, we would call these "many parties" "stakeholders.") My concern is that a Clinton administration,
far from compromising - to be fair, Clinton does genuflect toward "compromise" elsewhere - will try
to make wicked planning problems more tractable by reducing the number of parties to policy decisions.
That is, exactly, what "irredeemables" implies[2], which is unfortunate, especially when the cast
out amount to well over a third of the population. The same tendencies were also visible in the Clinton
campaigns approach to Sanders and Sanders supporters, and the general strategy of bringing the Blame
Cannons to bear on those who demonstrate insufficient fealty.
From a governance perspective, watch for many more executive orders acceptable to neither right
nor left, and plenty of decisions taken in secret. The bomb that could explode here is the
legitimacy of a Clinton administration, depending on the parties removed from the policy discussion,
and the nature of the decision taken.
Conclusion
I don't think volatility will decrease on November 8, should Clinton be elected and take office;
if anything, it will increase. A ruling party in thrall to finance, intent on treating government
functions as opportunities for looting by cronies, blinded by neoliberal ideology and hence incapable
of providing truly universal health care, and whose approach to problems of conflict in values is
to demonize and exclude the opposition is a recipe for continued crisis.
NOTES
[1]
Matt Taibbi takes the view that "Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she
came off as relaxed, self-doubting, reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and
unafraid to admit she lacked all the answers." I don't buy it. It all read like the same old Clinton
to me, and I've read a lot of Clinton (see, e.g.,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here , and
here ).
[2] One is irresistibly reminded of Stalin's "No man, no problem," although some consider Stalin's
methods to be unsound. oho
October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm
I had never read this article before. Near perfect diagnosis and even more relevant today than
it was then. For everyone's benefit, the central thesis:
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason-the
powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market
governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit-and, most of the time,
genteel-oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are
the controlling shareholders.
…
Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world's most advanced economy, military,
and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.
In a primitive political system, power is transmitted through violence, or the threat of
violence: military coups, private militias, and so on. In a less primitive system more typical
of emerging markets, power is transmitted via money: bribes, kickbacks, and offshore bank accounts.
Although lobbying and campaign contributions certainly play major roles in the American political
system, old-fashioned corruption-envelopes stuffed with $100 bills-is probably a sideshow today,
Jack Abramoff notwithstanding.
Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of
cultural capital-a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good
for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street
was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors
to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the
way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it
benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions
and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America's position in the world.
A hypothesis (at least for "Main Street") proven true between 2009 and 2016:
Emerging-market countries have only a precarious hold on wealth, and are weaklings globally.
When they get into trouble, they quite literally run out of money -- or at least out of foreign
currency, without which they cannot survive. They must make difficult decisions; ultimately,
aggressive action is baked into the cake. But the U.S., of course, is the world's most powerful
nation, rich beyond measure, and blessed with the exorbitant privilege of paying its foreign
debts in its own currency, which it can print. As a result, it could very well stumble along
for years-as Japan did during its lost decade-never summoning the courage to do what it needs
to do, and never really recovering.
Lastly, the "bleak" scenario from 2009 that today looks about a decade too early, but could
with minor tuning (Southern instead of Eastern Europe, for example) end up hitting in a big way:
It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central
Europe collapses, and-because eastern Europe's banks are mostly owned by western European banks-justifiable
fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits
and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated,
and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic
worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto
both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration's current budget are increasingly
seen as unrealistic, and the rosy "stress scenario" that the U.S. Treasury is currently using
to evaluate banks' balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
…
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump "cannot be as
bad as the Great Depression." This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse
than the Great Depression-because the world is now so much more interconnected and because
the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries,
a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances.
If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on
the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
That's a good reminder to us at NC that not all our readers have been with us since 2009 and
may not be familiar with the great financial crash and subsequent events. I remember reading the
Johnson article when it came out. And now, almost eight years later…
There's a reason that there's a "Banana Republic" category. Every time I read an article about
the political economy of a second- or third-world country I look for how it applies to this country,
and much of the time, it does, particularly on corruption.
We truly must consider the possibility Goldman wrote the 3 speeches, then paid Hillary to give
them.
Next, leak them to Wiki. Everything in them is pretty close to pure fiction – but it is neolib
banker fiction. Just makes it all seem more real when they do things this way.
Yike's, I'm turning into a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Don't fall for the 'status quo's' language Jedi mind trick crazyboy. I like to call myself
a "sane conspiracy theorist." You can too!
As for H Clinton's 'slavish' adherence to the Bankster Ethos; in psychology, there is the "Stockholm
Syndrome." Here, H Clinton displays the markers of "Wall Street Syndrome."
Ugh. Mindless drivel. Talking points provided by Wall St itself would sound identical.
Then there's this: She did NOT represent Wall St and the Banks while a Senator. They cannot
vote. They are not people. They are not citizens. She represented the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE that
can VOTE. You cannot represent a nonexistent entity like a corporation as an ELECTED official.
You can ONLY represent those who actually can, or do, vote. End of story.
I saw a video in high school years back that mentioned a specific congressional ruling that
gave Congress the equivalent to individual rights. I swear it was also in the 30s but I cannot
recall and have never been able to find what it was I saw. Do you have any insight here?
Historical Background and Legal Basis of the Federal Register / CFR Publications System
Why was the Federal Register System Established ?
New Deal legislation of the 1930's delegated responsibility from Congress to agencies to
regulate complex social and economic issues
Citizens needed access to new regulations to know their effect in advance
Agencies and Citizens needed a centralized filing and publication system to keep track of rules
Courts began to rule on "secret law" as a violation of right to due process under the Constitution
But don't forget. She is the most qualified candidate… EVER . Remind me again
how this species was able to bring three stranded Apollo 13 astronauts back from the abyss, the
vacuum of space with some tape and tubing.
This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested
in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward
in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is
the palace.
The show is disappointing, the debaters play at talking nuclear policy, but have *nothing*
to say about Saudi Arabia's new arsenal.
When politicos talk nuclear, they only mean to allege a threat to Israel, blame Russia, or
fear-monger the North Koreans.
We're in the loop, but only the quietest whispers of the conflict in Pakistan are available.
It sounds pretty serious, but there is only interest in attacking inconvenient Arabs.
On Trump, what an interesting study in communications. The no man you speak of. Even himself
caught between his own insincerity towards higher purpose and his own ego as 'the establishment'
turns on him.
The proles of his support are truely a silent majority. The Republicans promised us Reagan
for twenty years, and it's finally the quasi-Democrat Trump who delivers.
> This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
+100
With a wall of American flags waving in the background as the smoke and flames rise.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to
be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and
that includes Wall Street and Main Street.
this all reads like a cokehead's flow of consciousness on some ethereal topic with no intellectual
content on the matter to express. I would have said extemporaneous, but you know it was all scripted,
so that's even worse.
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"Do you know what the man is saying? Do you? This is dialectics.
It's very simple dialectics. One through nine, no maybes, no
supposes, no fractions - you can't travel in space, you can't go out
into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions - what
are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths - what are you
going to do when you go from here to Venus or something - that's
dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you
either love somebody or you hate them."
"Da5id's voice is deep and placid, with no trace of stress. The syllables roll off his tongue
like drool. As Hiro walks down the hallway he can hear Da5id talking all the way. 'i ge en i ge
en nu ge en nu ge en us sa tu ra lu ra ze em men….'" –Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Completely agree. When I first read excerpts from her speeches, I was appalled at the constant
use of "you know" peppering most of her sentences. To me, people who constantly bifurcate sentences
with "you know" are simply blathering. They usually don't have any in-depth knowledge of the subject
matter on which they are opining. Compare Hillary being asked to comment on a subject with someone
such as Michael Hudson or Bill Black commenting on a subject and she simply sounds illiterate.
I have this feeling that her educational record is based on an ability to memorize and parrot
back answers rather than someone who can reach a conclusion by examining multiple concepts.
Here's what I don't understand: The lady (and her husband) have LOADS of money. Yet this is
the best that she can do?
Really?
Heck, if I had half the Clintons' money, I'd be hiring the BEST speechwriters, acting coaches,
and fashion consultants on the planet. And I'd be taking their advice and RUNNING with it. Sheesh.
Some people have more money than sense.
Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate
and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in
a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further
fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution.
Its in the culture: Podesta does it, Blumenthal does it
And now they blame the Russians!!!! Imagine the lunacy within the white house if this fool
is elected.
I think she is just not that smart. Maybe intelligent but not flexible enough to do much with
it.
Smart people seek the advice of even smarter people and knowing that experts disagree, they
make sure that there is dissent on the advisory team. Then they make up their mind.
One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent
advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on
the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will
not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework
instead of building her own ideas with it.
I don't think so. The "you know" has a name, it's called a "verbal tick" and is one of the
first things that is attacked when one learns how to speak publicly. Verbal ticks come in many
forms, the "ums" for example, or repeating the last few words you just said, over and over again.
The brain is complex. The various parts of the brain needed for speech; cognition, vocabulary,
and vocalizations, actually have difficulty synchronizing. The vocalization part tends to be faster
than the rest of the brain and can spit out words faster than the person can put them together.
As a result, the "buffer" if you will runs empty, and the speech part of the brains simply fills
in the gaps with random gibberish.
You can train yourself out of this habit of course – but it's something that takes practice.
So I take HRC's "you know" as evidence that these are unscripted speeches and is directly improvising.
How come her responses during the debates are not peppered with these verbal ticks. At least,
I don't recall her saying you know so many times. Isn't she improvising then?
As Lambert said, HRC doesn't do unscripted. The email leaks even sends us evidence that her
interviews were scripted and town hall events were carful staged. Even sidestepping that however,
dealing with verbal ticks is not all that difficult with a bit of practice and self-awareness.
"You know" is an insidious variation on "like" and "andum", the latter two being bias neutral
forms of mental vapor lock of tbe speech center pausing for higher level intellectual processes
to refill the speech centers tapped out RAM.
The "you know" variant is an end run on the listener's cognitive functions logic filters. Is
essence appropriating a claim to the listener.
I detest "you knows" immediately with "no i dont know, please explain."
The same with "they say" i will always ask "who are they?"
I think this is important to fo do to ppl for no ofher reason thanto nake them think critically
even if it is a fleeting annoyance.
Back on HRC, i have maintai we that many people overrate her intellectual grasp. Personally
I think she is a hea ily cosched parrot. "The US has achieved energy independence"…. TILT. Just
because you state things smugly doesnt mean its reality.
I think what I call the lacunae words are really revealing in people's speech. When she says
"you know" she is emphasizing that she and the listener both know what she is "talking around."
Shared context as a form of almost - encryption, you could say. "This" rather than '"finance"
Here rather than at Goldman.I don't know what you'd call it exactly- free floating referent? A
habit, methinks, of avoiding being quoted or pinned down. It reminds me of the leaked emails…everyone
is very careful to talk around things and they can because they all know what they are talking
about. Hillary is consistently referred to, in an eerie H. Rider Haggard way, as "her" - like
some She Who Must Not Be Named.
What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know?
Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You
know!
This election cycle just proves how bad things have become. The two top presidential candidates
are an egotistical ignoramus and the quintessential establishment politician and they are neck
and neck because the voting public is Planet Stupid. Things will just continue to fall apart in
slow motion until some spark (like another financial implosion) sets off the next revolution.
"Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now, what would be your advice
to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you [Wall St] for eight years."
I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing.
No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate.
But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we
need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that
for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring
Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money.
I heard similar impressions of her at the time, from women who had dealt with her: Book smart.
Street smart. Likeable. But what might have been the best compromise you could get in one decade,
may have needed re-thinking as you moved along in time. The cast of players changes. Those who
once ruled are now gone. Oh, but the money! And so old ideas can calcify. I'm not suggesting that
Trump is even in the ballpark in terms of making compromises, speeches, life changes or anything
else to have ever been proud of. Still, the capacity to grow and change is important in a leader.
So where are we going now?
A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid."
I've said this once, but I'll say it again: After the 2008 caucus debacle, Clinton fired the
staff and rejiggered the campaign. They went to lots of small venues, like high school
gyms - in other words, "deplorables" territory - and Clinton did her detail, "I have a plan" thing,
which worked really well in that context because people who need government to deliver
concrete material benefits like that, and rightly. They also organized via cheap phones, because
that was how to reach their voters, who weren't hanging out at Starbucks. And, history being written
by the winners, we forget that using that strategy, Clinton won all the big states and (if all
the votes are counted) a majority of the popular vote. So, good decision on her part. And so from
that we've moved to the open corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign apparatus
that takes 11 people to polish and approve a single tweet.
So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016,
and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that
will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open
question, but this post argues not.
"Apparently, the provision of public services is not within government's remit! What are Social
Security and Medicare? "
What is the US Post Office? Rumor has it that the PO is mentioned in the US Constitution, a
fact that is conveniently forgotten by Strict Constructionists.
With respect to regulation, I think it should be less a case of quantity, and more one of quality,
but Clinton seems to want to make it about finding the sweet spot of exactly how many regulations
will be the right amount.
In general, when companies are willing to spot you $225,000 to speak for some relatively short
period of time, willing to meet your demands regarding transportation, hotel accommodations, etc.,
why would you take the chance of killing the goose that's laying those golden eggs by saying anything
likely to tick them off?
I'd like to think she's kind of embarrassed to have people see how humdrum/boring her speeches
were for how much she was paid to give them, but I think there's got to be more "there" somewhere
that she didn't want people to be made aware of – and it doesn't necessarily have to be Americans,
it could be something to do with foreign governments, foreign policy, trade, etc.
After learning how many people it takes to send out a tweet with her name on it, I have no
idea how she managed this speech thing, unless one of her requirements was that she had to be
presented with all questions in advance, so she could be prepared.
I am more depressed by the day, as it's really beginning to sink in that she's going to be
president, and it all just makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.
Also the "Wicked Problems" definitions are very, very interesting. Thank you for bringing those
in! I would add that these wicked problems lead to more wicked problems. It is basically dishonesty,
and to protect the lie you double down with more, and more, and more…. Most of Clinton's decisions
and career seem to be knots of wicked problems.
The wicked problem is quickly becoming our entire system of governance. Clinton has been described
as the malignant tumor here before, but even she is a place holder for the rot. One head of the
Hydra that I feel Establishment players would generally be okay with sacrificing if it came to
it (and maybe I am wrong there–but it seems as if a lot of the push fro her comes from her inner
circle and others play along).
Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall
take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!
I've heard/read in some places Hillary Clinton described as a "safe pair of hands". I don't
understand where this characterization comes from. She's dangerous.
If she wins with as strong of an electoral map as Obama in '08, she'll take it as a strong
mandate and she'll have an ambitious agenda and likely attempt to overreach. I've been meaning
to call my congressional reps early and say "No military action on Syria, period!"
She might use a "public option" as an ACA stealth bailout scheme, but I don't think the public
has much appetite to see additional resources being thrown at a "failed experiment". I worry that
Bernie's being brought on board for this kind of thing. He should avoid it.
Is she crazy enough to go for a grand bargain right away? That seems nutty and has been a "Waterloo"
for many presidents.
Remember how important Obama's first year was. Bailouts and ACA were all done that first year.
How soon can we put President Clinton II in lame duck status?
Not really surprised by the intellectual and rhetorical poverty demonstrated by these speeches.
Given the current trajectory of our politics, the bar hasn't really been set very high. In fact
it looks like we're going to reach full Idiocracy long before originally predicted.
You ask, " What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they were paying for? "
But I think you know. Corruption has become so institutionalized that it is impossible to point
to any specific Quid Pro Quo. The Quo is the entire system in which GS operates and the care and
feeding of which the politicians are paid to administer.
We focus on HRC's speeches and payments here but I wonder how many other paid talks are given
to GS each year by others up and down the influence spectrum. As Bill Black says, a dollar given
to a politician provides the largest possible Return on Investment of any expenditure. It is Wall
Street's long-term health insurance plan.
Yeah we know which part of the "stool" we'll be getting.If the finance sector is "the nerves,
the spinal column" of the country, I suggest the country find a shallow pool in which to shove
it – head first.
I skimmed the /. comments on a story about this yesterday; basically everyone missed the obvious
and went with vox-type responses ("she's a creature of the system / in-fighter / Serious Person").
"So I'm not interested in, you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers,
but I am interested in trying to figure out how we come together to chart a better way
forward and one that will restore confidence in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and
consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment rate [five years into the recession!]."
Basically, even better than a get out of jail free card, in that it is rather a promise that
we won't go back and ever hold you responsible, and we have done the best we could so far to avoid
having you own up to anything or be held accountable in any way beyond some niggling fines, which
of course, you are happy to pay, because in the end, that is simply a handout to the legal industry,
who are your best drinking buddies.
The latter part of that quote is just mumbo jumbo non-sequitir blathering. Clinton appears
to know next to nothing about finance, only that it generates enormous amounts of cash for the
oh so deserving work that God told them to do.
+1 exactly: There will be no retrospective prosecutions and none in the future either, trust
me! Not the she is any better than Eric Holder but she is certain she should be paid more than
him.
Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at
100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing
except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k
for a single speech…
I've only skimmed through the speech transcripts; did I miss something of substance?
Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual
fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction
of her speeches as mindless drivel.
However, you may be overthinking the "wicked problem" language. While it is certainly
possible that she is familiar with the literature that you cite, nothing else in her speeches
suggests that she commands that level of intellectual detail. This makes me think that somewhere
along the line she befriended someone from the greater Boston area who uses "wicked" the way Valley
Girls use "like". When I first heard the expression decades ago, I found it charming and incorporated
it into my own common usage. And I don't use it anything like you describe. To me it is simply
used for emphasis. Nothing more or less than that, but I am amused to see an entire literature
devoted to the concept of a "wicked problem".
I remain depressed by this election. No matter how it turns out, it's going to wicked suck
; )
I think the inarticulateness/cliche infestation is a ploy and a deflection; this is a very
intelligent woman who can effectively marshall language when she feels the need. That need was
more likely felt in private meetings with the inner cabal at Goldman.
Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and
that was not the case, either.
Finally, as a thought experiment, I'd like to suggest that, granting that Clintonismo will
privilege those interests which best fortify their arguments with cash, it's also true that Bill
and Hillary are all about Bill and Hillary. In other words, it could be that she has the same
hustler's disregard toward the lumpen Assistant Vice Presidents filling that room at GS as she
does for the average voter. Thus, the empty, past-their-expiration-date calories.
Sure, she'll take their money and do their bidding, but why even bother to make any more effort
than necessary? On a very primal level with these two, it's all about the hustle and the action,
and everyone's a potential rube.
As in, when Bill put his presidency on the line, the base were expected to circle the wagons.
As in, "I'm With Her". Not "She's With Us", natch. It's *always* about the Clintons.
"Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she came off as relaxed, self-doubting,
reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and unafraid to admit she lacked all
the answers."
seriously, matt taibbi? next, i would like to hear about the positive, feelgood, warmfuzzy
qualities of vampire squids (hugs cthulhu doll).
Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like
bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should
henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets
on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people.
agree w you except about Bernie. he always said he'd support the nominee. the suddenness of
his capitulation has led many of us to believe he was threatened. somewhere I read something about
"someone" planting kiddieporn on his son's computer if he didn't do…… I dunno. I reserve judgement
on Sanders until I learn more,…. if i ever do
Clinton's remarks were typically vague, as one might expect from a politician; she doesn't
want to be pinned down. This may be part of the banality of her remarks.
What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for
a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying
this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor
of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear
war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon
used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan
B" Obama is pursuing in Syria?
In the Russian press every day for a long time now they have been discussing the prospect of
a conflict. Russia has been conducting civil defense drills in its cities and advised its citizens
to recall any children living abroad. This is never reported in our press, which only presents
us with caricatures of Putin. Russians are not taken seriously.
During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war
must not be allowed.
No it wasn't. Far from it. By some miracle, the globe escaped instant incineration but only
barely. The Soviets, to their credit, were not about to risk nuclear annihilation to get one
up on the US of Perfidy. Our own Dauntless Warriors were more than willing, and I believe it's
only through dumb luck that a first strike wasn't launched deliberately or by deliberate "accident."
Review the Cold War concept of Brinkmanship.
The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of
which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane
ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards.
But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding
little…
Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large,
however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility.
A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban
missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article
" "the nerves, the spinal column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did."
But this description is technically true. That is finance's proper function, co-ordinating
the flow of capital and resources, especially from where they're in excess to where they're needed.
It's a key decision-making system – for the economy, preferably not for society as a whole. That
would be the political system.
So on this basic level, the problem is that finance, more and more, has put its own institutional
and personal interests ahead of its proper function. It's grown far too huge, and stopped performing
its intended function – redistributing resources – in favor of just accumulating them, in the
rather illusory form of financial instruments, some of them pure vapor ware.
So yes, this line reflects a very bad attitude on Hillary's part, but by misappropriating a
truth – pretty typical propaganda.
No, finance does NOT "channel resources". Wash your mouth out. This is more neoliberal cant.
Financiers do not make investments in the real economy. The overwhelming majority of securities
trading is in secondary markets, which means it's speculation. And when a public company decides
whether or not to invest in a new project, it does not present a prospectus on that new project
to investors. It runs the numbers internally. For those projects, the most common source of funding
is retained earnings.
Clinton shows that she is either a Yale Law grad who does not have the slightest idea that
Wall Street does very little in the economy but fleece would-be investors, or that she is an obsequious
flatterer of those from whom she openly takes bribes.
Having heard Hillary, Chelsea (yes, she's being groomed) and many, many other politicians over
the years, including a stint covering Capitol Hill, Mme C's verbal style does not surprise to
me at all but rather strikes me as perfectly serviceable. It is a mellifluous drone designed to
lull the listener into thinking that she is on their side, and the weakness of the actual statements
only becomes clear when reading them on the page later (which rarely happens). The drowsy listener
will catch, among the words strung together like Christmas lights, just the key terms and concepts
that demonstrate knowledge of the brief and a soothing layer of vague sympathy. Those who can
award her $600K can assume with some confidence that, rhetoric aside, she will be in the tank
when needed. The rest of us have to blow away the chaff and peer into the yawning gaps lurking
behind the lawyerly parsing. In all fairness, this applies to 90% of seekers of public office.
The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional
wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory
"so no quid pro quo here" bribe.
Who on earth gives up their vote to a politician who is so shameless an corrupt that she openly
accepts bribes from groups who equally shamelessly and corruptly are looting the commons? Apparently
many, but not me.
Nothing like making lemons out of lemonade, is there?
There really is a question why she didn't do this doc dump herself when Bernie asked. Yeah,
sure, she would have been criticized ("damned if you do, damned if you don't") but because of
who she is she'll be criticized no matter what. There is nothing she can do to avoid it.
Not only is there no smoking gun, it's almost as if she's trying to inject a modicum of social
conscience into a culture that has none. And no, she isn't speaking artfully; nor is she an orator.
Oh. Not that we didn't know already.
The most galling aspect is her devotion to the neoLibCon status quo. Steady as she goes. Apparently
a lot of people find the status quo satisfactory. Feh.
If this document dump came out during the primary campaign, then HRC may have lost. Even Black,
Southern ladies can smell the corrupting odor clinging to these "speeches".
Given the way DNC protected her during the primaries, and what looked like a pretty light touch
by Bernie and (who? O'Malley was it?) toward her, I doubt these speeches would have been her undoing.
Dull and relatively benign, and policy-wise almost identical to Obama's approach to the bankers'
role in the economic unpleasantness. "Consensus" stuff with some hint of a social conscience.
Not effective and not enough to do more than the least possible ("I told them they ought to
behave better. Really!") on behalf of the Rabble.
But not a campaign killer. Even so, by not releasing transcripts during the primary, she faced
- and still faces - mountains of criticism over it. No escape. Not for her.
I'm not sure that's an appropriate strategy for dealing with multiple interlocking wicked problems,
but I'm not sure why. Suppose we invoke the Precautionary Principle - is incremental change
really the way to avoid harm?
The Consensus (of Opinions That Matter) says it is. On the other hand, blowing up the System
leads to Uncertainty, and as we know, we can't have that. Mr. Market wouldn't like it…
The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really
odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades -
that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain
of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was
particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential
to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major
task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake."
So while I think you are wrong that the speeches wouldn't have hurt her in the primary, I also
think Huma would have had to knock her out and tie her up (not in a fun way) to get those speeches
released.
I can't imagine a worse temperament to govern, particularly under the conditions she'll be
facing. But she'll be fully incompetent before too long, so I don't suppose it matters that much.
I'm morbidly curious to see how long they can keep her mostly hidden and propped up for limited
appearances, before having to let Kaine officially take over. Will we be able to figure out who's
actually in power based on the line-up on some balcony?
Fair points, though the "temperament" issue may be one that follows from the nature of the
job - even "No Drama Obama" is said to have a fierce anger streak, and secrecy, controlling behavior,
and refusing to admit error is pretty typical of presidents, VPs, and other high officials. The
King/Queen can do no wrong, dontchaknow. (cf: Bush, GW, and his whole administration for recent
examples. History is filled with them, though.)
As for Hillary's obvious errors in judgment, I think they speak for themselves and they don't
speak well of her.
TINA vs WATA (we are the alternative)…the next two years are gonna be interesting…evil is often
a cover for total incompetence and exposure…our little tsarina will insist brigades that dont
exist move against enemies that are hardly there…when she & her useless minions were last in/on
the seat of power(j edger version of sop) the netizens of the world were young and dumb…now not
so much…
I got into wicked problems 35 years ago in the outstanding book by Ian Mitroff and R. O. Mason,
"Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions." First page of Chapter One has subsection title COMPLEXITY,
followed by "A Little Experiment" Lets try the experiment with current problems.
One could come up with a list of major problems, but here is the one used by C. West Churchman
mentioned along with Horst Riddle. Churchman back in the 80's said that the problems of the world
were M*P**3, or M, P cubed, or M * P * P *P with the letters standing for Militarism, Population,
Poverty and Pollution.
Here is how they ran the exercise
1. Suppose there were a solution to any of these 4 problems, would that solution be related
to the other problems. Clearly.
2. Thus 'whenever a policy maker attempts to solve a complex policy problem, it is related
to all the others
Repeated attempts in other contexts give the same result: basically, every real world
policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem
This is from page 4, the second page of the book.
I ran this exercise for several years in ATT Bell Labs and ATT.
List major problems
How long have they been around? (most for ever except marketing was new after breakup in
'84
If one was solved, would that solution be related in any way to the other ones?
Do you know of any program that is making headway? (occasionally Quality was brought up)
This could be done in a few minutes, often less than 5 minutes
5. Conclusion: long term interdependent problems that are not being addressed
Thus the only grade that matters in this course on Corporate Transformation that now begins
is that you have new insights on these problems. This was my quest as an internal consultant in
ATT to transform the company. I failed.
I was a Sanders supporter. Many here will disagree, but if Clinton wins I don't think she's
going to act as she might have acted in 2008, if she had won.
Clinton is a politician, and *all* politicians dissemble in private, unless they're the mayor
of a small town of about 50 people – and even then! Politicians – in doing their work – *must*
compromise to some degree, with the best politicians compromising in ways that bring their constituents
more benefit, than not.
That said, Clinton is also a human being who is capable of change. This election cycle has
been an eye opener for both parties. If Clinton wins (and, I think she will), the memory of how
close it was with Sanders and the desperate anger and alienation she has experienced from Trump
supporters (and even Sanders' supporters) *must* have already gotten her thinking about what she
is going to have to get done to insure a 2020 win for Democrats, whether or not she is running
in 2020.
In sum, I think Clinton is open to change, and I don't believe that she is some deep state
evil incarnate; sge's *far* from perfect, and she's not "pure" in her positioning – thank god!,
because in politics, purists rarely accomplish anything.
If Clinton reverts to prior form (assuming she makes (POTUS), 2020 will make 2016 look like
a cakewalk, for both parties – including the appearance of serious 3rd party candidates with moxy,
smarts, and a phalanx of backers (unlike the current crop of two – Johnson and Stein).
"... The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming 2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn. ..."
"... All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all the peace and stability we bring to the region. ..."
"... This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') ..."
"... Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable. ..."
"... Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has actually driven me to turn off the nets ..."
"... Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars ..."
Reading thru the link, my favorite part was the stated purpose of the cocktail party for elite
NY reporters: "Give reporters their first thoughts . . ."
@244 Good eye, Bruce. The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming
2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn.
All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are
now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all
the peace and stability we bring to the region.
This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and
the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill
enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') .
Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary
and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime
change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable.
Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has
actually driven me to turn off the nets .
Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current
war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars
.
I learned that reading the pro-Hillary 'liberal' press.
"... The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming 2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn. ..."
"... All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all the peace and stability we bring to the region. ..."
"... This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') ..."
"... Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable. ..."
"... Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has actually driven me to turn off the nets ..."
"... Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars ..."
Reading thru the link, my favorite part was the stated purpose of the cocktail party for elite
NY reporters: "Give reporters their first thoughts . . ."
@244 Good eye, Bruce. The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming
2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn.
All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are
now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all
the peace and stability we bring to the region.
This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and
the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill
enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') .
Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary
and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime
change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable.
Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has
actually driven me to turn off the nets .
Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current
war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars
.
I learned that reading the pro-Hillary 'liberal' press.
"... I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah. I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into. ..."
"... And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats warm for them. ymmv ..."
"... This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise, clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction. ..."
"... The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi. Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless 2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that mar 2016 comparisons. ..."
"... middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving nature of the elites. ..."
"... The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about stagecraft, more than politics. ..."
"... the college-educated white new middle class (professionals and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40 percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters is around $70,000 annually. ..."
"... More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at the lower end of the scale for income and education." ..."
"... 'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the gap left by the rest. ..."
"... But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist. ..."
"... Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members." ..."
"... these sectors have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects of remaining in the middle class." ..."
"... The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control the levers of power in society. ..."
"... The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups, important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals, and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of conspiracy theory. ..."
soru: "Precisely because it is not left neoliberalism versus right neoliberalism, but left
neoliberalism versus something that is:
a: worse b: a predictable consequence of neoliberalism.
I think there is something to the thesis that Trump ripped the scab off the place where Luttwak's
"perfect non-sequitur" had rubbed the skin off the connection between the tax-cut loving Republican
establishment leadership and the Republican electoral base of male reactionary ignoramuses.
But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
A little light flavoring of theocracy on the tax cuts in other words.
I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah.
I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the
dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into.
And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal
monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight
shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats
warm for them. ymmv
" The national polls (though not so much the state polls) were off in 2012. During the closing
month of the campaign, they showed, on average, a 0.3 point Romney lead. The RAND poll [LA Times],
by contrast, showed a 3.8 point Obama lead – which was almost exactly correct."
Sean Trende throws a big bucket of salt on the LA Times poll, before getting to the accuracy
of the poll in 2012.
This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise,
clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion
driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness
among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination
of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction.
@208 I generally agree. Thanks for the link to the Nation piece. I earlier skimmed this Guardian
piece by JJ which features an extended essay from the reviewed text. John has been beating this
drum for more than a year trying to wear his two hats: partisan Dem and serious social critic.
The first serious undermines the second.
The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi.
Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless
2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that
mar 2016 comparisons.
The Judis essay marries Trump too closely to George Wallace, another populist, but critically
also a professional politician, a Democrat, and a New Dealer.
Judis has a good quote, or two, from Wallace that definitely fit the Tea Party/Silent Majority
profile – rule followers, middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving
nature of the elites.
The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones
remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about
stagecraft, more than politics. Both the Nation and the Guardian piece function as much as
thinly disguised GOTV arguments as academic assessments of the Trump phenomena.
What both get right, along with many others, is that removing Trump from the equation removes
nothing from the masses of ordinary folks who a/will not apologize for who they are and in fact
celebrate themselves and their values b/aren't interested in the approval, or the explications
of elites c/are completely determined to burn down this mess irrespective of whether Trump is
elected, or not.
Thanks for the link kidneystones, I'll check.it out. I'm working through Judis' book at the moment
and find larger parts, of it convincing.
Who. Is van Jones? Is it this lad?
…while approximately 55 percent of Trump supporters do not have a bachelor's degree, this
demographic makes up approximately 70 percent of the US population - they are underrepresented
among Trump voters. However, the college-educated white new middle class (professionals
and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40
percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters
is around $70,000 annually.
More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers
and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid
and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at
the lower end of the scale for income and education."
A systematic review of Gallup polling data demonstrates, again, that most Trump supporters
are part of the traditional middle class (self-employed) and those sectors of the new middle
class (supervisors) who do not require college degrees. They tend to live in "white enclaves"…
Kidney stones I'll check out the link above when by a laptop.
Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument (I still have to read
both Hayes and Frank ) but it's becoming quite clear that large parts of the left and right "establishment"
(which is just a shorthand way of saying those with high profile journalistic, political and cultural
positions) are going out of their way to not acknowledge what is right in from of their eyes,
that there are political and economic (as well as racial and cultural) reasons behind the rise
of right wing populism.
> But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the
Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism
now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all
depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the
gap left by the rest.
If he was elected, things would be different from what they are, or at least are understood
to be. And things being different, they would continue to be so, taking a different path from
the continuation of a status quo. My personal evidence-free assumption is that this would likely
take the nature of a decade-long crisis that would end with a return to a weakened version of
the pre-Trump regime. A pale echo of the rosy days of Obama, Bush and Clinton.
But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political
scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist.
For those not wager to read the link, here are the bits engels cut. From the beginning.
"Who are Trump's voters? Despite claims that he has won the "white working class," the vast
majority of Trump's supporters, like those of the Tea Party, are drawn from the traditional
and new middle classes, especially the older, white male and less well-off strata of these
classes. Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates
with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members."
And after enclave
"isolated from immigrants and other people of color, have worse health than the average
US resident, and are experiencing low rates of intergenerational mobility. While not directly
affected either by the decline of industry in the Midwest or by immigration, these sectors
have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects
of remaining in the middle class."
Roman, I already said I broadly agreed with you (is it the case you literally zzzzzzzzzzz)- I'm
delighted that via Luttwak you're groping towards a class analysis of fascism that has been standard
on the left since at least Trotsky…
Ronan(rf): "Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument"
There are certain decision makers who make all of the important decisions, or who at least
get a tremendously inordinate amount of power over those decisions. If they aren't making a decision
in a positive sense, their power often controls decisions in a negative sense by restricting the
available choices to those that are all acceptable to them.
The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from
the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go
against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor
their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals
to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control
the levers of power in society.
The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary
agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation
of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups,
important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals,
and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of
conspiracy theory.
"One strength of Müller book is that he spends some time parrying bad arguments about populism,
which have flourished in a variety of intellectually useless and actively pernicious think pieces.
He is especially hard on the two tics of liberal commentary heard on America's coasts: psychologizing
populism as a symptom of resentment or the "authoritarian personality," and dismissing populists
as irresponsible rubes who don't understand the tenets of sound economic and social policy.
These criticisms, Müller points out, are really refusals to take political disagreement seriously-which,
after all, is precisely the political sin of antipluralists like Trump. A major problem with the
horrified response to Trump's campaign-however appropriate in other respects-has been its self-serving
imprecision. Whether by sweeping the very different Sanders campaign into the same all-inclusive
condemnation of "irresponsible" and "angry" movements, or by lumping Trump's views on trade policy
(a legitimate argument to make in a democratic contest) with his xenophobia (which should be considered
beyond the pale), the liberal response has often created cartoons out of both left and right populism.
It also misses, in Müller's view, what is so dangerous about populism's discontents."
"... It's coastal urban elites, many of whom went to the same schools, often Ivy league talking about all the others who didn't. It's far from surprising they're so profoundly out of touch and ignorant. ..."
"... Trump enjoys/has enjoyed substantially better support among African-Americans than most Republican candidates. His populism and calls for border controls is at least partially designed to appeal to minorities on economic terms. ..."
"... Clinton meets impartial press to discuss repackaging Hillary over cocktails hosted by Diane Sawyer: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/10/your-moral-and-380.html ..."
@226 It's coastal urban elites, many of whom went to the same schools, often Ivy league talking
about all the others who didn't. It's far from surprising they're so profoundly out of touch and
ignorant.
@227 If you're referring to me, and that's a big if, I can't remember using the term anti-imperialist
ever (not that I've never said it, I just can't imagine why I would). As I've tried to make clear,
I supported Sanders, can't support Hillary for reasons I've made quite clear and regard Trump
as a clue free buffoon. To suggest he's 'lying' suggests he's actually thought through his 'arguments'
when he's almost always riffing. I hope he wins.
@228 Yes. But Trump enjoys/has enjoyed substantially better support among African-Americans
than most Republican candidates. His populism and calls for border controls is at least partially
designed to appeal to minorities on economic terms.
That's what Jones pointed out a long time ago. There's a substantial subset of African-American
voters who feel they've been extremely badly served despite consistently supporting Democrats.
Jones claims that Trump wins if 3/20 succumb to the siren song of Trump's populist boasts.
"... "deep state" - the Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you think ..."
"... Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ..."
Steve Sailer links to this
unsettling
essay by former career Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who says the "deep state" - the
Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you
think. The partisan rancor and gridlock in Washington conceals a more fundamental and pervasive
agreement.
Excerpts:
These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they
tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over
the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United
States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya,
and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert
assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing
meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government
was somehow able to commit $115 millionto keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay
at least
£100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over
and access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways
have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During
that same period of time, the government spent
$1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This
mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a
yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined.
A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive
every single trace of your electronic life.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country
according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled
by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not
an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain
sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately
termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed
to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global
reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister
aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such
as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness
towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent
ineptitude.
More:
Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it
is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes.
One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating
as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the
status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember
their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity.
On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of
these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when
we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will
have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the
chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically
abolished the constitutional right to
trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall
Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason
than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative
beyond the dreams of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
[3]
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities
we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert
Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic
involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General
David Petraeus
joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity
firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance.
General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however,
is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State
do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident
senior fellow at theBelfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the
preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
Lofgren goes on to say that Silicon Valley is a node of the Deep State too, and that despite the
protestations of its chieftains against NSA spying, it's a vital part of the Deep State's apparatus.
More:
The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war
on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of
a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the
Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited
by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live
upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face."
... I would love to see a study comparing the press coverage from 9/11 leading up to the Iraq War
with press coverage of the gay marriage issue from about 2006 till today. Specifically, I'd be curious
to know about how thoroughly the media covered the cases against the policies that the Deep State
and the Shallow State decided should prevail. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy here, not at all. I'm
only thinking back to how it seemed so obvious to me in 2002 that we should go to war with Iraq,
so perfectly clear that the only people who opposed it were fools or villains. The same consensus
has emerged around same-sex marriage. I know how overwhelmingly the news media have believed this
for some time, such that many American journalists simply cannot conceive that anyone against same-sex
marriage is anything other than a fool or a villain. Again, this isn't a conspiracy; it's in the
nature of the thing. Lofgren:
Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist
Irving L. Janis called
"groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers.
This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating
biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the
town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has
to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe
of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always
going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness
of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government
life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the
Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in
the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life
is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After
a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite
remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles
off steel plate: "You mean the
number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious
retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine
sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase
the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple
of years away from the government to reflect upon it.
When all you know is the people who surround you in your professional class bubble and your social
circles, you can think the whole world agrees with you, or should. It's probably not a coincidence
that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, the two cities
that were attacked on 9/11, and whose elites - political, military, financial - were so genuinely
traumatized by the events.
Anyway, that's just a small part of it, about how the elite media manufacture consent. Here's
a final quote, one from
the Moyers interview with Lofgren:
BILL MOYERS: If, as you write, the ideology of the Deep State is not democrat
or republican, not left or right, what is it?
MIKE LOFGREN: It's an ideology. I just don't think we've named it. It's a
kind of corporatism. Now, the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They
pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national
security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus
at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization. And they
believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere, it's our right
to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war.
This can't last. We'd better hope it can't last. And we'd better hope it unwinds peacefully.
"... I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies - that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony" without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance. ..."
"... When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order, an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy justified by groundless self-righteousness. ..."
"... And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm) But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm) ..."
"... This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump; it is an argument that Trump is another symptom. ..."
Dropping the heavy mockery for a moment to get at the logic of my view:
I think that if Y wants to stop Z from happening, Y might consider as a first expedient, self-restraint:
not doing Z, itself. That is, discipling its own forces and reforming its own strategies, when
it finds itself either doing Z or creating the conditions where Z happens.
Your strawman summation of my view is actually not half-bad:
. . . we know a priori that X [the U.S.] cannot act without committing war crimes because X
[the U.S.] is an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony, therefore any employment
of any military force in any way by X [the U.S.] anywhere necessarily constitutes a war crime,
because every aspect of X's [the U.S.'s] foreign policy is criminal and therefore every act
taken by X is criminal.
What makes this a strawman is the "we know a priori ". I don't think we know this
a priori . I think we know this, a posteriori , that is, from ample recent experience
and observation. I think there's a pattern of choice and strategy that we ought to recognize and,
if we recognize it, there might actually be an opportunity to choose differently and realize less
horrific consequences.
I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies
- that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony"
without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching
imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance.
A global hegemon in its prime is all about reducing the risks and costs of armed conflicts
and coordinating the cooperation of allied, nominally neutral and even rival states with the elaboration
of international law, norms, conventions and other agreements. The U.S. in its prime as global
hegemon was all about sponsoring the formation of organizations for global and regional multilateral
cooperation, even where its direct participation was not welcome. It is true that the political
autonomy of states was respected only to the extent that they adopted sufficiently reactionary
and economically conservative or authoritarian governments and the political costs to any other
course could be large. Back in the day, a Gaddafi or an Assad or a Saddam had to balance on an
international tightrope as well as a domestic one, but it was doable and such regimes could last
a long-time. Anyway, I do not want to litigate the mixed virtues and vices of (Anglo-)American
hegemony past, just to point out the contrast with our present circumstances.
The turn toward a palsied expedience is a distinct symptom of impending imperial collapse.
That the U.S. cannot seem to win a war or bring one to a conclusion in any finite period of time
is relevant. That a vast "deep state" is running on auto-pilot with no informed instruction or
policy control from Congress is a problem.
When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not
just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order,
an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy
justified by groundless self-righteousness.
"It's complicated" shouldn't be a preface to ungrounded simplification and just rounding up
the usual policy suspects: let's declare a no-fly zone, then find and train some moderate faction
of fierce fighters for liberal democracy (as if such exist). If we demonstrate the will and commitment
and stay the course . . . blah, blah, blah.
And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity
to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism
emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm)
But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other
guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm)
The situation in Syria is chaotic, but the chaos is in U.S. policy as well as on the ground.
But, the immediate question is not whether the U.S. will intervene, because, as other commenters
have pointed out, the U.S. has already involved itself quite deeply. The creation of ISIS, one
belligerent in the Syrian conflict is directly attributable to the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq
and the U.S. is actively attacking ISIS directly in Syrian as well as Iraqi territory. The U.S.
provides military support to multiple factions, including both Turkish-backed forces and the forces
of a Kurdish belligerent, which are in conflict with each other. Meanwhile, our great good allies,
the Saudis and Qataris are apparently funding Al Qaeda in Syria and maybe ISIS as well.
This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable
pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very
worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the
next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are
flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy
that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump;
it is an argument that Trump is another symptom.
The chaos, the breakdown of rational, deliberate and purposive control of policy, means that
policy and its rationales are often absurd. I mock the absurdity as a way of drawing attention
to it. Others seek to normalize. So, there you have it.
LFC: We do have Bruce Wilder mocking the notion that the Russians hacked into the DNC
email. Cyber specialists think it was the Russians to a 90 percent certainty, but of
course Wilder knows better. Anyway, who cares whether the Russians hacked the *******
email?
Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by
the U.S. officials making the attribution.
It looks like LFC is completely clueless about such notion as Occam's razor.
Why we need all those insinuations about Russian hackers when we know that all email boxes in
major Web mail providers are just a click away from NSA analysts.
Why Russians and not something like "Snowden II".
And what exactly Russians will get politically by torpedoing Hillary candidacy. They
probably have tons of "compromat" on her, Bill and Clinton Foundation. Trump stance on Iran is
no less dangerous and jingoistic then Hillary stance on Syria. Aggressive protectionism might
hurt Russian exports. And as for Syria, Trump can turn on a dime and became a second John
McCain anytime. Other then his idea of avoiding foreign military presence (or more correctly
that allies should pay for it) and anti-globalization stance he does not have a fixed set of
policies at all.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the
country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only
intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of
this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a
state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day.
Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex
societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and
perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the
American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly
sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its
failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only
the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to
escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
In view of all this, LFC anti-Russian stance looks extremely naïve and/or represents
displaced anti-Semitism.
In a way Hillary laments about Russia interference are
what is typically called "The pot calling the kettle black" as she is exactly the specialist
in this area. BTW there is a documented history of the US interference into Russian elections
of 2011-2012.
In which Hillary (via ambassador McFaul and the net of NGOs) was trying to stage a "color
revolution" (nicknamed "white revolution") in Russia and prevent the re-election of Putin. The
main instrument was claiming the fraud in ballot counting.
Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy
and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt
neoliberal regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar
sites, and especially organizations that conduct polls after that.
And RT covered staged revelations of "Hillary campaign corruption" 24 x 7. As was done by
Western MSM in regard to Alexei Navalny web site and him personally as the savior of Russia
from entrenched corruption (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny )
Actually the USA has several organizations explicitly oriented on interference in foreign
elections and promotion of "color revolutions", with functions that partially displaced old
functions of CIA (as in Italian elections of 1948). For example, NED.
Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more
honest elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post",
primaries, state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ?
It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the
current presidential elections :-)
Here is a quote that can navigate them in right direction (note the irony of her words
after DNC throw Sanders under the bus ;-)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling
practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people
everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said
in Bonn, Germany.
With 99.9 percent of ballots processed, election officials said that United Russia had
won 238 seats in Parliament, or about 53 percent, from 315 seats or 70 percent now. The
Communist Party won 92 seats; Just Russia, a social democratic party, won 64 seats and the
national Liberal Democratic Party won 56 seats.
Rich Puchalsky 10.16.16 at 9:26 pm
LFC: "Would a multilateral action - not unilateral by the U.S. alone, but multilateral -
undertaken in response to, e.g., the current situation in Aleppo necessarily violate
international law if it lacked UN sanction?"
This would be a kind of coalition - only of willing countries, of course - maybe we could
call it something catchy, like The Willing Coalition. Are we allowed to bring up recent history
at all, or does that make us America haters? It's strange how these hard cases just keep coming
up. Alternatively, we could go for Reset Theory. We need to look forwards instead of looking
backwards.
So let's avoid recent history, and just go to ancient history, like that long-outmoded relic,
the Security Council. I'd had some vague impression that the chance of military conflict between
Security Council members was supposed to be Very Very Bad and by definition worse than any other
result, so much so a lot of the legalities that you're casually thinking of writing into the law
books later were intended to prevent exactly the kinds of situations that you're proposing, in
which members of the Security Council started to think about gathering coalitions to shoot down
each other's planes.
But I'm a crazy anarchist, and you're an international affairs expert. So why don't you tell me.
"... "deep state" - the Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you think ..."
"... Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ..."
Steve Sailer links to this
unsettling
essay by former career Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who says the "deep state" - the
Washington-Wall-Street-Silicon-Valley Establishment - is a far greater threat to liberty than you
think. The partisan rancor and gridlock in Washington conceals a more fundamental and pervasive
agreement.
Excerpts:
These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they
tend to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over
the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United
States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya,
and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert
assistance to French intervention there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing
meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government
was somehow able to commit $115 millionto keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay
at least
£100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over
and access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways
have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During
that same period of time, the government spent
$1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This
mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a
yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined.
A yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive
every single trace of your electronic life.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country
according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled
by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not
an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain
sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately
termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed
to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global
reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister
aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such
as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness
towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent
ineptitude.
More:
Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it
is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes.
One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating
as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the
status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember
their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity.
On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of
these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when
we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will
have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the
chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically
abolished the constitutional right to
trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall
Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason
than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative
beyond the dreams of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
[3]
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities
we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert
Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic
involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General
David Petraeus
joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity
firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance.
General Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however,
is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State
do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident
senior fellow at theBelfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the
preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
Lofgren goes on to say that Silicon Valley is a node of the Deep State too, and that despite the
protestations of its chieftains against NSA spying, it's a vital part of the Deep State's apparatus.
More:
The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war
on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of
a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the
Deep State, and its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited
by its overweening sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live
upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face."
... I would love to see a study comparing the press coverage from 9/11 leading up to the Iraq War
with press coverage of the gay marriage issue from about 2006 till today. Specifically, I'd be curious
to know about how thoroughly the media covered the cases against the policies that the Deep State
and the Shallow State decided should prevail. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy here, not at all. I'm
only thinking back to how it seemed so obvious to me in 2002 that we should go to war with Iraq,
so perfectly clear that the only people who opposed it were fools or villains. The same consensus
has emerged around same-sex marriage. I know how overwhelmingly the news media have believed this
for some time, such that many American journalists simply cannot conceive that anyone against same-sex
marriage is anything other than a fool or a villain. Again, this isn't a conspiracy; it's in the
nature of the thing. Lofgren:
Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist
Irving L. Janis called
"groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers.
This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating
biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the
town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has
to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe
of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always
going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness
of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time. Government
life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the
Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00 in
the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life
is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After
a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite
remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles
off steel plate: "You mean the
number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious
retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless one is blessed with imagination and a fine
sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's surroundings is easy. To paraphrase
the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew, at least until I had had a couple
of years away from the government to reflect upon it.
When all you know is the people who surround you in your professional class bubble and your social
circles, you can think the whole world agrees with you, or should. It's probably not a coincidence
that the American media elite live, work, and socialize in New York and Washington, the two cities
that were attacked on 9/11, and whose elites - political, military, financial - were so genuinely
traumatized by the events.
Anyway, that's just a small part of it, about how the elite media manufacture consent. Here's
a final quote, one from
the Moyers interview with Lofgren:
BILL MOYERS: If, as you write, the ideology of the Deep State is not democrat
or republican, not left or right, what is it?
MIKE LOFGREN: It's an ideology. I just don't think we've named it. It's a
kind of corporatism. Now, the actors in this drama tend to steer clear of social issues. They
pretend to be merrily neutral servants of the state, giving the best advice possible on national
security or financial matters. But they hold a very deep ideology of the Washington consensus
at home, which is deregulation, outsourcing, de-industrialization and financialization. And they
believe in American exceptionalism abroad, which is boots on the ground everywhere, it's our right
to meddle everywhere in the world. And the result of that is perpetual war.
This can't last. We'd better hope it can't last. And we'd better hope it unwinds peacefully.
"... I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies - that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony" without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance. ..."
"... When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order, an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy justified by groundless self-righteousness. ..."
"... And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm) But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm) ..."
"... This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump; it is an argument that Trump is another symptom. ..."
Dropping the heavy mockery for a moment to get at the logic of my view:
I think that if Y wants to stop Z from happening, Y might consider as a first expedient, self-restraint:
not doing Z, itself. That is, discipling its own forces and reforming its own strategies, when
it finds itself either doing Z or creating the conditions where Z happens.
Your strawman summation of my view is actually not half-bad:
. . . we know a priori that X [the U.S.] cannot act without committing war crimes because X
[the U.S.] is an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony, therefore any employment
of any military force in any way by X [the U.S.] anywhere necessarily constitutes a war crime,
because every aspect of X's [the U.S.'s] foreign policy is criminal and therefore every act
taken by X is criminal.
What makes this a strawman is the "we know a priori ". I don't think we know this
a priori . I think we know this, a posteriori , that is, from ample recent experience
and observation. I think there's a pattern of choice and strategy that we ought to recognize and,
if we recognize it, there might actually be an opportunity to choose differently and realize less
horrific consequences.
I would not precisely characterize the recognizable pattern of American choices and strategies
- that is, of American policy - as that of "an imperial power bent on maintaining its global hegemony"
without further qualification. I would say the pattern is that of a global hegemon approaching
imperial collapse. There are important differences, with immediate relevance.
A global hegemon in its prime is all about reducing the risks and costs of armed conflicts
and coordinating the cooperation of allied, nominally neutral and even rival states with the elaboration
of international law, norms, conventions and other agreements. The U.S. in its prime as global
hegemon was all about sponsoring the formation of organizations for global and regional multilateral
cooperation, even where its direct participation was not welcome. It is true that the political
autonomy of states was respected only to the extent that they adopted sufficiently reactionary
and economically conservative or authoritarian governments and the political costs to any other
course could be large. Back in the day, a Gaddafi or an Assad or a Saddam had to balance on an
international tightrope as well as a domestic one, but it was doable and such regimes could last
a long-time. Anyway, I do not want to litigate the mixed virtues and vices of (Anglo-)American
hegemony past, just to point out the contrast with our present circumstances.
The turn toward a palsied expedience is a distinct symptom of impending imperial collapse.
That the U.S. cannot seem to win a war or bring one to a conclusion in any finite period of time
is relevant. That a vast "deep state" is running on auto-pilot with no informed instruction or
policy control from Congress is a problem.
When commenters decry the failure to observe the norms of international law, they are not
just being moralists in an immoral world; they are decrying the erosion of international order,
an erosion that has been accelerated by the U.S. turn toward futile expedience as a foreign policy
justified by groundless self-righteousness.
"It's complicated" shouldn't be a preface to ungrounded simplification and just rounding up
the usual policy suspects: let's declare a no-fly zone, then find and train some moderate faction
of fierce fighters for liberal democracy (as if such exist). If we demonstrate the will and commitment
and stay the course . . . blah, blah, blah.
And, the R2P doctrine has been ruined not just by hypocrisy but by the demonstrated incapacity
to match means to putative ends. It is not just suspicious that the impulse to humanitarianism
emerges only when an opportunity to blow things up arises, it's criminal. Or should be. (sarcasm)
But, of course, it is not criminal, because atrocities are only a problem when it is the other
guy committing them. Then, we can exercise our righteousness for the good, old cause. (end sarcasm)
The situation in Syria is chaotic, but the chaos is in U.S. policy as well as on the ground.
But, the immediate question is not whether the U.S. will intervene, because, as other commenters
have pointed out, the U.S. has already involved itself quite deeply. The creation of ISIS, one
belligerent in the Syrian conflict is directly attributable to the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq
and the U.S. is actively attacking ISIS directly in Syrian as well as Iraqi territory. The U.S.
provides military support to multiple factions, including both Turkish-backed forces and the forces
of a Kurdish belligerent, which are in conflict with each other. Meanwhile, our great good allies,
the Saudis and Qataris are apparently funding Al Qaeda in Syria and maybe ISIS as well.
This chaos, I repeat, is inherent in the organization of U.S. policy - it is an observable
pattern, not a property by axiomatic definition as your strawman would have it, but it is very
worrisome. It is a symptom of what I rather dramatically labeled "imperial collapse". That the
next President of the U.S. cannot work out why a no-fly zone in a country where the Russians are
flying might be a bad idea is not a good sign. That the same person was a proponent of the policy
that plunged Libya into chaos is another not-good sign. That's not an argument for Trump;
it is an argument that Trump is another symptom.
The chaos, the breakdown of rational, deliberate and purposive control of policy, means that
policy and its rationales are often absurd. I mock the absurdity as a way of drawing attention
to it. Others seek to normalize. So, there you have it.
LFC: We do have Bruce Wilder mocking the notion that the Russians hacked into the DNC
email. Cyber specialists think it was the Russians to a 90 percent certainty, but of
course Wilder knows better. Anyway, who cares whether the Russians hacked the *******
email?
Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by
the U.S. officials making the attribution.
It looks like LFC is completely clueless about such notion as Occam's razor.
Why we need all those insinuations about Russian hackers when we know that all email boxes in
major Web mail providers are just a click away from NSA analysts.
Why Russians and not something like "Snowden II".
And what exactly Russians will get politically by torpedoing Hillary candidacy. They
probably have tons of "compromat" on her, Bill and Clinton Foundation. Trump stance on Iran is
no less dangerous and jingoistic then Hillary stance on Syria. Aggressive protectionism might
hurt Russian exports. And as for Syria, Trump can turn on a dime and became a second John
McCain anytime. Other then his idea of avoiding foreign military presence (or more correctly
that allies should pay for it) and anti-globalization stance he does not have a fixed set of
policies at all.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the
country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only
intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of
this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a
state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day.
Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex
societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and
perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the
American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither
omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly
sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its
failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only
the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to
escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
In view of all this, LFC anti-Russian stance looks extremely naïve and/or represents
displaced anti-Semitism.
In a way Hillary laments about Russia interference are
what is typically called "The pot calling the kettle black" as she is exactly the specialist
in this area. BTW there is a documented history of the US interference into Russian elections
of 2011-2012.
In which Hillary (via ambassador McFaul and the net of NGOs) was trying to stage a "color
revolution" (nicknamed "white revolution") in Russia and prevent the re-election of Putin. The
main instrument was claiming the fraud in ballot counting.
Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy
and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt
neoliberal regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar
sites, and especially organizations that conduct polls after that.
And RT covered staged revelations of "Hillary campaign corruption" 24 x 7. As was done by
Western MSM in regard to Alexei Navalny web site and him personally as the savior of Russia
from entrenched corruption (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny )
Actually the USA has several organizations explicitly oriented on interference in foreign
elections and promotion of "color revolutions", with functions that partially displaced old
functions of CIA (as in Italian elections of 1948). For example, NED.
Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more
honest elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post",
primaries, state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ?
It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the
current presidential elections :-)
Here is a quote that can navigate them in right direction (note the irony of her words
after DNC throw Sanders under the bus ;-)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling
practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people
everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said
in Bonn, Germany.
With 99.9 percent of ballots processed, election officials said that United Russia had
won 238 seats in Parliament, or about 53 percent, from 315 seats or 70 percent now. The
Communist Party won 92 seats; Just Russia, a social democratic party, won 64 seats and the
national Liberal Democratic Party won 56 seats.
Rich Puchalsky 10.16.16 at 9:26 pm
LFC: "Would a multilateral action - not unilateral by the U.S. alone, but multilateral -
undertaken in response to, e.g., the current situation in Aleppo necessarily violate
international law if it lacked UN sanction?"
This would be a kind of coalition - only of willing countries, of course - maybe we could
call it something catchy, like The Willing Coalition. Are we allowed to bring up recent history
at all, or does that make us America haters? It's strange how these hard cases just keep coming
up. Alternatively, we could go for Reset Theory. We need to look forwards instead of looking
backwards.
So let's avoid recent history, and just go to ancient history, like that long-outmoded relic,
the Security Council. I'd had some vague impression that the chance of military conflict between
Security Council members was supposed to be Very Very Bad and by definition worse than any other
result, so much so a lot of the legalities that you're casually thinking of writing into the law
books later were intended to prevent exactly the kinds of situations that you're proposing, in
which members of the Security Council started to think about gathering coalitions to shoot down
each other's planes.
But I'm a crazy anarchist, and you're an international affairs expert. So why don't you tell me.
Just as cops take more money from people with civil forfeiture than burglars
do, they arrest more people for cannabis than for all violent crimes combined:
Law enforcement agencies made 574,641 arrests last year for small quantities of the drug intended
for personal use, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by the American Civil
Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. The marijuana arrests were about 13.6 percent more than
the 505,681 arrests made for all violent crimes, including murder, rape and serious assaults.
To state it differently, more people are arrested for victimless crimes (where the only complainant
is a law enforcement officer) than for crimes in which someone actually suffered harm.
'Perhaps we should put some of those responsible for that mass black on
black violent crime in prison rather than drug offenders. Why doesn't Obama
direct his DOJ to do just that?'
Or maybe the US should finally face up to the fact it has never done more than the least
it could possibly get away with when it comes to dealing with deeply entrenched systemic racism/poverty.
That's pretty damning on its face. The drug war is the primary function of
the police in the USA. Violent stuff is secondary.
"Tess Borden, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the A.C.L.U., who wrote the report, found
that despite the steep decline in crime rates over the last two decades - including a 36 percent
drop in violent crime arrests from 1995 to 2015 - the number of arrests for all drug possessions,
including marijuana, increased 13 percent.
The emphasis on making marijuana arrests is worrisome, Ms. Borden said."
"... "The drama was a commercial and critical success, surpassing ten million views by its second day,[4] and receiving a total number of daily internet views on iQiyi of over 3.3 billion by the end of the series.[5][6] Nirvana in Fire was considered a social media phenomenon, generating 3.55 billion posts on Sina Weibo that praised its characters and story-line." ..."
As you recall the French Exocet , a souped-up V1 in respects, has been "out there" a
long time.
. . . In the years after the Falklands War, it was revealed that the British government
and the Secret Intelligence Service had been extremely concerned at the time by the perceived
inadequacy of the Royal Navy's anti-missile defenses against the Exocet and its potential to
tip the naval war decisively in favor of the Argentine forces. A scenario was envisioned in
which one or both of the force's two aircraft carriers (Invincible and Hermes) were destroyed
or incapacitated by Exocet attacks, which would make recapturing the Falklands much more difficult.
Actions were taken to contain the Exocet threat. A major intelligence operation was also
initiated to prevent the Argentine Navy from acquiring more of the weapons on the international
market.[16]
The operation included British intelligence agents claiming to be arms dealers
able to supply large numbers of Exocets to Argentina, who diverted Argentina from pursuing
sources which could genuinely supply a few missiles. France denied deliveries of Exocet AM39s
purchased by Peru to avoid the possibility of Peru giving them to Argentina, because they knew
that payment would be made with a credit card from the Central Bank of Peru. British intelligence
had detected the guarantee was a deposit of two hundred million dollars from the Andean Lima
Bank, an owned subsidiary of the Banco Ambrosiano.[17][18] wiki
The French are major proliferisers of modern weapon systems. They and the Russians have put
a lot of weapons out there which are affordable for small States but have the potential even to
worry the biggest militaries.
Much of world history depends on the relative availability of defensive/offensive weaponry.
Back when the castle was the apex of military might any local thug with the money to build one
could become a lord and rule his little kingdom. Then when cannons became powerful enough to reduce
them to rubble empires came back into vogue. When battleships ruled the waves, this allowed the
great seagoing nations to dominate, but the invention of the torpedo along with submarines and
long range bombers levelled things up for smaller nations such as Japan. Then the aircraft carrier
swung things back to empires in the post war years. But now I think high speed sea skimming and
ballistic missiles along with long distance torpedoes have swung things back to 'weaker' nations.
Even the Houthi's in Yemen seem to have obtained missiles capable of knocking out an
ex-US combat vessel.
The democratization of missile technology is the big military story of the last three decades.
Look at, for instance, at how Hezbollah's Sheik Nasrullah kicked off the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
by striking an Israeli warship during a TV presentation. Very slick.
In fac, talking of the USS Stark, all those ships with their big aluminum superstructures will
burn down to their waterline when hit. The Emirates even recently banned aluminum in tower buildings
recently.
Aluminum's vulnerability didn't matter during the decades of the Cold War when if the Big One
started the surface navy wouldn't really do any fighting because it would all be up anyway, and
meanwhile smaller groups and nations - especially those with brown skins - didn't have access
to serious missile technology.
The big transition point came with the Falklands War when the UK's admirals smartly stood their
aircraft carriers beyond range till Margaret Thatcher phoned to Mitterand and intimated that the
British might use their Polaris submarine to nuke Buenos Aires unless Mitterand gave up the Exocet
codes. Think I'm kidding? Thatcher got the codes; they didn't call her Mad Maggie for nothing.
As for why they're still building surface warships with aluminum superstructures, it's military
Keynesianism and everybody would have to be submariners otherwise, which wouldn't be fun..
I think the Pentagon did an analysis under GW Bush about attacking Iran and buried the idea.
I believe this is why Iran made a big dash for surface-to-surface missiles to defend themselves,
and DID NOT have to go for nukes. If you've got anti-ship missiles, you can push those carriers
far enough out to sea which limits the ability to launch airstrikes.
Plus, with anti-ship missiles, you can put the Persian Gulf on total lockdown and watch the
Saudis suffocate. Iran has already been dealing with sanctions for years, so it's no sweat to
them!
If the USA ever has an aircraft carrier sunk, the unipolar moment is indisputably over.
I suspect that for the money put out the Chinese get a lot more defense. In fact, if they are
spending 200 billion and we are spending 600 billion we can be sure that they are close to parity.
Of course, we are spending a lot more than 600 billion when you add in VA, disability and retirement
costs as well as current war outlays. The entire defense industry in both China and the US is
obsolete given modern communications and immigration trends anyway. How are you going to bomb
Yemen when the excess population in Yemen ends up driving taxis in Washington D.C. or why bomb
Syria when all it does is encourage the Syrians to move to the west? What is the difference between
a Syrian or Afghan in Idaho or Berlin and one in Damascus or Kabul? The national state is becoming
obsolete and military action is powerless against demography.
The key paradox for the US military is that wars are won not by who has the greatest number
of tanks, ships or aircraft, but by the country that can put the greatest number of tanks, ships
and aircraft into the field of battle . The US has by far the biggest military in the
world, but it has also put itself in the position of needing a military a multiple of everyone
elses because of the sheer geographical spread of commitments. China's military is tiny and primitive
compared to the US, but in reality any war is likely to be geographically limited – to (for example)
the South China Sea. China has every chance of being able to match the US in this kind of war.
As for China's blue sea commitments, I actually doubt they have any intention of really pursuing
a long range war capacity. The Chinese know their history and know that a military on this scale
can be economically ruinous. But there is a naval military concept known as
fleet in being , which
essentially means that even a theoretical threat can force an enemy to pour resources into trying
to neutralise it. China I think is using this concept – continually setting off rumours of new
strike missiles, long range attack aircraft, new aircraft carriers, etc., to force the US (aided
and abetted by the defence industry) to spent countless billions on phantom threats. Some of these
rumours may be true – many I suspect are simply deliberate mischief making by the Chinese, with
the serious aim of dissipating America's military strength.
A new theatre for that mischief and dissipation is Africa. My parish has a Nigerian priest.
When he's away, we usually get another Nigerian. At supper for the Bishop last Saturday, our priest,
an Ibo, and another, a Hausa from Kano, said that many, if not, most Nigerians think Boko Haram
is assisted by the US and, to a lesser extent, France as it gives the pair an excuse to maintain
troops in the region and keep their client state governments in line.
Whether or not its true, the fact that intelligent people think that way shows everything you
need to know about how US and Western soft power has been frittered away the past few years through
stupidity and cynicism.
Why bomb? Because then Uncle Sugar gets to take their stuff after they all leave their war
torn countries. If some of the refugees are pissed off and blow up some people in their new homelands,
why that's just a little collateral damage and when has the establishment ever cared about that?
It just gives them an excuse to surveil everyone.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the
wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or
the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this
earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final
sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it
is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
- that crazy commie madman, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953 on military Keynesianism.
ClubOrlov argues that the difference in military spending between the U. S. and Russia is lessened
as our spending is bloated and misspent due to corruption.
The Russians are treating spending as a scarce natural resource. In the U. S. we spend as McCain
says like drunken sailors.
I'd be very sceptical that the Russian military somehow avoids the rampant corruption in other
parts of the Russian economy.
By necessity, the Russian military has always been parsimonious and has had to get more firepower
for its rouble than other wealthier countries. Much of their weaponry is very simple, effective
and robust, and Russian tactics are as good if not better than any other major military. However,
they've had their white elephants too – their new
Yasen Class attack
submarines are far too expensive as an example, and poor quality control in manufacturing
has meant that many of their more advanced weapons have dubious real world utility. Their large
ships are generally a disaster, a complete waste of money (this is why they were buying assault
ships from France).
USA military power is just as great as it has ever been, if not greater. What's changed is
the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little cultural/common ground
with the USA.
Biggest factor in that loss of traction is that Russia (and to a lesser extent China) is not
exporting revolution anymore. Both China and Russia engage in real politic with limited military
power that makes them a far less threatening partner than the USA for any state that is willing
to transfer some of the wealth to them that the USA formerly extracted (and usually these new
players pay much better price with less interference). Even Vietnam, which has real historical
reasons to be Sinophobic, probably fears China less than it does a US Government which attempts
to subvert Vietnam's economy through currency dependency. How so Russia, which is no threat to
any of Vietnam's interests.
What constrains Russia's power isn't the military, but it's relatively minuscule consumer market.
Similarly, China's trade protectionism for semi-finished and finished goods has constrained it's
ability to project power to those nations, like Australia, Argentina & Russia, which subsist primarily
on raw material exports. China is in a better situation than Russia to change this situation and
expand it's power into Europe, though I doubt Xi is the man for it.
What's changed is the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little
cultural/common ground with the USA.
I'd claim that the alignment came not so much from US military might but rather from the US
offering better terms – at least to "white countries"; plenty of brutal regime change and CIA
skulduggery was applied on brown folks, still is, in fact.
Now, it seems to the world that the US have become so bloated with it's own military and perceived
cultural/economic superiority that the US offers pretty much nothing in return to anyone, regardless
of the favors asked. Everyone are treated as colonies and vassals, except perhaps a few leaders
and decision makers (Or maybe it was always like that but now we got the Internet and we know).
This state of affairs pisses people off.
In addition, people are beginning to understand that what is applied to brown people abroad
today can happen to them also tomorrow. That in the US world order, everyone who is not an American
have no value compared to an American* and can be killed, tortured, disappeared with no consequences
what so ever. Because fuck Nürenberg.
Therefore, everyone else being in some way enemies of the US merely by belonging to another
tribe than America, has realized that there is no good thing coming from aligning with America,
sooner or later the "military option" or "the regime change" will come out and we will be knifed
in the back. Those who can actively resist, those who have the option aligns with other powers,
those who cannot do this, will drag their feet and try to avoid direct confrontation, maybe something
will show up?
Stupid, weak, nations like Denmark and Sweden go all in with 110% effort on the fantasy that
they will be seen as good people with an American core, struggling to claw it's way out, from
inside their unworthy un-American bodies and therefore they will be protected – at least for a
while*.
*)
Americans themselves are beginning to realize that anyone who isn't rich & covered in lawyers
can be fined, jailed or even killed right in the street by the police for basically nothing at
all. This is beginning to grate on their understanding of their place in the pecking order. But,
everyone still blame Whites, Latinos, Blacks, Feminists identity politics works, keeps the contraption
from falling off the road.
This also shows why the silly idea of escape by being super-American will not work: Americans
are treated like shit too.
Thank you. I like your point about "stupid, weak nations". French is my second language. English
is my third. I watch French TV news most days and visit the place regularly, business and pleasure,
and studied there. I am surprised, but may be should not be, at how American France has become
/ is becoming. Hollande and Sarko, who has American connections by way of his stepmother and half
brothers, have made the country a poodle in a way that de Gaulle and Chirac would not. Most French
people I know seem ok or indifferent to that. Part of that Americanisation seems to be the English
/ Americanised English forenames given to French children. I have observed that trend in (western)
Germany and even francophone communities well away from the French mainland.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the best example of what being a loyal US "ally" entails:
corrupt local elites working against their country's own best interests lest they become a
target for a color revolution. Meanwhile their much-suffering subjects don't know which way
to turn to hide their collective embarrassment.
My files are bulging to the bursting point. The latest fiasco in Colonia Bulgaria was the election
of the new GenSec of the UN. Bulgaria had a leading candidate, until Merkel decided that she wanted
Germany to play an outsized role in the UN, and bring EU politics into the UN.
Disaster ensued:
So the initial Bulgarian candidate Bokova looked like the ideal choice. Here was a chance
for little old Bulgaria to shine on the world stage for the first time in over a millenium,
possibly since the Bulgars burst out of Central Asia on horseback. Add this to the background
context: it is unprecedented for a country to nominate a candidate officially, a front-runner
no less, and then do a public switcheroo before the world's eyes. But that's exactly what Bulgaria
did just a week ago. Bokova was dumped and Georgieva spooned up. Disaster ensued, as I predicted
it would in previous columns .
Bulgaria lost its once-in-a-millenium chance at shaping the world. As the record shows,
Gutteres won.
If Bulgaria were a normal healthy country, the Prime Minister would now resign and the government
would fall. Because, it was the Prime Minister's decision to switch candidates. He did so despite
knowing that two-thirds of Bulgarian citizens preferred his first candidate. Boyko Borissov
is his name, a deeply underachieving dull-witted schemer-survivor in the wooden tradition of
the region. A short-fingered Bulgarian if ever there was one. He first came to the fore as
the bodyguard of the last Bulgarian Communist leader. That should give you a clue to the man's
qualities. So why did Boyko 'switch horses'? Why did he do it?
Brutal, just brutal kick in the butt from the ally's MSM. And that's only one of many reactions.
Because even the bosses don't like grovelling toadies. They want to control them, but they will
never invite them for an afternoon tea. Particularly a marionette whose mafia ties the Congressional
Quarterly wrote about. Not that these organized crime ties are a disqualifier, if anything the
US likes that because it makes Borissov easy to control.
At least Merkel's scheming and Bulgaria's humiliation had an unexpected positive effect: Power
and Churkin managed to put on a BFF act in front of the cameras and allied to get Gutteres elected
as SecGen, while delivering a massive kick in Merkel's ample backside. Takes some doing to get
the US and Russia to not only see eye to eye on anything, but to also work in concert. Bravo!
PS This also proves a historical truth: doing Germany's bidding never ends well for Bulgaria.
Or for any other nation.
global scenario that the down-to-earth presidents of China and Russia seem to have in mind
resembles the sort of balance of power that existed in Europe.
The article floats away here. China and Russia might want to have something that "resembles"
that time, but the analogy overlooks the fact that the relatively calm state of affairs - Franco-Prussian
war? - on the European continent after Napoleon coexisted with savage colonial expansion. The
forms of superexploitation thereby obtained did much to help stabilize Europe, even as competition
for colonial lands became more and more destabilizing and were part of what led to WW1.
Now we're in a situation in which superexploitation options are largely gone. Routine profit
generation has become difficult due to global productive overcapacity, leading to behavioral sinkish
behavior like the US cannibalizing its public sector to feed capital. Since the late 19th century
US foreign policy has been organized around the open markets mantra. It may be possible for the
Chinese, with their greater options for economy manipulation, to avoid the crashes the US feared
from lack of market access. But the current situation on its face does not have anything like
the colonial escape valve available in the 19th century.
Of course,duplicitous political COPORATISM means systems over a systemic characterized by marked
or even intentional deception that is now sustained and even spearheaded by state systems. Many
contemporary liberal idealists living in urban strongholds of market mediated comfort zones will
not agree to assigning such strong description to an Obama administration. It is too distant and
remote to assign accountability to global international finance and currency wars that have hegemonic
hedge funds pumping and dumping crisis driven anarchy over global exploit (ruled by market capital
fright / fight and flight). To the extent that colonialism or neocolonialism does not actually
hold fixed boundary ground is irrelevant, since assets are more differential and flexible needing
only corporate law to sustain strict boundaries on possession or instruments that convert to the
same power over assets. No one, of course, wants to assess stocks and bonds as instruments of
global oppression or exploitation that far exceeds 19th century's crude colonial rule. Recall,
however, how "joint stock" corporations first opened chartered exploit at global levels under
East and West Trading power aggregates that were profit driven enter-prize. So in reality the
current cross border market system of neoliberal globalization is, in fact, a stealth colonialism
on steroids. TPP is part of that process in all its stealthy dimensions.
"The TPP is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret by
big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out.
Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart are
lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major environmental,
senior, health, and consumer organizations.
The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the loss of
regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of Internet freedom.
It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many of the policies we need
to combat climate change."
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/30/ttp-ttip-map-shows-
how-trade-deals-would-enable-polluter-power-grab
TTP & TTIP: Map Shows How Trade Deals Would Enable 'Polluter Power-Grab'
by Andrea Germanos
The new, interactive tool 'gives people a chance to see if toxic trade is in their own backyard'
From a long range view, 19th Century compitition using black and brown property and lives was
an improvement over battling face to face with neighbors. It was an expansion of tribal boundaries,
somewhat.
Now, few argue openly (except in presidential debates) against those boundaries encompassing brown
and black members of the human race. We engage our ruthlessness less openly in covert operations,
corporate predations and financial hegemony.
Even awful behavior can be seen as an advance.
This is very handy, thanks. However the conclusion stops short of what the SCO is saying and
doing. They have no interest in an old-time balance of power. They want rule of law, a very different
thing. Look at Putin's Syria strategy: he actually complies with the UN Charter's requirement
to pursue pacific dispute resolution. That's revolutionary. When CIA moles in Turkey shot that
Russian jet down, the outcome was not battles and state-sponsored terror, as CIA expected. The
outcome was support for Turkey's sovereignty and rapprochement. Now when CIA starts fires you
go to Russia to put them out.
While China maintains its purist line on the legal principle of non-interference, it is increasingly
vocal in urging the US to fulfill its human rights obligations. That will sound paradoxical because
of intense US vilification of Chinese authoritarianism, but when you push for your economic and
social rights here at home, China is in your corner. Here Russia is leading by example. They comply
with the Paris Principles for institutionalized human rights protection under independent international
oversight. The USA does not.
When the USA goes the way of the USSR, we'll be in good hands. The world will show us how developed
countries work.
"RULE OF LAW" up front and personal (again?)
Now why would the USA be worried about global rule of law?
An Interesting ideal. No country above the law.
" US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of the victims
of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement accompanying his veto message, Obama said on Friday he had
"deep sympathy" for the 9/11 victims' families and their desire to seek justice for
their relatives.
The president said, however, that the bill would be "detrimental to US national interests"
and could lead to lawsuits against the US or American officials for actions taken by groups armed,
trained or supported by the US.
"If any of these litigants were to win judgements – based on foreign domestic laws as applied
by foreign courts – they would begin to look to the assets of the US government held abroad to
satisfy those judgments, with potentially serious financial consequences for the United States,"
Obama said."
-----------------------
To the tune of "Moma said " by The Shirelles –
.Oh don't you know Obama said they be days like this,
..they would be days like this Obama said
One interesting irony is that in Obama's TPP "The worst part is an Investor-State Dispute Settlement
provision, which allows a multinational corporation to sue to override any U.S. law, policy, or
practice that it claims could limit its future profits."
(source:
http://labornotes.org/2016/09/october-all-hands-deck-stop-tpp
)
"Though the Obama administration touts the pact's labor and environmental protections, the official
Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes
it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing."
I think you're overstating the Russian military advantage in Syria and Ukraine, while ignoring
the real dysfunction in US foreign policy. Key policy thinkers at State and Defense still believe
that it's worth the time and effort for the US to project military influence in Syria. This is
a policy position entirely driven by Israel's existential concern over Iran. There are no substantial
US interests in Syria right now. We aren't actually fighting ISIS, because if we were, we would
be targeting the foreign funding coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As a consequence, if we simply
withdrew from Syria, Russia would be left propping up a regime that would be fighting an ongoing
insurgency against foreign jihadists.
In other words, it would be wasting its time and resources on a pointless fight to build a
state in the Middle East (sounds familiar). Russia is the one with a military base in Syria that
they need to protect. Let them waste the time and energy defending their military assets.
Instead, the US should be reducing its Middle East footprint and selectively engaging in key
diplomatic efforts. The Saudis and the Gulf States are committed to fighting it out with Iran
for Middle East influence. There's no reason for us to pick sides in this fight. Let them engage
in proxy wars without US military assistance and then, when the time is right, we can offer our
role as a neutral broker and negotiate terms that actually benefit our strategic interests.
The reason we can't play this role in the region is because we are so myopically focused on
policies that are pro-Israeli. Eliminate Israel's interests from the calculations, and our policies
would change dramatically.
Great article and comments. Surprised there has been no speculation here about what HRC will
do with the geopolitical hash created by neo-lib economics and neo-con foreign and military policies.
We know what Obama did (not) do with what was really a political mandate. Certainly he has been
constrained politically and, perhaps, personally ( shame what happened to those nice Kennedy boys,
they had so much "promise.") However, as has been ably pointed out in comments above, his actions
where he was not constrained are the flag in the wind. You don't have to be a weatherman .
Hillary, of course, has already shown her colors. There will be no Nobel based on promises
and high expectations. She will relentlessly pursue the PNAC programme and the "exceptional, essential
nation" fantasy, contra the analysis above. You can take the girl out of the Goldwater, but you
can't take the Goldman out of the girl.All that glitters ..
Fascinating thread, thanks.
I stream a lot of Korean dramas, and lately Chinese dramas have also been showing up in my video
feeds; it is clear that Taiwan and China are trying to access eyeballs globally, as a means to
gain soft power – and revenue.
The earlier Chinese dramas seeking a global audience seemed shrill, melodramatic, and approximately
the production quality of the old static BBC costume dramas of the 1970s. I found them unwatchable.
However, China has recently put out something that is quite possibly a masterpiece of storytelling.
" Nirvana in Fire " [NiF] is an epic story of betrayal, treachery, loyalty, and trust,
with some incredible martial arts into the mix. NiF is described as the Chinese Game of Thrones
. (I am unable to make a good comparison, as I have not watched GoT). However, I'd argue
that NiF is every bit as good as the BBC's brilliant " The Tudors " (2007, with Jonathon
Rhys Meyers).
I take NiF as a sign that despite what sounds like a hideous housing bubble, China's cultural
endeavors are developing at a level that is as outstanding as anything that any nation can produce.
And in a world where the Internet seems to be morphing into a vast, global video distribution
service (woohoo!!), that is no small thing. Judging from social media stats, it appears to be
quite formidable.
This new Silk Road is often spoken of as physical, and I do not take it lightly; nevertheless,
the silkier threads are probably the telecom infrastructure carrying subtitled dramas to mobiles,
desktops, and smart TVs around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_In_Fire
From the wiki page: "The drama was a commercial and critical success, surpassing ten million
views by its second day,[4] and receiving a total number of daily internet views on iQiyi of over
3.3 billion by the end of the series.[5][6] Nirvana in Fire was considered a social media
phenomenon, generating 3.55 billion posts on Sina Weibo that praised its characters and
story-line."
I searched for 'Facebook posts on GoT' but could not get any results that I trusted enough to
include here. It's a fair guess, however, they did not amount to 3,550,000,000 comments. Whoever
gets to stream their dramas across Africa and S. America will develop a formidable 'soft power'
resource.
That series sounds very interesting, I must look for it.
I think the Chinese are quite serious about using film and TV as soft power, but they face
a paradox in that it is hard to promote quality drama while also indulging in heavy censorship.
The Chinese are very good at using carrots and sticks to 'tame' artists – just look at how a formerly
great film maker like Zhang Yimou has gone from making beautiful and subtle allegories about Chinese
society to now just making big empty commercial epics which are little more than propaganda pieces.
I doubt Chinese film makers will ever have the freedom to make the sort of challenging work that
Korean film makers do all the time (Japanese film makers once did this too, but seem to have given
up). But they probably have enough talent to make plenty of entertaining fantasy TV and film,
but whether it will travel so well I'm not sure.
LOL, I watched that drama too, and I'd agree. Most Chinese dramas are unwatchable, but as NiF
showed, it's not because there are no capable series makers, etc, because there are plenty of
those in China. The problem is rather the producers for whatever reason think that local audiences
are only interested in melodramas and idols dressed in ridiculous costumes.
And please, NiF is better than GoT. I am a big fan of the books, and the TV series to me is
laughable.
I just find this difficult to believe that America's diplomatic power is in decline.
After all, is the great-grandson of what was once the top dope dealer on the planet, Francis
Blackwell Forbes, now the SecState (that would be John "Forbes, Winthrop, Dudley" Kerry)?
"... "The drama was a commercial and critical success, surpassing ten million views by its second day,[4] and receiving a total number of daily internet views on iQiyi of over 3.3 billion by the end of the series.[5][6] Nirvana in Fire was considered a social media phenomenon, generating 3.55 billion posts on Sina Weibo that praised its characters and story-line." ..."
As you recall the French Exocet , a souped-up V1 in respects, has been "out there" a
long time.
. . . In the years after the Falklands War, it was revealed that the British government
and the Secret Intelligence Service had been extremely concerned at the time by the perceived
inadequacy of the Royal Navy's anti-missile defenses against the Exocet and its potential to
tip the naval war decisively in favor of the Argentine forces. A scenario was envisioned in
which one or both of the force's two aircraft carriers (Invincible and Hermes) were destroyed
or incapacitated by Exocet attacks, which would make recapturing the Falklands much more difficult.
Actions were taken to contain the Exocet threat. A major intelligence operation was also
initiated to prevent the Argentine Navy from acquiring more of the weapons on the international
market.[16]
The operation included British intelligence agents claiming to be arms dealers
able to supply large numbers of Exocets to Argentina, who diverted Argentina from pursuing
sources which could genuinely supply a few missiles. France denied deliveries of Exocet AM39s
purchased by Peru to avoid the possibility of Peru giving them to Argentina, because they knew
that payment would be made with a credit card from the Central Bank of Peru. British intelligence
had detected the guarantee was a deposit of two hundred million dollars from the Andean Lima
Bank, an owned subsidiary of the Banco Ambrosiano.[17][18] wiki
The French are major proliferisers of modern weapon systems. They and the Russians have put
a lot of weapons out there which are affordable for small States but have the potential even to
worry the biggest militaries.
Much of world history depends on the relative availability of defensive/offensive weaponry.
Back when the castle was the apex of military might any local thug with the money to build one
could become a lord and rule his little kingdom. Then when cannons became powerful enough to reduce
them to rubble empires came back into vogue. When battleships ruled the waves, this allowed the
great seagoing nations to dominate, but the invention of the torpedo along with submarines and
long range bombers levelled things up for smaller nations such as Japan. Then the aircraft carrier
swung things back to empires in the post war years. But now I think high speed sea skimming and
ballistic missiles along with long distance torpedoes have swung things back to 'weaker' nations.
Even the Houthi's in Yemen seem to have obtained missiles capable of knocking out an
ex-US combat vessel.
The democratization of missile technology is the big military story of the last three decades.
Look at, for instance, at how Hezbollah's Sheik Nasrullah kicked off the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
by striking an Israeli warship during a TV presentation. Very slick.
In fac, talking of the USS Stark, all those ships with their big aluminum superstructures will
burn down to their waterline when hit. The Emirates even recently banned aluminum in tower buildings
recently.
Aluminum's vulnerability didn't matter during the decades of the Cold War when if the Big One
started the surface navy wouldn't really do any fighting because it would all be up anyway, and
meanwhile smaller groups and nations - especially those with brown skins - didn't have access
to serious missile technology.
The big transition point came with the Falklands War when the UK's admirals smartly stood their
aircraft carriers beyond range till Margaret Thatcher phoned to Mitterand and intimated that the
British might use their Polaris submarine to nuke Buenos Aires unless Mitterand gave up the Exocet
codes. Think I'm kidding? Thatcher got the codes; they didn't call her Mad Maggie for nothing.
As for why they're still building surface warships with aluminum superstructures, it's military
Keynesianism and everybody would have to be submariners otherwise, which wouldn't be fun..
I think the Pentagon did an analysis under GW Bush about attacking Iran and buried the idea.
I believe this is why Iran made a big dash for surface-to-surface missiles to defend themselves,
and DID NOT have to go for nukes. If you've got anti-ship missiles, you can push those carriers
far enough out to sea which limits the ability to launch airstrikes.
Plus, with anti-ship missiles, you can put the Persian Gulf on total lockdown and watch the
Saudis suffocate. Iran has already been dealing with sanctions for years, so it's no sweat to
them!
If the USA ever has an aircraft carrier sunk, the unipolar moment is indisputably over.
I suspect that for the money put out the Chinese get a lot more defense. In fact, if they are
spending 200 billion and we are spending 600 billion we can be sure that they are close to parity.
Of course, we are spending a lot more than 600 billion when you add in VA, disability and retirement
costs as well as current war outlays. The entire defense industry in both China and the US is
obsolete given modern communications and immigration trends anyway. How are you going to bomb
Yemen when the excess population in Yemen ends up driving taxis in Washington D.C. or why bomb
Syria when all it does is encourage the Syrians to move to the west? What is the difference between
a Syrian or Afghan in Idaho or Berlin and one in Damascus or Kabul? The national state is becoming
obsolete and military action is powerless against demography.
The key paradox for the US military is that wars are won not by who has the greatest number
of tanks, ships or aircraft, but by the country that can put the greatest number of tanks, ships
and aircraft into the field of battle . The US has by far the biggest military in the
world, but it has also put itself in the position of needing a military a multiple of everyone
elses because of the sheer geographical spread of commitments. China's military is tiny and primitive
compared to the US, but in reality any war is likely to be geographically limited – to (for example)
the South China Sea. China has every chance of being able to match the US in this kind of war.
As for China's blue sea commitments, I actually doubt they have any intention of really pursuing
a long range war capacity. The Chinese know their history and know that a military on this scale
can be economically ruinous. But there is a naval military concept known as
fleet in being , which
essentially means that even a theoretical threat can force an enemy to pour resources into trying
to neutralise it. China I think is using this concept – continually setting off rumours of new
strike missiles, long range attack aircraft, new aircraft carriers, etc., to force the US (aided
and abetted by the defence industry) to spent countless billions on phantom threats. Some of these
rumours may be true – many I suspect are simply deliberate mischief making by the Chinese, with
the serious aim of dissipating America's military strength.
A new theatre for that mischief and dissipation is Africa. My parish has a Nigerian priest.
When he's away, we usually get another Nigerian. At supper for the Bishop last Saturday, our priest,
an Ibo, and another, a Hausa from Kano, said that many, if not, most Nigerians think Boko Haram
is assisted by the US and, to a lesser extent, France as it gives the pair an excuse to maintain
troops in the region and keep their client state governments in line.
Whether or not its true, the fact that intelligent people think that way shows everything you
need to know about how US and Western soft power has been frittered away the past few years through
stupidity and cynicism.
Why bomb? Because then Uncle Sugar gets to take their stuff after they all leave their war
torn countries. If some of the refugees are pissed off and blow up some people in their new homelands,
why that's just a little collateral damage and when has the establishment ever cared about that?
It just gives them an excuse to surveil everyone.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the
wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or
the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this
earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final
sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it
is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
- that crazy commie madman, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953 on military Keynesianism.
ClubOrlov argues that the difference in military spending between the U. S. and Russia is lessened
as our spending is bloated and misspent due to corruption.
The Russians are treating spending as a scarce natural resource. In the U. S. we spend as McCain
says like drunken sailors.
I'd be very sceptical that the Russian military somehow avoids the rampant corruption in other
parts of the Russian economy.
By necessity, the Russian military has always been parsimonious and has had to get more firepower
for its rouble than other wealthier countries. Much of their weaponry is very simple, effective
and robust, and Russian tactics are as good if not better than any other major military. However,
they've had their white elephants too – their new
Yasen Class attack
submarines are far too expensive as an example, and poor quality control in manufacturing
has meant that many of their more advanced weapons have dubious real world utility. Their large
ships are generally a disaster, a complete waste of money (this is why they were buying assault
ships from France).
USA military power is just as great as it has ever been, if not greater. What's changed is
the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little cultural/common ground
with the USA.
Biggest factor in that loss of traction is that Russia (and to a lesser extent China) is not
exporting revolution anymore. Both China and Russia engage in real politic with limited military
power that makes them a far less threatening partner than the USA for any state that is willing
to transfer some of the wealth to them that the USA formerly extracted (and usually these new
players pay much better price with less interference). Even Vietnam, which has real historical
reasons to be Sinophobic, probably fears China less than it does a US Government which attempts
to subvert Vietnam's economy through currency dependency. How so Russia, which is no threat to
any of Vietnam's interests.
What constrains Russia's power isn't the military, but it's relatively minuscule consumer market.
Similarly, China's trade protectionism for semi-finished and finished goods has constrained it's
ability to project power to those nations, like Australia, Argentina & Russia, which subsist primarily
on raw material exports. China is in a better situation than Russia to change this situation and
expand it's power into Europe, though I doubt Xi is the man for it.
What's changed is the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little
cultural/common ground with the USA.
I'd claim that the alignment came not so much from US military might but rather from the US
offering better terms – at least to "white countries"; plenty of brutal regime change and CIA
skulduggery was applied on brown folks, still is, in fact.
Now, it seems to the world that the US have become so bloated with it's own military and perceived
cultural/economic superiority that the US offers pretty much nothing in return to anyone, regardless
of the favors asked. Everyone are treated as colonies and vassals, except perhaps a few leaders
and decision makers (Or maybe it was always like that but now we got the Internet and we know).
This state of affairs pisses people off.
In addition, people are beginning to understand that what is applied to brown people abroad
today can happen to them also tomorrow. That in the US world order, everyone who is not an American
have no value compared to an American* and can be killed, tortured, disappeared with no consequences
what so ever. Because fuck Nürenberg.
Therefore, everyone else being in some way enemies of the US merely by belonging to another
tribe than America, has realized that there is no good thing coming from aligning with America,
sooner or later the "military option" or "the regime change" will come out and we will be knifed
in the back. Those who can actively resist, those who have the option aligns with other powers,
those who cannot do this, will drag their feet and try to avoid direct confrontation, maybe something
will show up?
Stupid, weak, nations like Denmark and Sweden go all in with 110% effort on the fantasy that
they will be seen as good people with an American core, struggling to claw it's way out, from
inside their unworthy un-American bodies and therefore they will be protected – at least for a
while*.
*)
Americans themselves are beginning to realize that anyone who isn't rich & covered in lawyers
can be fined, jailed or even killed right in the street by the police for basically nothing at
all. This is beginning to grate on their understanding of their place in the pecking order. But,
everyone still blame Whites, Latinos, Blacks, Feminists identity politics works, keeps the contraption
from falling off the road.
This also shows why the silly idea of escape by being super-American will not work: Americans
are treated like shit too.
Thank you. I like your point about "stupid, weak nations". French is my second language. English
is my third. I watch French TV news most days and visit the place regularly, business and pleasure,
and studied there. I am surprised, but may be should not be, at how American France has become
/ is becoming. Hollande and Sarko, who has American connections by way of his stepmother and half
brothers, have made the country a poodle in a way that de Gaulle and Chirac would not. Most French
people I know seem ok or indifferent to that. Part of that Americanisation seems to be the English
/ Americanised English forenames given to French children. I have observed that trend in (western)
Germany and even francophone communities well away from the French mainland.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the best example of what being a loyal US "ally" entails:
corrupt local elites working against their country's own best interests lest they become a
target for a color revolution. Meanwhile their much-suffering subjects don't know which way
to turn to hide their collective embarrassment.
My files are bulging to the bursting point. The latest fiasco in Colonia Bulgaria was the election
of the new GenSec of the UN. Bulgaria had a leading candidate, until Merkel decided that she wanted
Germany to play an outsized role in the UN, and bring EU politics into the UN.
Disaster ensued:
So the initial Bulgarian candidate Bokova looked like the ideal choice. Here was a chance
for little old Bulgaria to shine on the world stage for the first time in over a millenium,
possibly since the Bulgars burst out of Central Asia on horseback. Add this to the background
context: it is unprecedented for a country to nominate a candidate officially, a front-runner
no less, and then do a public switcheroo before the world's eyes. But that's exactly what Bulgaria
did just a week ago. Bokova was dumped and Georgieva spooned up. Disaster ensued, as I predicted
it would in previous columns .
Bulgaria lost its once-in-a-millenium chance at shaping the world. As the record shows,
Gutteres won.
If Bulgaria were a normal healthy country, the Prime Minister would now resign and the government
would fall. Because, it was the Prime Minister's decision to switch candidates. He did so despite
knowing that two-thirds of Bulgarian citizens preferred his first candidate. Boyko Borissov
is his name, a deeply underachieving dull-witted schemer-survivor in the wooden tradition of
the region. A short-fingered Bulgarian if ever there was one. He first came to the fore as
the bodyguard of the last Bulgarian Communist leader. That should give you a clue to the man's
qualities. So why did Boyko 'switch horses'? Why did he do it?
Brutal, just brutal kick in the butt from the ally's MSM. And that's only one of many reactions.
Because even the bosses don't like grovelling toadies. They want to control them, but they will
never invite them for an afternoon tea. Particularly a marionette whose mafia ties the Congressional
Quarterly wrote about. Not that these organized crime ties are a disqualifier, if anything the
US likes that because it makes Borissov easy to control.
At least Merkel's scheming and Bulgaria's humiliation had an unexpected positive effect: Power
and Churkin managed to put on a BFF act in front of the cameras and allied to get Gutteres elected
as SecGen, while delivering a massive kick in Merkel's ample backside. Takes some doing to get
the US and Russia to not only see eye to eye on anything, but to also work in concert. Bravo!
PS This also proves a historical truth: doing Germany's bidding never ends well for Bulgaria.
Or for any other nation.
global scenario that the down-to-earth presidents of China and Russia seem to have in mind
resembles the sort of balance of power that existed in Europe.
The article floats away here. China and Russia might want to have something that "resembles"
that time, but the analogy overlooks the fact that the relatively calm state of affairs - Franco-Prussian
war? - on the European continent after Napoleon coexisted with savage colonial expansion. The
forms of superexploitation thereby obtained did much to help stabilize Europe, even as competition
for colonial lands became more and more destabilizing and were part of what led to WW1.
Now we're in a situation in which superexploitation options are largely gone. Routine profit
generation has become difficult due to global productive overcapacity, leading to behavioral sinkish
behavior like the US cannibalizing its public sector to feed capital. Since the late 19th century
US foreign policy has been organized around the open markets mantra. It may be possible for the
Chinese, with their greater options for economy manipulation, to avoid the crashes the US feared
from lack of market access. But the current situation on its face does not have anything like
the colonial escape valve available in the 19th century.
Of course,duplicitous political COPORATISM means systems over a systemic characterized by marked
or even intentional deception that is now sustained and even spearheaded by state systems. Many
contemporary liberal idealists living in urban strongholds of market mediated comfort zones will
not agree to assigning such strong description to an Obama administration. It is too distant and
remote to assign accountability to global international finance and currency wars that have hegemonic
hedge funds pumping and dumping crisis driven anarchy over global exploit (ruled by market capital
fright / fight and flight). To the extent that colonialism or neocolonialism does not actually
hold fixed boundary ground is irrelevant, since assets are more differential and flexible needing
only corporate law to sustain strict boundaries on possession or instruments that convert to the
same power over assets. No one, of course, wants to assess stocks and bonds as instruments of
global oppression or exploitation that far exceeds 19th century's crude colonial rule. Recall,
however, how "joint stock" corporations first opened chartered exploit at global levels under
East and West Trading power aggregates that were profit driven enter-prize. So in reality the
current cross border market system of neoliberal globalization is, in fact, a stealth colonialism
on steroids. TPP is part of that process in all its stealthy dimensions.
"The TPP is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret by
big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out.
Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart are
lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major environmental,
senior, health, and consumer organizations.
The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the loss of
regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of Internet freedom.
It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many of the policies we need
to combat climate change."
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/30/ttp-ttip-map-shows-
how-trade-deals-would-enable-polluter-power-grab
TTP & TTIP: Map Shows How Trade Deals Would Enable 'Polluter Power-Grab'
by Andrea Germanos
The new, interactive tool 'gives people a chance to see if toxic trade is in their own backyard'
From a long range view, 19th Century compitition using black and brown property and lives was
an improvement over battling face to face with neighbors. It was an expansion of tribal boundaries,
somewhat.
Now, few argue openly (except in presidential debates) against those boundaries encompassing brown
and black members of the human race. We engage our ruthlessness less openly in covert operations,
corporate predations and financial hegemony.
Even awful behavior can be seen as an advance.
This is very handy, thanks. However the conclusion stops short of what the SCO is saying and
doing. They have no interest in an old-time balance of power. They want rule of law, a very different
thing. Look at Putin's Syria strategy: he actually complies with the UN Charter's requirement
to pursue pacific dispute resolution. That's revolutionary. When CIA moles in Turkey shot that
Russian jet down, the outcome was not battles and state-sponsored terror, as CIA expected. The
outcome was support for Turkey's sovereignty and rapprochement. Now when CIA starts fires you
go to Russia to put them out.
While China maintains its purist line on the legal principle of non-interference, it is increasingly
vocal in urging the US to fulfill its human rights obligations. That will sound paradoxical because
of intense US vilification of Chinese authoritarianism, but when you push for your economic and
social rights here at home, China is in your corner. Here Russia is leading by example. They comply
with the Paris Principles for institutionalized human rights protection under independent international
oversight. The USA does not.
When the USA goes the way of the USSR, we'll be in good hands. The world will show us how developed
countries work.
"RULE OF LAW" up front and personal (again?)
Now why would the USA be worried about global rule of law?
An Interesting ideal. No country above the law.
" US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of the victims
of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement accompanying his veto message, Obama said on Friday he had
"deep sympathy" for the 9/11 victims' families and their desire to seek justice for
their relatives.
The president said, however, that the bill would be "detrimental to US national interests"
and could lead to lawsuits against the US or American officials for actions taken by groups armed,
trained or supported by the US.
"If any of these litigants were to win judgements – based on foreign domestic laws as applied
by foreign courts – they would begin to look to the assets of the US government held abroad to
satisfy those judgments, with potentially serious financial consequences for the United States,"
Obama said."
-----------------------
To the tune of "Moma said " by The Shirelles –
.Oh don't you know Obama said they be days like this,
..they would be days like this Obama said
One interesting irony is that in Obama's TPP "The worst part is an Investor-State Dispute Settlement
provision, which allows a multinational corporation to sue to override any U.S. law, policy, or
practice that it claims could limit its future profits."
(source:
http://labornotes.org/2016/09/october-all-hands-deck-stop-tpp
)
"Though the Obama administration touts the pact's labor and environmental protections, the official
Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes
it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing."
I think you're overstating the Russian military advantage in Syria and Ukraine, while ignoring
the real dysfunction in US foreign policy. Key policy thinkers at State and Defense still believe
that it's worth the time and effort for the US to project military influence in Syria. This is
a policy position entirely driven by Israel's existential concern over Iran. There are no substantial
US interests in Syria right now. We aren't actually fighting ISIS, because if we were, we would
be targeting the foreign funding coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As a consequence, if we simply
withdrew from Syria, Russia would be left propping up a regime that would be fighting an ongoing
insurgency against foreign jihadists.
In other words, it would be wasting its time and resources on a pointless fight to build a
state in the Middle East (sounds familiar). Russia is the one with a military base in Syria that
they need to protect. Let them waste the time and energy defending their military assets.
Instead, the US should be reducing its Middle East footprint and selectively engaging in key
diplomatic efforts. The Saudis and the Gulf States are committed to fighting it out with Iran
for Middle East influence. There's no reason for us to pick sides in this fight. Let them engage
in proxy wars without US military assistance and then, when the time is right, we can offer our
role as a neutral broker and negotiate terms that actually benefit our strategic interests.
The reason we can't play this role in the region is because we are so myopically focused on
policies that are pro-Israeli. Eliminate Israel's interests from the calculations, and our policies
would change dramatically.
Great article and comments. Surprised there has been no speculation here about what HRC will
do with the geopolitical hash created by neo-lib economics and neo-con foreign and military policies.
We know what Obama did (not) do with what was really a political mandate. Certainly he has been
constrained politically and, perhaps, personally ( shame what happened to those nice Kennedy boys,
they had so much "promise.") However, as has been ably pointed out in comments above, his actions
where he was not constrained are the flag in the wind. You don't have to be a weatherman .
Hillary, of course, has already shown her colors. There will be no Nobel based on promises
and high expectations. She will relentlessly pursue the PNAC programme and the "exceptional, essential
nation" fantasy, contra the analysis above. You can take the girl out of the Goldwater, but you
can't take the Goldman out of the girl.All that glitters ..
Fascinating thread, thanks.
I stream a lot of Korean dramas, and lately Chinese dramas have also been showing up in my video
feeds; it is clear that Taiwan and China are trying to access eyeballs globally, as a means to
gain soft power – and revenue.
The earlier Chinese dramas seeking a global audience seemed shrill, melodramatic, and approximately
the production quality of the old static BBC costume dramas of the 1970s. I found them unwatchable.
However, China has recently put out something that is quite possibly a masterpiece of storytelling.
" Nirvana in Fire " [NiF] is an epic story of betrayal, treachery, loyalty, and trust,
with some incredible martial arts into the mix. NiF is described as the Chinese Game of Thrones
. (I am unable to make a good comparison, as I have not watched GoT). However, I'd argue
that NiF is every bit as good as the BBC's brilliant " The Tudors " (2007, with Jonathon
Rhys Meyers).
I take NiF as a sign that despite what sounds like a hideous housing bubble, China's cultural
endeavors are developing at a level that is as outstanding as anything that any nation can produce.
And in a world where the Internet seems to be morphing into a vast, global video distribution
service (woohoo!!), that is no small thing. Judging from social media stats, it appears to be
quite formidable.
This new Silk Road is often spoken of as physical, and I do not take it lightly; nevertheless,
the silkier threads are probably the telecom infrastructure carrying subtitled dramas to mobiles,
desktops, and smart TVs around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_In_Fire
From the wiki page: "The drama was a commercial and critical success, surpassing ten million
views by its second day,[4] and receiving a total number of daily internet views on iQiyi of over
3.3 billion by the end of the series.[5][6] Nirvana in Fire was considered a social media
phenomenon, generating 3.55 billion posts on Sina Weibo that praised its characters and
story-line."
I searched for 'Facebook posts on GoT' but could not get any results that I trusted enough to
include here. It's a fair guess, however, they did not amount to 3,550,000,000 comments. Whoever
gets to stream their dramas across Africa and S. America will develop a formidable 'soft power'
resource.
That series sounds very interesting, I must look for it.
I think the Chinese are quite serious about using film and TV as soft power, but they face
a paradox in that it is hard to promote quality drama while also indulging in heavy censorship.
The Chinese are very good at using carrots and sticks to 'tame' artists – just look at how a formerly
great film maker like Zhang Yimou has gone from making beautiful and subtle allegories about Chinese
society to now just making big empty commercial epics which are little more than propaganda pieces.
I doubt Chinese film makers will ever have the freedom to make the sort of challenging work that
Korean film makers do all the time (Japanese film makers once did this too, but seem to have given
up). But they probably have enough talent to make plenty of entertaining fantasy TV and film,
but whether it will travel so well I'm not sure.
LOL, I watched that drama too, and I'd agree. Most Chinese dramas are unwatchable, but as NiF
showed, it's not because there are no capable series makers, etc, because there are plenty of
those in China. The problem is rather the producers for whatever reason think that local audiences
are only interested in melodramas and idols dressed in ridiculous costumes.
And please, NiF is better than GoT. I am a big fan of the books, and the TV series to me is
laughable.
I just find this difficult to believe that America's diplomatic power is in decline.
After all, is the great-grandson of what was once the top dope dealer on the planet, Francis
Blackwell Forbes, now the SecState (that would be John "Forbes, Winthrop, Dudley" Kerry)?
"... This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating to the end of the cold war. ..."
"... Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as torture, extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and the mere mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered in undemocratic bad taste. ..."
"... For the moment, we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at preemptive amnesty, outraged at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar is not above suspicion and that they themselves are better than 3rd worlders. ..."
This election also can be seen in a more general, global context of how forces have been accommodating
to the end of the cold war. Perhaps a detour into the history of some 3rd world banana republics,
those that many Americans deem as deplorable as a Trump supporter, can shed some light.
Starting in the 50's, and with the expressed goal of modernizing their countries (meaning an
accelerated capitalist development with the US as its model and as the only possible model) military
and terror regimes took over South America (Paraguay: 1954-1991, Chile: 1973-1990, Argentina:
1976-1982, Uruguay: 1966- 1985). For the most part, before being forced out of power, these military
regimes declared amnesty for themselves. Enter truth commissions, whose purpose is to investigate
the causes of violence and human rights violations and to establish judicial responsibility.
Back in the US, those responsible for human rights violations around the world, such as
torture, extra-judicial assassinations, and renditions, have never been brought to justice and
the mere mention of Clinton (a politician!) facing jail for a very minor infraction is considered
in undemocratic bad taste.
Conclusion: perhaps more than a special prosecutor, a commission of truth is in order, but
not at the moment, after the US crumbles as the USSR did. Only then can 3rd worlders hope to see
Kissinger, Bush, Blair, Aznar, Obama, and all their enablers brought to justice.
For the moment, we have to put up with the spectacle of some Americans, in an intent at
preemptive amnesty, outraged at the mere thought that their presumptive tin-pot, global Caesar
is not above suspicion and that they themselves are better than 3rd worlders.
Looks like Obama in working overclock to ensure the election of Trump ... anti-Russian hysteria
might have results different that he expects. Whether we are to have a world of sovereign nation-states
or one in which a single imperial superpower contends with increasingly fragmentary post-national and
sub-national threats around the globe will depend on the decisions that are made in the near future:
in the next few years.
Greenwald's astute observations were presumably made in response to Secretary of State John Kerry's
recent remarks that both
Russia and Syria should face war crimes investigations for their recent attacks on Syrian civilians.
"Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting
hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children," Mr. Kerry said in Washington,
where he spoke alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, as reported by the Independent
.
Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by urging caution regarding allegations of war crimes considering
the United States has been waging wars in a number of countries since the end of World War II. It
has picked up a number of allegations of war crimes in the process.
Kerry's
continuous accusations that Russia bombed hospital infrastructure are particularly hypocritical
in light of the fact the United States has bombed hospitals in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan on more than one occasion over past decade.
Further, former congressman Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity hit back at Kerry, accusing
him of completely fabricating the most recent alleged hospital attack. As the Institute
noted :
" In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
about a new UN resolution,
he said
( vid @1:00) about
Syria:
"'Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg
for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be
held accountable for these actions.'
" No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press
agency has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably
notes every claimed casualty and is frequently cited in 'western media,' has not said anything
about such an event anywhere in Syria. "
However, the most disturbing aspect of Kerry's allegation is that the accusations against
Russia run in tandem with Saudi Arabia's brutal assault on Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with the
aid of a few regional players - and with
ongoing American and British assistance (not to mention
billion dollar arms sales ) - has been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age without any legal
basis whatsoever. Often, the Saudi-led coalition has completely decimated civilian infrastructure,
which has led a number of groups to accuse the coalition of
committing war crimes in the process.
Civilians and civilian infrastructure have been struck so routinely that the world has
become increasingly concerned the actual targets of the coalition strikes are civilians
(what could be a greater recruitment tool for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen?) As
noted by Foreign Policy :
"The Houthis and their allies - armed groups loyal to Saleh - are the declared targets of the
coalition's 1-year-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is the civilians, such as Basrallah
and Rubaid, and their children, who are predominantly the victims of this protracted war. Hundreds
of civilians have been killed in airstrikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their
daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United
States, Britain, and others, meanwhile, have continued to supply a steady stream of weaponry and
logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition."
Just take one example of the cruel and disproportionate use of force that Saudi Arabia has used
in Yemen (using American-made and supplied aircraft and weapons) - against Judge Yahya Rubaid and
his family. As Foreign Policy
reported in March of this year:
"According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason.
What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and
his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted."
At the time this article's publication,
over 140 Yemenis had
been killed and another 500 injured in a Saudi-coalition aerial attack on a funeral over the
weekend. The civilian death toll continues to rise in Yemen, completely unchallenged by any major
players at the U.N.
When the U.N. does attempt to quell Saudi actions , the Saudis threaten
severe
economic retaliation.
How Kerry can accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Syria with a straight face is unclear,
as reports of atrocious crimes committed in Yemen continue to surface.
This is not to say Russia and Syria should not be investigated for war crimes – but maybe, just
maybe, we could live in a world where everyone responsible for committing these gross acts could
be held accountable, instead of just those who
pose an economic
threat to the West . Mango327
38BWD22
Oct 11, 2016 3:47 PM
Madeline Albright, "Yes, I think the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years
old by US sanctions, was a good price that had to be paid so we could get to Sadam Hussein "???
This bitch along with Kissinger, Soros, Rice, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, and all the news organizations
who have been cheerleaders for the slaughter of innocents should all be charged with Crimes against
humanity and SHOT!
"Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- John Kerry, 197x
That was the supposed anti-war Kerry speaking of the Vietnam War, who rode
such comments into a congressional seat. We didn't know then that he was Skull and Bones or what
it might mean. Now we know it in spades.
Now it's clear he's just a lying sack of war mongering, deep state shit.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political,
economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
Goebbels used "Gas Lighting" as a form of Psychological manipulation on a population on a mass
scale. Operation Mocking Bird. It continues on today. 365 days a year, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.
The Psyche Warefare / PsyOp War does not clos
There is an assumption that Russia would never go to war with the US over the Syrian dispute.
But yet, Russia is preparing for war. It has both first-strike and counter-strike capability in
the event the west (US State Dept.) continues with its bullying tactics and further escalates
its hostility. Russia is a sovereign nation; it has both the right and the power to do what is
in the best interests of its citizenry and its allies (Assad).
The US used to be that way until it was over-run in a silent, but effective liberal-coup that
has taken full control and stupidly re-newed the cold war with Russia.
And now America has been left more vulnerable that it ever has been. A simple shut-down of
the electric grid for several months, will, by itself, cut the population in half.
Ultra-liberalism is ultra self-destructive... we're about to see just how destructive that
really is.
Well this is a refreshing start, but only a start. Russia certainly had nothing to do with the
gunships that bombed the hospitals in Afghanistan into powder, killing patients including children,
doctors, nurses and other personell.
I for one would like to know who it was who flew those
planes and have them explain to all of us why they did not refuse orders? What sort of morals
have Americans got to behave ths way? The hospitals bombed in Syria, ditto. The Saudis are the
beasts they are and somebody needs to bomb them into oblivion. (Perhaps take out some other smug
financial centers too!) But Yemen is a very poor sandy country to begin with and Saudi must think
there's oil or something there. If some of the weapons used there weren't tactical nukes they
sure looked like them. Gee. Wonder where they got them?
Chomsky's been saying it for decades, "If they do it, they're terrorists; if we do it,
we're freedom fighters."
My take is that if you are the head of a government, you are a psychopath and any categorization
beyond this is moot.
Clinton / Trump, Obama / Putin, Assad / Erdogan, UN / Nationalism, whoever it may be, they're
all playing the same game, and we're not even allowed to watch, much less comment.
The only thing trickling-down (through a historical perspective) should be blood.
Looks like Obama in working overclock to ensure the election of Trump ... anti-Russian hysteria
might have results different that he expects. Whether we are to have a world of sovereign nation-states
or one in which a single imperial superpower contends with increasingly fragmentary post-national and
sub-national threats around the globe will depend on the decisions that are made in the near future:
in the next few years.
Greenwald's astute observations were presumably made in response to Secretary of State John Kerry's
recent remarks that both
Russia and Syria should face war crimes investigations for their recent attacks on Syrian civilians.
"Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting
hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children," Mr. Kerry said in Washington,
where he spoke alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, as reported by the Independent
.
Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by urging caution regarding allegations of war crimes considering
the United States has been waging wars in a number of countries since the end of World War II. It
has picked up a number of allegations of war crimes in the process.
Kerry's
continuous accusations that Russia bombed hospital infrastructure are particularly hypocritical
in light of the fact the United States has bombed hospitals in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan on more than one occasion over past decade.
Further, former congressman Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity hit back at Kerry, accusing
him of completely fabricating the most recent alleged hospital attack. As the Institute
noted :
" In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
about a new UN resolution,
he said
( vid @1:00) about
Syria:
"'Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg
for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be
held accountable for these actions.'
" No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press
agency has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably
notes every claimed casualty and is frequently cited in 'western media,' has not said anything
about such an event anywhere in Syria. "
However, the most disturbing aspect of Kerry's allegation is that the accusations against
Russia run in tandem with Saudi Arabia's brutal assault on Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with the
aid of a few regional players - and with
ongoing American and British assistance (not to mention
billion dollar arms sales ) - has been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age without any legal
basis whatsoever. Often, the Saudi-led coalition has completely decimated civilian infrastructure,
which has led a number of groups to accuse the coalition of
committing war crimes in the process.
Civilians and civilian infrastructure have been struck so routinely that the world has
become increasingly concerned the actual targets of the coalition strikes are civilians
(what could be a greater recruitment tool for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen?) As
noted by Foreign Policy :
"The Houthis and their allies - armed groups loyal to Saleh - are the declared targets of the
coalition's 1-year-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is the civilians, such as Basrallah
and Rubaid, and their children, who are predominantly the victims of this protracted war. Hundreds
of civilians have been killed in airstrikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their
daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United
States, Britain, and others, meanwhile, have continued to supply a steady stream of weaponry and
logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition."
Just take one example of the cruel and disproportionate use of force that Saudi Arabia has used
in Yemen (using American-made and supplied aircraft and weapons) - against Judge Yahya Rubaid and
his family. As Foreign Policy
reported in March of this year:
"According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason.
What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and
his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted."
At the time this article's publication,
over 140 Yemenis had
been killed and another 500 injured in a Saudi-coalition aerial attack on a funeral over the
weekend. The civilian death toll continues to rise in Yemen, completely unchallenged by any major
players at the U.N.
When the U.N. does attempt to quell Saudi actions , the Saudis threaten
severe
economic retaliation.
How Kerry can accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Syria with a straight face is unclear,
as reports of atrocious crimes committed in Yemen continue to surface.
This is not to say Russia and Syria should not be investigated for war crimes – but maybe, just
maybe, we could live in a world where everyone responsible for committing these gross acts could
be held accountable, instead of just those who
pose an economic
threat to the West . Mango327
38BWD22
Oct 11, 2016 3:47 PM
Madeline Albright, "Yes, I think the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years
old by US sanctions, was a good price that had to be paid so we could get to Sadam Hussein "???
This bitch along with Kissinger, Soros, Rice, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, and all the news organizations
who have been cheerleaders for the slaughter of innocents should all be charged with Crimes against
humanity and SHOT!
"Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- John Kerry, 197x
That was the supposed anti-war Kerry speaking of the Vietnam War, who rode
such comments into a congressional seat. We didn't know then that he was Skull and Bones or what
it might mean. Now we know it in spades.
Now it's clear he's just a lying sack of war mongering, deep state shit.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political,
economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
Goebbels used "Gas Lighting" as a form of Psychological manipulation on a population on a mass
scale. Operation Mocking Bird. It continues on today. 365 days a year, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.
The Psyche Warefare / PsyOp War does not clos
There is an assumption that Russia would never go to war with the US over the Syrian dispute.
But yet, Russia is preparing for war. It has both first-strike and counter-strike capability in
the event the west (US State Dept.) continues with its bullying tactics and further escalates
its hostility. Russia is a sovereign nation; it has both the right and the power to do what is
in the best interests of its citizenry and its allies (Assad).
The US used to be that way until it was over-run in a silent, but effective liberal-coup that
has taken full control and stupidly re-newed the cold war with Russia.
And now America has been left more vulnerable that it ever has been. A simple shut-down of
the electric grid for several months, will, by itself, cut the population in half.
Ultra-liberalism is ultra self-destructive... we're about to see just how destructive that
really is.
Well this is a refreshing start, but only a start. Russia certainly had nothing to do with the
gunships that bombed the hospitals in Afghanistan into powder, killing patients including children,
doctors, nurses and other personell.
I for one would like to know who it was who flew those
planes and have them explain to all of us why they did not refuse orders? What sort of morals
have Americans got to behave ths way? The hospitals bombed in Syria, ditto. The Saudis are the
beasts they are and somebody needs to bomb them into oblivion. (Perhaps take out some other smug
financial centers too!) But Yemen is a very poor sandy country to begin with and Saudi must think
there's oil or something there. If some of the weapons used there weren't tactical nukes they
sure looked like them. Gee. Wonder where they got them?
Chomsky's been saying it for decades, "If they do it, they're terrorists; if we do it,
we're freedom fighters."
My take is that if you are the head of a government, you are a psychopath and any categorization
beyond this is moot.
Clinton / Trump, Obama / Putin, Assad / Erdogan, UN / Nationalism, whoever it may be, they're
all playing the same game, and we're not even allowed to watch, much less comment.
The only thing trickling-down (through a historical perspective) should be blood.
That was all about debt slavery and a successful attempt to encircle Russia with a belt of hostile
state. Standard of living dropped more then twice since Maydan. Nationalist proved to be reliable neoliberal
tools who can fooled again and again based on their hate of Russia and help to enslave their own people
("fool me once"...) Classic divide and conquer. Nothing new. Yatsenyuk was despicable corrupt neoliberal
with fake flair of nationalism from the very beginning. he helped to sell country assets for pennies
on the a dollar and completely destroyed economic relations with Russia (why you need to love the county
to trade with it is beyond any sane person comprehension; capitalism is actually about the ability to
trade with people we hate and that's one of its strong points). Emigrant community in Canada and USA
(due to typical for emigrants heightened level of nationalism) also played a role in destruction of
economics of Ukraine. this is a very sad story of creating an African country in Europe where many people
live of less then a dollar a day and pensioners starve.
Ukraine has faded from the American national consciousness as other, even more recent and far
more spectacular foreign policy fiascos - Syria, Libya and the Islamic State - overwhelm our capacity
to catalog them.
... ... ...
Obama's delicate carrot-and-stick approach hasn't worked, and the long-simmering Ukrainian kettle
threatens to boil into the worst crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington since the Cold
War.
... ... ...
The optimism created by the 2013-2014 "EuroMaidan" street demonstrations was short-lived. Prime
Minister Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk was forced to resign in April against a backdrop of permanent
political crisis and high-profile charges of corruption.
... ... ...
Perhaps most dispiriting of all, even those Ukrainian activists, politicians, and journalists
who are portrayed as true reformers appear likewise unable to resist the temptation to engage in
the systemic looting of the Ukrainian economy.
In early September, the New Yorker magazine dedicated several thousand words to three citizen-journalists
who now serve in the Ukrainian Parliament. Like other western media outlets, the New Yorker portrayed
Sergei Leshchenko, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and Mustafa Nayem as dedicated journalists - new faces who
sought election to parliament as part of President Poroshenko's bloc in the wake of the Maidan street
protests, which Nayem helped organize.
Now, however, Leshchenko's post-election acquisition of high-end housing has attracted the attention
of the Anti-Corruption Agency of Ukraine, an investigatory body that was established at the urging
of the United States. Last week, the Anti-Corruption Agency forwarded the Leshchenko file to the
special prosecutor's office tasked with corruption fighting. Leshchenko could not explain the source
of the income that allowed him to buy the residence, loan documents are missing, and the purchase
price was allegedly below market
The owner of the building, according to Ukrainian media accounts, is Ivan Fursin, the partner
of mega-oligarch Dmytro Firtash.
Recent reports have revealed that Leshchenko's expenses for attending international forums were
paid for by the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk who also contributed $8,6 million to the Clinton Foundation
While Leshchenko remains the toast of the western media and Washington think tanks, back at home,
his fellow reformers in the Parliament are calling on him to resign until his name is cleared.
Meanwhile, the next president is sure to find Ukraine besieged on all sides: With Russian troops
and pro-Russian rebels at its throat and corruption destroying it from within -and as the Leshchenko
scandal suggests, not all in Ukraine is what it appears to be.
The new president must learn to discern Ukraine's true reformers from those who made anti-corruption
crusades into a lucrative business, and be able to distinguish real action from empty words.
If not, the two and a half decades-long Ukrainian experiment with independence may boil over completely.
You cats haven't had end to end encryption for more than 5 years and while not at all
difficult to accomplish, the resistance to using such code has amazed all in the ITSEC
community not feeding at the .gov trough. All your ISP's have been carrying NSA gear within
their infrastructure for how long now? Juniper's back door in their gear wasn't to push
firmware updates. The whole system has been left open for a number of reasons, none of which
would be capitalism, free markets or satisfied consumers.
Kirk2NCC1701 -> junction
•Oct 8, 2016 2:59 PM
Well, if you use Yahoo, Outlook or Google mail, then you're the Village Idiot, if you use
those free services for anything other than harmless, boring stuff. You know, Yoga and Cooking
recipes -- like Hillary.
IF you're serious about email privacy, use an email service that is OUTSIDE the US.
As you know, I use Hushmail.me for my Kirk2NCC1701 handle and ZH friends. Hushmail is in
Canada and after speaking with them in person, I am confident that they take their customer's
Privacy seriously, especially for their paying customers. Now, I may have used a Yahoo
alt-persona account, but only for "Trumping". I also may have used Google and Outlook for
"vanilla" stuff, and I may have used other offshore emails for "secure" purposes where lawful
business and personal privacy matters were involved (but No illegal activities, as I'm not an
"illegal" type. Devious, curious, inquiring, opinionated? Hell yes. Illegal? No.)
Been using Pidgeon and Forked stick for years for private stuff.....
as for my Gmail account, I don't give a shit.....
Parrotile -> Kirk2NCC1701
•Oct 8, 2016 8:46 PM
I very rarely need to send anything particularly confidential. My employers expect me to
use the systems they provide for all "Medical in Confidence" stuff, and so since that
requirement is part of my Contract, they are entirely liable for any failures, not me.
EMail - Outlook. It works and again nothing of "interest" is ever sent. If I DO need to
send information that's "Sensitive", I have one of these: -
- Which works very well, and the cartridges are easily available. Person-to-Person, or
Recorded Delivery mail. Works just fine and of course NO "electronic paper trail" . . . .
That was all about debt slavery and a successful attempt to encircle Russia with a belt of hostile
state. Standard of living dropped more then twice since Maydan. Nationalist proved to be reliable neoliberal
tools who can fooled again and again based on their hate of Russia and help to enslave their own people
("fool me once"...) Classic divide and conquer. Nothing new. Yatsenyuk was despicable corrupt neoliberal
with fake flair of nationalism from the very beginning. he helped to sell country assets for pennies
on the a dollar and completely destroyed economic relations with Russia (why you need to love the county
to trade with it is beyond any sane person comprehension; capitalism is actually about the ability to
trade with people we hate and that's one of its strong points). Emigrant community in Canada and USA
(due to typical for emigrants heightened level of nationalism) also played a role in destruction of
economics of Ukraine. this is a very sad story of creating an African country in Europe where many people
live of less then a dollar a day and pensioners starve.
Ukraine has faded from the American national consciousness as other, even more recent and far
more spectacular foreign policy fiascos - Syria, Libya and the Islamic State - overwhelm our capacity
to catalog them.
... ... ...
Obama's delicate carrot-and-stick approach hasn't worked, and the long-simmering Ukrainian kettle
threatens to boil into the worst crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington since the Cold
War.
... ... ...
The optimism created by the 2013-2014 "EuroMaidan" street demonstrations was short-lived. Prime
Minister Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk was forced to resign in April against a backdrop of permanent
political crisis and high-profile charges of corruption.
... ... ...
Perhaps most dispiriting of all, even those Ukrainian activists, politicians, and journalists
who are portrayed as true reformers appear likewise unable to resist the temptation to engage in
the systemic looting of the Ukrainian economy.
In early September, the New Yorker magazine dedicated several thousand words to three citizen-journalists
who now serve in the Ukrainian Parliament. Like other western media outlets, the New Yorker portrayed
Sergei Leshchenko, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and Mustafa Nayem as dedicated journalists - new faces who
sought election to parliament as part of President Poroshenko's bloc in the wake of the Maidan street
protests, which Nayem helped organize.
Now, however, Leshchenko's post-election acquisition of high-end housing has attracted the attention
of the Anti-Corruption Agency of Ukraine, an investigatory body that was established at the urging
of the United States. Last week, the Anti-Corruption Agency forwarded the Leshchenko file to the
special prosecutor's office tasked with corruption fighting. Leshchenko could not explain the source
of the income that allowed him to buy the residence, loan documents are missing, and the purchase
price was allegedly below market
The owner of the building, according to Ukrainian media accounts, is Ivan Fursin, the partner
of mega-oligarch Dmytro Firtash.
Recent reports have revealed that Leshchenko's expenses for attending international forums were
paid for by the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk who also contributed $8,6 million to the Clinton Foundation
While Leshchenko remains the toast of the western media and Washington think tanks, back at home,
his fellow reformers in the Parliament are calling on him to resign until his name is cleared.
Meanwhile, the next president is sure to find Ukraine besieged on all sides: With Russian troops
and pro-Russian rebels at its throat and corruption destroying it from within -and as the Leshchenko
scandal suggests, not all in Ukraine is what it appears to be.
The new president must learn to discern Ukraine's true reformers from those who made anti-corruption
crusades into a lucrative business, and be able to distinguish real action from empty words.
If not, the two and a half decades-long Ukrainian experiment with independence may boil over completely.
"... It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos. ..."
"... Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons. Not only America deserves it – the world does. ..."
It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working
to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade
that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable
in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count
the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's
nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos.
Neither Trump nor Hillary addressed this
issue. Trump was simply ignorant. Hillary was simply disingenuous. Which candidate was worse? When you're talking about nuclear genocidal
death, it surely does matter. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is a lack of forthrightness and honesty.
Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons.
Not only America deserves it – the world does.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views. He can be reached at
[email protected]. Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again – e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine – the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again – e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine – the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
Word that Yahoo! last year, at the urging of the National Security Agency, secretly developed
a program that monitored the mail of all 280 million of its customers and turned over to the NSA
all mail from those who used any of the agency's thousands of keywords, shows that the US has become
a total police state in terms of trying to monitor every person in the country (and outside too).
With the courts, especially at the appellate and Supreme Court level, rolling over and supporting
this massive evisceration of basic freedoms, including the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of
speech and the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure and invasion of privacy,
perhaps the best way for us to fight back is to overload the spy system. How to do this? Just copy
and paste random fragments of the following list (a bit dated, but useable), provided courtesy of
the publication Business Insider, and include them in every communication - email, social media,
etc. - that you send out.
The secret Yahoo! assault (reported on here by Alfredo Lopez in
yesterday's article ),
works by searching users' emails for keywords on an NSA list of suspected words that might be used
by alleged terrorists or anti-government activists, and then those suspect communications are forwarded
to the NSA, where humans eventually have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Too much chaff (and
they surely have too much chaff anyhow!) and they will be buried with work and unable to read anything.
In fact, critics of the government's metastasizing universal surveillance program, including former
FBI agents and other experts, have long criticized the effort to turn the US into a replica of East
Germany with its Stazi secret police, cannot work and is actually counter-productive, because with
spy agencies' limited manpower looking at all the false leads provided by keyword monitoring, they
are bound to miss the real dangerous messages. In fact, this was also the argument used against the
FBI's program of monitoring mosques and suspecting every Muslim American who expressed criticism
of the US. Most are just people saying what a lot of us say: that the US wars in the Middle East
are wrong or even criminal, but they are just citizens or immigrants exercising their free speech
when they do this, not terrorists, and spying on them is and has been a huge waste or time and resources.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again – e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine – the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
Small countries are just pawns in a bigger Washington geopolitical game, the game conducted with
the level of determination and cruelty that would bestow on them an approving nod from Mussolini. And
actually they do not shun allies in far right forces. As long as they promote pro-American pro-neoliberalism
policies. As in saying "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch
" (attributed to FDR about Somoza). Since the dissolution of the USSR the US has been the world
hegemon, sponsoring a world order on neoliberal principles and making the world safe for an often
rapacious multinationals. Political disinterest in foreign military adventures at home due to absence
of draft allowed hijacking the US military for racketeering abroad. The privatizing of the military-industrial
complex has converted it into formidable political force: arms sales follow a Says Law that motivates
perpetual war as a marketing tool. American foreign policy has long been the special province of transnational
corporations, which were allowed to use US naval and military power for penetration into markets of
the countries without paying for it.
Notable quotes:
"... With regard to the issue of "first use," every president since Harry Truman has subscribed to the same posture: the United States retains the prerogative of employing nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies against even nonnuclear threats. ..."
"... Yet whatever reassurance was to be found in Trump's vow never to order a first strike-not the question Lester Holt was asking-was immediately squandered. The Republican nominee promptly revoked his "no first strike" pledge by insisting, in a cliché much favored in Washington , that "I can't take anything off the table." ..."
"... Hillary Clinton chose a different course: she changed the subject. She would moderate her own debate. Perhaps Trump thought Holt was in charge of the proceedings; Clinton knew better. ..."
"... What followed was vintage Clinton: vapid sentiments, smoothly delivered in the knowing tone of a seasoned Washington operative. During her two minutes, she never came within a country mile of discussing the question Holt had asked or the thoughts she evidently actually has about nuclear issues. ..."
"... It was as if Clinton were already speaking from the Oval Office. Trump had addressed his remarks to Lester Holt. Clinton directed hers to the nation at large, to people the world over, indeed to history itself. Warming to her task, she was soon rolling out the sort of profundities that play well at the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment, or the Council on Foreign Relations, causing audiences to nod-or nod off. ..."
"... With that, she reverted to platitudes. "So we need to be more precise in how we talk about these issues. People around the word follow our presidential campaigns so closely, trying to get hints about what we will do. Can they rely on us? Are we going to lead the world with strength and in accordance with our values? That's what I intend to do. I intend to be a leader of our country that people can count on, both here at home and around the world, to make decisions that will further peace and prosperity, but also stand up to bullies, whether they're abroad or at home." ..."
"... In contrast to Trump, however, Clinton did speak in complete sentences, which followed one another in an orderly fashion. She thereby came across as at least nominally qualified to govern the country, much like, say, Warren G. Harding nearly a century ago. And what worked for Harding in 1920 may well work for Clinton in 2016. ..."
"... Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with Hillary Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live on. ..."
"... Trump was incredibly naïve or stupid for even answering that question. He should have asked Holt to state what he understood "the nation's longstanding policy" to be and define the term "first use." Rule one in debating: If you don't fully understand the question, demand a definition of any premises essential to the question. ..."
"... I note, however, that Trump is a builder and Clinton is a destroyer. ..."
"... Bill Clinton authorized bombing a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998 to divert attention away from his sex scandals in a 'wag-the-dog' operation for gratuitous purposes. Hillary supported the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt in a rigged election in 2012 after the Brotherhood murdered countless police, prosecutors, judges and Coptic Priests and children and has enriched herself from advance bribes through her Foundation. The Clintons indisputably use "evil" for gratuitous purposes and have sold out the interests of the nation. ..."
"... Trump advocates waterboarding and stop and frisk as necessary policies to protect lives. But this is what a leader is elected to do – to use power and coercion to protect the people. He does not advocate torture or aggressive policing for political or egotistical purposes or to intimidate the public into totalitarian submission. He opposes political correct and totalitarian control of speech. ..."
"... So Bacevich can say Trump is unqualified but based purely on empirical grounds, the Clintons have disqualified themselves from the presidency by their gratuitous use of power and influence peddling; while Trump prefers to do deals (treaties) but would use aggressive tactics to protect the public but only when absolutely necessary as a last resort. ..."
"... So it is Bacevich who is unqualified to render an opinion that helps us judge which candidate is qualified for the presidency because he believes he has greater knowledge on issues such as nuclear proliferation. Bacevich is another know-it-all elite who knows better based on his superior knowledge. But no one has such God like knowledge. What would Bacevich do if he could drop an A-bomb and save countless lives on both sides of a war? He doesn't tell us and instead prefers to bash the candidates as to not telling the truth to the American public. The records of the candidates, summarized above, give us a glimpse of how they would use "evil". ..."
"... The irony is Bacevich lost a son in a war Trump opposed but Hillary voted for. He is to be respected for his loss but not for his unqualified opinion as to which candidate would use evil-for-good or evil-for-ill. ..."
You may have missed it. Perhaps you dozed off. Or wandered into the kitchen to grab a snack. Or by
that point in the proceedings were checking out Seinfeld reruns. During the latter part
of the much hyped but excruciating-to-watch first presidential debate, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester
Holt posed a seemingly straightforward but cunningly devised question. His purpose was to test whether
the candidates understood the essentials of nuclear strategy.
A moderator given to plain speaking might have said this: "Explain why the United States keeps
such a large arsenal of nuclear weapons and when you might consider using those weapons."
What Holt actually said was: "On nuclear weapons, President Obama reportedly considered changing
the nation's longstanding policy on first use. Do you support the current policy?"
The framing of the question posited no small amount of knowledge on the part of the two candidates.
Specifically, it assumed that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each possess some familiarity with
the longstanding policy to which Holt referred and with the modifications that Obama had contemplated
making to it.
If you will permit the equivalent of a commercial break as this piece begins, let me explain why
I'm about to parse in detail each candidate's actual answer to Holt's question. Amid deep dives into,
and expansive punditry regarding, issues like
how "fat" a former Miss Universe may have been and
how high an imagined future wall on our southern border might prove to be, national security
issues likely to test the judgment of a commander-in-chief have received remarkably little attention.
So indulge me. This largely ignored moment in last week's presidential debate is worth examining.
With regard to the issue of "first use," every president since Harry Truman has subscribed
to the same posture: the United States retains the prerogative of employing nuclear weapons to defend
itself and its allies against even nonnuclear threats.
In other words, as a matter of policy, the United States rejects the concept of "no
first use," which would prohibit any employment of nuclear weapons except in retaliation for a nuclear
attack. According to press reports, President Obama had
toyed with but then rejected the idea of committing the United States to a "no first use" posture.
Holt wanted to know where the two candidates aspiring to succeed Obama stood on the matter.
Cruelly, the moderator invited Trump to respond first. The look in the Republican nominee's eyes
made it instantly clear that Holt could have been speaking Farsi for all he understood. A lesser
candidate might then have begun with the nuclear equivalent of "
What is Aleppo? "
Yet Trump being Trump, he gamely-or naively-charged headlong into the ambush that Holt had carefully
laid, using his allotted two minutes to offer his insights into how as president he would address
the nuclear conundrum that previous presidents had done so much to create. The result owed less to
early Cold War thinkers-of-the-unthinkable like Herman Kahn or Albert Wohlstetter, who created the
field of nuclear strategy, than to Dr. Strangelove. Make that Dr. Strangelove on meth.
Trump turned first to Russia, expressing concern that it might be gaining an edge in doomsday
weaponry. "They have a much newer capability than we do," he said. "We have not been updating from
the new standpoint." The American bomber fleet in particular, he added, needs modernization. Presumably
referring to the recent employment of Vietnam-era bombers in the wars in
Afghanistan ,
Iraq , and Syria, he continued somewhat opaquely, "I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s,
they're old enough that your father, your grandfather, could be flying them. We are not - we are
not keeping up with other countries."
Trump then professed an appreciation for the awfulness of nuclear weaponry. "I would like everybody
to end it, just get rid of it. But I would certainly not do first strike. I think that once the nuclear
alternative happens, it's over."
Give Trump this much: even in a field that tends to favor abstraction and obfuscating euphemisms
like "fallout" or "dirty bomb," classifying Armageddon as the "nuclear alternative" represents something
of a contribution.
Still, it's worth noting that, in the arcane theology of nuclear strategy, "first strike" and
"first use" are anything but synonymous. "First strike" implies a one-sided, preventive war of annihilation.
The logic of a first strike, such as it is, is based on the calculation that a surprise nuclear attack
could inflict the "nuclear alternative" on your adversary, while sparing your own side from suffering
a comparable fate. A successful first strike would be a one-punch knockout, delivered while your
opponent still sits in his corner of the ring.
Yet whatever reassurance was to be found in Trump's vow never to order a first strike-not
the question Lester Holt was asking-was immediately squandered. The Republican nominee promptly revoked
his "no first strike" pledge by insisting, in a cliché
much favored in
Washington , that "I can't take anything off the table."
Piling non sequitur upon non sequitur, he next turned to the threat posed by a nuclear-armed North
Korea, where "we're doing nothing." Yet, worrisome as this threat might be, keeping Pyongyang in
check, he added, ought to be Beijing's job. "China should solve that problem for us," he insisted.
"China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea."
If China wouldn't help with North Korea, however, what could be more obvious than that Iran, many
thousands of miles away, should do so-and might have, if only President Obama had incorporated the
necessary proviso into the Iran nuclear deal. "Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Iran
has power over North Korea." When the Obama administration "made that horrible deal with Iran, they
should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea." But why stop with
North Korea? Iran "should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places,"
he continued, wandering into the nonnuclear world. U.S. negotiators suitably skilled in the Trumpian
art of the deal, he implied, could easily have maneuvered Iran into solving such problems on Washington's
behalf.
Veering further off course, Trump then took a passing swipe at Secretary of State John Kerry:
"Why didn't you add other things into the deal?" Why, in "one of the great giveaways of all time,"
did the Obama administration fork over
$400 million in cash? At which point, he promptly threw in another figure without the slightest
explanation-"It was actually
$1.7 billion in cash"-in "one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history."
Trump then wrapped up his meandering tour d'horizonby decrying the one
action of the Obama administration that arguably has reduced the prospect of nuclear war, at least
in the near future. "The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems," he stated with conviction.
"All they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don't have to do much. And they're going to end
up getting nuclear." For proof, he concluded, talk to the Israelis. "I met with Bibi Netanyahu the
other day," he added for no reason in particular. "Believe me, he's not a happy camper."
On this indecipherable note, his allotted time exhausted, Trump's recitation ended. In its way,
it had been a Joycean performance.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters?
It was now Clinton's turn to show her stuff. If Trump had responded to Holt like a voluble golf
caddy being asked to discuss the finer points of ice hockey, Hillary Clinton chose a different
course: she changed the subject. She would moderate her own debate. Perhaps Trump thought Holt was
in charge of the proceedings; Clinton knew better.
What followed was vintage Clinton: vapid sentiments, smoothly delivered in the knowing tone
of a seasoned Washington operative. During her two minutes, she never came within a country mile
of discussing the question Holt had asked or the thoughts she
evidently actually has about nuclear issues.
"[L]et me start by saying, words matter," she began. "Words matter when you run for president.
And they really matter when you are president. And I want to reassure our allies in Japan and South
Korea and elsewhere that we have mutual defense treaties and we will honor them."
It was as if Clinton were already speaking from the Oval Office. Trump had addressed his remarks
to Lester Holt. Clinton directed hers to the nation at large, to people the world over, indeed to
history itself. Warming to her task, she was soon rolling out the sort of profundities that play
well at the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment, or the Council on Foreign Relations, causing
audiences to nod-or nod off.
"It is essential that America's word be good," Clinton continued. "And so I know that this campaign
has caused some questioning and worries on the part of many leaders across the globe. I've talked
with a number of them. But I want to - on behalf of myself, and I think on behalf of a majority of
the American people, say that, you know, our word is good."
Then, after inserting a tepid, better-than-nothing endorsement of the Iran nuclear deal, she hammered
Trump for not offering an alternative. "Would he have started a war? Would he have bombed Iran?"
If you're going to criticize, she pointed out, you need to offer something better. Trump never does,
she charged. "It's like his plan to defeat ISIS. He says it's a secret plan, but the only secret
is that he has no plan."
With that, she reverted to platitudes. "So we need to be more precise in how we talk about
these issues. People around the word follow our presidential campaigns so closely, trying to get
hints about what we will do. Can they rely on us? Are we going to lead the world with strength and
in accordance with our values? That's what I intend to do. I intend to be a leader of our country
that people can count on, both here at home and around the world, to make decisions that will further
peace and prosperity, but also stand up to bullies, whether they're abroad or at home."
Like Trump, she offered no specifics. Which bullies? Where? How? In what order? Would she start
with Russia's Putin? North Korea's Kim Jong-Un? Perhaps Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines? How about
Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan? Or Bibi?
In contrast to Trump, however, Clinton did speak in complete sentences, which followed one
another in an orderly fashion. She thereby came across as at least nominally qualified to govern
the country, much like, say, Warren G. Harding nearly a century ago. And what worked for Harding
in 1920 may well work for Clinton in 2016.
Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet
sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into
it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of
posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with Hillary
Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live on.
The National Security Void
If I've taxed your patience by recounting this non-debate and non-discussion of nuclear first
use, it's to make a larger point. The absence of relevant information elicited by Lester Holt's excellent
question speaks directly to what has become a central flaw in this entire presidential campaign:
the dearth of attention given to matters basic to U.S. national security policy.
In the nuclear arena, the issue of first use is only one of several on which anyone aspiring to
become the next commander-in-chief should be able to offer an informed judgment. Others include questions
such as these:
What is the present-day justification for maintaining the U.S. nuclear "triad," a strike force
consisting of manned bombers and land-based ballistic missiles and submarine-launched
ballistic missiles?
Why is the Pentagon embarking upon a decades-long,
trillion-dollar program to modernize that triad, fielding a new generation of bombers, missiles,
and submarines along with an arsenal of
new warheads ? Is that program necessary?
How do advances in non-nuclear weaponry-for example, in the realm of cyberwarfare-affect theories
of nuclear deterrence devised by the likes of Kahn and Wohlstetter during the 1950s and 1960s?
Does the logic of those theories still pertain?
Beyond the realm of nuclear strategy, there are any number of other security-related questions
about which the American people deserve to hear directly from both Trump and Clinton, testing their
knowledge of the subject matter and the quality of their judgments. Among such matters, one in particular
screams out for attention. Consider it the question that Washington has declared off-limits: What
lessons should be drawn from America's costly and disappointing post-9/11 wars and how should those
lessons apply to future policy?
With Election Day now merely a month away, there is no more reason to believe that such questions
will receive serious consideration than to expect Trump to come clean on his
personal finances or Clinton to release the transcripts of her
handsomely compensated Goldman Sachs speeches.
When outcomes don't accord with his wishes, Trump reflexively
blames a "rigged" system. But a system that makes someone like Trump a finalist for the presidency
isn't rigged. It is manifestly absurd, a fact that has left most of the national media grasping wildly
for explanations (albeit none that tag them with having facilitated the transformation of politics
into theater).
I'll take a backseat to no one in finding Trump unfit to serve as president. Yet beyond the outsized
presence of one particular personality, the real travesty of our predicament lies elsewhere-in the
utter shallowness of our political discourse, no more vividly on display than in the realm of national
security.
What do our presidential candidates talk about when they don't want to talk about nuclear war?
The one, in a vain effort to conceal his own ignorance, offers rambling nonsense. The other, accustomed
to making her own rules, simply changes the subject.
The American people thereby remain in darkness. On that score, Trump, Clinton, and the parties
they represent are not adversaries. They are collaborators.
Trump was incredibly naïve or stupid for even answering that question. He should have asked
Holt to state what he understood "the nation's longstanding policy" to be and define the term
"first use." Rule one in debating: If you don't fully understand the question, demand a definition
of any premises essential to the question.
For God's sake, most Americans generally believe that the nation's police on nukes is that
we won't use them first. Introducing this kind of mixture of jargon and terms of art is good and
sufficient reason for rejecting the format of these awful "debates."
Dr. Bacevich is always insightful and worth reading. I wish we had a better choice of candidates.
I note, however, that Trump is a builder and Clinton is a destroyer.
Sounds like the Colonel will be voting for the Democrat for the third time in a row (maybe fourth,
he probably voted for Kerry, too). Although the Democrats have been marginally better on foreign
policy, they totally devoted to open borders.
Mass immigration will lead to more attacks at home which will lead to more wars overseas. Invite
the world/invade the world go hand in hand.
"Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet
sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into
it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle
of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with
Hillary Clinton. "
Clinton's approach makes sense. She knows that the general public knows little and cares less
about nuclear minutiae, so she laid out her platitudes-which the public does understand-and raised
legitimate doubts about whether Trump would adopt a foreign policy as Joycean as his reply.
What did Bacevich tell us other than he is an expert in nuclear proliferation policy but the two
presidential candidates aren't. So what? We don't elect presidents to be nuclear war policy experts.
We elect them on how they use the monopoly that government grants them for the legitimate use
of power, coercion, deception and violence (we might call this "evil") . Do they use "evil" gratuitously
or for partisan purposes or self gain; or do they only use "evil" only as a last resort when there
is no other choice such as when Truman authorized dropping A-bombs on Japan? The self righteous
and arrogant Bacevich doesn't tell us which candidate would use evil-for-good or evil-for-bad
or gratuitous outcomes.
Bill Clinton authorized bombing a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998 to divert attention
away from his sex scandals in a 'wag-the-dog' operation for gratuitous purposes. Hillary supported
the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt in a rigged election in 2012 after the Brotherhood murdered
countless police, prosecutors, judges and Coptic Priests and children and has enriched herself
from advance bribes through her Foundation. The Clintons indisputably use "evil" for gratuitous
purposes and have sold out the interests of the nation.
Trump advocates eminent domain but offered a widow four times the market value of her property
and lifetime occupancy in one of his luxury condos. The property was a rooming house the widow
never lived in on commercial zoned land. The property was foreclose on 20 years later for half
of what Trump offered her and the property was never acquired. Trump shows he does not use evil
gratuitously and is a generous person who nevertheless advocates the legal use of eminent domain
where necessary as a last resort.
Trump advocates waterboarding and stop and frisk as necessary policies to protect lives.
But this is what a leader is elected to do – to use power and coercion to protect the people.
He does not advocate torture or aggressive policing for political or egotistical purposes or to
intimidate the public into totalitarian submission. He opposes political correct and totalitarian
control of speech.
In sum, the Clintons put no limits on their use of "evil" for self gain or selling out to other
nations interests; while Trump wants to use soft power and voluntary market deals where possible
(eminent domain) or would use aggressive tactics to protect the public but in a limited and lawful
way.
So Bacevich can say Trump is unqualified but based purely on empirical grounds, the Clintons
have disqualified themselves from the presidency by their gratuitous use of power and influence
peddling; while Trump prefers to do deals (treaties) but would use aggressive tactics to protect
the public but only when absolutely necessary as a last resort.
So it is Bacevich who is unqualified to render an opinion that helps us judge which candidate
is qualified for the presidency because he believes he has greater knowledge on issues such as
nuclear proliferation. Bacevich is another know-it-all elite who knows better based on his superior
knowledge. But no one has such God like knowledge. What would Bacevich do if he could drop an
A-bomb and save countless lives on both sides of a war? He doesn't tell us and instead prefers
to bash the candidates as to not telling the truth to the American public. The records of the
candidates, summarized above, give us a glimpse of how they would use "evil".
The irony is Bacevich lost a son in a war Trump opposed but Hillary voted for. He is to
be respected for his loss but not for his unqualified opinion as to which candidate would use
evil-for-good or evil-for-ill.
"... I usually remark that one must look at the 'second tier' of a political cabal to predict future actions by a 'candidate.' The people surrounding the 'candidate' and their track records on issues in their sphere of expertise tell the mind sets that 'drive' policy. Trump comes from the business world, where delegation of responsibility is standard for larger enterprises. His 'advisors' are key to future performance. Clinton seems to be encapsulated in a bubble of sycophants. So, the same rationale applies to her as applies to Trump. Who are her main 'advisors?' ..."
"... As anyone possessed of discernment would have noticed in the 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded himself with 'less than progressive' advisors. His subsequent governance followed suit so that we find the nation in the mess it is in today. ..."
"... Finally, all signs are that the Russians are not taking this slide towards bellicosity lightly. The Russians are demonstrating a clear sighted view of Americas dysfunctions. For the Russians to hold massive Civil Defense drills now is a clear message; "We are preparing for the worst. How about you?" ..."
"... The tone of this piece is remarkably similar to a long article Bacevich headed in a recent Harper's article on US foreign policy. Presented as a roundtable discussion, it centered on the dogged insistence of some State Department-tied clown that Russia is The Aggressor, while Bacevich and a two other participants nicked away at her position, largely, as I recall, by granting the Russians some right to a regional interest. While they slowed her down, the great missing element was a characterization of global aims of the US her position reflected. ..."
"... In short, Bacevich, a good liberal, will not name the beast of US imperialism. As a result he makes it seem as though any policy can be judged on a truncated logic of its own, and so policy debates fragment into a disconnected series of arguments that bid for "fresh thinking" without daring to consider the underlying drivers. It's one of the reasons Eisenhower, with his criticism of the military-industrial complex, still comes across as a guiding light. ..."
"... I'll put it out there: We have too many upper-middle-class white women who claim to understand foreign policy who should have been subject to a draft to concentrate their minds on what happens when a person is forced into the military and sent off to drive around with a rifle as people lob bombs at them. Madeleine Albright is the classic case: "What good is our exquisite military, if I, a compassion-challenged expert, can't waste a lot of lives on my follies?" Bacevich's personal history means that he knows what war is about (as did Gen. Sherman). ..."
"... Perry is forthright when he says: "Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger." He also tells us that the nuclear danger is "growing greater every year" and that even a single nuclear detonation "could destroy our way of life." ..."
"... Perry does not use his memoir to score points or settle grudges. He does not sensationalize. But, as a defense insider and keeper of nuclear secrets, he is clearly calling American leaders to account for what he believes are very bad decisions, such as the precipitous expansion of NATO, right up to the Russian border,* and President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, originally signed by President Nixon. ..."
"... Interesting comments by Mr. Perry who had a starring role in 1979's "First Strike" propaganda film where he advocated for the MX ICBM system. ..."
"... So what's a voter to do? ..."
"... Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief. ..."
"... Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a significant number of people from his own party. ..."
"... But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs. some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull it off. ..."
"... What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times revealed that she always ..."
"... All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone" she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly, as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia. ..."
"... Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear ..."
"... How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief, Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued participation in NATO. ..."
"... Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with Hillary Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live on. ..."
"... At least Harding was aware of the damage his friends caused to him: "I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! " ..."
"... As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Harding had the political courage to pardon, and free from prison, Eugene V. Debs for his crime of giving an anti-war speech the Wilson administration did not like. ..."
"... Harding did not believe in foreign involvements and was never personally implicated in the financial corruption of his administration. ..."
"... If Clinton is to be compared to Harding, it would be to view Clinton as a "new" Harding who now believes she is well qualified to be President, wants to do much foreign military involvement, perhaps resulting in war, who is now trusting of her sycopathic friends to give her good advice, and who is personally involved in selling government favors (via the Clinton foundation) ..."
"... HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious contender for a position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job". Therefore she believes she must not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled to "out-macho" the macho guys. ..."
"... The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for the Mark I body double is coming? ..."
"... On the other hand, why should anyone think that a bubble-headed blowhard like Trumpet has the intelligence or gumption to have any effect upon the operations of the Warfare State? When the opinion makers of his own party and the neoliberal leaders of Klinton's party are all riding on the Military-Industrial gravy train looking for the next enemy to keep business booming? ..."
"... And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?" ..."
Prof. Bacevitch has bought up the one overriding problem with this election cycle: Lack of
substance.
I usually remark that one must look at the 'second tier' of a political cabal to predict
future actions by a 'candidate.' The people surrounding the 'candidate' and their track records
on issues in their sphere of expertise tell the mind sets that 'drive' policy. Trump comes from
the business world, where delegation of responsibility is standard for larger enterprises. His
'advisors' are key to future performance. Clinton seems to be encapsulated in a bubble of sycophants.
So, the same rationale applies to her as applies to Trump. Who are her main 'advisors?'
As anyone possessed of discernment would have noticed in the 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded
himself with 'less than progressive' advisors. His subsequent governance followed suit so that
we find the nation in the mess it is in today.
Finally, all signs are that the Russians are not taking this slide towards bellicosity
lightly. The Russians are demonstrating a clear sighted view of Americas dysfunctions. For the
Russians to hold massive Civil Defense drills now is a clear message; "We are preparing for the
worst. How about you?"
As always, Prof. Bacevitch is a joy to read. Live long, prosper, and hope those in positions
of power take his message to heart.
The tone of this piece is remarkably similar to a long article Bacevich headed in a recent
Harper's article on US foreign policy. Presented as a roundtable discussion, it centered on the
dogged insistence of some State Department-tied clown that Russia is The Aggressor, while Bacevich
and a two other participants nicked away at her position, largely, as I recall, by granting the
Russians some right to a regional interest. While they slowed her down, the great missing element
was a characterization of global aims of the US her position reflected.
That's pretty much what's going on here. "Do we really need a trillion dollar upgrade to US
nuclear capability?" Good question. But why, oh why, Andrew is it being proposed in the first
place? (Actually O has been pursuing the preliminaries for some time.) There's nothing about feeding
a military-industrial complex, nothing about trying to further distort the Russian economy to
promote instability, nothing about trying to capitalize on the US' military superiority as its
economic hegemony slips away.
In short, Bacevich, a good liberal, will not name the beast of US imperialism. As a result
he makes it seem as though any policy can be judged on a truncated logic of its own, and so policy
debates fragment into a disconnected series of arguments that bid for "fresh thinking" without
daring to consider the underlying drivers. It's one of the reasons Eisenhower, with his criticism
of the military-industrial complex, still comes across as a guiding light.
The round-table in Harper's, for background. One of the "takeaways" that I had is that both
of the women who participated are gratuitously hawkish. I am now tending to favor a universal
draft.
I'll put it out there: We have too many upper-middle-class white women who claim to understand
foreign policy who should have been subject to a draft to concentrate their minds on what happens
when a person is forced into the military and sent off to drive around with a rifle as people
lob bombs at them. Madeleine Albright is the classic case: "What good is our exquisite military,
if I, a compassion-challenged expert, can't waste a lot of lives on my follies?" Bacevich's personal
history means that he knows what war is about (as did Gen. Sherman).
Knowing what war's all about doesn't help much with knowing why wars come about, I'm afraid.
Bacevich is not helpful here. This reminds me of a great article by Graham Allison on bureaucratic
drivers in the Cuban Missile crisis, set out as three competing/complementary theories. Within
its mypoic scope, excellent, but as far as helping with the Cold War context, nada. He went on
to scotomize away in a chair at Harvard, gazing out his very fixed Overton window of permissible
strategic critique.
Wow. I just went to the TomDispatch site to look at Bacevich's work there. He does have a piece
criticizing Trump and HRC in light of Eisenhower, but slaps Eisenhower, appropriately, for various
crap, including the military-industrial complex takeoff. Why is it missing from this article?
At least Eisenhower criticized it.
Surprised that Bacevitch omits the thrust of Jerry Brown's important review:
My Journey at the Nuclear Brink
by William J. Perry, with a foreword by George P. Shultz
Stanford Security Studies, 234 pp., $85.00; $24.95 (paper)
I know of no person who understands the science and politics of modern weaponry better than
William J. Perry, the US Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. When a man of such unquestioned
experience and intelligence issues the stark nuclear warning that is central to his recent
memoir, we should take heed. Perry is forthright when he says: "Today, the danger of some
sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and
most people are blissfully unaware of this danger." He also tells us that the nuclear danger
is "growing greater every year" and that even a single nuclear detonation "could destroy our
way of life."
Perry does not use his memoir to score points or settle grudges. He does not sensationalize.
But, as a defense insider and keeper of nuclear secrets, he is clearly calling American leaders
to account for what he believes are very bad decisions, such as the precipitous expansion of
NATO, right up to the Russian border,* and President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, originally signed by President Nixon.
*"The descent down the slippery slope began, I believe, with the premature NATO expansion,
and I soon came to believe that the downsides of early NATO membership for Eastern European
nations were even worse than I had feared" (p. 152).
Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political
complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular
concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing
for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as
Commander-in-Chief.
Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has
proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy
on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a
significant number of people from his own party.
But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs.
some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in
a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull
it off.
What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate
to pull the trigger. An illuminating
article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and
reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited.
All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest
thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone"
she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly,
as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia.
Her willingness to roll the dice, to gamble with other people's lives, is ingrained within
her political personality, of which she is so proud.
Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear . That fear is what drives
her to the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in
front of the criticism she anticipates.
It is what we can count on. She will most assuredly get America into a war within the first
6-9 months of her Presidency, since she will be looking forward to the muscular response she will
order when she is 'tested', as she expects.
How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief,
Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of
responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between
Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a
threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued
participation in NATO.
These differences alone are enough to move me to actually vote for someone I find politically
detestable, simply because I fear that the alternative is a high probability of war, and a greatly
enhanced risk of nuclear annihilation-through miscalculation-under a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
Yep. In the meantime, you have to wonder just how bad the false choice between the GOP / Dem
has to be before people vote in numbers for a better third-party candidate? Really, can it possible
get any worse than Trump v. Clinton?
Between this post and the VP debate I am growing comfortable with a decision to vote Green
and will probably continue voting Green in future elections.
Not that this isn't an important issue, but I disagree on the desirability of posing wonkish
questions in presidential debates, in the hopes of proving that someone didn't do enough homework.
Far too much policy is hidden by the constant recourse to bureaucratic language, which often rests
on other policy positions that remain undiscussed. One example: "chained CPI". Talking about it
/ taking it seriously presupposes that you subscribe to the notion that poor people may be told
to eat cardboard if some economist / committee member designated such an adequate replacement
for food. Yet most listeners will not catch on to that fact, were it ever to even come up in a
debate.
Words are just words, especially for politicians. If you want an idea of how they would govern,
go by what they did in the past. Right now we have the choice between a touchy blowhard with bad
hair and a mendacious conniver with bad judgement; you'd be foolish take anything either says
too seriously, even aside from the fact that they're wannabe politicians.
The response to why the nuclear arsenals need to be so large and constantly updated would have
been an interesting one if it had materialized. The fact is even a fairly limited exchange between
other nuclear powers with much smaller arsenals has the potential for rapid climate change that
renders Earth unlivable.
The Cold War notion that you just have to hole up a few days to avoid fallout doesn't really
make any more sense than using these weapons in the first place.
Just along these line, I did some order of magnitude calculations based on the US SLBM fleet.
Since the MIRV warheads are dial a yield, I calculated a range of 1210 – 1915 Megatons.
I know your point is more on the limited exchange scenario; just wanted to point out the destructive
potential of one country's submarine nuclear capability.
Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of
wet sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps
into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle
of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with
Hillary Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live
on.
And when a person keeps pointing out the importance of keeping one's word, it almost always
means that he or she is lying.
At least Harding was aware of the damage his friends caused to him: "I have no trouble
with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends,
they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! "
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Harding had the political courage to pardon, and free from
prison, Eugene V. Debs for his crime of giving an anti-war speech the Wilson administration did
not like.
Harding did not believe in foreign involvements and was never personally implicated in
the financial corruption of his administration.
The Presidency was pushed on him, and he admitted felt he was not qualified.
I believe Harding gets a bad rap because he was not the leader of bold actions (wars) and the
corruption of people in his administration was well-documented.
His death was widely mourned in the USA.
As far as long term harm to the country, the do-nothing Harding was not bad for the country.
If Clinton is to be compared to Harding, it would be to view Clinton as a "new" Harding
who now believes she is well qualified to be President, wants to do much foreign military involvement,
perhaps resulting in war, who is now trusting of her sycopathic friends to give her good advice,
and who is personally involved in selling government favors (via the Clinton foundation)
Clinton is probably well coached by well paid advisors in her oratory.
Probably Harding wrote his own..
I would prefer Clinton to be like the old Harding, and the country would muddle through.
All it would take would be for a couple of strategically placed EMPs over the north american
continent ..
and poof . nothing functions anymore . while we get to stand and watch our 'supreme' military
launch their roman candles .
When it comes to war & nukes, I believe that HRC is the more dangerous of the two.
Before I explain, I would like to invite Yves or any female NC reader to consider & give their
POV on what I'm about say.
HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious contender for a
position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job". Therefore she believes she must
not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled
to "out-macho" the macho guys.
Obviously this could have serious implications in any situation involving escalating tensions.
Negotiation or compromise would be off the table if she thought it could be perceived as soft
or weak (and she contemplates being a 2 term pres.)
What say you NC readers? Is this a justified concern or am I letting male bias color my view?
The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability
that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for
the Mark I body double is coming?
On the other hand, why should anyone think that a bubble-headed blowhard like Trumpet has
the intelligence or gumption to have any effect upon the operations of the Warfare State? When
the opinion makers of his own party and the neoliberal leaders of Klinton's party are all riding
on the Military-Industrial gravy train looking for the next enemy to keep business booming?
And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says
or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember
Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?"
"... "Hillary is not the only individual with Libyan and Syrian blood on her hands. She's simply the only individual directly involved in Iraq, Libya, and Syria running to the 45th president of the US." ..."
"... The danger of Hillary is the danger of yet another neocon administration in power for the next four years. We probably need to think in term of Cheney and Rumsfeld, because this is the policies that Hillary will bring to the table. ..."
"... I think that experience with US neocons in Ukraine also makes Russia position on Syria quite different and less accommodating for the US neoliberal empire expansion projects. ..."
"... One of the things that Lupita likes to point out is how strange it is that somehow Americans are the decider of military intervention everywhere (LFC again) and how American exceptionalism is part of our imperial setup. ..."
"... Americans may like empire, but for the people who actually have to fight, very few of them really like being foot soldiers for empire. ..."
"... Left agitation in the early part of the 20th century and in the 60s was in large part anti-war agitation, and it was one of the main reasons why the government actually crushed left organizations. One of the main reasons why you can tell that HRC supporters are not really on the left in any important sense is the easy way that they switched from opposing Bush's war to approving of Democratic "humanitarian" wars. ..."
"... So why should we have to care about any of this foreign policy nonsense? What critical interest does any American have in Asia, Ukraine, etc.? The vast and lofty left sentiments that we are citizens of the world and that an injury to one is an injury to everyone - do these have any meaning outside of an imperial context? ..."
"... Russian foreign policy IMHO is mostly reactive and defensive. It is directed mainly on preservation of (currently rapidly shrinking) Russia's economic and political and cultural influence in xUSSR space. ..."
"... Obama administration was very aggressive toward Russia and attempted to implement "regime change" in 2011-2012 to prevent Putin re-election (so called "White revolution" with McFaul as the key player and the network on NGO as the coordination / training / recruiting / propaganda centers). This attempt to stage a "color revolution" in Russia backfired making Russian political establishment more hostile to the USA. It also led to expulsion of several NGO from Russia. Later events in Ukraine led to deterioration of political standing of Russian neoliberals as a political force. They lost all the legitimacy among the population and now viewed by-and-large as US stooges. ..."
"... Hillary as the Secretary of State was even more jingoistic neocon then Obama and has during her term in the office an outsize influence on the US foreign policy including the attempt to stage a "white revolution" in Russia in which State Department played an outsize role, essentially taking many functions formerly performed by CIA ..."
"... It also tried to oppose the "encirclement" - the creation of the belt of hostile states around Russia with US or NATO forces/bases - Ukraine is just the most recent example of this policy. Missile defense bases in Rumania and Poland belong to the same script. Actually the US Department of Defense on those issues has its own outsize influence on the US foreign policy and works in close coordination with the State Department (alliance started under Bush II and forged under Hillary Clinton). ..."
"... ZM: "But I wish there was some sort of international protocol about it." There was supposed to be one - the whole apparatus of U.N. intervention. We've seen how that played out. ..."
"... The sentiments have certainly been a useful pretext for imperial interventions, going well beyond 'interest' to intimations of existential crisis, etc. I remember when, if we did not 'help' the Vietnamese by bombing them back into the Stone Age, bad people from there were going to invade California. So it was both to 'our' interest and theirs to kill millions of them. You see the same thinking in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, Panama, and the rest of the list. ..."
"... Well with technology there is the possibility of that, Australia is part of the Five Eyes alliance with the USA, which is where the English speaking countries all share intelligence, then there is a larger group that gets a bit less intelligence, and maybe others like an onion or something. ..."
"... To me this is the wierdest and most hypocritical aspect of the whole "Putin stooge!" narrative, since part of the core ethos of US-aligned liberal discourse in settings like this is precisely a willingness and eagerness to voluntarily assume the role of stooge for whatever ruling-class figure one has decided to back. Look at the core message liberals here seem to be trumpeting: we may not like the faction of the ruling class embodied in someone like Hillary Clinton, but since we've decided to back this faction over another faction we consider worse, we'll suspend our earnest search for truth and understanding so we can add our voices into the fight. ("We know Hillary is bad, but save it for after Trump!") ..."
"... But the kicker re: Putin is that somehow, these same liberals can't fathom the idea that ordinary Russians might be gripped by precisely the same kind of dynamic ("we know Putin is bad but save it for after Syria!") especially when it comes to nationalist fervor stirred up by global military/economic power struggles. ..."
"... And to the extent that they see such people not as the Russian ideological equivalents of themselves but as literal agents of the Kremlin, precisely the way one might imagine all the Hillary defenders on this thread as COINTELPRO plants and/or paid Clinton campaign PR operatives, they're able to see this obsequious defense of ruling-class power for the creepy authoritarian servility it is. One could call the double standards closed-minded or even xenophobic, but I'll settle for just calling it bizarre. ..."
"... American foreign policy has long been the special province of deeply interested portions of the elite, which were allowed to use U.S. naval and military power without paying for it. ..."
"... Since the First World War, the U.S. has been the hegemon, sponsoring a world order on liberal principles in theory and making the world safe for an often rapacious commercial order in practice. Popular disinterest at home has preserved the tradition of hijacking the U.S. military for racketeering abroad, but the privatizing of the military-industrial complex has converted it from sideline into a reason for being: arms sales follow a Says Law that motivates perpetual war as a marketing tool. ..."
"... ZM is ridiculously wrong about one thing: "No one wants one country to rule the world" I think there is actually quite a demand for exactly that. That the U.S. capacity to satisfy that demand is diminishing rapidly is creating a gathering world crisis. ..."
"... Americans seem to have some difficulty understanding just how competent Putin has been. Putin is a consummately gifted gambler, who has played a weak hand aggressively at home and abroad. He is popular in Russia, because he has been successful by being phenomenally good at his job - so good that any Russian who isn't dead stupid is worried about what comes after. ..."
"... Obama, the most gifted politician I've seen in my lifetime, has played his hand very conservatively. I rail against him, because I think he should have taken much bigger chances on a radical reform agenda, using the crisis he was gifted to take apart the oligarchies choking the American political economy. ..."
"... Both Americans and Russians, I think, are inclined to see their roles in the world as more benign than they are. The Americans, though, have better PR and a lot of people abroad still want to believe. ..."
"... Ch. 1: The Advent of Semiwar. ..."
"... Ch. 2: Illusions of Flexibility and Control ..."
"... Ch. 3: The Credo Restored. ..."
"... "In fact, Clinton has shown a number of indications that she is not competent at all, that she is, unlike Obama, going to unleash the U.S. foreign policy establishment and military-industrial complex in all its decadent schizophrenia without any governor or restraint at all." ..."
"... The raving chorus of criticism of Clinton's foreign policy on ostensibly leftist grounds that falsifies the current state of affairs is viciously reactionary, especially when indissolubly mixed with openly reactionary criticisms. The falsification of what exactly is different about Trump's candidacy is also part and parcel. It's all very like the fake leftists who said defeating the Scottish referendum wasn't an endorsement of English imperialism, then pretended to act surprised when the rightward surge they helped to build led to a racist campaign for Brexit. ..."
"... Putin is weak. He sacrificed a struggle against fascism in Ukraine for a naval base, rather than call on popular support. Then he doubled down on another naval base in Syria, despite having no idea how to reach a solution. He can't cope with the economic warfare the US is waging, he only tries to use simple repression of the population at large and an elaborate combination of select repression and appeasement of the oligarchs he ultimately serves. ..."
"... Putin is popular I think largely because he appears to be the human face of capitalism. He's falsely sold himself as the corrective to Yeltsin, when in truth he is just the normalization of Yeltsinism. Yetltsin did the dirty work of attacking the people of Russia in the name of capitalist restoration. Now, Putin is just business as usual. ..."
"... It's the insidious ideology of the Uncle Sam poster, where a slightly-less-evil form of ruling-class power needs you not just to passively submit to its dictates but to actively defend its position against its slightly-more-evil ideological enemies, even at the expense of your own independent moral compass and political thought. ..."
"... If you need an eloquent summary of how the dysfunction of the American political system has become manifest in a foreign policy of perpetual and costly failure . ..."
"Hillary is not the only individual with Libyan and Syrian blood on her hands. She's
simply the only individual directly involved in Iraq, Libya, and Syria running to the 45th
president of the US."
Very true. The danger of Hillary is the danger of yet another neocon administration in
power for the next four years. We probably need to think in term of Cheney and Rumsfeld, because
this is the policies that Hillary will bring to the table.
But I think it is a mistake to view Syria regime change actions of US neocons in isolation
from the same actions in Ukraine. Those are closely interconnected events.
And Nuland action in Ukraine for the installation of far right nationalist regime (and virtual
occupation of the rest of Ukraine by Western Ukrainian nationalists) virtually guarantee economic
and military alliance of China and Russia. Russia will not forget and will not forgive Nuland's
valiant efforts of installing far right nationalists in Kiev instead of corrupt Yanukovich regime,
despite the fact that they were not very sympathetic to Yanukovich (and refused to play the card
of "legitimate president in exile", which they easily can making US position in Kiev untenable).
I think that experience with US neocons in Ukraine also makes Russia position on Syria
quite different and less accommodating for the US neoliberal empire expansion projects.
IMHO with the level of dysfunction of Obama administration there is some level of threat of
direct military confrontation in case one of three competing arms of US government overstep the
boundaries. Quite possible in case of CIA and supported by them al Qaeda affiliated groups (which
are mercilessly wiped out by Syrians army), probably less possible for Pentagon with their Kurds
militia.
And I think that any direct confrontation in Syria will automatically lead to confrontation
in Ukraine, were large part of Eastern regions might greet Russians as liberators.
If you add to China-Russia alliance cemented by events in Ukraine Pakistan, where anti-American
feelings are also quite strong you can see the net result of Barack foreign policy efforts.
Actually I think that one on key ideas of Trump foreign policy agenda is to reverse this alliance
and split Russia from China by treating it differently then Obama administration (bad cop, good
cop approach).
I'm starting to believe that there may be a Putin troll operation and that with the commenter
Ze K gone, the operation has sent commenter likbez to the Crooked Timber plate as pinch-hitter.
(Sorry for the baseball metaphor. Turning off computer now.)
"IMHO with the level of dysfunction of Obama administration there is some level of threat
of direct military confrontation in case one of three competing arms of US government overstep
the boundaries. Quite possible in case of CIA and supported by them al Qaeda affiliated groups
(which are mercilessly wiped out by Syrians army), probably less possible for Pentagon with
their Kurds militia.
And I think that any direct confrontation in Syria will automatically lead to confrontation
in Ukraine, were large part of Eastern regions might greet Russians as liberators."
I don't really understand Russian foreign policy at the moment. I think the Obama foreign policy
has been an improvement on the Bush government's foreign policy, and Obama inherited a very bad
situation if you look at him coming to the Presidency in 2008.
What does Russian foreign policy want now that the Cold War is over? America power is on the
decline with the rise of other countries, and Russian power is on the decline too. Both countries
had a lot of power due to the Cold War after WWII ended and the lack of development in many countries,
and Europe needing to rebuild so much after the war.
But why does Syria need to be a proxy war between America and Russia when the Cold War is over?
Someone from Afghanistan was telling me recently that in Afghanistan they consider they have had
war ongoing for 50 years now, since they had the wars with Russia years ago, and then they have
had the wars with America now, plus the country is riven by splits now after wars for so long.
The Middle East is going to need a lot of help to rebuild after these wars, they don't need
Russia and America fighting over power in the region.
"Actually I think that one on key ideas of Trump foreign policy agenda is to reverse this
alliance and split Russia from China by treating it differently then Obama administration (bad
cop, good cop approach)."
Also, I live in Australia so we have more coverage of Asian politics, and Obama has been pretty
good with China overall I think. China got cross about the pivot to Asia, and gave The Philippines
a very sharp warning in the official newspaper, and gave Australia a caution in the newspaper,
since then its all gone reasonably well I think.
Ah, foreign policy. I think that LFC should consider that while some commenter may well be a Putin
troll operation, the style is pretty much indistinguishable from strongly held local ethnic commitments,
and LFC's own writing sounds similarly weird and overcommitted to someone who doesn't share LFC's
assumptions.
I'll write some more about populism. One of the things that Lupita likes to point out is
how strange it is that somehow Americans are the decider of military intervention everywhere (LFC
again) and how American exceptionalism is part of our imperial setup.
One of the things that people forget about populism is that it's generally a revolt against
that - Americans may like empire, but for the people who actually have to fight, very few
of them really like being foot soldiers for empire.
Left agitation in the early part of the 20th century and in the 60s was in large part anti-war
agitation, and it was one of the main reasons why the government actually crushed left organizations.
One of the main reasons why you can tell that HRC supporters are not really on the left in any
important sense is the easy way that they switched from opposing Bush's war to approving of Democratic
"humanitarian" wars.
So why should we have to care about any of this foreign policy nonsense? What critical
interest does any American have in Asia, Ukraine, etc.? The vast and lofty left sentiments that
we are citizens of the world and that an injury to one is an injury to everyone - do these have
any meaning outside of an imperial context?
"I don't really understand Russian foreign policy at the moment. "
Russian foreign policy IMHO is mostly reactive and defensive. It is directed mainly on
preservation of (currently rapidly shrinking) Russia's economic and political and cultural influence
in xUSSR space.
Obama administration was very aggressive toward Russia and attempted to implement "regime
change" in 2011-2012 to prevent Putin re-election (so called "White revolution" with McFaul as
the key player and the network on NGO as the coordination / training / recruiting / propaganda
centers). This attempt to stage a "color revolution" in Russia backfired making Russian political
establishment more hostile to the USA. It also led to expulsion of several NGO from Russia. Later
events in Ukraine led to deterioration of political standing of Russian neoliberals as a political
force. They lost all the legitimacy among the population and now viewed by-and-large as US stooges.
The USA also try to play Islamic insurgence card via proxies and hurt economics of Russia via
sanctions and low oil prices (which simultaneously decimated US own shale/LTO oil industry). Obama
actually bragged about the latter.
My impression is that this is just a part of the more general plan of expansion of global neoliberal
empire led by the USA, enforcing neoliberal globalization and crushing all opposing regimes (including
"resource nationalists" like Russia ) that Obama administration is hell bent on (neocon vision
of "Pax Americana"). Obama (or, more correctly, forces behind him) proved to be a staunch neoliberal
(and neocon) on par with Bush II and Bill Clinton and he essentially continued Bush II "muscular"
foreign policy.
Hillary as the Secretary of State was even more jingoistic neocon then Obama and has during
her term in the office an outsize influence on the US foreign policy including the attempt to
stage a "white revolution" in Russia in which State Department played an outsize role, essentially
taking many functions formerly performed by CIA
I think that Russia foreign policy can be understood as not always successful attempts to counter
the attempts of the USA to subdue it and survive in the situation when then the major power using
affiliated with it states tries to deny its sovereignty and wants to convert into vassal state
(and Russia were the US vassal under Yeltsin regime), or, if possible, to dismember it into smaller
and weaker states using the rising wave of nationalism in the regions.
It also tried to oppose the "encirclement" - the creation of the belt of hostile states
around Russia with US or NATO forces/bases - Ukraine is just the most recent example of this policy.
Missile defense bases in Rumania and Poland belong to the same script. Actually the US Department
of Defense on those issues has its own outsize influence on the US foreign policy and works in
close coordination with the State Department (alliance started under Bush II and forged under
Hillary Clinton).
As Russophobia replaced anti-Semitism for the US elite, I see nothing good for Russia in this
respect in the future.
So the rearmament attempts and the attempts to develop alternatives to Western strategic products
and services (which at any time can be included under sanctions) as well as more deep political
and military alliance with China might well be their only options.
But China has its own geopolitical aspirations in xUSSR region and wants to play a leading
role in this alliance using Russia's difficult situation for its own advantage.
So Russian situation is not enviable and might soon became worse, in Hilary is elected.
Moreover, Putin in not eternal, and at some point needs to leave his position and that, taking
into account the amount of power he concentrated in his hands, might create the leadership vacuum
that will be very dangerous taking into consideration the level of hostility of the USA. Coming
to power of more nationalistically oriented politicians on the wave of anti-American sentiments
produced by sanctions also can't be excluded.
I am not a specialist in Russian affairs, so please take those considerations with a grain
of salt.
ZM: "But I wish there was some sort of international protocol about it." There was supposed
to be one - the whole apparatus of U.N. intervention. We've seen how that played out.
'So why should we have to care about any of this foreign policy nonsense? What critical
interest does any American have in Asia, Ukraine, etc.? The vast and lofty left sentiments
that we are citizens of the world and that an injury to one is an injury to everyone - do these
have any meaning outside of an imperial context?'
The sentiments have certainly been a useful pretext for imperial interventions, going
well beyond 'interest' to intimations of existential crisis, etc. I remember when, if we did
not 'help' the Vietnamese by bombing them back into the Stone Age, bad people from there were
going to invade California. So it was both to 'our' interest and theirs to kill millions of
them. You see the same thinking in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, Panama, and the rest of the
list.
But on the other side, at the business end of the stick:
Cet animal est très méchant;
Quand on l'attaque, il se défend.
"No one wants one country to rule the world as if its Lord Of The Rings"
Oh, come on. I'd completely vote for Sauron. That all-seeing eye would spy out all foreign
armies and spies, except for hobbits of course. Regretfully, in our own defense, we'd have to
bomb all hobbit terrorist villages.
Well with technology there is the possibility of that, Australia is part of the Five Eyes
alliance with the USA, which is where the English speaking countries all share intelligence, then
there is a larger group that gets a bit less intelligence, and maybe others like an onion or something.
But its not really what anyone hardly wants as far as I can tell.
I had no idea there even was that much information collected by the government on people until
the Snowdon whistleblower revelations about the NSA.
Rich @ 348: "I think that LFC should consider that while some commenter may well be a Putin
troll operation, the style is pretty much indistinguishable from strongly held local ethnic commitments,
and LFC's own writing sounds similarly weird and overcommitted to someone who doesn't share LFC's
assumptions."
To me this is the wierdest and most hypocritical aspect of the whole "Putin stooge!" narrative,
since part of the core ethos of US-aligned liberal discourse in settings like this is precisely
a willingness and eagerness to voluntarily assume the role of stooge for whatever ruling-class
figure one has decided to back. Look at the core message liberals here seem to be trumpeting:
we may not like the faction of the ruling class embodied in someone like Hillary Clinton, but
since we've decided to back this faction over another faction we consider worse, we'll suspend
our earnest search for truth and understanding so we can add our voices into the fight. ("We know
Hillary is bad, but save it for after Trump!")
There's probably a lot more that can be said about this, but at least as far as the non-ruling-class
public is concerned, what Americans call "partisanship" in this Inside-Baseball sense can be read
as a political analogue of the apocryphal Steinbeck line about temporarily embarrassed millionaires,
absurdly overinflating the importance of their own little Machiavellian calculations to maintain
a pathetically optimistic political self-image, not as the depoliticized and socially atomized
ideological consumers they actually are, but as temporarily embarrassed technocratic insiders.
But the kicker re: Putin is that somehow, these same liberals can't fathom the idea that
ordinary Russians might be gripped by precisely the same kind of dynamic ("we know Putin is bad
but save it for after Syria!") especially when it comes to nationalist fervor stirred up by global
military/economic power struggles.
And to the extent that they see such people not as the Russian ideological equivalents
of themselves but as literal agents of the Kremlin, precisely the way one might imagine all the
Hillary defenders on this thread as COINTELPRO plants and/or paid Clinton campaign PR operatives,
they're able to see this obsequious defense of ruling-class power for the creepy authoritarian
servility it is. One could call the double standards closed-minded or even xenophobic, but I'll
settle for just calling it bizarre.
bruce wilder , 10.03.16 at 2:51 pm
American foreign policy has long been the special province of deeply interested portions of
the elite, which were allowed to use U.S. naval and military power without paying for it.
Early in the 19th century, it was Yankee traders in China and South America paddling their
boats in the British Empire's wake. The Americans were there, junior partners and useful instruments
of British foreign policy: Monroe Doctrine, founding Hong Kong, opening Japan and Korea, disciplining
unruly or bankrupt Latin American states. The U.S. nearly matched the British in the race to build
Dreadnoughts before the First World War, proclaimed the Open Door in China, neutralized the German
Navy in Morocco and in the Venezuela Crisis, and finally settled the First World War.
Since the First World War, the U.S. has been the hegemon, sponsoring a world order on liberal
principles in theory and making the world safe for an often rapacious commercial order in practice.
Popular disinterest at home has preserved the tradition of hijacking the U.S. military for racketeering
abroad, but the privatizing of the military-industrial complex has converted it from sideline
into a reason for being: arms sales follow a Says Law that motivates perpetual war as a marketing
tool.
ZM is ridiculously wrong about one thing: "No one wants one country to rule the world"
I think there is actually quite a demand for exactly that. That the U.S. capacity to satisfy that
demand is diminishing rapidly is creating a gathering world crisis.
Will G-R: liberals can't fathom the idea that ordinary Russians might be gripped by precisely
the same kind of dynamic ("we know Putin is bad but save it for after Syria!")
I'm not sure that's the relevant analogue.
Americans seem to have some difficulty understanding just how competent Putin has been.
Putin is a consummately gifted gambler, who has played a weak hand aggressively at home and abroad.
He is popular in Russia, because he has been successful by being phenomenally good at his job
- so good that any Russian who isn't dead stupid is worried about what comes after.
Obama, the most gifted politician I've seen in my lifetime, has played his hand very conservatively.
I rail against him, because I think he should have taken much bigger chances on a radical reform
agenda, using the crisis he was gifted to take apart the oligarchies choking the American political
economy. But, he chose not to play the game at that level of risk, and I think history will
judge him to be weak because of the consequences, though he has not been politically weak and
he has been remarkably successful in terms of his chosen agenda.
Both Americans and Russians, I think, are inclined to see their roles in the world as more
benign than they are. The Americans, though, have better PR and a lot of people abroad still want
to believe. No one believes the Russians are a benign force, especially in Russia's Near
Abroad.
The scary thing is that Americans have been propagandized into thinking Clinton is competent,
that she will be the adult in the room, the experienced leader who will take the call at 3 am
(and not tweet out some link to a porn tape).
In fact, Clinton has shown a number of indications that she is not competent at all, that she
is, unlike Obama, going to unleash the U.S. foreign policy establishment and military-industrial
complex in all its decadent schizophrenia without any governor or restraint at all.
That Clinton is so cavalier about making Putin the scapegoat for her email problems is an early
indication that she doesn't know what she is doing.
I know that it's a digression, but I really should write some more about hobbits. The one thing
that would shake my convictions as an anarchist would be a political leader who promises to wipe
out their barbaric "mathom culture".
First of all, they never can get ahead economically because of this premodern habit of putting
their economic surplus into items that they pass around aimlessly. And the way they waste food
- has anyone seen the depravity of their so-called wedding parties? I know that drones are a harsh
remedy, but really.
And of course the feminist case for bombing hobbits is as strong as it ever was. Has anyone
even heard of a female hobbit? Of course you haven't, because they keep them in those primitive
holes, and they only appear in brief cameos when the hobbits have to conceal their unadmitted
homosocial orientation. Strong hobbit women will be much better off if we kill the men keeping
them down as well as some of their children.
And lastly, genocide. Are their even any members of other racial groups living in the Shire?
Where did they all go? Hobbit society is deeply racist, and those holes are dumping groups for
bodies as well as potential storehouses for chemical weapons. I know that some people say that
we shouldn't bomb them, but that's only because those people can't even imagine what it's like
not to have the privilege that they do.
likbez 10.03.16 at 3:48 pm
Bruce,
@ 358
"ZM is ridiculously wrong about one thing: "No one wants one country to rule the world"
I think there is actually quite a demand for exactly that. That the U.S. capacity to satisfy
that demand is diminishing rapidly is creating a gathering world crisis."
As president, Barack Obama's efforts to change the U.S.'s exercise of power "have seldom risen
above the cosmetic"(20). He made clear he subscribes to the "catechism of American statecraft,"
viz. that 1) the world must be organized, 2)only the U.S. can do it, 3) this includes dictating
principles, and 4) not to accept this is to be a rogue or a recalcitrant (20-21).
It follows that the U.S. need not conform to the norms it sets for others and that it should
maintain a worldwide network of bases (22-23).
Imagine if China acted in a comparable manner (23-25). The extraordinary American military
posture in the world (25-27). To call this into question puts one beyond the pale(27). James Forrestal
called this a permanent condition of semiwar, requiring high levels of military spending(27-28).
American citizens are not supposed to concern themselves with it (29-30). As to how this came
about, the "standard story line" presents as the result of the decisions of a "succession of presidential
administrations," though this conceals as much as it reveals (30-32).
Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address on the "military-industrial complex" was a rare exception
(32-34). More important than presidents were Allen Dulles [1893-1969] and Curtis Lemay [1906-1990]
(34-36).
Bacevich attributes the vision for an American-dominated post-World War II world with the CIA
playing an active role to the patrician Dulles (36-43). The development of the U.S. military into
a force capable of dominating the world, especially in the area of strategic weapons, he attributes
to the hard-bitten Curtis LeMay, organizer of the StrategicAir Command (SAC) (43-52). Dulles and
LeMay shared devotion to country, ruthlessness, a certain recklessness (52-55). They exploited
American anxieties and insecurities in yin (Dulles's CIA) yang(LeMay's SAC) fashion, leaving the
mainstay of American military power, the U.S. Army, in a relatively weak position(55-58).
Ch. 2: Illusions of Flexibility and Control
Kennedy kept Dulles and LeMay to signal continuity, but there was a behind-the-scenes struggle
led by Gen. Maxwell Taylor to reassert the role of the U.S. Army by expanding and modernizing
conventional forces that was "simultaneously masked by, and captured in, the phrase flexible response
" (60; 59-63).
This agenda purported to aim at "resisting aggression" but really created new options for limited
aggressive warfare by the U.S. (63-66).
McNamara engaged in a struggle with LeMay to control U.S. policy on nuclear weapons, but he embraced
the need for redundancy based on a land-sea-air attack "triad" and LeMay et al. "got most of what
they wanted" (66-72).
In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy instituted the morally and legally "indefensible"
Operation Mongoose," in effect, a program of state-sponsored terrorism" against Cuba (80; 72-82
[but Bacevich is silent on its wilder elements, like Operation Northwoods]).
U.S. recklessness caused the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to his credit Kennedy acknowledged this
(albeit privately) and "suspended the tradition" in defusing the crisis (82-87).
Bacevich rejects as a romantic delusion the view that in the aftermath of this crisis Kennedy
turned against the military-industrial complex and the incipient Vietnam war and shows no interest
in Kennedy's assassination itself (87-92).
He sees a parallel between escalation in Vietnam and post-9/11 aggression as "fought to sustain
the Washington consensus" (107; 92-107).
Ch. 3: The Credo Restored.
William Fulbright's The Arrogance of Power (1966) urged a rethinking of the Washington rules
(109-15). A radicalized David Shoup, a Medal of Honor winner and former commandant of the MarineCorps,
argued in "The New American Militarism" (Atlantic, April 1969) that the U.S. had become "a militaristic
and aggressive nation" (120; 115-21). The 1960s Zeitgeist shift made LeMay "an embarrassment,
mocked and vilified rather than venerated," which showed that the Washington rules had incurred
serious damage in Vietnam; the Army was in dire shape (122; 121-27).
Yet astonishingly, in the subsequent decade the "sacred trinity" (cf. 11-15) was "fully restored"
(127). As in post-1918 Germany, élites looked for scapegoats and worked to reverse "the war's
apparent verdict" (128). The Council on Foreign Relations 1976 volume entitled The Vietnam Legacy:
The War, American Society, and the Future of American Foreign Policy is an expression of élite
consensus that the Vietnam war was insignificant, an anomaly (129-34).
By 1980, Democrats and Republicans were again on the same page (134-36).Reagan's election "sealed
the triumph of Vietnam revisionism" (136; 136-38). And the end of the Cold War posed no challenge
to the Washington rules, as Madeleine Albright's pretentious arrogance exemplifies (138-45).
stevenjohnson 10.03.16 at 3:55 pm
"In fact, Clinton has shown a number of indications that she is not competent at all, that
she is, unlike Obama, going to unleash the U.S. foreign policy establishment and military-industrial
complex in all its decadent schizophrenia without any governor or restraint at all."
Backing away from openly bombing the Syrian government when the English PM couldn't get the
vote from Parliament is not restraint. Signing a booby trapped pact with the Iranian government
which will not end sanctions is not restraint. Endorsing the Indian attack on Pakistan is not
restraint. Endorsing the Saudi invasion of Yemen is not restraint. A trillion dollar upgrade of
nuclear weapons is not restraint. Supporting IS all the time and bombing it some time is not restraint.
The raving chorus of criticism of Clinton's foreign policy on ostensibly leftist grounds
that falsifies the current state of affairs is viciously reactionary, especially when indissolubly
mixed with openly reactionary criticisms. The falsification of what exactly is different about
Trump's candidacy is also part and parcel. It's all very like the fake leftists who said defeating
the Scottish referendum wasn't an endorsement of English imperialism, then pretended to act surprised
when the rightward surge they helped to build led to a racist campaign for Brexit.
Putin is weak. He sacrificed a struggle against fascism in Ukraine for a naval base, rather
than call on popular support. Then he doubled down on another naval base in Syria, despite having
no idea how to reach a solution. He can't cope with the economic warfare the US is waging, he
only tries to use simple repression of the population at large and an elaborate combination of
select repression and appeasement of the oligarchs he ultimately serves.
Putin is popular I think largely because he appears to be the human face of capitalism.
He's falsely sold himself as the corrective to Yeltsin, when in truth he is just the normalization
of Yeltsinism. Yetltsin did the dirty work of attacking the people of Russia in the name of capitalist
restoration. Now, Putin is just business as usual.
Bruce, I meant "bad" in a good/evil sense, not a competent/incompetent sense. Clinton partisans
may be fairly unanimous in waxing rhapsodic about her competence, but plenty of them are willing
to cop to her position as a defender of an ultimately evil form of ruling-class power, they simply
think it shouldn't be talked about (see Collin Street @ 184 for an exemplary specimen).
It's the insidious ideology of the Uncle Sam poster, where a slightly-less-evil form of
ruling-class power needs you not just to passively submit to its dictates but to actively
defend its position against its slightly-more-evil ideological enemies, even at the expense of
your own independent moral compass and political thought. The point of this facade isn't
what the lemming-like hordes of Clinton defenders (or Putin defenders, if they're Russian) are
actually accomplishing, which is essentially nothing; the point is what they're not accomplishing,
which is any meaningfully subversive reflection about how ruling-class power works in general
and how the governed classes might effectively counter it.
"... The strongest part of "America's War for the Greater Middle East" is the thirteenth chapter, where Bacevich dissects Bush 43's decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power. While I have previously argued that American war aims in the Iraq war were unidentifiable Bacevich's formulation of said aims (namely, that our overarching aim was to force everyone in the region to bend to our will) is plausible. The weakest part of the book is the very limited discussion (limited basically to chapter 16) of the US special relationship with Israel, a pariah state based on an obsolete ideology, which in my opinion is the real driver of the war. If this relationship could be ended or redefined, we would in one stroke go most of the way towards a rational policy in the Middle East. ..."
"... He cites many examples of Americans deceiving themselves about what constitutes terrorism and who is a terrorist and why they do it. ..."
"... He also makes a convincing case for the war having begun with Carter and never stopping, even in periods between more known wars; much of the action was American use of air power in Iraq, but also tensions with Iran in the Persian Gulf, what was once very strong US support of jihadis fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979-89). ..."
Blocking Consensus: A Critical View of "America's War for the Greater Middle East: A
Military History" , April 15, 2016
"America's War for the Greater Middle East" is the third book I have read by Andrew Bacevich,
who has unique authority to speak on the subject as the war claimed his son's life. Unfortunately,
this book lacks the power of the first two books, "The Limits of Power" and "Breach of Trust."
The overall indictment of American society that it delivers was more convincing in "Breach of
Trust," or perhaps I am simply blinded by the very ideology that Bacevich decries in this book.
I have bought into the status quo in this respect: I believe some, if not most, of the goods recognized
by Americans are indeed universal. I am unwilling to concede that the millions of Afghan girls
and women who got an education in the years after the Taliban's control of that country were first
challenged would be better off if we had never gone in. I also believe that the number of casualties
we are now sustaining in CENTCOM and AFRICOM is low enough that what we are doing is sustainable
indefinitely, unless the Muslim world gets so angry at us that it unites into a new superpower
to challenge us globally. This will disappoint a lot of people and isn't necessarily consistent
with what I have argued at other times but the absence of even one critical review on Amazon was
something I couldn't stomach anymore.
Per Bacevich, the first American lives lost in America's War for the Greater Middle East were
the fatalities of the aircraft collision as special operators were queuing up to leave Desert
One after the mission was called off. I think it does a disservice to President Carter to imply
that sending troops for a rescue mission committed the United States to perpetual war for unachievable
aims, or even to call it the Poland of this war. Bacevich's position that the Carter Doctrine
calling for the free transit of Saudi and other Gulf Arab oil through the Straits of Hormuz made
Desert One and other interventions inevitable is somewhat more supportable.
The strongest part of "America's War for the Greater Middle East" is the thirteenth chapter,
where Bacevich dissects Bush 43's decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power. While I have previously
argued that American war aims in the Iraq war were unidentifiable Bacevich's formulation of said
aims (namely, that our overarching aim was to force everyone in the region to bend to our will)
is plausible. The weakest part of the book is the very limited discussion (limited basically to
chapter 16) of the US special relationship with Israel, a pariah state based on an obsolete ideology,
which in my opinion is the real driver of the war. If this relationship could be ended or redefined,
we would in one stroke go most of the way towards a rational policy in the Middle East.
This book is headed for some Books of the Year lists and maybe some awards. It's well researched,
unusually well-written and deeply disturbing. It is not an easy read; there are hundreds of names,
locations and events over four decades. It deals with how we got into the mess, how we kept at
it and how we're not going to get out. That's the disturbing point, the number of factors that
indicate that we are going to continue with what the book calls the War for the Greater Middle
East. I wish he was wrong, but his case is overwhelming and logically developed. Rather than describe
this book as other reviews have done, I'll consider some details that struck me and add a couple
of quotes to give the flavor. Note: the author has strong opinions, and has ample criticism for
all presidents from Carter to Obama, and strong criticism of many generals, but Republican readers
will not like some of his comments, one cited below. His overall view is rather similar to the
famed quote from World War 1, about lions led by donkeys.
"...combined incoherence with self-deception, both to become abiding hallmarks of America's
evolving War for the Greater Middle East." (44).
"Like the present-day GOP, the Northern Alliance was a loose coalition of unsavory opportunists,
interested chiefly in acquiring power." (227)
"Instead of intimidating, US military efforts have annoyed, incited and generally communicated
a lack of both competence and determination." (367).
He cites many examples of Americans deceiving themselves about what constitutes terrorism
and who is a terrorist and why they do it. The book covers in considerable detail the Carter
actions in Iran, Reagan's Marines in Lebanon, the Bush's wars in Iraq, Clinton's actions in Somalia--in
considerable detail, these actions involved 38,000 US troops at one point, and resulted quite
simply in defeat. He notes that US actions in Bosnia and Kosovo rescued Muslims, who now are enlisting
in considerable numbers as jihadis in the Middle East. In Kosovo he notes that US protection resulted
in a Kosovar state that promptly engaged in an ethnic cleansing of Serbs. He notes that US troops
defeated Iraq's military but the numbers were too small to effectively deal with Baghdad (a city
of 5 million at the time), leading to the collapse of law and order. He thinks the point of defeat
is the incident of Abu Ghraib.
He also makes a convincing case for the war having begun with Carter and never stopping,
even in periods between more known wars; much of the action was American use of air power in Iraq,
but also tensions with Iran in the Persian Gulf, what was once very strong US support of jihadis
fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979-89). Putting situations that tend to be forgotten
about in succession with larger events makes it obvious that the war began under Carter and has
simmered ever since, with periodic intensifications.
And near the book's end he discusses several reasons why the war is going to continue. One,
there is no anti-war or effective anti-interventionist party. Two, electoral expediency means
major party candidates will continue to support military actions. Three, some individuals and
organizations (and companies) benefit from continued war (jobs, military contracts). Four, Americans
largely seem oblivious to the war. There's more, but these are main reasons.
I know that it's a digression, but I really should write some more about hobbits. The one thing that
would shake my convictions as an anarchist would be a political leader who promises to wipe out their
barbaric "mathom culture".
First of all, they never can get ahead economically because of this
premodern habit of putting their economic surplus into items that they pass around aimlessly. And
the way they waste food - has anyone seen the depravity of their so-called wedding parties? I know
that drones are a harsh remedy, but really.
And of course the feminist case for bombing hobbits is as strong as it ever was. Has anyone even
heard of a female hobbit? Of course you haven't, because they keep them in those primitive holes,
and they only appear in brief cameos when the hobbits have to conceal their unadmitted homosocial
orientation. Strong hobbit women will be much better off if we kill the men keeping them down as
well as some of their children.
And lastly, genocide. Are their even any members of other racial groups living in the Shire? Where
did they all go? Hobbit society is deeply racist, and those holes are dumping groups for bodies as
well as potential storehouses for chemical weapons. I know that some people say that we shouldn't
bomb them, but that's only because those people can't even imagine what it's like not to have the
privilege that they do.
In all seriousness, Tolkien was a consummate reactionary and LotR is an allegorical defense of
racism and imperialism on many levels - everything from the noble white monarch rallying "men of
the West" to stand against the dark hordes of the East and South, to the depiction of
preindustrial peasant life as an idyllic paradise disturbed not by Western nobles themselves but
by the malign influence of Eastern/Southern foreigners, to details as small as the relationship
between Frodo and Sam modeled on an ideal Victorian-era relationship between a lower-aristocratic
British army officer and his commoner manservant. (Juxtapose the imagery this video at the
timestamp side by side with this one.) As people of the left, we shouldn't bring that particular
story into our discourse as an allegory without this point being made explicitly at least once.
That said, when considering our doctrines on liberty, it's clear that we may leave out of
consideration those backward states of hobbit society in which the race itself may be considered
as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of
improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise
unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with hobbits, provided the
end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a
principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when hobbitkind have
become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for
them but implicit obedience to a Sharkey or a Wormtongue, if they are so fortunate as to find
one.
In all seriousness, Tolkien was a consummate reactionary and LotR is an allegorical defense
of racism and imperialism on many levels…
Once the US establishes American-Style Democracy in The Shire, a new timeline begins. First, the
ethnic cleansing and establishment of enclaves for the survivors. After about a hundred years they'll
have to end slavery. About fifty years after that, they'll have to let women vote.
The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles and isn't
committed to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's not quite on
board with plans for general war. (Yes, the purpose of this program is to prepare for general nuclear
war, or at minimum, plausible threat of imminent general nuclear war.) It is unclear whether this
was leaked to make her look good to the public, or to discredit her with the military's higher ups.
(It is likely dissident military played a role in the leak, either way.)
I had not heard about this (perhaps an indication of how closely or not I'm following the election
news). If HRC is indeed has some doubts about the wisdom of nuclear 'modernization', that's all to
the good. Mainstream Democratic-leaning think tanks, at least one that I'm aware of, have questioned
the modernization necessity and expense, e.g. in a report co-authored by Lawrence Korb, a former
Reagan admin defense official.
Will refrain from further comment except to say that I disagree w the notion that the pt of nuclear
'modernization' is to make plausible the threat of "imminent general nuclear war." If U.S. military
planners took hallucinogenic drugs and went nuts, they could "plausibly" threaten "imminent general
nuclear war" right now with the US nuclear arsenal as currently configured. They don't need to upgrade
the weapons to do that. The program is prob more the result of rigid, unimaginative thinking at top
levels of Pentagon and influence of outside companies (e.g. Boeing etc) that work on the upgrades.
stevenjohnson
10.02.16
at 7:10 pm
One aspect of the upgrade is about improving the feasibility of using tactical
nukes.
@Anarcissie
The [U.S.] leadership wisely declined to support any attempt to restore the
British, French, Dutch, Belgian etc. empires because they had a new model in
mind. Thus these empires had to be wound down and dissolved, and so they were.
British and French decolonization(s) were different in that France fought two
protracted wars (Indochina and Algeria) in an effort to hang on to its
colonies, and in the former war (Indochina) France did so with US financial
support (so much for your argument about the US dictating all outcomes).
Britain, by contrast, left most (though not all - e.g.
Kenya
)
of its colonies relatively peacefully.
Self-determination and national independence were powerful ideas, and many
Western politicians, at least in certain countries, recognized that the "winds
of change," in Macmillan's words, were blowing, and that they had best try to
adjust and accommodate them.
A quote from R.H. Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization"[*]:
Something besides declining military power or economic disinterest on the
part of the imperial powers was involved in decolonization - certainly
British decolonization. The cabinet and colonial papers on which this
judgment is based make reference not to any fundamental alteration in
Britain's military posture or economic interests but rather to "the large
body of opinion in this country, in Africa, and internationally," which by
the late 1940s was already demanding "more rapid political, economic and
social development" and by 1960 would accept nothing less than complete
decolonization…. [There was] a fundamental shift of normative ideas and a
corresponding change of mind on the part of most sovereign governments and
the public opinion influencing them concerning the right to sovereign
statehood.
[*] In Judith Goldstein and R.O. Keohane, eds.,
Ideas and Foreign Policy
(1993), pp. 128-29.
"... Self-determination and national independence were powerful ideas, and many Western politicians,
at least in certain countries, recognized that the "winds of change," in Macmillan's words, were blowing,
and that they had best try to adjust and accommodate them. ..."
@Anarcissie The [U.S.] leadership wisely declined to support any attempt to restore the British, French,
Dutch, Belgian etc. empires because they had a new model in mind. Thus these empires had to be
wound down and dissolved, and so they were.
British and French decolonization(s) were different in that France fought two protracted wars
(Indochina and Algeria) in an effort to hang on to its colonies, and in the former war (Indochina)
France did so with US financial support (so much for your argument about the US dictating all
outcomes). Britain, by contrast, left most (though not all - e.g.
Kenya ) of its colonies
relatively peacefully.
Self-determination and national independence were powerful ideas, and many Western politicians,
at least in certain countries, recognized that the "winds of change," in Macmillan's words, were
blowing, and that they had best try to adjust and accommodate them.
A quote from R.H. Jackson, "The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization"[*]:
Something besides declining military power or economic disinterest on the part of the imperial
powers was involved in decolonization - certainly British decolonization. The cabinet and colonial
papers on which this judgment is based make reference not to any fundamental alteration in
Britain's military posture or economic interests but rather to "the large body of opinion in
this country, in Africa, and internationally," which by the late 1940s was already demanding
"more rapid political, economic and social development" and by 1960 would accept nothing less
than complete decolonization…. [There was] a fundamental shift of normative ideas and a corresponding
change of mind on the part of most sovereign governments and the public opinion influencing
them concerning the right to sovereign statehood.
[*] In Judith Goldstein and R.O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy (1993), pp.
128-29.
Will G-R 10.04.16 at 3:24 pm @ 394 -
The analogy between wives (in purdah, though) and prostitutes in business on the street it apt.
The latter would have a certain freedom of life and action, like slaves or serfs being tuned loose
to become the proles of a social order. They would still be subordinated to masters, but it would
be harder for them to identify and act against their masters.
But as to racism and sexism, these mostly inhibit production and consumption, so, given its
fetishization of production, capitalism should war against them.
As Uncle Karl notes in the Manifesto, 'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted
disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois
epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before
they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air….'
In short, capitalism destroys all culture and relations that it encounters and replaces them
with its own culture and set of relations. The irrationalities of racial and sexual peculiarity
and segregation are replaced by an atomized, degendered, deracinated, atomized population who
relate to each other through money, markets, employment, consumption patterns. Or they did. Now
that employment and production are in decline, something else may be happening.
Adam Tooze in "1916" traces US hegemony back to that year, when the US elite
realised that, first, the UK and France owed them so much that they could not
afford an allied defeat, second that UK and French war orders (paid for by
those loans) were vital to US industry and industrial profits and third, that,
as the banker and munition supplier, they now had the leverage in negotiations
over the shape of the post-war world.
Fourteen Points, Dawes Plan and the rest follow on.
Trouble is, once you start on running the world, you have to keep going.
There's always some pesky hobbits somewhere making trouble, and Saruman eying
your empire.
stevenjohnson
10.04.16 at 12:16 am
Is Tooze's "1916" known in the US as "The Deluge?"
I know that it's a digression, but I really should write some more about hobbits. The one thing that
would shake my convictions as an anarchist would be a political leader who promises to wipe out their
barbaric "mathom culture".
First of all, they never can get ahead economically because of this
premodern habit of putting their economic surplus into items that they pass around aimlessly. And
the way they waste food - has anyone seen the depravity of their so-called wedding parties? I know
that drones are a harsh remedy, but really.
And of course the feminist case for bombing hobbits is as strong as it ever was. Has anyone even
heard of a female hobbit? Of course you haven't, because they keep them in those primitive holes,
and they only appear in brief cameos when the hobbits have to conceal their unadmitted homosocial
orientation. Strong hobbit women will be much better off if we kill the men keeping them down as
well as some of their children.
And lastly, genocide. Are their even any members of other racial groups living in the Shire? Where
did they all go? Hobbit society is deeply racist, and those holes are dumping groups for bodies as
well as potential storehouses for chemical weapons. I know that some people say that we shouldn't
bomb them, but that's only because those people can't even imagine what it's like not to have the
privilege that they do.
In all seriousness, Tolkien was a consummate reactionary and LotR is an allegorical defense of
racism and imperialism on many levels - everything from the noble white monarch rallying "men of
the West" to stand against the dark hordes of the East and South, to the depiction of
preindustrial peasant life as an idyllic paradise disturbed not by Western nobles themselves but
by the malign influence of Eastern/Southern foreigners, to details as small as the relationship
between Frodo and Sam modeled on an ideal Victorian-era relationship between a lower-aristocratic
British army officer and his commoner manservant. (Juxtapose the imagery this video at the
timestamp side by side with this one.) As people of the left, we shouldn't bring that particular
story into our discourse as an allegory without this point being made explicitly at least once.
That said, when considering our doctrines on liberty, it's clear that we may leave out of
consideration those backward states of hobbit society in which the race itself may be considered
as in its nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit of
improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise
unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with hobbits, provided the
end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a
principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when hobbitkind have
become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for
them but implicit obedience to a Sharkey or a Wormtongue, if they are so fortunate as to find
one.
In all seriousness, Tolkien was a consummate reactionary and LotR is an allegorical defense
of racism and imperialism on many levels…
Once the US establishes American-Style Democracy in The Shire, a new timeline begins. First, the
ethnic cleansing and establishment of enclaves for the survivors. After about a hundred years they'll
have to end slavery. About fifty years after that, they'll have to let women vote.
"Shimon Peres 2 years ago: I stopped Netanyahu from attacking Iran, and you can talk about it when I'm dead"
by Natasha Bertrand...9-30-2016...36m
" Former Israeli president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, told the Jerusalem Post two years ago that
current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "was ready to launch an attack" on Iran, and "I stopped him."
Peres, speaking to the Post's Steve Linde and David Brinn in a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa on August 24,
2014, apparently said he didn't want to go into details about the conversation he had had with Netanyahu..."
"Shimon Peres 2 years ago: I stopped Netanyahu from attacking Iran, and you can talk about it when I'm dead"
by Natasha Bertrand...9-30-2016...36m
" Former Israeli president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, told the Jerusalem Post two years ago that
current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "was ready to launch an attack" on Iran, and "I stopped him."
Peres, speaking to the Post's Steve Linde and David Brinn in a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa on August 24,
2014, apparently said he didn't want to go into details about the conversation he had had with Netanyahu..."
If civilians can sue sovereign states it should be obvious to everybody that the drone maniacal
US would be on top of the list of targets for such suits. Our government and soldiers would be the
most vulnerable in the whole world.
If our courts were to begin collections of judgments from sovereign states the results would be
that no foreign government would want to hold assets in this country.
I certainly sympathize with the 9/11 victim families, although they have been compensated for
their loss with way more money than any of the foreign collateral damage victims of our military
actions.
The families may not understand this, but they will never collect a dime. On the other hand, this
legislation to "help" them will do a lot of damage to the country and its soldiers.
How did sympathy for these families let our congress members trap themselves in such a stupendous
blunder. I guess election season is a time for that kind of stuff.
It is this sort of legislation that has made the US so hated around the world. The US just can't
seem to internalize that being sovereign doesn't imply sovereignty over the rest of the world,
that that sovereignty ends at the border.
As far as I know, the US is the only country that taxes its non-resident citizens. This alone
is nuts.
The US is also as far as I know the only country that thinks it has the right to kill the citizens
of other countries outside its borders.
And then it seems that many US citizens seem to think they are not bound by the rules of physics,
or logic or arithmetic.
US exceptionalism has gone on long enough. It is about time the US came back to earth and decided
it is just another country on earth.
"As far as I know, the US is the only country that taxes its non-resident citizens. This alone
is nuts."
Why is that nuts? Do non-resident citizens no longer have access to consulate services? Does
the citizenship lapse such that one can't come back to the US whenever they want?
The US keeps going while the citizen is abroad. It's not outrageous to ask them to contribute
something (not much, the credit for overseas taxes paid is pretty high).
DeDude -> efcdons... , -1
We are the only ones that assume people will come back unless they renounce their citizenship.
It is only fair that you get taxed for the government services you receive. Therefore, you
should be taxed in the country where you live. There is no justification for taxing income earned
in a foreign country.
The value of consulate services are so small that it cost more to recover them than deliver
them. So the rest of the world does not use that lame excuse to tax citizens living abroad.
In recent years, Russia and the United States have started
rebuilding their Cold War nuclear arsenals, putting the world
on the threshold of a dangerous new arms race. But we don't
have to repeat the perilous drama of the 20th century. We can
maintain our country's strength and security and still do
away with the worst of the Cold War weapons.
The American plan to rebuild and maintain our nuclear
force is needlessly oversize and expensive, expected to cost
about $1 trillion over the next three decades. This would
crowd out the funding needed to sustain the competitive edge
of our conventional forces and to build the capacities needed
to deal with terrorism and cyberattacks.
The good news is that the United States can downsize its
plans, save tens of billions of dollars, and still maintain a
robust nuclear arsenal.
First and foremost, the United States can safely phase out
its land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
force, a key facet of Cold War nuclear policy. Retiring the
ICBMs would save considerable costs, but it isn't only
budgets that would benefit. These missiles are some of the
most dangerous weapons in the world. They could even trigger
an accidental nuclear war.
If our sensors indicate that enemy missiles are en route
to the United States, the president would have to consider
launching ICBMs before the enemy missiles could destroy them;
once they are launched, they cannot be recalled. The
president would have less than 30 minutes to make that
terrible decision.
This is not an academic concern. While the probability of
an accidental launch is low, human and machine errors do
occur. I experienced a false alarm nearly 40 years ago, when
I was under secretary of defense for research and
engineering. I was awakened in the middle of the night and
told that some Defense Department computers were showing 200
ICBMs on the way from the Soviet Union. For one horrifying
moment I thought it was the end of civilization. Then the
general on the phone explained that it was a false alarm. He
was calling to see if I could help him determine what had
gone wrong with the computer.
During the Cold War, the United States relied on ICBMs
because they provided accuracy that was not then achievable
by submarine-launched missiles or bombers. They also provided
an insurance policy in case America's nuclear submarine force
was disabled. That's not necessary anymore. Today, the United
States' submarine and bomber forces are highly accurate, and
we have enough confidence in their security that we do not
need an additional insurance policy - especially one that is
so expensive and open to error.
As part of the updates to America's nuclear arsenal, the
government is also planning to replace nuclear-armed
submarines and bombers. If we assume that the Defense
Department is critically analyzing the number of systems
needed, this makes far more sense than replacing ICBMs. The
submarine force alone is sufficient to deter our enemies and
will be for the foreseeable future. But as technology
advances, we have to recognize the possibility of new threats
to submarines, especially cyberattack and detection by swarms
of drones. The new submarine program should put a special
emphasis on improvements to deal with these potential
threats, assuring the survivability of the fleet for decades
to come.
The new stealth bomber will provide a backup to
submarines. This is not likely to be necessary, but the
bomber force is a good insurance policy. The new bomber would
be capable of carrying out either conventional or nuclear
missions. But the development of new air-launched nuclear
cruise missiles, which has been proposed, is unnecessary and
destabilizing. We can maintain an effective bomber force
without a nuclear cruise missile.
Instead of overinvesting in nuclear weapons and
encouraging a new arms race, the United States should build
only the levels needed for deterrence. We should encourage
Russia to do the same. But even if it does not, our levels of
nuclear forces should be determined by what we actually need,
not by a misguided desire to match Moscow missile for
missile. If Russia decides to build more than it needs, its
economy will suffer, just as during the Cold War. ...
(William J. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to
1997.)
"Shimon Peres 2 years ago: I stopped Netanyahu from attacking Iran, and you can talk about it when I'm dead"
by Natasha Bertrand...9-30-2016...36m
" Former Israeli president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, told the Jerusalem Post two years ago that
current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "was ready to launch an attack" on Iran, and "I stopped him."
Peres, speaking to the Post's Steve Linde and David Brinn in a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa on August 24,
2014, apparently said he didn't want to go into details about the conversation he had had with Netanyahu..."
"... Another goal of course is to track even further every single purchase - what, and where, and when. And then sell the consumption data to the insurers perhaps… a packet of cigs per day? Or too many bottles of booze? ..."
Swapping standing in line at the check-out for the line at the exit. And when there is an issue
then the greeter calls in the check-out police thereby pissing off the customer. Brilliant.
While Apple fanboys are willing to work for their iPhone's company for free by doing their
own check-out I doubt that is likely for people going to Sam's Club. As well many customers, even
if they have a smartphone, will not enjoy using up their data plan as they try to check and process
the details online.
All these smartphone apps have one major goal, besides collecting credit fees. Reduce store
overhead by getting customers to do more of the work while eliminating employees. The winners
are not the customers or people looking for a way to make ends meet.
Another goal of course is to track even further every single purchase - what, and where,
and when. And then sell the consumption data to the insurers perhaps… a packet of cigs per day?
Or too many bottles of booze?
Of course they are already doing that with the store "fidelity cards", but the mobile apps
will be more precise and less optional.
"... Flawed as he may be, Trump is telling more of the truth than politicians of our day. Most important, he offers a path away from constant war, a path of businesslike accommodation with all reasonable people and nations, concentrating our forces and efforts against the true enemies of civilization. Thus, to dwell on his faults and errors is to evade the great questions of war and peace, life and death for our people and our country. You and I will have to compensate for his deficits of civility, in return for peace, we may hope as Lincoln hoped, among ourselves and with all nations. ..."
"... No doubt, clinton supporters will snicker and deride efforts to treat Trump's positions seriously as this essay does. ..."
Flawed as he may be, Trump is telling more of the truth than politicians of our day. Most
important, he offers a path away from constant war, a path of businesslike accommodation with
all reasonable people and nations, concentrating our forces and efforts against the true enemies
of civilization. Thus, to dwell on his faults and errors is to evade the great questions of war
and peace, life and death for our people and our country. You and I will have to compensate for
his deficits of civility, in return for peace, we may hope as Lincoln hoped, among ourselves and
with all nations.
No doubt, clinton supporters will snicker and deride efforts to treat Trump's positions seriously
as this essay does.
But for anyone who is the slightest bit aware of how the maniac imperialists have hijacked
the public means of persuasion for a generation to the detriment of countless foreign countries
as well as our own, the obsession with turning Trump into a cartoon character with joke "policies"
should sound an alarm.
No "politician" was ever going to buck this system. Bernie Sanders, fiery and committed though
he was, proved that. It was always going to take an over-sized personality with an over-sized
ego to withstand the shit storm that a demand for profound change would create, and some "incivility"
seems a small price to pay to break the vice grip of the status quo.
I, for one, have no intention of squandering this opportunity to throw sand in the gears. There
has never been a third candidate allowed to plead their case in a presidential "debate" since
Ross Perot threw a scare into TPTB in 1992. Should clinton manage to pull this one out, the lesson
of Trump will be learned, and we may not be "given" the opportunity to choose an "outsider" again
for a very long time. It's worth taking a minute to separate the message from the messenger.
"... FDR once said, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself." This is happening in the United States in the most literal sense, given that our political and economic system are wedded to a market-driven system willing to destroy the planet, while relentlessly undermining those institutions that make a democracy possible. ..."
"... War is no longer an instrument to be used by political powers, but a form of rule, a general condition of the social order itself -- a permanent social relation and organizing principle that affects all aspects of the social order. In fact, the US has moved from a welfare state in the last forty years to a warfare state, and war has now become the foundation for politics, wedded to a misguided war on terror, the militarization of everyday life ..."
"... Politics has become a comprehensive war machine that aggressively assaults anything that does not comply with its underlying economic, religious, educative and political fundamentalisms. ..."
"... The vocabulary of war has become normalized and mobilizes certain desires, not only related to violence and social combat, but also in the creation of agents who act in the service of violence. ..."
"... This retreat into barbarism is amplified by the neoliberal value of celebrating self-interest over attention to the needs of others. It gets worse. As Hannah Arendt once observed, war culture is part of a species of thoughtlessness that legitimates certain desires, values and identities that make people insensitive to the violence they see around them in everyday life. ..."
"... A one-dimensional use of data erases the questions that matter the most: What gives life meaning? What is justice? What constitutes happiness? These things are all immeasurable by a retreat into the discourse of quantification. ..."
"... Reducing everything to quantitative data creates a form of civic illiteracy, undercuts the ethical imagination, kills empathy and mutilates politics. ..."
"... America's obsession with metrics and quantitative data is a symptom of its pedagogy of oppression. Numerical values now drive teaching, reduce culture in the broadest sense to the culture of business and teach children that schools exist largely to produce conformity and kill the imagination. Leon Wieseltier is right in arguing that the unchecked celebration of metrics erases the distinction "between knowledge and information" and substitutes quantification for wisdom. ..."
"... The left appears to have little interest in addressing education as central to how people think and see things. Education can enable people to recognize that the problems they face in everyday life need a new language that speaks to those problems. What is particularly crucial here is the need to develop a politics in which pedagogy becomes central to enabling people to understand and translate how everyday troubles connect to wider structures. ..."
"... We no longer live in a democracy. The myth of democracy has to be dismantled. ..."
"... We have to make clear that decisions made by the state and corporations are not in the general interest. We must connect the war on Black youth to the war on workers and the war on the middle class ..."
"... As Martin Luther King recognized at end of his life, the war at home and the war abroad cannot be separated. Such linkages remain crucial to the democratic project. ..."
Henry Giroux:FDR once said, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself."
This is happening in the United States in the most literal sense, given that our political and economic
system are wedded to a market-driven system willing to destroy the planet, while relentlessly undermining
those institutions that make a democracy possible. What this suggests and the book takes up in multiple
ways is that the United States is at war with its own idealism, democratic institutions, the working
and middle classes, minority youth, Muslims, immigrants and all of those populations considered disposable.
War has taken on an existential quality in that we are not simply at war; rather, as Étienne
Balibar insists, "we are in war," inhabiting a war culture that touches every aspect of society.
War is no longer an instrument to be used by political powers, but a form of rule, a general condition
of the social order itself -- a permanent social relation and organizing principle that affects all
aspects of the social order. In fact, the US has moved from a welfare state in the last forty years
to a warfare state, and war has now become the foundation for politics, wedded to a misguided war
on terror, the militarization of everyday life, and a culture of fear, which have become its most
important regulative functions. Politics has become a comprehensive war machine that aggressively
assaults anything that does not comply with its underlying economic, religious, educative and political
fundamentalisms.
As a comprehensive war machine, the United States operates in the service of a police state, violates
civil liberties and has given rise to a military-industrial-surveillance complex that President Eisenhower
could never have imagined. For instance, the largest part of the federal budget -- 600 billion dollars
-- goes to the military. The US rings the earth with military bases, and the US military budget is
larger than those of all other advanced industrial countries combined. And that doesn't count the
money spent on the National Surveillance State and intelligence agencies.
... ... ...
What's interesting about the war metaphor is that it produces a language that celebrates what
the US should be ashamed of, including the national surveillance state, the military-industrial complex,
the war on whistleblowers, the never-ending spectacle of violence in popular culture and endless
wars abroad. The vocabulary of war has become normalized and mobilizes certain desires, not only
related to violence and social combat, but also in the creation of agents who act in the service
of violence.
Violence is not only normalized as the ultimate measure for solving problems, but also
as a form of pleasure, especially with regard to the production of violent video games, films and
even the saturation of violence in daily mainstream news. Violence saturates American life, as it
has become cool to be cruel to people, to bully people and to be indifferent to the suffering of
others. The ultimate act of pleasure is now served up in cinematically produced acts of extreme violence,
produced both to numb the conscience and to up the pleasure quotient.
This retreat into barbarism is amplified by the neoliberal value of celebrating self-interest
over attention to the needs of others. It gets worse. As Hannah Arendt once observed, war culture
is part of a species of thoughtlessness that legitimates certain desires, values and identities that
make people insensitive to the violence they see around them in everyday life.One can't have
a democracy that organizes itself around war because war is the language of injustice -- it admits
no compassion and revels in a culture of cruelty.
How does the reduction of life to quantitative data -- testing in schools, mandatory minimums
in sentencing, return on investment -- feed into the cultural apparatuses producing a nation at war
with itself?
This is the language of instrumental rationality gone berserk, one that strips communication of
those issues, values and questions that cannot be resolved empirically. This national obsession with
data is symbolic of the retreat from social and moral responsibility. A one-dimensional use of data
erases the questions that matter the most: What gives life meaning? What is justice? What constitutes
happiness? These things are all immeasurable by a retreat into the discourse of quantification.
This
type of positivism encourages a form of thoughtlessness, undermines critical agency, makes people
more susceptible to violence and emotion rather than reason. Reducing everything to quantitative
data creates a form of civic illiteracy, undercuts the ethical imagination, kills empathy and mutilates
politics.
The obsession with data becomes a convenient tool for abdicating that which cannot be measured,
thus removing from the public sphere those issues that raise serious questions that demand debate,
informed judgment and thoughtfulness while taking seriously matters of historical consciousness,
memory and context. Empiricism has always been comfortable with authoritarian societies, and has
worked to reduce civic courage and agency to an instrumental logic that depoliticizes people by removing
matters of social and political responsibility from ethical and political considerations.
America's obsession with metrics and quantitative data is a symptom of its pedagogy of oppression.
Numerical values now drive teaching, reduce culture in the broadest sense to the culture of business
and teach children that schools exist largely to produce conformity and kill the imagination. Leon
Wieseltier is right in arguing that the unchecked celebration of metrics erases the distinction
"between knowledge and information" and substitutes quantification for wisdom.
This is not to say that all data is worthless or that data gathering is entirely on the side of
repression. However, the dominant celebration of data, metrics and quantification flattens the human
experience, outsources judgement and distorts the complexity of the real world. The idolatry of the
metric paradigm is politically and ethically enervating and cripples the human spirit.
In ignoring the power of the pedagogical function of mainstream cultural apparatuses, many on
the left have lost their ability to understand how domination and resistance work at the level of
everyday life. The left has relied for too long on defining domination in strictly structural terms,
especially with regard to economic structures. Many people on the left assume that the only form
of domination is economic. What they ignore is that the crises of economics, history, politics and
agency have not been matched by a crisis of ideas. They don't understand how much work is required
to change consciousness or how central the issue of identification is to any viable notion of politics.
People only respond to a politics that speaks to their condition. What the left has neglected is
how matters of identification and the centrality of judgment, belief and persuasion are crucial to
politics itself. The left underestimates the dimensions of struggle when it gives up on education
as central to the very meaning of politics.
The left appears to have little interest in addressing education as central to how people think
and see things. Education can enable people to recognize that the problems they face in everyday
life need a new language that speaks to those problems. What is particularly crucial here is the
need to develop a politics in which pedagogy becomes central to enabling people to understand and
translate how everyday troubles connect to wider structures.
What do you want people to take away from the book?
Certainly, it is crucial to educate people to recognize that American democracy is in crisis and
that the forces that threaten it are powerful and must be made visible. In this case, we are talking
about the merging of neoliberalism, institutionalized racism, militarization, racism, poverty, inequities
in wealth and power and other issues that undermine democracy.
We no longer live in a democracy. The myth of democracy has to be dismantled. To understand that,
we need to connect the dots and make often isolated forms of domination visible -- extending from
the war on terror and the existence of massive inequalities in wealth and power to the rise of the
mass incarceration state and the destruction of public and higher education. We have to make clear
that decisions made by the state and corporations are not in the general interest. We must connect
the war on Black youth to the war on workers and the war on the middle class, while exposing the
workings of a system that extorts money, uses prison as a default welfare program and militarizes
the police as a force for repression and domestic terrorism. We must learn how to translate individual
problems into larger social issues, create a comprehensive politics and a third party with the aim
not of reforming the system, but restructuring it. As Martin Luther King recognized at end of
his life, the war at home and the war abroad cannot be separated. Such linkages remain crucial to
the democratic project.
"... Another goal of course is to track even further every single purchase - what, and where, and when. And then sell the consumption data to the insurers perhaps… a packet of cigs per day? Or too many bottles of booze? ..."
Swapping standing in line at the check-out for the line at the exit. And when there is an issue
then the greeter calls in the check-out police thereby pissing off the customer. Brilliant.
While Apple fanboys are willing to work for their iPhone's company for free by doing their
own check-out I doubt that is likely for people going to Sam's Club. As well many customers, even
if they have a smartphone, will not enjoy using up their data plan as they try to check and process
the details online.
All these smartphone apps have one major goal, besides collecting credit fees. Reduce store
overhead by getting customers to do more of the work while eliminating employees. The winners
are not the customers or people looking for a way to make ends meet.
Another goal of course is to track even further every single purchase - what, and where,
and when. And then sell the consumption data to the insurers perhaps… a packet of cigs per day?
Or too many bottles of booze?
Of course they are already doing that with the store "fidelity cards", but the mobile apps
will be more precise and less optional.
"... Flawed as he may be, Trump is telling more of the truth than politicians of our day. Most important, he offers a path away from constant war, a path of businesslike accommodation with all reasonable people and nations, concentrating our forces and efforts against the true enemies of civilization. Thus, to dwell on his faults and errors is to evade the great questions of war and peace, life and death for our people and our country. You and I will have to compensate for his deficits of civility, in return for peace, we may hope as Lincoln hoped, among ourselves and with all nations. ..."
"... No doubt, clinton supporters will snicker and deride efforts to treat Trump's positions seriously as this essay does. ..."
Flawed as he may be, Trump is telling more of the truth than politicians of our day. Most
important, he offers a path away from constant war, a path of businesslike accommodation with
all reasonable people and nations, concentrating our forces and efforts against the true enemies
of civilization. Thus, to dwell on his faults and errors is to evade the great questions of war
and peace, life and death for our people and our country. You and I will have to compensate for
his deficits of civility, in return for peace, we may hope as Lincoln hoped, among ourselves and
with all nations.
No doubt, clinton supporters will snicker and deride efforts to treat Trump's positions seriously
as this essay does.
But for anyone who is the slightest bit aware of how the maniac imperialists have hijacked
the public means of persuasion for a generation to the detriment of countless foreign countries
as well as our own, the obsession with turning Trump into a cartoon character with joke "policies"
should sound an alarm.
No "politician" was ever going to buck this system. Bernie Sanders, fiery and committed though
he was, proved that. It was always going to take an over-sized personality with an over-sized
ego to withstand the shit storm that a demand for profound change would create, and some "incivility"
seems a small price to pay to break the vice grip of the status quo.
I, for one, have no intention of squandering this opportunity to throw sand in the gears. There
has never been a third candidate allowed to plead their case in a presidential "debate" since
Ross Perot threw a scare into TPTB in 1992. Should clinton manage to pull this one out, the lesson
of Trump will be learned, and we may not be "given" the opportunity to choose an "outsider" again
for a very long time. It's worth taking a minute to separate the message from the messenger.
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
"... Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us. As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack . We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses. ..."
"... "We need to respond to evolving threats from states like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS. We need a military that is ready and agile so it can meet the full range of threats, and operate on short notice across every domain, not just land, sea, air and space, but also cyberspace". ..."
"... "serious political, economic and military responses" ..."
"... notwithstanding ..."
"... The mainstream The Hill newspaper bannered, "Clinton: Treat cyberattacks 'like any other attack'" , and reported that, "Since many high-profile cyberattacks could be interpreted as traditional intelligence-gathering - something the US itself also engages in - the White House is often in a tricky political position when it comes to its response". That's not critical of her position, but at least it makes note of the crucial fact that if the US were to treat a hacker's attack as being an excuse to invade Russia, it would treat the US itself as being already an invader of Russia - which the US prior to a President Hillary Clinton never actually has been, notwithstanding the routine nature of international cyber espionage (which Clinton has now stated she wants to become a cause of war), which has been, and will continue to be, essential in the present era. ..."
"... The International Business Times, an online-only site, headlined September 1 st , "Clinton: US should use 'military response' to fight cyberattacks from Russia and China" , and reported that a Pentagon official had testified to Congress on July 13 th , that current US policy on this matter is: "When determining whether a cyber incident constitutes an armed attack, the US government considers a broad range of factors, including the nature and extent of injury or death to persons and the destruction of or damage to property. Cyber incidents are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the national security leadership and the president will make a determination if it's an armed attack". ..."
"... Hillary's statement on this matter was simply ignored by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Fox, CNN, The Nation, The Atlantic, Harper's, National Review, Common Dreams, Alternet, Truthout, and all the rest of the US standard and 'alternative news' reporting organizations. Perhaps when Americans go to the polls to elect a President on November 8th, almost none of them will have learned about her policy on this incredibly important matter. ..."
"... Hillary's statement was in line with the current Administration's direction of policy, but is farther along in that direction than the Obama Administration's policy yet is. ..."
"... On Tuesday, June 14 th , NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V "collective defense" provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country. ..."
"... NATO is now alleging that because Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer , this action of someone in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her US State Department communications to her unsecured home computer and of such a Russian's then snooping into the US State Department business that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and would, if the US President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the US, trigger NATO's mutual-defense clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the US government in going to war against Russia, if the US government so decides. ..."
"... And finally, we did talk about cyber-security generally. I'm not going to comment on specific investigations that are still alive and active, but I will tell you that we've had problems with cyber-intrusions from Russia in the past, from other countries in the past, and, look, we're moving into a new era here, where a number of countries have significant capacities, and frankly we've got more capacity than anybody both offensively and defensively, but our goal is not to suddenly in the cyber-arena duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms-races in the past, but rather to start instituting (9:00) some norms so that everybody's acting responsibly. ..."
"... "neoconservative" ..."
"... Hillary is now the neoconservatives' candidate . (And she's also the close friend of many of them, and hired and promoted many of them at her State Department .) If she becomes the next President, then we might end up having the most neoconservative (i.e., military-industrial-complex-run) government ever. This would be terrific for America's weapons-makers, but it very possibly would be horrific for everybody else. That's the worst lobby of all, to run the country . (And, as that link there shows, Clinton has received over five times as much money from it as has her Republican opponent.) ..."
"... George Herbert Walker Bush knows lots that the 'news' media don't report (even when it has already been leaked in one way or another), and the Clinton plan to destroy Russia is part of that. Will the Russian government accept it? Or will it do whatever is required in order to defeat it? This is already a serious nuclear confrontation . ..."
Hillary Clinton, on September 19th, was endorsed for President, by the most historically important,
intelligent, and dangerous, Republican of modern times.
She was endorsed then by the person who in 1990 cunningly engineered the end of the Soviet Union
and of its Warsaw Pact military alliance in such a way as
to continue the West's war against Russia so as to conquer Russia gradually for the owners of
US international corporations. The person, who kept his plan secret even from his closest advisors,
until the night of 24 February 1990, when he told them that what he had previously instructed them
to tell Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the West's future military intentions about Russia if
the USSR were to end, was actually a lie.
He also told them that they were henceforth to proceed forward on the basis that the residual
stump of the former Soviet Union, Russia, will instead be treated as if it still is an enemy-nation,
and that the fundamental aim of the Western alliance will then remain: to conquer Russia (notwithstanding
the end of the USSR, of its communism, and of its military alliances) - that the Cold War is to end
only on the Russian side, not at all, really, on the Western side. (All of that is documented from
the historical record, at that linked-to article.)
This person was the former Director of the US CIA, born US aristocrat, and committed champion
of US conquest of the entire world, the President of the United States at the time (1990):
George Herbert Walker Bush .
He informed the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend - as she posted
it, apparently ecstatically, on September 19th, to her facebook page after personally having just
met with Mr. Bush - "The President told me he's voting for Hillary!!" She then confirmed this to
Politico the same day, which headlined promptly,
"George H.W. Bush to Vote for Hillary" .
G.H.W. Bush is an insider's insider: he would not do this if he felt that Hillary Clinton wouldn't
carry forward his plan (
which has been adhered-to by each of the US Presidents after him ), and if he felt that Donald
Trump - Bush's own successor now as the Republican US candidate for President - would not carry it
forward. (This was his most important and history-shaping decision during his entire Presidency,
and therefore it's understandable now that he would be willing even to cross Party-lines on his Presidential
ballot in order to have it followed-through to its ultimate conclusion.)
What indications exist publicly, that she will carry it forward? Hillary Clinton has already publicly
stated (though tactfully, so that the US press could ignore it) her intention to push things up to
and beyond the nuclear brink, with regard to Russia:
Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election
systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight
to those who go after us. As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will
treat cyber attacks just like any other attack . We will be ready with serious political,
economic and military responses.
Russia denies that it did any such thing, but
the US even taps the phone conversations of Angela Merkel and other US allies ; and, of course,
the US and Russia routinely hack into each others' email and other communications; so, even if Russia
did what Clinton says, then to call it "like any other attack" against the United States and to threaten
to answer it with "military responses", would itself be historically unprecedented - which is what
Hillary Clinton is promising to do.
Historically unprecedented, like nuclear war itself would be. And she was saying this in the context
of her alleging that Russia had "attacked" the DNC (Democratic National Committee), and she as President
might "attack" back, perhaps even with "military responses". This was not an off-the-cuff remark
from her - it was her prepared text in a speech. She said it though, for example, on 26 October 2013,
Britain's Telegraph had headlined,
"US 'operates 80 listening posts worldwide, 19 in Europe, and snooped on Merkel mobile 2002-2013'
: US intelligence targeted Angela Merkel's phone from 2002 to 2013, according to new eavesdropping
leaks".
But now, this tapping against Merkel would, according to Hillary Clinton's logic (unless she intends
it to apply only by the United States against Russia), constitute reason for Germany (and
34 other nations ) to go to war against the United States.
Clinton also said there: "We need to respond to evolving threats from states like Russia,
China, Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS. We need a
military that is ready and agile so it can meet the full range of threats, and operate on short notice
across every domain, not just land, sea, air and space, but also cyberspace".
She also said that the sequester agreement between the Congress and the President must end, because
US military spending should not be limited: "I am all for cutting the fat out of the budget and making
sure we stretch our dollars But we cannot impose arbitrary limits on something as important as our
military. That makes no sense at all. The sequester makes our country less secure. Let's end it and
get a budget deal that supports America's military". She wasn't opposing "arbitrary limits" on non-military
spending; she implied that that's not "as important as our military".
She was clear: this is a wartime US, not a peacetime nation; we're already at war, in her view;
and therefore continued unlimited cost-overruns to Lockheed Martin etc. need to be accepted, not
limited (by "arbitrary limits" or otherwise). She favors "cutting the fat out of the budget" for
healthcare, education, subsidies to the poor, environmental protection, etc., but not for war, not
for this war. A more bellicose speech, especially against "threats from states like Russia, China,
Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS", all equating "states"
such as Russia and China, with "terrorist networks like ISIS", could hardly be imagined - as if Russia
and China are anything like jihadist organizations, and are hostile toward America, as such jihadist
groups are.
However, her threat to respond to an alleged "cyber attack" from Russia by "serious political,
economic and military responses" , is unprecedented, even from her. It was big news when she
said it, though virtually ignored by America's newsmedia.
The only US newsmedia to have picked up on Clinton's shocking threat were Republican-Party-oriented
ones, because the Democratic-Party and nonpartisan 'news' media in the US don't criticize a Democratic
nominee's neoconservatism - they hide it, or else find excuses for it (even after the Republican
neoconservative President George W. Bush's catastrophic and
lie-based neoconservative invasion of Iraq - then headed by the Moscow-friendly Saddam Hussein
- in 2003, which many Democratic office-holders, such as Hillary Clinton backed).
So, everything in today's USA 'news' media is favorable toward neoconservatism - it's now the
"Establishment" foreign policy, established notwithstanding the catastrophic Iraq-invasion,
from which America's 'news' media have evidently learned nothing whatsoever (because they're essentially
unchanged and committed to the same aristocracy as has long controlled them).
However, now that the Republican Party's Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is openly critical
of Hillary Clinton's and George W. Bush's neoconservatism, any Republican-oriented 'news' media that
support Trump's candidacy allows its 'journalists' to criticize Clinton's neoconservatism; and, so,
there were a few such critiques of this shocking statement from Clinton.
The Republican Party's "Daily Caller" headlined about this more directly than any other US 'news'
medium,
"Clinton Advocates Response To DNC Hack That Would Likely Bring On WWIII" , and reported, on
September 1st, that "Clinton's cavalier attitude toward going to war over cyber attacks seems to
contradict her assertion that she is the responsible voice on foreign policy in the current election".
The Republican Washington Times newspaper headlined
"Hillary Clinton: US will treat cyberattacks 'just like any other attack'" , and reported that
she would consider using the "military to respond to cyberattacks," but that her Republican opponent
had indicated he would instead use only cyber against cyber: "'I am a fan of the future, and cyber
is the future,' he said when asked by Time magazine during the Republican National Convention about
using cyberweapons". However, Trump was not asked there whether he would escalate from a cyber attack
to a physical one. Trump has many times said that having good relations with Russia would be a priority
if he becomes President. That would obviously be impossible if he (like Hillary) were to be seeking
a pretext for war against Russia.
The mainstream The Hill newspaper bannered,
"Clinton: Treat cyberattacks 'like any other attack'" , and reported that, "Since many high-profile
cyberattacks could be interpreted as traditional intelligence-gathering - something the US itself
also engages in - the White House is often in a tricky political position when it comes to its response".
That's not critical of her position, but at least it makes note of the crucial fact that if the US
were to treat a hacker's attack as being an excuse to invade Russia, it would treat the US itself
as being already an invader of Russia - which the US prior to a President Hillary Clinton never actually
has been, notwithstanding the routine nature of international cyber espionage (which Clinton has
now stated she wants to become a cause of war), which has been, and will continue to be, essential
in the present era.
The International Business Times, an online-only site, headlined September 1 st ,
"Clinton: US should use 'military response' to fight cyberattacks from Russia and China" , and
reported that a Pentagon official had
testified to Congress on July 13 th , that current US policy on this matter is: "When
determining whether a cyber incident constitutes an armed attack, the US government considers a broad
range of factors, including the nature and extent of injury or death to persons and the destruction
of or damage to property. Cyber incidents are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the national
security leadership and the president will make a determination if it's an armed attack".
Hillary's statement on this matter was simply ignored by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Fox, CNN, The Nation, The Atlantic, Harper's, National
Review, Common Dreams, Alternet, Truthout, and all the rest of the US standard and 'alternative news'
reporting organizations. Perhaps when Americans go to the polls to elect a President on November
8th, almost none of them will have learned about her policy on this incredibly important matter.
Hillary's statement was in line with the current Administration's direction of policy, but is
farther along in that direction than the Obama Administration's policy yet is.
As
the German Economic News article had noted, but only in passing: "Just a few months ago, US President
Barack Obama had laid the legal basis for this procedure and signed a decree that equates hacker
attacks with military attacks". However, this slightly overstated the degree to which Obama has advanced
"this procedure". On 1 April 2016 - and not as any April Fool's joke - techdirt had headlined
"President Obama Signs Executive Order Saying That Now He's Going To Be Really Mad If He Catches
Someone Cyberattacking Us" and linked to the document, which techdirt noted was "allowing the
White House to issue sanctions on those 'engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities'".
The writer, Mike Masnick, continued, quite accurately: "To make this work, the President officially
declared foreign hacking to be a 'national emergency' (no, really) and basically said that if the
government decides that some foreign person is doing a bit too much hacking, the US government can
basically do all sorts of bad stuff to them, like seize anything they have in the US and block them
from coming to the US". What Hillary Clinton wants to add to this policy is physical, military, invasion,
for practices such as (if Russia becomes declared by the US President to have been behind the hacking
of the DNC) what is actually routine activity of the CIA, NSA, and, of course, of Russia's (and other
countries') intelligence operations.
It wasn't directly Obama's own action that led most powerfully up to Hillary Clinton's policy
on this, but instead NATO's recent action - and NATO has always been an extension of the US President,
it's his military club, and it authorizes him to go to war against any nation that it decides to
have been invaded by some non-member country (especially Russia or China - the Saudis, Qataris, and
other funders behind international jihadist attacks are institutionally prohibited from being considered
for invasion by NATO, because the US keeps those regimes in power, and those regimes are generally
the biggest purchasers of US weapons). I reported on this at The Saker's site, on 15 June 2016, headlining
"NATO Says It Might Now Have Grounds to Attack Russia" . That report opened:
On Tuesday, June 14 th ,
NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons
in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V
"collective defense"
provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to
strike back against the attacking country.
NATO is now alleging that because
Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer , this action of someone
in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her US State Department communications to her
unsecured home computer and of such a Russian's then snooping into the US State Department business
that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and
would, if the US President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the US, trigger NATO's mutual-defense
clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the US government in going to war against Russia,
if the US government so decides.
So, Obama is using NATO to set the groundwork for Hillary Clinton's policy as (he hopes) America's
next President. Meanwhile, Obama's public rhetoric on the matter is far more modest, and less scary.
It's sane-sounding falsehoods. At the end of the G-20 Summit in Beijing, he held a
press conference September
5th (VIDEO at this link) , in which he was asked specifically (3:15) "Q: On the cyber front,
do you think Russia is trying to influence the US election?" and he went into a lengthy statement,
insulting Putin and saying (until 6:40 on the video) why Obama is superior to Putin on the Syrian
war, and then (until 8:07 in the video) blaming Putin for, what is actually, the refusal of the Ukrainian
parliament or Rada to approve the federalization of Ukraine that's stated in the Minsk agreement
as being a prerequisite to direct talks being held between the Donbass residents and
the Obama-installed regime
in Kiev that's been
trying to exterminate the residents of Donbass . Then (8:07 in the video), Obama got around to
the reporter's question:
And finally, we did talk about cyber-security generally. I'm not going to comment on specific
investigations that are still alive and active, but I will tell you that we've had problems with
cyber-intrusions from Russia in the past, from other countries in the past, and, look, we're moving
into a new era here, where a number of countries have significant capacities, and frankly we've got
more capacity than anybody both offensively and defensively, but our goal is not to suddenly in the
cyber-arena duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms-races in the
past, but rather to start instituting (9:00) some norms so that everybody's acting responsibly.
He is a far more effective deceiver than is his intended successor, but Hillary's goals and his,
have always been the same: achieving what the US aristocracy want. Whereas she operates with a sledgehammer,
he
operates with a scalpel . And he hopes to hand this operation off to her on 20 January 2017.
This is what Hillary's statement that "the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any
other attack" is reflecting: it's reflecting that the US will, if she becomes President, be actively
seeking an excuse to invade Russia. The Obama-mask will then be off.
If this turns out to be the case, then it will be raw control of the US Government by the
military-industrial complex, which includes the arms-makers plus the universities . It's the
owners - the aristocrats - plus their servants; and at least 90% of the military-industrial complex
support Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Like her, they are all demanding that the sequester be ended
and that any future efforts to reduce the US Government's debts must come from cutting expenditures
for healthcare, education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, and expenditures
on the poor; no cuts (but only increases) for the military. This is based on the conservative theory,
that the last thing to cut in government is the military.
George Herbert Walker Bush knows lots that the 'news' media don't report (even when it has already
been leaked in one way or another), and
the
Clinton plan to destroy Russia is part of that. Will the Russian government accept it? Or will
it do whatever is required in order to defeat it? This is already
a serious nuclear confrontation .
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
"... Conventionally the US is being outplayed but it is possible that it is playing a different game in which it is complicit in the transition from nation state to corporate oligarchy. Isn't that the Neoliberal end game? ..."
"... The biggest mistake was to enact a policy shunning Russia, when Russia should be a key, partner of Europe and the US. ..."
"... And the USA invaded Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua with the contras, Iraq, Afghanistan, are currently bombing the crap out of another dozen nations, has militarily occupied another 100 nations with their bases and you are worried about Russia with Georgia and The Ukraine? What in Hades is wrong with this picture? ..."
"... "Barack Obama's 'Asian pivot' failed. China is in the ascendancy" says the heading. So Obama's "Asian pivot" was meant to thwart China's development. ..."
"... And the big problem with Trump's approach is that good ol' American corporations are the ones who are profiting wildly from business in China. They wanted access to the Chinese labor force, e.g. Walmart and every other manufacturer who now peddles goods made in China in US stores. They are the entities that cost western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits. ..."
"... They are wealthy beyond measure and anyone who wants to alter this system whereby American corporations manufacture in China and ship products around the world, inc. to the US, would have to fight them. And if anyone believes that Trump would succeed in this battle, they are delusional. ..."
"... "These two juggernauts are on a collision course" is far too alarmist. Relying mainly on right-wing US thinktanks for analysis doesn't help. ..."
"... Now we are waking up to the realisation that we are the big loosers of globalisation. ..."
"... "The west has been long living under the illusion that the so called globalised world would be beneficial for all. " No, actually they thought it would be beneficial for the Western countries mostly. And it was, but whatever benefits developing countries received allowed them to rise to the level of a potential future threat to the unquestionable Western dominance. And now the US is looking for a way to destroy them preemptively. The US is paranoid. ..."
"... I think this "ascendancy" and nationalistic fervor is actually a sign of internal turmoil. ..."
"... The labor supply is assured because there are still multi millions in poverty and signing up as cheap labor is exactly what brings them out of poverty. I assume you've never been to China and therefore have never heard of Chunyun, the largest human migration in the world. This is partly the ruralites returning home from the cities with their years spoils. This year individual journeys totalled almost 3bn. ..."
"... By the way, China is reducing it's land army by a third over the next few years and has just concluded very constructive summits with all it's neighbours during last weeks ASEAN bunfight. ..."
"... a collapse of the chinese economy would collapse the American economy as well ..."
"... Fascinating & well structured article - except for one glaring omission - the LNP selling of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese Government business. Yeh, sure it's a '99 year lease' but for all effective purposes it's a sellout of a strategic port to the Chinese Government. ..."
"... America is in terminal decline, beset by economic and fiscal crises, sapped by imperial overstretch, a victim of a cosmopolitan ennui and fecklessness, divided politically and culturally, belligerent and militant to the extreme. An empire in decline is at its most dangerous. America today is a far greater threat to world peace than China. Simply witness America's accommodation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the odious Saudi theocracy, and how its insane policy in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan has led to hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions displaced ..."
"... The US has no significantly greater percentage of debt than any of the other Western nations except Germany. If you think the Americas bankrupt then you'd have to think a whole lot of other nations including the UK is as well. ..."
"... "China has divided and conquered certain countries in SE Asia." These certain SE Asian countries would say that it's because they are not willing to be Uncle Sam's "yes man". ..."
"... The US is still so very powerful but the problem is they feel powerless from time to time with their hammer in hand against flying mosquitos. Why they always wanted to solve problems using force is beyond stupidity. ..."
"... It also destabilises the entire region. Something the Americans are masters of. ..."
"... Were the US to form a cooperative instead of confrontational relationship with China the world would be a better place. The same could be said for the US relationship with Russia. ..."
"... Of course the military-industrial-banking-congressional complex that governs Washington's behavior would not be happy. WIthout confrontation the arms industries can't sell their weapons of war, banks' profits take a hit and congress critters don't get their kickbacks, err, "donations". ..."
"... Given the way the US government has screwed the Philippines over steadily since 1898, it's not surprising that Pres. Dutarte has decided to be friendly with his neighbor. Obama of the Kill List lecturing other countries about human rights abuses! What hypocrisy. ..."
"... Is what China doing in the south china sea different from what the USA does in the gulf of Mexico or in Panama... not to mention that Chi a is litterally surounded by US bases that sit squarely across all its sea trading routes: Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Fillipines ..."
"... China has been accumulating debt at unprecedented rates to try to maintain faltering growth. In 2007 Chinese debt stood at $7 trillion. By 2014 it had quadrupled to $28 trillion. That's $60 billion of extra debt every week. It's still rising rapidly as the government desperately tries to keep momentum. ..."
"... TPP is practically written by the lobbyists from the multi-international corporations that exploit every possible tax laws, labor laws, environmental and public health regulations, legal representations and consequences. It is imperialism 2.0 in the 21st century, exclusively serving the interests of top point one percent while greatly depressing the wages of middle class; it is overwhelmingly opposed by the public opinion, law makers of all sides and current president candidates. There is zero chance Obama could make it through legislation before his exit; Clinton will not even consider bringing it back if she wins the election because she already flip-flopped once on the issue during her campaign; and it would seriously damage her chance of re-election if she does. As for Trump, I leave it to anyone's imaginations. ..."
"... Globalisation is another word for one world government and all that brings, one currency, one police force, taxation, dissolution of borders, an end to sovereignty and all of our hard won freedoms. Freedom is a thing of the past, with MSM owned by the globalist elites, enforcing a moratorium on truth, and a population that has no idea what is going on behind the scenes. ..."
"... Another brilliant thought from Rand; when in doubt, shoot from the hip .... ..."
"... They tell their employers what they want to hear. ..."
"... Do Americans not realize that Chinese and Russians read this too and plan accordingly? This is madness. I am fairly certain preemptive strikes are against international law. Why nobody has the guts to call the US out on this kind of illegal warmongering? ..."
"... The dilemma is clear: amid rising nationalism in both countries, China is not willing to have its ambitions curbed or contained and the US is not ready to accept the world number two spot. These two juggernauts are on a collision course. ..."
"... What does the criticism in USA get you? It is just blah blah blah. ONly criticism that matters is from the corporations and wealthy individuals like Koch bros and Sheldon Edelson and their ilk. Rest can watch football. ..."
"... Simon Tisdall and many Europeans as well as the US GOP party still thinks that US is an empire similar to what the British had in the 18th century. This assumption is completely wrong especially in the 21th century where Western Europe, Japan, Korea if they want can be spend their money and also become global military power. ..."
"... Being a large country surrounded by many other occasionally threatening powers, the governments' priority is and always has been defending its territorial integrity. China is happy enough to leave the command and conquer stuff, sorry "democratization" to the US. ..."
"... Why did Obama say that his greatest regret was Libya.? Because Obama's policy is/was to manage the decline of US power. To manage the end of US hegemony. I doubt that Obama believes that any pivot to any where can restore or maintain US dominance on planet earth. ..."
"... China wishes to expand trade and improve economic conditions for its people and for those with whom it trades. That is not aggression except when it interferes with US global economic hegemony. ..."
"... The most belligerent nation in the world the nation with its army in over 100 countries, the nation bombing and conducting perpetual war throughout the middle east, the country invading countries for "regime change" and creating only misery and death -- it is not China. ..."
"... The US and its Neoliberal capitalist system must expand to grow - plus they clearly want total global domination - the US and its Imperial agents have encircled both China and Russia with trillions of dollars of the most destructive weapons in the world including nuclear weapons - do you thin they have done that for "security" if so you simply ignore the aggression and hubris of an Imperial US. ..."
Before the pivot could even get underway the Saudis threw their rattle out of the pram and drew
US focus back to the Middle East and proxy war two steps removed with Russia. Empires don't get
to focus, they react to each event and seek to gain from the outcome so the whole pivot idea was
flawed.
Obama's foreign policy has been clumsy and amoral. It remains to be seen whether it will become
more so in an effort to double down. Under Clinton it definitely will, under Trump who knows but
random isn't a recommendation.
Conventionally the US is being outplayed but it is possible that it is playing a different
game in which it is complicit in the transition from nation state to corporate oligarchy. Isn't
that the Neoliberal end game?
So the Rand Think Tank would sooner have war now than later. Who wouldda guessed that.
The Chinese want to improve trade and business with the rest of the world. The US answer? destroy
China militarily. so who best to lead the world. I think the article answers that question unintentionally.
The rest of the world has had it up to the ears with American military invasions, regeime changes,
occupations and bombing of the world. They are ready for China´s approach to international relations.
it is about time the adults took over the leadership of the world. Europe and the USA and their
offspring have clearly failed.
China has been handed everything it needs to fly solo: money, factories, IP, etc. Fast forwarding
into the western civic model limits (traffic, pollution, etc.), its best bet is to offload US
"interests" and steer clear.
No clear sign India's learned/recovered from British occupation, as they let tech create more
future Kanpurs.
The biggest mistake was to enact a policy shunning Russia, when Russia should be a key, partner
of Europe and the US.
Was it really worth expanding NATO to Russia's borders instead of offering neutrality to former
Soviet States and thus retain Russia's confidence in global matters that far out weigh the interests
of the neo-cons?
neutrality? Russia invaded non-NATO members Georgie, Ukraine, and Moldavia, and created puppet-states
on their soil.
The Jremlin-rules are simple: the former Sovjet states should be ruled by a pro-Russian dictator
(Bella-Russia, Kazachstan, etc. etc...). Democracies face boycots, diplomatic and military support
of rebels, and in the end simply a military invasion.
The only reason why the baltic states are now thriving democracies, is that they are NATO members.
And the USA invaded Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua with the contras, Iraq, Afghanistan, are currently
bombing the crap out of another dozen nations, has militarily occupied another 100 nations with
their bases and you are worried about Russia with Georgia and The Ukraine? What in Hades is wrong
with this picture?
When Obama took office his first major speech was in Cairo - where he said
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around
the world," US President Barack Obama said to the sounds of loud applause which rocked not
only the hall, but the world. "One based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based
upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead,
they overlap, and share common principles-principles of justice and progress; tolerance and
the dignity of all human beings."
He displayed a dangerous mix of innocence, foolishness, disregard for the truth and misunderstanding
of the nature of Islamic regimes - does the West have common values with Lebanon which practices
apartheid for Palestinians, Saudi, where women cannot drive a car, Syria, where over 17,000 have
died in Assad's torture chambers, we can go on and on.
And on China - Trump has it right - China has been manipulating its currency exchange rate
for years, costing western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits and something
needs to be done about it.
" America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap,
and share common principles-principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of
all human beings. "
He spoke about the whole of Islam, not specific " Islamic regimes ". And he is correct
on it. All religions share a great deal of values with the USAmerican constition and even each
other .
The overwhelming majority of USAmerican muslims have accepted the melting pot with their whole
heart, second generation children have JOINED its fighting forces to protect the interest of the
USA all over the world. Normally this full an integration is reached with the third generation.
The west has won against those religious fanatics. How else to explain that exactly the people
those claim to speak turn up with us?
And the big problem with Trump's approach is that good ol' American corporations are the ones
who are profiting wildly from business in China. They wanted access to the Chinese labor force,
e.g. Walmart and every other manufacturer who now peddles goods made in China in US stores. They
are the entities that cost western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits.
They are wealthy beyond measure and anyone who wants to alter this system whereby American
corporations manufacture in China and ship products around the world, inc. to the US, would have
to fight them. And if anyone believes that Trump would succeed in this battle, they are delusional.
"These two juggernauts are on a collision course" is far too alarmist. Relying mainly on right-wing
US thinktanks for analysis doesn't help.
Interesting in particular to see RAND is still in its Cold War mindset. There's famous footage
of RAND analysts in the 60s (I think) discussing putative nuclear war with the USSR and concluding
that the US was certain of 'victory' following a missile exchange because its surviving population
(after hundreds of millions of deaths and the destruction of almost all urban centres) would be
somewhat larger.
China's island claims are all about a broader strategic aim- getting unencumbered access to
the Pacific for its growing blue water navy. It's not aimed at Taiwan or Japan in any sort of
specific sense and, save for the small possibility of escalation following an accident (ships
colliding or something), there's very little risk of conflict in at least the medium term.
It's crucial to remember just how much China and the US depend upon each other economically.
The US is by far China's largest single export market, powering its manufacturing economy. In
return, China uses the surplus to buy up US debt, which allows the Americans to borrow cheaply
and keep the lights on. Crash China and you crash the US- and vice versa.
For now, China is basically accepting an upgraded number 2 spot (along with the US acknowledging
them as part of a 'G2'), but supporting alternative governance structures when it doesn't like
the ones controlled by the US/Japan (so the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS etc.).
This doesn't mean that the two don't see each other as long term strategic and economic rivals.
But the risks to both of rocking the boat are gigantic and not in the interest of either party
in the foreseeable future. Things that could change that:
a. a succession of Trump-like US presidents (checks and balances are probably sufficient to
withstand one, were it to come to that);
b. a revolution in China (possible if the economy goes South- and what comes next is probably
not liberal democracy but anti-Japanese or anti-US authoritarian nationalism);
c. an unpredictable chain of events arising from N Korean collapse or a regional nuclear race
(Japan-China is a more likely source of conflict than US-China).
"The west has been long living under the illusion that the so called globalised world would
be beneficial for all. " No, actually they thought it would be beneficial for the Western countries
mostly. And it was, but whatever benefits developing countries received allowed them to rise to
the level of a potential future threat to the unquestionable Western dominance. And now the US
is looking for a way to destroy them preemptively. The US is paranoid.
The writing is on the wall: the future is with China. All the US can do is make nice or reap the
dire consequences. If China can clean up its human rights record, I would be happy to see them
supplant or rival the US as a global hegemon. After all, looked at historically, haven't they
earned it? - An American, born and bred, but no nationalist
Well, that is naïve. Look at China and how the Chinese people are governed. Look at the US. And
please don't tell me you don't see a difference. I'll take a world with the US as the global hegemon
any day.
A regional counter balance is needed. Cooperation is hindered by Japan. They should be the center
point of a regional alliance strong enough to contain China with US help, but it doesn't work:
whilst everybody fears China, everybody hates Japan.
The reason is they failed miserably to rebuild trust after WWII, rather than going cap in hand,
acknowledging respondibility for atrocities and other crimes and injustice, and compensate victims,
they kept their pride and isolation. They are now paying the price - possibly together with the
rest of us.
Maybe a full scale change after 7 decades of to-little-to-late diplomacy can still achieve
sth.
The ass the US should kick sits in Tokyo - something they failed to do properly after WWII,
when they managed it well in West Germany (ok - they had help from the Brits there, who for all
their failings understand foreign nations far better), where it facilitated proper integration
into European cooperation.
I think this "ascendancy" and nationalistic fervor is actually a sign of internal turmoil.
Countries that do well don't need to crack down on dissidents to the point of kidnappings
or spend millions of stupid man made islands that pisses everyone off but have all the military
value of a threatening facial tattoo. The South China Sea tactics is partially Chinese "push until
something pushes back" diplomacy but also stems from the harsh realisation that their resources
can be easily choked of and even the CPC knows it can't hold down a billion plus Chinese people
once the hunger sets it.
China is facing the dilemna that as it brings people out of poverty it reduces the supply of
the very cheap labor that makes it rich. You can talk about Lenovo all you want, no one is buying
a Chinese car anytime soon. Nor is any airline outside of China going to buy one of their planes.
Copyright fraud is one thing the West can retaliate easily upon and will if they feel China has
gone too far. Any product found in a western court to be a blatant copy can effectively be banned.
The next step is to refuse to recognize Chinese copyright on the few genuine innovations that
come out of it.
Plus the deal Deng Xiaoping made with the urban classes is fraying. It was wealth in exchange
for subservience. The people in the cities stay out of direct politics but quality of life issues,
safety, petty corruption and pollution are angering them and scaring them hence the vast amount
of private Chinese money being sunk into global real estate.
The military growth and dubious technobabble is just typical Chinese mianzi gaining. If you
do have a brand new jet stealth jet fighter, you don't release pictures of it to the world press.
They got really rattled when Shinzo Abe decided the JSDF can go and deliver slappings abroad to
help their friends if needed. Because an army that spends a lot of time rigging up Michael Bayesque
set maneuvers for the telly is not what you want to pit against top notch technology handled by
obsessive perfectionists.
No one plays hardball with China because we all like cheap shit. But once that is over then
China is a very vulnerable country with not one neighbour they can call a friend. They know it.
Obama hasn't failed.. It's the histrionics that prove it not the other way round.
The labor supply is assured because there are still multi millions in poverty and signing
up as cheap labor is exactly what brings them out of poverty. I assume you've never been to China
and therefore have never heard of Chunyun, the largest human migration in the world. This is partly
the ruralites returning home from the cities with their years spoils. This year individual journeys
totalled almost 3bn.
No-one is buying a Chinese car? Check the sales for Wuling. They produce the small vans that
are the lifeblood of the small entrepreneur. BYD are already exporting electric buses to London.
The likes of VW, BMW, Land Rover, are all in partnership with Chinese auto-makers and China is
the largest car market in the world.
Corruption has been actively attacked and over a quarter of a million officials have been brought
to book in Xi's time in office. The pollution causing steel and coal industries are being rapidly
contracted and billions spent on re-training.
Plus the fact that while the Chinese are mianzi gazing, the last thing they think about is
politics. They simply don't want to know.
By the way, China is reducing it's land army by a third over the next few years and has
just concluded very constructive summits with all it's neighbours during last weeks ASEAN bunfight.
The conclusion is that bi-lateral talks, not US led pissing contests are the way forward.
"What has happened is the ICA has ruled against China in the SCS..." Nothing new. The UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf had also ruled against the
UK and the International Court of Justice had ruled against the US.
Fascinating & well structured article - except for one glaring omission - the LNP selling
of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese Government business. Yeh, sure it's a '99 year lease' but for
all effective purposes it's a sellout of a strategic port to the Chinese Government.
Just look at how gobsmacked the US Military & President were over such a stupidly undertaken
sale by the LNP. This diplomatically lunatic sell off by the LNP of such a vital national asset
has effectively taken-out any influence or impact Australia may have, or exert, over critical
issues happening on our northern doorstep.
If there was ever a case for buying back a strategic national asset, this is definitely the
one. Oh, if folks are worried about the $Billions in penalties incurred, simple solution - just
stop the $Billions of Diesel Fuel Rebates gifted to Miners for, say, 10 years..... Done!
America is in terminal decline, beset by economic and fiscal crises, sapped by imperial overstretch,
a victim of a cosmopolitan ennui and fecklessness, divided politically and culturally, belligerent
and militant to the extreme. An empire in decline is at its most dangerous. America today is a
far greater threat to world peace than China. Simply witness America's accommodation of the Israeli
occupation of Palestine, the odious Saudi theocracy, and how its insane policy in Libya, Syria,
Iraq, and Afghanistan has led to hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.
Europe
is under siege by endless tides of refugees that are the direct consequence of America's neo-Conservative
and militant foreign policy. Meanwhile, America's neo-liberal economic and trade policies have
not only decimated her own manufacturing base and led to gross inequality but also massive dislocations
in South America, Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Tired, irritated, frustrated,
exhausted, cynical, violent, moral-less, deeply corrupt, and rudderless, America is effectively
bankrupt and on the verge of becoming another Greece, if not for the saving grace of the petro-Dollar.
Europe would be well-advised to keep the Yanks at arm's length so as to escape as much as possible
the fallout from her complete collapse. As for Britain, soon to be divorced from the EU, time
draws nigh to end the humiliating, one-sided servitude that is the 'Special Relationship' and
forge an independent foreign policy. The tectonic plates of history is again shifting, and there
nothing America can do to stop it.
I don't know America probably occupies the most prime geographical spot on the planet, and buffered
by two oceans. It doesn't have to worry about refugees and the other problems and ultimately they
can produce enough food and meet all of its energy needs domestically. And it's the third most
populous nation on earth and could easily grow its population with immigration.
The US has no significantly greater percentage of debt than any of the other Western nations
except Germany. If you think the Americas bankrupt then you'd have to think a whole lot of other
nations including the UK is as well.
Given the facts it would be daft a write off America. Every European nation have lost their
number one spot in history and they seem to be doing just fine. Is there some reason why this
can't be America's destiny as well? Does it really have to end in flames?
"China has divided and conquered certain countries in SE Asia."
These certain SE Asian countries would say that it's because they are not willing to be Uncle
Sam's "yes man".
The US is still so very powerful but the problem is they feel powerless from time to time with
their hammer in hand against flying mosquitos. Why they always wanted to solve problems using
force is beyond stupidity.
Pivot to Asia is about one thing only, sending more war ships to encircle China. But for what
purpose exactly? It does one thing though, it united china by posing as a threat.
Those blaming Obama most stridently for not keeping China in its box are those most responsible
for China's rise. American and Western companies shafted their own people to make themselves more
profit. They didn't care what the consequences might be, as long as the lmighty "Shareholder Value"
continued to rise. Now they demand that the taxes from all those people whose jobs they let go
be used to contain the new superpower that they created. As usual, Coroporate America messes
things up then demands to know what someone else is going to do about it
Were the US to form a cooperative instead of confrontational relationship with China the world
would be a better place. The same could be said for the US relationship with Russia.
Of course the military-industrial-banking-congressional complex that governs Washington's behavior
would not be happy. WIthout confrontation the arms industries can't sell their weapons of war,
banks' profits take a hit and congress critters don't get their kickbacks, err, "donations".
Given the way the US government has screwed the Philippines over steadily since 1898, it's not
surprising that Pres. Dutarte has decided to be friendly with his neighbor. Obama of the Kill List lecturing other countries about human rights abuses! What hypocrisy.
fuck his pivot.....this ain't syria.....having destroyed the middle east it was our turn.....this
is americas exceptionalism........stay #1 by desabilising/destroying everyone else.....p.s. shove
the TPP also..........
The real question is why should not China be more dominant in Asia... i understands the USA tendency
especially since the fall of the soviet union at seing themselves as the only world superpower.
And i understand why China would like to balance tbat especially in her own neighborhood.
Is what China doing in the south china sea different from what the USA does in the gulf of Mexico
or in Panama... not to mention that Chi a is litterally surounded by US bases that sit squarely
across all its sea trading routes: Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Fillipines,... and considering that the
chinese have a long memory of werstern gunboat diplomacy and naval for e projection, if i was
them i would feel a little uncomfortable at how vulnerable my newfound trade is... especially
when some western politician so clearly think that china needs to be contained...
China has been accumulating debt at unprecedented rates to try to maintain faltering growth.
In 2007 Chinese debt stood at $7 trillion. By 2014 it had quadrupled to $28 trillion. That's
$60 billion of extra debt every week. It's still rising rapidly as the government desperately tries to keep momentum.
Much of this money has been funnelled into 'investments' that will never yield a return. The most almighty crash is coming. Which will be interesting to say the least.
Now that is interesting but odd. They are buying phuqing HUGE swathes of land in Africa, investing
everywhere they can on rest of the planet. All seemingly on domestic debt then.
Yes. The Japanese went on a spending spree abroad in the 1980s, while accumulating debt at home,
and when that popped the economy entered 20 years of stagnation, as bad debts hampered the financial
system.
The Chinese bubble is far larger, and made worse by the fact that much of the debt has been
taken on by inefficient state owned enterprises and local government, spending not because the
figures make sense but to meet centrally-dictated growth targets. Much of the rest has been funnelled
into real estate, which now makes up more than twice the share of the Chinese economy than is
the case in the UK. Property prices in some major Chinese cities have reached up to 30 times local
incomes, making London look cheap in comparison.
TPP is practically written by the lobbyists from the multi-international corporations that exploit
every possible tax laws, labor laws, environmental and public health regulations, legal representations
and consequences. It is imperialism 2.0 in the 21st century, exclusively serving the interests
of top point one percent while greatly depressing the wages of middle class; it is overwhelmingly
opposed by the public opinion, law makers of all sides and current president candidates. There
is zero chance Obama could make it through legislation before his exit; Clinton will not even
consider bringing it back if she wins the election because she already flip-flopped once on the
issue during her campaign; and it would seriously damage her chance of re-election if she does.
As for Trump, I leave it to anyone's imaginations.
Don't believe for a second Hillary won't ram through a version of the TPP/IP if she wins. What
she's actually said is that she's against it in its current form
Remember she is part of an owned by the 0.1% that stand to benefit from the agreement, she
will do their bidding and be well rewarded. A few cosmetic changes will be applied to the agreement
so she can claim that she wasn't lying pre-election and we'll have to live with the consequences.
Well done all you globalists for failing to spot the bleedin obvious...that millions of homes
worldwide full of 'Made In China' was ultimately going to pay for the People's Liberation
Army. Still think globalisation is wonderful ?
Quite. How can you believe in a liberal, global free market and then do business with the Socialist
Republic of China, that is the antithesis of free markets. The name is above the door, so there's
no use acting all surprised when it doesn't pan out the way you planned it.
Anything good can be made evil, including globalization. Imagine fair trade completely globalized
so very nation relies on every other nation for goods. That type of shared destiny is the only
way to maintain peace because humans are tribalist to a fault. We evolved in small groups, our
social dynamics are not well suited to large diverse groups. If nation has food but nation B does
not, nation B will go to war with nation A, so hopefully both nations trade and alleviate that
situation. Nations with high economic isolation are beset by famines and poverty. Germany usually
beats China in total exports and Germany is a wonderful place to live. It's not globalization
that is the problem, it's exploitation and failure of our leaders to follow and enforce the Golden
Rule.
Roll out the barrel.....
Well said and you are so right.
15 years ago, I had a conversation in an airport with an American. I remarked that, by outsourcing
manufacturing to China the US had sold its future to an entity that would prove to be their enemy
before too long. I was derided and ridiculed. I wonder where that man is and whether he remembers
our conversation.
Globalisation is another word for one world government and all that brings, one currency, one
police force, taxation, dissolution of borders, an end to sovereignty and all of our hard won
freedoms. Freedom is a thing of the past, with MSM owned by the globalist elites, enforcing a
moratorium on truth, and a population that has no idea what is going on behind the scenes.
I despair of "normalcy bias" and the insulting term "conspiracy theorist". People have lost
the ability to work things out for themselves and the majority knows nothing about Agenda 21 aka
Sustainable Development Goals 2030, until the land grabs start and private ownership is outlawed.
... the study also suggests that, if war cannot be avoided, the US might be best advised to
strike first, before China gets any stronger and the current US military advantage declines further
..
Another brilliant thought from Rand; when in doubt, shoot from the hip ....
Do Americans not realize that Chinese and Russians read this too and plan accordingly? This is
madness.
I am fairly certain preemptive strikes are against international law. Why nobody has the guts
to call the US out on this kind of illegal warmongering?
1. With respect, Mr Tidsall is badly off track in painting China as the one evil facing an innocent
world.
2. The fact is that US' belief in and repeated resort to force has created a huge mess in the
Middle East, brought true misery to millions, and truly thrown Europe in turmoil in the bargain.
3. Besides this Middle East mess, the US neoliberal economic policies have wreaked havoc, culminating
in an unprecedented financial and economic crisis that has left millions all over the world without
any hope for the future
4. Hence Mr Tidsall's pronouncement:
This dilemma – how to work constructively with a powerful, assertive China without compromising
or surrendering national interests – grows steadily more acute.
Ought to read:
This dilemma – how to work constructively with a powerful, assertive United States
without compromising or surrendering national interests – grows steadily more acute.
5. US would be better advised to focus on its growing social problems, evident in the growing
random killings, police picking on blacks, etc, and on its fast decaying infrastructure. We now
read that China has the fastest computer, the largest telescope, etc, whilst US just kills and
kills all over the world.
6. Mr Tidsall, may I request that you kindly focus on realities rather than come up with opinion
that approaches science fiction
I agree that Mr Tisdall's treatment of the US is somewhat naive and ignorant. However couldn't
it be that both countries are capable of aggression and assertiveness? The US's malign influence
is mainly focussed on the Middle East and North Africa region, while China's is on its neighbours.
China's attitude to Taiwan is pure imperialism, as is its treatment of dissenting voices on the
mainland and in Hong Kong. China's contempt for international law and the binding ruling by the
UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal is also deeply harmful to peace and justice in the region and worldwide.
We now read that China has the fastest computer, the largest telescope, etc, whilst US just
kills and kills all over the world.
Very superficial indeed - compare, just as one example, the number of Nobel prizes won by American
scientists recently with those by Chinese. The US is still, in general, far ahead of China in
terms of scientific research (though China is making rapid progress). (That is not intended to
excuse US killing of course.)
The US follows the USSR path of increasingly ignoring the needs of its own population in order
to retain global dominance. It will end the same as the USSR. That which cannot continue will
not continue.
Xi is not looking for a fight. His first-choice agent of change is money, not munitions.
According to Xi's "One Belt, One Road" plan, his preferred path to 21st-century Chinese hegemony
is through expanded trade, business and economic partnerships extending from Asia to the Middle
East and Africa. China's massive Silk Road investments in central and west Asian oil and gas
pipelines, high-speed rail and ports, backed by new institutions such as the Asia Infrastructure
Investment Bank, are part of this strategy, which simultaneously encourages political and economic
dependencies. Deng Xiaoping once said to get rich is glorious. Xi might add it is also empowering.
The most realistic assessment on Xi and China.
The dilemma is clear: amid rising nationalism in both countries, China is not willing to
have its ambitions curbed or contained and the US is not ready to accept the world number two
spot. These two juggernauts are on a collision course.
A Grim and over-paranoid predicament: US is not in decline and need not worry about China's "ambition";
China is well aware it remains a poor nation compared to developed world and is decades behind
of US in military, GDP per capital and science, that is not including civil liberty, citizen participation,
Gov't transparency and so on. China is busy building a nation confident of its culture and history,
military hegemony plays no part of its dream.
US is not in decline and need not worry about China's "ambition"
Oh come on, $20 Trillion in debt and with Social Security running out of money, there will
be no more to lend the government.
China has forged an agreement with Russia for all its needs in oil ( Russia has more oil than
Saudi Arabia) and payment will not be in US dollars. Russia will not take US$ for trade and the
BRICS nations will squeeze the US$ out of its current situation as reserve currency. When the
dollars all find their way back to the USA hyperinflation will cause misery.
Before the Chinese or anyone else gets any ideas, they should reflect on the size of the US defence
budget, 600 billion dollars in 2015, and consider what that might imply in the event of conflict.
a third of that budget goes in profit for the private companies they employ to make duds like
the F35 - so you can immediately reduce that to 400 billion. The US have been fighting third world
countries for 50 years, and losing, their military is bloated, out of date and full of retrograde
gear that simply wont cut it against the Russians. Privately you would find that most top line
military agree with that statement. They also have around 800 bases scattered world wide, spread
way too thin. Its why theyve stalled in Ukraine and can't handle the middle east. The Russians
spend less than $50 billion but have small, highly mobile forces, cutting edge missile defence
systems (which will have full airspace coverage by 2017). The Chinese policy of A2D/AD or access
denial has got the US surface fleet marooned out in the oceans as any attempt to get close enough
to be effective would be met with a hail of multiple rocket shedding war heads. The only place
where it is probable (but my no means certain) that the US still has the edge is in submarine
warfare, although again if the Russians and Chinese have full coverage of their airspace nothing
(or little) would get through.
Two theorys are in current operation about the election and the waring factions in the NSA and
the CIA 1) HRC wins but is too much of a warmonger and would push america into more wars they
simply cannot win 2) there is a preference for Trump to win amongst the MIC because he would (temporarily)
seek 'peace' with the Russians thus giving the military the chance to catch up - say in 3 or 4
years - plus all the billions and billions of dollars that would mean for them.
Overwhelming fire power no longer wins wars, the US have proved that year in year out since
the end of the second world war, theyve lost every war theyve started/caused/joined in. Unless
you count that limited skirmish on British soil in Grenada - and I guess we could call Korea a
score draw. The yanks are bust and they know it, the neocons are all bluster and idiots like Breedlove,
Power and Nuland are impotent because they don't have right on their side or the might to back
it up. The US is mired in the middle east, locked out of asia and would grind to halt in Europe
against the Russians. (every NATO wargame simulation in the last 4 years has conclusively shown
this) Add to that the fact that the overwhelming majority of US citizens dont have the appetite
for a conventional war and in the event of a nuclear war the US would suffer at least as much
as Europe and youve got a better picture of where we are at.
Well it is just ABOUT money.Also during Vietnam and Iraq war US was biggest spender.
Nobody in US still thinks that Vietnam war was a good idea and the same applies to Iraq.Iraq war
will be even in history books for biggest amount spend to achieve NOTHING.
Chinese military spending is at least on a par with American. A huge part of American military
money goes to personnel salary while China does NOT pay to Chinese soldiers for their service
as China holds a compulsory military service system.
This article assumes China is evil and the US is the righteous protector of all nations in the
SE Asian region against the evil China which is obviously out to destroy the hapless SE Asian
nations. This assumption is obviously nonsense. The US itself is rife with racial problems. Everybody
has seen what it had done to Vietnam. Nobody believes that a racist US that cares nothing for
the welfare of its own black, Latino and Asian population will actually care for the welfare of
the same peoples outside of the US and especially in SE Asia.
The truth is China is not the evil destroyer of nations. The truth is the US is the evil destroyer
of nations. The US has brought nothing but bloodshed and destruction to the SE Asian regions for
the last 200 years. The US had killed millions of Filipinos during it colonial era. The US had
killed millions of Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. The US had incited pogroms against the ethnic
Chinese unceasingly. The May 13 massacre in Malaysia, the anti-Chinese massacres in the 1960's
and the 1990's in Indonesia, and many other discrimination and marginalization of ethnic Chinese
throughout the entire SE Asia are all the works of the US. It is the US that is the killer and
destroyer.
Therefore, it is a good thing that the evil intents of the US had failed. With the all but
inevitable rise of China, the influence of the Japanese and the americans will inevitably wane.
The only danger to China is the excessive xenocentrism of the Dengist faction who is selling out
China to these dangerous enemies. If the CPC government sold out China's domestic economy, then
China will become a colony of the Japanese and americans without firing a single shot. And the
Chinese economy will slide into depression as it had done in the Qing Dynasty and Chinese influence
in the SE Asian region will collapse.
Therefore, the task before the CPC government is to ban all foreign businesses out of China's
domestic economy, upgrade and expand China's education and R&D, urbanize the rural residents and
expand the Chinese military, etc. With such an independent economic, political and military policies,
China will at once make itself the richest and the most powerful nation in the world dwarfing
the Japanese and American economies and militaries. China can then bring economic prosperity and
stability to the SE Asian region by squeezing the evil Japanese and americans out of the region.
Lets be honest what has Obama achieved,he got the Nobel peace prize for simply not being George
Bush Jr he has diplayed a woeful lack of leadership with Russia over Syria Libya and the Chinese
Simply being the first African American president will not be a legacy
Do you know of one Leninist state that ever built a prosperous modern industrial nation? Therein
lies the advantage and the problem with China. China is totally export dependant and therefore
its customers can adversely affect its economy - put enough chinese out of work and surely political
instability will follow. A threatened dictatorship with a large army, however, is a danger to
its neighbors and the world.
China are now net consumers. You need to read up on whats happening, not from just the western
press. They are well on their way to becoming the most powerful nation on earth, they have access
(much like Russia) to over two thirds of the population of the worlds consumers and growing (this
is partially why sanctions against Russia have been in large part meaningless) China will never
want for buyers of their products (the iphone couldnt be made without the Chinese) with the vast
swaithes of unplumbed Russian resources becoming available to them its hard to see how the west
can combat the Eurasians. The wealth is passing from west to east, its a natural cycle the 'permanant
growth' monkies in the west have been blind to by their own greed and egotism. Above all the Chinese
are a trading nation, always seeking win/win trading links. The west would be better employed
trading and linking culturally with the Chinese rather than trying to dictate with military threats.
The west comprises only 18% of the global population and our growth and wealth is either exhausted
or locked away in vaults where it is doing no one any good. Tinme to wise up or get left behind.
Tisdall...absolute war-monger and neo-con "dog of war". Is this serious journalism? The rise of
China was as inevitable as the rise of the US in the last century..."no man can put a stop to
the march of a nation". It's Asias century and it's not the first time for China to be the No
1 economy in the world. They have been here before and have much more wisdom than the west...for
too long the tail has wagged the dog...suck it up Tisdall!
The US grand strategy post-Bush was to reposition itself at the heart of a liberal economic system
excluding China through TTIP with the EU and TPP with Asia-Pac ex. China and Russia. The idea
was that this would enable the US to sustain its hegemony.
It has been an absolute failure. Brexit has torpedoed TTIP and TPP has limited value- the largest
economy in the partnership, Japan, has been largely integrated in to the US for the past 70 years.
IMO the biggest failure of the US has been hating Russia too much. The Russians have just as
much reason to be afraid of China as the US do and have a pretty capable army. If the US patched
things up with the Russians, firstly it could redeploy forces and military effort away from the
Middle East towards Asia Pac and secondly it would give the US effective leverage over China-
with the majority of the oil producing nations aligned with the US, China would have difficulty
in conducted a sustained conflict. It's old Cold War thinking that has seen America lose its hegemony-
similar to how the British were so focused on stopping German ascendancy they didn't see the Americans
coming with the knife.
America is reaping the fruits of what they sowed during the time of Reagan. It was never a good
idea to outsource your entire manufacturing industry to a country that is a dictatorship and does
not embrace western liberal democratic values. Now the Americans are hopelessly dependent on China
- a country that does not play by the rules in any sphere - it censors free speech, it blatantly
violates intellectual property, it displays hostile intent towards nearly all South East Asian
countries, its friends include state sponsors of terror like Pakistan and North Korea, it is carefully
cultivating the enemies of America and the west in general.
In no way, shape or form does China fulfill the criteria for being a trustworthy partner of
the west. And yet today, China holds all the cards in its relationship with the west, with the
western consumerist economies completely dependent on China. Moral of the story - Trade and economics
cannot be conducted in isolation, separate from geopolitical realities. Doing so is a recipe for
disaster.
Mr Tisdall should declare his affiliation, if any, with the military-industrial complex.
It is surprising coming from a Briton which tried to contain Germany and fought two
wars destroying itself and the empire. War may be profitable for military-industrial complex
but disastrous for everyone else. In world war 2, USA benefited enormously by ramping
up war material production and creating millions of job which led to tremendous
prosperity turning the country around from a basket case in 1930s to a big prosperous power
which dominated the world till 2003.
US insistence on being top cat in a changing world will end up by dragging us all into a WW III.
Why can't the US leave the rest of the world alone? Americans do not need a military presence
to do business with the rest of the world and earn a lot of money with such trade. And they are
too ignorant, too unsophisticate and too weak to be able to impose their will on the rest of us.
The (very) ugly Americans are back and all we want is for them to go back home and forever remain
there... The sooner the better...
The world is going to look fantastically different in a hundred years time.
Points of world power will go back to where they was traditionally; Europe and Asia. America
is a falling power, it doesn't get the skilled European immigrants it use to after German revolution
and 2 world wars. And it's projected white population will be a minority by 2050. America's future
lies with south America.
Australia with such a massive country but with a tiny population of 20million will look very
attractive to China. It's future lies with a much stronger commonwealth, maybe a united military
and economic commonwealth between the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Even without the EU, Europe is going to have to work together, including Russia to beat the
Chinese militarily and economically. America will not be the same power in another 30-50 years
and would struggle to beat them now.
China are expansionists, always have been. War is coming with them and North Korea sometime
in the future.
From the article above, it is clear who is the more dangerous power. While China is aiming to
be the hegemon through economic means like the neo silk road projects, the US is aiming to maintain
its hegemon status through military power. The US think thank even suggest to preemptive strike
against China to achieve that. This is also the problem with US pivot to Asia, it may fail to
contain China, but it didn't fail to poison the atmosphere in Asia. Asia has never been this dangerous
since the end of cold war, all thanks to the pivot.
Obama is trying to maintain the status quo. China and N. Korea are the ones pushing military intimidation.
The key to the US plan is to form an alliance between countries in the region that historically
distrust each other. The Chinese are helping that by threatening everybody at the same time. Tisdall
sees this conflict strictly as between the US and China. Obama's plan is to form a group of countries
to counter China. Japan will have a major role in this alliance but the problem is whether the
other victims of WW2 Japanese aggression will agree to it.
The US's disastrous foreign policy since 9/11 which has unleashed so much chaos in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc etc... is not exactly a commendation for credibility these days.
A useful summary of the state of play in the Pacific and SCS. It is somewhat hawkish in analysis,
military fantasists will always be legion, they should be listened to with extra large doses of
salt, or discussion of arguments which favour peaceful cooperation and development, such as trade,
cultural relations, and natural stalemates. American anxiety at its own perception of decline,
is at least as dangerous for the world as the immature expression of rising Chinese confidence.
But the biggest problem it seems we face, is finding a way to accommodate and translate the aspirations
of rising global powers with the existing order established post-45, in incarnated in the UN and
other international bodies, in international maritime law as in our western notions of universal
human rights. Finding a way for China to express origination of these ideas compatible with its
own history, to be able to proclaim them as a satisfactory settlement for human relations, is
an ideal, but apparently unpromising task.
Perhaps Samuel P Huntingdon was broadly correct when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations" in
the late 90's. He was criticized for his work by neo-liberals who believed that after the Cold
War the rest of the world would follow the west and US in particular.
The problem with the neo-liberal view is that only their opinions on issues are correct, and
all others therefore should be ridiculed. What has happened in Ukraine is a prime example. Huntingdon
called the Ukraine a "cleft" country split between Russia and Europe. The EU and the US decided
to stir up trouble in the Ukraine to get even with Putin over Syria. It was never about EU or
NATO membership for the Ukraine which is now further away than ever.
A Trump presidency is regarded with fear. The Obama presidency has been a failure with regard
to foreign policy and a major reason was because Clinton was Secretary of State in the 1st four
years. In many ways a Clinton presidency is every bit as dangerous as a Trump presidency.
Certainly relations with Russia will be worse under Clinton than under Trump, and for the rest
of the world that is not a good thing. To those that believe liek Clinton that Putin is the new
Hitler, then start cleaning out the nuclear bunkers. If he is then WW3 is coming like it or not
and Britain better start spending more on defence.
What does the criticism in USA get you? It is just blah blah blah.
ONly criticism that matters is from the corporations and wealthy individuals
like Koch bros and Sheldon Edelson and their ilk. Rest can watch football.
Never mind that a general, high-intensity war in Northern Asia would be disastrous for all involved,
whatever the outcome.
Never mind that much of the discussion about containing China is by warmongers urging such
a conflict.
Never mind that very little depth in fact lies behind the shell of American and Japanese military
strength, or that a competently-run Chinese government is well able to grossly outproduce "us"
all in war materiel.
Never mind that those same warmongers and neocons drove and drive a succession of Imperial
disasters; they remain much-praised centres of attention, just as the banksters and rentiers that
are sucking the life from Americans have never had it so good.
Never mind that abbott encouraged violence as the automatic reaction to problems, while his
Misgovernment was (while Turnbull to a lesser extent still is) working hard to destroy the economic
and social strengths we need to have any chance of surmounting those problems.
Yes, it is a proper precaution to have a military strength that can deny our approaches to
China. Unfortunately that rather disregards that "we" have long pursued a policy of globalisation
involving the destruction of our both own manufacturing and our own merchant navy. Taken together
with non-existent fuel reserves, "our" military preparations are pointless, because we would have
to surrender within a fortnight were China to mount even a partial maritime blockade of Australia.
What I don't quite understand is how all this comes as any surprise to those in the know. China
has been on target to be the #1 economic power in the world in this decade for at least 30 years.
And who made it so? Western capitalists. China is now not only the world's industrial heartbeat,
it also owns a large proportion of Western debt - despite the fact that its differences with the
West (not least being a one-party Communist state) couldn't be more obvious - and while I doubt
it's in its interests to destabilise its benefactorrs at the moment, that may not always be the
case.
It also has another problem: In fifty or sixty years time it is due to be overtaken by India,
which gives it very little time to develop ASEAN in its own image; but I suspect that it's current
"silk glove" policy is far smarter and more cost-effective than any American "iron fist".
The US is just worried about losing out on markets and further exploitation. They should have
no authority over China's interest in the South China Sea. If China do rise to the point were
they can affect foreign governments, they will unlikely be as brutal as the United States. [Indonesia
1964, Congo 1960s, Brazil 1964, Chile 1973, Central America 1980s, Egyptian military aid, Saudi
support, Iraq 2003, the Structural Adjustments of the IMF]
Simon Tisdall and many Europeans as well as the US GOP party still thinks that US is an empire
similar to what the British had in the 18th century. This assumption is completely wrong especially
in the 21th century where Western Europe, Japan, Korea if they want can be spend their money and
also become global military power.
While many Europeans and others including our current GOP party
thinks we are the global empire and we should stick our nose everywhere, our people doesn't we
are an empire or we should stick our nose in every trouble spot in the world spending our blood
and treasure to fight others battles and get blame when everything goes wrong. President Obama
doesn't think of himself as Julius Ceaser and America is not Rome.
He will be remembered as one
of our greatest president ever setting a course for this country's foreign policy towards trying
to solve the world's problems through alliances and cooperation with like minded countries as
the opposite of the war mongering brainless, trigger happy GOP presidents. However when lesser
powers who preach xenophobia and destabilize their neighborhood through annexation as the Hitler
like Putin has, he comes down with a hammer using tools other than military to punish the aggressor.
All you need to do is watch what is happening to the Russian economy since he imposed sanctions
to the Mafiso Putin.
This article is completely misleading and the author is constricting himself in his statement
that Obama's pivot to Asia is a failure. Since China tried to annex the Islands near the Philippines,
countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, India, etc. has ask the US for more cooperation
both military and economically these countries were moving away from US under Bush and others
so I think this is a win for Obama not a loss. Unlike the idiotic Russians, China is a clever
country and is playing global chess in advancing her foreign policy goals. While the US cannot
do anything with China's annexation of these disputed Islands has costs her greatly because the
Asian countries effected by China's moves are running towards the US, this is a win for the US.
China's popularity around her neighborhood has taken a nose dive similar to Russian's popularity
around her neighborhood. These are long term strategic wins for the US, especially if Hillary
wins the white house and carry's on Obama's mantel of speaking softly but carry a big stick. Obama
will go down as our greatest foreign policy president by building alliances in Europe to try stop
Mafioso Putin and alliances in Asia to curtail China's foreign policy ambitions. This author's
thesis is pure bogus, because he doesn't indicate what Obama should have done to make him happy?
Threaten Chine military confertation?
All you have to do is go back 8 years ago and compare our last two presidents and you can see
where Obama is going.
For the allusion to Rome, I think they act like the old empire when they had to send their army
to keep the peace....and it is an empire of the 21 first century, not like the old ones (Assange).
China needs western consumerism to maintain its manufacturing base. If China's growth impacts
the ability of the West to maintain its standard of consumerism, then China will need a new source
of affluent purchaser. If China's own citizens become affluent, they will expect a standard of
living commensurate with that status, accordingly China will not be able to maintain its manufacturing
base.
So the options for China are:
a) Prop up western economies until developing nations in Africa and South America (themselves
heavily dependent on the West) reach a high standard of consumerism.
b) Divide China into a ruling class, and a worker class, in which the former is a parasite
on the latter.
The current tactic seems to be to follow option b, until option a becomes viable.
However, the longer option a takes to develop, and therefore the longer option b is in effect,
the greater the chances of counter-revolution (which at this stage is probably just revolution).
The long and the short of it, is that China is boned.
Being a large country surrounded by many other occasionally threatening powers, the governments'
priority is and always has been defending its territorial integrity. China is happy enough to
leave the command and conquer stuff, sorry "democratization" to the US.
It's got it's hands full
at home. As long as the West doesn't try to get involved in what China sees as its historical
territory (i.e. The big rooster shaped landmass plus Hainan and Hong Kong and various little islands)
there's absolutely nothing to worry about.
Why did Obama say that his greatest regret was Libya.? Because Obama's policy is/was to manage
the decline of US power. To manage the end of US hegemony. I doubt that Obama believes that any
pivot to any where can restore or maintain US dominance on planet earth. There is absolutely nothing
exceptional about a power not admitting publicly what is known to many,see the outpourings of
the British elites during the end of its empire.
As usual the Guardian is on its anti-China horse. Look through this article and every move China
has made is "aggressive" or when it tries to expand trade (and produce win win economic conditions)
it is "hegemonic" while the US is just trying to protect us all and is dealing with the "Chinese
threat" -- a threat to their economic interests and global imperial hegemony is what they mean.
The US still maintains a "one China" policy and the status quo is exactly that "one China"
It would be great for someone in the west to review the historical record instead of arming Taiwan
to the teeth. Additionally, before China ever started its island construction the US had already
begun the "pivot to Asia" which now is huge with nuclear submarines patrolling all around China,
nuclear weapons on the - two aircraft carrier fleets now threatening China - very rare for the
US to have two aircraft carrier fleets in the same waters - the B-1 long range nuclear bombers
now in Australia, and even more belligerent the US intends to deploy THAAD missals in South Korea
- using North Korea as an excuse to further seriously threaten China.
China wishes to expand trade and improve economic conditions for its people and for those with
whom it trades. That is not aggression except when it interferes with US global economic hegemony.
Just look around the world - where are the conflicts - the middle east and Africa - who is
there with military and arms sales and bombing seven countries -- is it China?
The most belligerent nation in the world the nation with its army in over 100 countries, the
nation bombing and conducting perpetual war throughout the middle east, the country invading countries
for "regime change" and creating only misery and death -- it is not China.
The US and its Neoliberal capitalist system must expand to grow - plus they clearly want total
global domination - the US and its Imperial agents have encircled both China and Russia with trillions
of dollars of the most destructive weapons in the world including nuclear weapons - do you thin
they have done that for "security" if so you simply ignore the aggression and hubris of an Imperial
US.
Just watched Samantha Powers speak at the emergency UN security counsel meeting on Syria, how
she managed to keep a straight face is completely beyond me.
Basically Russia needs to take responsibility for its actions in Syria and the war would be
over if those damn Russians would GTFO and quit disrupting the US and GCC regime change operations.
It appears everything would be going swimmingly if Russia would just leave the "rebels" alone
and let the US turn Syria into Libya, I mean is that so much to ask for? /S
The people Obama has chosen to represent him are almost all fanatics. Samantha Power and Ash
Carter stand out as true psychopaths. Carter actually openly defied Obama on the Syria ceasefire.
Robert Parry has an excellent piece out today on the
rush to judgment about the attack on the humanitarian convoy.
It has been particularly infuriating to see the Chanel-suited Berkeley types be the ones to
embrace imperial fascist war-making with such glee.
I happened to recognize Susan Rice travelling sans bodyguard with her girlfriend at the airport
in Chiang Mai Thailand and had a delicious time giving her a full piece of my mind. Unedited truth
to power with nowhere to hide, she reacted with a glaze that said "you are just an idiot peon"
but I could see she was shaken.
"... Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us. As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack . We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses. ..."
"... "We need to respond to evolving threats from states like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS. We need a military that is ready and agile so it can meet the full range of threats, and operate on short notice across every domain, not just land, sea, air and space, but also cyberspace". ..."
"... "serious political, economic and military responses" ..."
"... notwithstanding ..."
"... The mainstream The Hill newspaper bannered, "Clinton: Treat cyberattacks 'like any other attack'" , and reported that, "Since many high-profile cyberattacks could be interpreted as traditional intelligence-gathering - something the US itself also engages in - the White House is often in a tricky political position when it comes to its response". That's not critical of her position, but at least it makes note of the crucial fact that if the US were to treat a hacker's attack as being an excuse to invade Russia, it would treat the US itself as being already an invader of Russia - which the US prior to a President Hillary Clinton never actually has been, notwithstanding the routine nature of international cyber espionage (which Clinton has now stated she wants to become a cause of war), which has been, and will continue to be, essential in the present era. ..."
"... The International Business Times, an online-only site, headlined September 1 st , "Clinton: US should use 'military response' to fight cyberattacks from Russia and China" , and reported that a Pentagon official had testified to Congress on July 13 th , that current US policy on this matter is: "When determining whether a cyber incident constitutes an armed attack, the US government considers a broad range of factors, including the nature and extent of injury or death to persons and the destruction of or damage to property. Cyber incidents are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the national security leadership and the president will make a determination if it's an armed attack". ..."
"... Hillary's statement on this matter was simply ignored by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Fox, CNN, The Nation, The Atlantic, Harper's, National Review, Common Dreams, Alternet, Truthout, and all the rest of the US standard and 'alternative news' reporting organizations. Perhaps when Americans go to the polls to elect a President on November 8th, almost none of them will have learned about her policy on this incredibly important matter. ..."
"... Hillary's statement was in line with the current Administration's direction of policy, but is farther along in that direction than the Obama Administration's policy yet is. ..."
"... On Tuesday, June 14 th , NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V "collective defense" provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country. ..."
"... NATO is now alleging that because Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer , this action of someone in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her US State Department communications to her unsecured home computer and of such a Russian's then snooping into the US State Department business that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and would, if the US President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the US, trigger NATO's mutual-defense clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the US government in going to war against Russia, if the US government so decides. ..."
"... And finally, we did talk about cyber-security generally. I'm not going to comment on specific investigations that are still alive and active, but I will tell you that we've had problems with cyber-intrusions from Russia in the past, from other countries in the past, and, look, we're moving into a new era here, where a number of countries have significant capacities, and frankly we've got more capacity than anybody both offensively and defensively, but our goal is not to suddenly in the cyber-arena duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms-races in the past, but rather to start instituting (9:00) some norms so that everybody's acting responsibly. ..."
"... "neoconservative" ..."
"... Hillary is now the neoconservatives' candidate . (And she's also the close friend of many of them, and hired and promoted many of them at her State Department .) If she becomes the next President, then we might end up having the most neoconservative (i.e., military-industrial-complex-run) government ever. This would be terrific for America's weapons-makers, but it very possibly would be horrific for everybody else. That's the worst lobby of all, to run the country . (And, as that link there shows, Clinton has received over five times as much money from it as has her Republican opponent.) ..."
"... George Herbert Walker Bush knows lots that the 'news' media don't report (even when it has already been leaked in one way or another), and the Clinton plan to destroy Russia is part of that. Will the Russian government accept it? Or will it do whatever is required in order to defeat it? This is already a serious nuclear confrontation . ..."
Hillary Clinton, on September 19th, was endorsed for President, by the most historically important,
intelligent, and dangerous, Republican of modern times.
She was endorsed then by the person who in 1990 cunningly engineered the end of the Soviet Union
and of its Warsaw Pact military alliance in such a way as
to continue the West's war against Russia so as to conquer Russia gradually for the owners of
US international corporations. The person, who kept his plan secret even from his closest advisors,
until the night of 24 February 1990, when he told them that what he had previously instructed them
to tell Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the West's future military intentions about Russia if
the USSR were to end, was actually a lie.
He also told them that they were henceforth to proceed forward on the basis that the residual
stump of the former Soviet Union, Russia, will instead be treated as if it still is an enemy-nation,
and that the fundamental aim of the Western alliance will then remain: to conquer Russia (notwithstanding
the end of the USSR, of its communism, and of its military alliances) - that the Cold War is to end
only on the Russian side, not at all, really, on the Western side. (All of that is documented from
the historical record, at that linked-to article.)
This person was the former Director of the US CIA, born US aristocrat, and committed champion
of US conquest of the entire world, the President of the United States at the time (1990):
George Herbert Walker Bush .
He informed the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend - as she posted
it, apparently ecstatically, on September 19th, to her facebook page after personally having just
met with Mr. Bush - "The President told me he's voting for Hillary!!" She then confirmed this to
Politico the same day, which headlined promptly,
"George H.W. Bush to Vote for Hillary" .
G.H.W. Bush is an insider's insider: he would not do this if he felt that Hillary Clinton wouldn't
carry forward his plan (
which has been adhered-to by each of the US Presidents after him ), and if he felt that Donald
Trump - Bush's own successor now as the Republican US candidate for President - would not carry it
forward. (This was his most important and history-shaping decision during his entire Presidency,
and therefore it's understandable now that he would be willing even to cross Party-lines on his Presidential
ballot in order to have it followed-through to its ultimate conclusion.)
What indications exist publicly, that she will carry it forward? Hillary Clinton has already publicly
stated (though tactfully, so that the US press could ignore it) her intention to push things up to
and beyond the nuclear brink, with regard to Russia:
Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election
systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight
to those who go after us. As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will
treat cyber attacks just like any other attack . We will be ready with serious political,
economic and military responses.
Russia denies that it did any such thing, but
the US even taps the phone conversations of Angela Merkel and other US allies ; and, of course,
the US and Russia routinely hack into each others' email and other communications; so, even if Russia
did what Clinton says, then to call it "like any other attack" against the United States and to threaten
to answer it with "military responses", would itself be historically unprecedented - which is what
Hillary Clinton is promising to do.
Historically unprecedented, like nuclear war itself would be. And she was saying this in the context
of her alleging that Russia had "attacked" the DNC (Democratic National Committee), and she as President
might "attack" back, perhaps even with "military responses". This was not an off-the-cuff remark
from her - it was her prepared text in a speech. She said it though, for example, on 26 October 2013,
Britain's Telegraph had headlined,
"US 'operates 80 listening posts worldwide, 19 in Europe, and snooped on Merkel mobile 2002-2013'
: US intelligence targeted Angela Merkel's phone from 2002 to 2013, according to new eavesdropping
leaks".
But now, this tapping against Merkel would, according to Hillary Clinton's logic (unless she intends
it to apply only by the United States against Russia), constitute reason for Germany (and
34 other nations ) to go to war against the United States.
Clinton also said there: "We need to respond to evolving threats from states like Russia,
China, Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS. We need a
military that is ready and agile so it can meet the full range of threats, and operate on short notice
across every domain, not just land, sea, air and space, but also cyberspace".
She also said that the sequester agreement between the Congress and the President must end, because
US military spending should not be limited: "I am all for cutting the fat out of the budget and making
sure we stretch our dollars But we cannot impose arbitrary limits on something as important as our
military. That makes no sense at all. The sequester makes our country less secure. Let's end it and
get a budget deal that supports America's military". She wasn't opposing "arbitrary limits" on non-military
spending; she implied that that's not "as important as our military".
She was clear: this is a wartime US, not a peacetime nation; we're already at war, in her view;
and therefore continued unlimited cost-overruns to Lockheed Martin etc. need to be accepted, not
limited (by "arbitrary limits" or otherwise). She favors "cutting the fat out of the budget" for
healthcare, education, subsidies to the poor, environmental protection, etc., but not for war, not
for this war. A more bellicose speech, especially against "threats from states like Russia, China,
Iran, and North Korea from networks, criminal and terrorist networks like ISIS", all equating "states"
such as Russia and China, with "terrorist networks like ISIS", could hardly be imagined - as if Russia
and China are anything like jihadist organizations, and are hostile toward America, as such jihadist
groups are.
However, her threat to respond to an alleged "cyber attack" from Russia by "serious political,
economic and military responses" , is unprecedented, even from her. It was big news when she
said it, though virtually ignored by America's newsmedia.
The only US newsmedia to have picked up on Clinton's shocking threat were Republican-Party-oriented
ones, because the Democratic-Party and nonpartisan 'news' media in the US don't criticize a Democratic
nominee's neoconservatism - they hide it, or else find excuses for it (even after the Republican
neoconservative President George W. Bush's catastrophic and
lie-based neoconservative invasion of Iraq - then headed by the Moscow-friendly Saddam Hussein
- in 2003, which many Democratic office-holders, such as Hillary Clinton backed).
So, everything in today's USA 'news' media is favorable toward neoconservatism - it's now the
"Establishment" foreign policy, established notwithstanding the catastrophic Iraq-invasion,
from which America's 'news' media have evidently learned nothing whatsoever (because they're essentially
unchanged and committed to the same aristocracy as has long controlled them).
However, now that the Republican Party's Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is openly critical
of Hillary Clinton's and George W. Bush's neoconservatism, any Republican-oriented 'news' media that
support Trump's candidacy allows its 'journalists' to criticize Clinton's neoconservatism; and, so,
there were a few such critiques of this shocking statement from Clinton.
The Republican Party's "Daily Caller" headlined about this more directly than any other US 'news'
medium,
"Clinton Advocates Response To DNC Hack That Would Likely Bring On WWIII" , and reported, on
September 1st, that "Clinton's cavalier attitude toward going to war over cyber attacks seems to
contradict her assertion that she is the responsible voice on foreign policy in the current election".
The Republican Washington Times newspaper headlined
"Hillary Clinton: US will treat cyberattacks 'just like any other attack'" , and reported that
she would consider using the "military to respond to cyberattacks," but that her Republican opponent
had indicated he would instead use only cyber against cyber: "'I am a fan of the future, and cyber
is the future,' he said when asked by Time magazine during the Republican National Convention about
using cyberweapons". However, Trump was not asked there whether he would escalate from a cyber attack
to a physical one. Trump has many times said that having good relations with Russia would be a priority
if he becomes President. That would obviously be impossible if he (like Hillary) were to be seeking
a pretext for war against Russia.
The mainstream The Hill newspaper bannered,
"Clinton: Treat cyberattacks 'like any other attack'" , and reported that, "Since many high-profile
cyberattacks could be interpreted as traditional intelligence-gathering - something the US itself
also engages in - the White House is often in a tricky political position when it comes to its response".
That's not critical of her position, but at least it makes note of the crucial fact that if the US
were to treat a hacker's attack as being an excuse to invade Russia, it would treat the US itself
as being already an invader of Russia - which the US prior to a President Hillary Clinton never actually
has been, notwithstanding the routine nature of international cyber espionage (which Clinton has
now stated she wants to become a cause of war), which has been, and will continue to be, essential
in the present era.
The International Business Times, an online-only site, headlined September 1 st ,
"Clinton: US should use 'military response' to fight cyberattacks from Russia and China" , and
reported that a Pentagon official had
testified to Congress on July 13 th , that current US policy on this matter is: "When
determining whether a cyber incident constitutes an armed attack, the US government considers a broad
range of factors, including the nature and extent of injury or death to persons and the destruction
of or damage to property. Cyber incidents are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and the national
security leadership and the president will make a determination if it's an armed attack".
Hillary's statement on this matter was simply ignored by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Fox, CNN, The Nation, The Atlantic, Harper's, National
Review, Common Dreams, Alternet, Truthout, and all the rest of the US standard and 'alternative news'
reporting organizations. Perhaps when Americans go to the polls to elect a President on November
8th, almost none of them will have learned about her policy on this incredibly important matter.
Hillary's statement was in line with the current Administration's direction of policy, but is
farther along in that direction than the Obama Administration's policy yet is.
As
the German Economic News article had noted, but only in passing: "Just a few months ago, US President
Barack Obama had laid the legal basis for this procedure and signed a decree that equates hacker
attacks with military attacks". However, this slightly overstated the degree to which Obama has advanced
"this procedure". On 1 April 2016 - and not as any April Fool's joke - techdirt had headlined
"President Obama Signs Executive Order Saying That Now He's Going To Be Really Mad If He Catches
Someone Cyberattacking Us" and linked to the document, which techdirt noted was "allowing the
White House to issue sanctions on those 'engaging in significant malicious cyber-enabled activities'".
The writer, Mike Masnick, continued, quite accurately: "To make this work, the President officially
declared foreign hacking to be a 'national emergency' (no, really) and basically said that if the
government decides that some foreign person is doing a bit too much hacking, the US government can
basically do all sorts of bad stuff to them, like seize anything they have in the US and block them
from coming to the US". What Hillary Clinton wants to add to this policy is physical, military, invasion,
for practices such as (if Russia becomes declared by the US President to have been behind the hacking
of the DNC) what is actually routine activity of the CIA, NSA, and, of course, of Russia's (and other
countries') intelligence operations.
It wasn't directly Obama's own action that led most powerfully up to Hillary Clinton's policy
on this, but instead NATO's recent action - and NATO has always been an extension of the US President,
it's his military club, and it authorizes him to go to war against any nation that it decides to
have been invaded by some non-member country (especially Russia or China - the Saudis, Qataris, and
other funders behind international jihadist attacks are institutionally prohibited from being considered
for invasion by NATO, because the US keeps those regimes in power, and those regimes are generally
the biggest purchasers of US weapons). I reported on this at The Saker's site, on 15 June 2016, headlining
"NATO Says It Might Now Have Grounds to Attack Russia" . That report opened:
On Tuesday, June 14 th ,
NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons
in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V
"collective defense"
provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to
strike back against the attacking country.
NATO is now alleging that because
Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer , this action of someone
in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her US State Department communications to her
unsecured home computer and of such a Russian's then snooping into the US State Department business
that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and
would, if the US President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the US, trigger NATO's mutual-defense
clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the US government in going to war against Russia,
if the US government so decides.
So, Obama is using NATO to set the groundwork for Hillary Clinton's policy as (he hopes) America's
next President. Meanwhile, Obama's public rhetoric on the matter is far more modest, and less scary.
It's sane-sounding falsehoods. At the end of the G-20 Summit in Beijing, he held a
press conference September
5th (VIDEO at this link) , in which he was asked specifically (3:15) "Q: On the cyber front,
do you think Russia is trying to influence the US election?" and he went into a lengthy statement,
insulting Putin and saying (until 6:40 on the video) why Obama is superior to Putin on the Syrian
war, and then (until 8:07 in the video) blaming Putin for, what is actually, the refusal of the Ukrainian
parliament or Rada to approve the federalization of Ukraine that's stated in the Minsk agreement
as being a prerequisite to direct talks being held between the Donbass residents and
the Obama-installed regime
in Kiev that's been
trying to exterminate the residents of Donbass . Then (8:07 in the video), Obama got around to
the reporter's question:
And finally, we did talk about cyber-security generally. I'm not going to comment on specific
investigations that are still alive and active, but I will tell you that we've had problems with
cyber-intrusions from Russia in the past, from other countries in the past, and, look, we're moving
into a new era here, where a number of countries have significant capacities, and frankly we've got
more capacity than anybody both offensively and defensively, but our goal is not to suddenly in the
cyber-arena duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms-races in the
past, but rather to start instituting (9:00) some norms so that everybody's acting responsibly.
He is a far more effective deceiver than is his intended successor, but Hillary's goals and his,
have always been the same: achieving what the US aristocracy want. Whereas she operates with a sledgehammer,
he
operates with a scalpel . And he hopes to hand this operation off to her on 20 January 2017.
This is what Hillary's statement that "the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any
other attack" is reflecting: it's reflecting that the US will, if she becomes President, be actively
seeking an excuse to invade Russia. The Obama-mask will then be off.
If this turns out to be the case, then it will be raw control of the US Government by the
military-industrial complex, which includes the arms-makers plus the universities . It's the
owners - the aristocrats - plus their servants; and at least 90% of the military-industrial complex
support Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Like her, they are all demanding that the sequester be ended
and that any future efforts to reduce the US Government's debts must come from cutting expenditures
for healthcare, education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, and expenditures
on the poor; no cuts (but only increases) for the military. This is based on the conservative theory,
that the last thing to cut in government is the military.
George Herbert Walker Bush knows lots that the 'news' media don't report (even when it has already
been leaked in one way or another), and
the
Clinton plan to destroy Russia is part of that. Will the Russian government accept it? Or will
it do whatever is required in order to defeat it? This is already
a serious nuclear confrontation .
US started Ukraine civil war. War in Donbass continues
It has been over a year of blood, tears and destruction in Ukraine especially in SE Ukraine. The
new country now called Novorossia, has been fighting the puppet government in Kiev, USA who is committing
genocide in the Donbass region. America's new addition to its Empire is funded with billions and
millions supported by NATO and other mercenaries. Yet, Kiev still cannot complete its mission the
US trained it for. Oleg Tsarov warned about the impish activities the US was performing before the
protests began in Kiev. America started the war in Ukraine but like Goliath was slain by little David.
US Started Ukraine Civil War *PROOF* Nov 20, 2013
Oleg Tsarov, who was then the People's Deputy of Ukraine, talks about US preparations for civil
war in Ukraine, November 2013 in Kiev parliament. Major protests began the day after his speech.
You can hear the paid protesters chanting "Ukraine" in the background trying to keep him from speaking
the truth. Later, April 14, 2014, Oleg was beaten by a mob when he was running for president but
fortunately survived. His face was badly beaten as shown here. Remember, his speech was the day before
the Maidan Protests. See the Timeline. In his speech he said:
"...activists of the organization 'Volya' turned to me providing clear evidence that within our
territory with support and direct participation of the US EMBASSY (in Kiev) the 'Tech Camp' project
is realized under which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine.
The project is currently overseen and under the responsibility of the US ambassador to Ukraine
Geoffrey R. Pyatt. After the conversation with the organization 'Volya'. I have learned they succeeded
to access the facilities of 'Tech Camp' disguised as a team of IT specialists. To their surprise,
briefings on the peculiarities of modern media were held. AMERICAN instructors explained how social
networks and Internet technologies can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion as well
as to activate protest potential to provoke violent unrest in the territory of Ukraine; radicalization
of the population triggering infighting.
American instructors presented examples of successful use of social networks used to organize
protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Recent conference took place Nov 14-15, 2013, in the heart
of Kiev in the Embassy of the United States of America!
Is it conceivable that representatives of the US Embassy which organize the 'Tech Camp' conferences
misuse their diplomatic mission? UN resolution of December 21, 1965 regulates inadmissibility of
interference in the internal affairs of a state to protect its independence and its sovereignty in
accordance with paragraphs 1,2 and 5. I ask you to consider this as an official supplication to pursue
an investigation of this case."
Well, no investigation was ever made especially by the "land of the free". Vladimir Putin has
asked the UN for help but they drag their feet. The US embassies have caused more damage than the
Soviet Union has ever done. In the video, we can see Oleg and others knew about America's interference
in Ukraine affairs. He wanted to stop the civil war and courageously ran for president to stop the
impending bloodshed. Thousands of deaths could have been avoided if people had listened to him. He
could not fight the tide of billions of dollars from Obama and the US Congress. The Nazis in Kiev
had their way while Poroshenko sent men to their deaths. What a waste into a whirlpool of misery.
Obama and Poroshenko told the army they were going to fight terrorists. The "terrorists" were
innocent civilians. Kiev POW's were later paraded in front of the bombarded people as they got a
dose of REALITY. If only Obama or Poroshenko had told them the truth that they were bombing civilians
they thought. The Ukrainian army is full of city boys who are inexperienced, fighting in unknown
territory. The Novorossia militia is filled with coal miners and other blue collar workers with many
who have had combat experience in Chechnya or older men with experience from the Soviet-Afghanistan
war.
The militia has seen their children, wives, Mothers, Fathers, grandparents and close friends killed
but their faith, as this touching video shows, helps them defend their land. The Ukrainian army was
drafted and sent by seedy Obama and Poroshenko under the penalty of 5 yrs in jail if they did not
fight. If you feel sorry for them as POW's then I hope you see the bodies or graves of the thousands
of civilians who were killed by them. It is a tragedy for everyone involved. Even for Soros, Obama,
Poroshenko, Kerry, Nuland, members of US Congress who approved this, the Nazis in Kiev, all will
suffer far worse on Judgment Day unless they repent.
The civil war continues in Ukraine but despite Kiev's effort to mask the number of their dead
soldiers and POW's, Novorossia continues victory after victory on the battlefield. Ukraine army focuses
on shelling civilians while Novorossia kills Kiev's soldiers or captures them. Sometimes they are
returned to their Mothers as seen in this film.
Donetsk Republic Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko from Novorossia argues with Kiev army officer
in this powerful video. He said that the Kiev army succumbed to the coup:
"To give away our own country to be looted by Americans and other European countries"
That video is by Graham Phillips who does the job that the impotent lame stream media won't do
in America. Bravo Graham! Many thanks to Kazzura for her translation of most of the videos.
Notice in the West the so called journalists are nowhere to be found on the battlefield in Ukraine
as this man was here. I am certainly not addressing the media like CNN, FOX, CBS and the other court
jesters who are paid clowns in the freak show called "US government". They dare tell America lies
about the war. I would force them to dig the graves of the dead. How quickly the mainstream media
goose steps in unison blaming Russia as Hitler did. Showing them the truth would be like showing
a burnt building to a pyromaniac. The US media is in the business of making money not telling the
truth. Peace and truth don't make billions of dollars they say. Were they bribed or are they true
liars? "The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe
anyone else." - George Bernard Shaw
Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland was back in the news recently. In her efforts to support the US
program against "Russia Today". "Noodle Head Nuland" belittled RT by saying "RT's tiny, tiny audience
in the United States". Remember her? The Benghazi gal was first talking about Democracy in Ukraine
with Chevron. Their version of "democracy and freedom" means war to the rest of the world. She was
seen handing out food to protesters and police in Kiev. How nice she is sounding so sweet and so
kind. She was later caught on tape saying "Fuck the EU" when discussing the setup of the Ukraine
government. Later she was grilled by Republican Dana Rohrabacher where she admitted there were Nazis
on Maidan. Yeah, I really trust that evil witch who learned her craft from Hillary.
It is obvious to the world, but not to the West, that Kiev was overthrown by the US and EU. Although
the US propaganda blames Russia for everything the OSCE has already disproven their claims. We wanted
to show in our main video that Kiev was actually warned before Pandora's Box was opened. The blame
is clearly on the US as instigators. They sowed the devil's seed.
Nevertheless, those who were deceived by the US or went along with the evil knowingly are also
to blame and bear the responsibility of misleading Ukraine. Kiev has now become the newest suffering
colony in America's empire. The only real "Hope and Change" for the people of Donbass is fighting
against Obama's tyranny and becoming the independent country of Novorossia. "Let Freedom Ring!" America
has forgotten its meaning.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry forces ATO Main news of recent days: an operation to encircle
Donetsk is nearly complete!
This radically changes the entire operational environment at the front. Let's already stop hiding
behind a fig leaf is an abbreviation of ATU and will be referred to as a war-torn, and advanced-front.
Many people ask how the war, which, by its type refers to the type of maneuver, formed wheel built?
After all, in the civil wars there is no front line. What do the schemes that appear on the Internet,
which clearly outline the front line?
First, the schemes are not reflected front and border control zones. Please note that the scheme
is not solid and dotted line .
Secondly, in the civil wars of the twentieth century in key areas formed a solid front.
Third, in these days we are recognizing a century of the First World War. This grand massacre
marked by the fact that the war for the first time in human history has become a purely positional.
On the western front rows of trenches stretched linear continuum from the North Sea to Switzerland.
And before the war were maneuverable. However, the basic principles of the strategy work as a maneuver,
and as the positional constructions. Therefore the environment in Donetsk - is now a decisive factor
that will help determine the subsequent course of events.
1919 defeat of Denikin. Future Marshal Yegorov spends quite a front operation at significantly
discharged constructions than we are now seeing in the Donbas.
But the most accurate historical analogy of what is happening in the East of the country, is the
Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, a rehearsal for WWII.
Three months ago, when the ATO was just beginning, with Yuri Romanenko, we discussed what it will
be for operation from a military point of view, with what does it compare? Spain! - Even then we
came to this conclusion.
One side holds successive offensives against disparate unsaturated builds on the other hand, in
the end it all comes down to a struggle for basic megacities - Barcelona and Madrid in the years
1938-1939 and for the Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014. We see that during the Spanish Civil War also
called the control zone - fronts.
As then, leading the offensive side of the wire successive offensives in various sectors of the
front. General Franco did not immediately come to such a strategy. But, he quickly enough proved
its effectiveness.
The Spanish Civil War
Another connecting factor - and in Spain, and in the Donbass defensive side had and has the ability
to constantly replenish their strength. I mean the International Brigades in Spain and Russian mercenaries
in the Donbass. Just do not make direct analogies and remember Hemingway. Ideology, morality and
culture here is not the point, only comparison is the strategic and military experience.
Based on the study of the history of strategic decisions during the Spanish Civil War. The General
staff of Ukraine has abandoned an ambitious but totally inappropriate, in terms of strategy, the
plan of encirclement throughout the territory occupied by the enemy.
General Staff of Ukraine refused ambitious but completely wrong, in terms of strategy, plan the
environment throughout the territory To carry out such an operation is necessary to introduce martial
law and full mobilization. The economic crisis - Ukraine needs to live and work. The President of
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko demanded to find less radical solutions. The General staff was to develop
private operations against individual enemy factions. And immediately came to fruition!
Today, we are seeing a decline IAF combat capability, as they are forced to operate in disparate
groups. The actions of terrorists is completely dictated by the operational environment. Given the
fact that the strategic initiative is fully on the side of the APU, the actions of illegal armed
groups cropped, are predictable and can be controlled. While the IAF will not solve the problems
with communications around Donetsk, they have no opportunity for meaningful operations on other sites.
Maneuver warfare strategy can be compared to the battle in zero gravity, when one of the opponents,
getting zubodrobilny kick gets a chance to continue the fight, that only lasts with some kind of
support. In our case, this leg is large metropolitan areas. Having lost the strategic initiative,
the IAF will be forced to pull their main forces in the Donetsk and Lugansk, allowing the APU, if
necessary, to conduct the operation on the closure of the border with Russia. Everything is good
in its season!
Infowars reporter Lee Ann McAdoo talks to Rudy Dent, 32 year veteran of NYC fire department and
the NYPD, about his incredible first hand experience of the lies surrounding WTC 7.
Jeanne O'Mara 13 hours ago
This retired fireman feels that it was a a controlled demolition. He has never heard of a high
rise being brought down by a fire. There were other bldgs that were hit by debris from the burning
towers. He was also suspicious that all the evidence from WTC 7 was taken away and sent to china.
The crime scene should have protected but wasn't. He believe as many now do that t was a "false
Flag" operation to get people all riled up so they could get into react. He saw molten LAVA like
pockets of steel which is like what you see when a volcano explodes. It's called pyroclastic flow.
Thermite, a very special explosive was found and it can only be made a very specialized labs like
Los Alamos.
The bush family has a very creepy history. Prescott Bush had holdings in a bank that funded
the Nazis (Union Bank). It was seized by the CONGRESS. The Harrimans were also involved w this
bank.
It's also clear that Bush Sr had a role in JFK's assassination. JFK had asked A. Harriman to
negotiate w Vietnam and Harriman cross out that part. This was treason.
lora savage 1 week ago
That guy knows what he's talking about. It's about time someone came forward with what
may be true according to what he saw and knows.
9/11 is a cover-up and World Trade Center 7 collapse is the smoking gun. Why is that so?? WTC-7
fully collapsed in a manner that resembles a controlled demolition. For 2.25 seconds it collapsed
at freefall and National Institute of Standards and Technology now admits this. In order for it
to freefall for 2.25 seconds you need a uniform gap of approx. 80ft free of any physical impediments
(equivalent of blowing out 7 floors almost instantaneously).
Fire is not magic and cannot do that and only can be precisely done through human intervention.
It takes the prepositioning of demolition components that are finely timed throughout the building
to accomplish this. WTC-7 had GOV agencies as part of its tenant (US Secret Service, CIA, IRS,
DOD...) With tenants like that it is impossible for an outsider to get access to the building
to preposition demolition components. Whoever did had to have their consent!
US started Ukraine civil war. War in Donbass continues
It has been over a year of blood, tears and destruction in Ukraine especially in SE Ukraine. The
new country now called Novorossia, has been fighting the puppet government in Kiev, USA who is committing
genocide in the Donbass region. America's new addition to its Empire is funded with billions and
millions supported by NATO and other mercenaries. Yet, Kiev still cannot complete its mission the
US trained it for. Oleg Tsarov warned about the impish activities the US was performing before the
protests began in Kiev. America started the war in Ukraine but like Goliath was slain by little David.
US Started Ukraine Civil War *PROOF* Nov 20, 2013
Oleg Tsarov, who was then the People's Deputy of Ukraine, talks about US preparations for civil
war in Ukraine, November 2013 in Kiev parliament. Major protests began the day after his speech.
You can hear the paid protesters chanting "Ukraine" in the background trying to keep him from speaking
the truth. Later, April 14, 2014, Oleg was beaten by a mob when he was running for president but
fortunately survived. His face was badly beaten as shown here. Remember, his speech was the day before
the Maidan Protests. See the Timeline. In his speech he said:
"...activists of the organization 'Volya' turned to me providing clear evidence that within our
territory with support and direct participation of the US EMBASSY (in Kiev) the 'Tech Camp' project
is realized under which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine.
The project is currently overseen and under the responsibility of the US ambassador to Ukraine
Geoffrey R. Pyatt. After the conversation with the organization 'Volya'. I have learned they succeeded
to access the facilities of 'Tech Camp' disguised as a team of IT specialists. To their surprise,
briefings on the peculiarities of modern media were held. AMERICAN instructors explained how social
networks and Internet technologies can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion as well
as to activate protest potential to provoke violent unrest in the territory of Ukraine; radicalization
of the population triggering infighting.
American instructors presented examples of successful use of social networks used to organize
protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Recent conference took place Nov 14-15, 2013, in the heart
of Kiev in the Embassy of the United States of America!
Is it conceivable that representatives of the US Embassy which organize the 'Tech Camp' conferences
misuse their diplomatic mission? UN resolution of December 21, 1965 regulates inadmissibility of
interference in the internal affairs of a state to protect its independence and its sovereignty in
accordance with paragraphs 1,2 and 5. I ask you to consider this as an official supplication to pursue
an investigation of this case."
Well, no investigation was ever made especially by the "land of the free". Vladimir Putin has
asked the UN for help but they drag their feet. The US embassies have caused more damage than the
Soviet Union has ever done. In the video, we can see Oleg and others knew about America's interference
in Ukraine affairs. He wanted to stop the civil war and courageously ran for president to stop the
impending bloodshed. Thousands of deaths could have been avoided if people had listened to him. He
could not fight the tide of billions of dollars from Obama and the US Congress. The Nazis in Kiev
had their way while Poroshenko sent men to their deaths. What a waste into a whirlpool of misery.
Obama and Poroshenko told the army they were going to fight terrorists. The "terrorists" were
innocent civilians. Kiev POW's were later paraded in front of the bombarded people as they got a
dose of REALITY. If only Obama or Poroshenko had told them the truth that they were bombing civilians
they thought. The Ukrainian army is full of city boys who are inexperienced, fighting in unknown
territory. The Novorossia militia is filled with coal miners and other blue collar workers with many
who have had combat experience in Chechnya or older men with experience from the Soviet-Afghanistan
war.
The militia has seen their children, wives, Mothers, Fathers, grandparents and close friends killed
but their faith, as this touching video shows, helps them defend their land. The Ukrainian army was
drafted and sent by seedy Obama and Poroshenko under the penalty of 5 yrs in jail if they did not
fight. If you feel sorry for them as POW's then I hope you see the bodies or graves of the thousands
of civilians who were killed by them. It is a tragedy for everyone involved. Even for Soros, Obama,
Poroshenko, Kerry, Nuland, members of US Congress who approved this, the Nazis in Kiev, all will
suffer far worse on Judgment Day unless they repent.
The civil war continues in Ukraine but despite Kiev's effort to mask the number of their dead
soldiers and POW's, Novorossia continues victory after victory on the battlefield. Ukraine army focuses
on shelling civilians while Novorossia kills Kiev's soldiers or captures them. Sometimes they are
returned to their Mothers as seen in this film.
Donetsk Republic Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko from Novorossia argues with Kiev army officer
in this powerful video. He said that the Kiev army succumbed to the coup:
"To give away our own country to be looted by Americans and other European countries"
That video is by Graham Phillips who does the job that the impotent lame stream media won't do
in America. Bravo Graham! Many thanks to Kazzura for her translation of most of the videos.
Notice in the West the so called journalists are nowhere to be found on the battlefield in Ukraine
as this man was here. I am certainly not addressing the media like CNN, FOX, CBS and the other court
jesters who are paid clowns in the freak show called "US government". They dare tell America lies
about the war. I would force them to dig the graves of the dead. How quickly the mainstream media
goose steps in unison blaming Russia as Hitler did. Showing them the truth would be like showing
a burnt building to a pyromaniac. The US media is in the business of making money not telling the
truth. Peace and truth don't make billions of dollars they say. Were they bribed or are they true
liars? "The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe
anyone else." - George Bernard Shaw
Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland was back in the news recently. In her efforts to support the US
program against "Russia Today". "Noodle Head Nuland" belittled RT by saying "RT's tiny, tiny audience
in the United States". Remember her? The Benghazi gal was first talking about Democracy in Ukraine
with Chevron. Their version of "democracy and freedom" means war to the rest of the world. She was
seen handing out food to protesters and police in Kiev. How nice she is sounding so sweet and so
kind. She was later caught on tape saying "Fuck the EU" when discussing the setup of the Ukraine
government. Later she was grilled by Republican Dana Rohrabacher where she admitted there were Nazis
on Maidan. Yeah, I really trust that evil witch who learned her craft from Hillary.
It is obvious to the world, but not to the West, that Kiev was overthrown by the US and EU. Although
the US propaganda blames Russia for everything the OSCE has already disproven their claims. We wanted
to show in our main video that Kiev was actually warned before Pandora's Box was opened. The blame
is clearly on the US as instigators. They sowed the devil's seed.
Nevertheless, those who were deceived by the US or went along with the evil knowingly are also
to blame and bear the responsibility of misleading Ukraine. Kiev has now become the newest suffering
colony in America's empire. The only real "Hope and Change" for the people of Donbass is fighting
against Obama's tyranny and becoming the independent country of Novorossia. "Let Freedom Ring!" America
has forgotten its meaning.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry forces ATO Main news of recent days: an operation to encircle
Donetsk is nearly complete!
This radically changes the entire operational environment at the front. Let's already stop hiding
behind a fig leaf is an abbreviation of ATU and will be referred to as a war-torn, and advanced-front.
Many people ask how the war, which, by its type refers to the type of maneuver, formed wheel built?
After all, in the civil wars there is no front line. What do the schemes that appear on the Internet,
which clearly outline the front line?
First, the schemes are not reflected front and border control zones. Please note that the scheme
is not solid and dotted line .
Secondly, in the civil wars of the twentieth century in key areas formed a solid front.
Third, in these days we are recognizing a century of the First World War. This grand massacre
marked by the fact that the war for the first time in human history has become a purely positional.
On the western front rows of trenches stretched linear continuum from the North Sea to Switzerland.
And before the war were maneuverable. However, the basic principles of the strategy work as a maneuver,
and as the positional constructions. Therefore the environment in Donetsk - is now a decisive factor
that will help determine the subsequent course of events.
1919 defeat of Denikin. Future Marshal Yegorov spends quite a front operation at significantly
discharged constructions than we are now seeing in the Donbas.
But the most accurate historical analogy of what is happening in the East of the country, is the
Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, a rehearsal for WWII.
Three months ago, when the ATO was just beginning, with Yuri Romanenko, we discussed what it will
be for operation from a military point of view, with what does it compare? Spain! - Even then we
came to this conclusion.
One side holds successive offensives against disparate unsaturated builds on the other hand, in
the end it all comes down to a struggle for basic megacities - Barcelona and Madrid in the years
1938-1939 and for the Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014. We see that during the Spanish Civil War also
called the control zone - fronts.
As then, leading the offensive side of the wire successive offensives in various sectors of the
front. General Franco did not immediately come to such a strategy. But, he quickly enough proved
its effectiveness.
The Spanish Civil War
Another connecting factor - and in Spain, and in the Donbass defensive side had and has the ability
to constantly replenish their strength. I mean the International Brigades in Spain and Russian mercenaries
in the Donbass. Just do not make direct analogies and remember Hemingway. Ideology, morality and
culture here is not the point, only comparison is the strategic and military experience.
Based on the study of the history of strategic decisions during the Spanish Civil War. The General
staff of Ukraine has abandoned an ambitious but totally inappropriate, in terms of strategy, the
plan of encirclement throughout the territory occupied by the enemy.
General Staff of Ukraine refused ambitious but completely wrong, in terms of strategy, plan the
environment throughout the territory To carry out such an operation is necessary to introduce martial
law and full mobilization. The economic crisis - Ukraine needs to live and work. The President of
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko demanded to find less radical solutions. The General staff was to develop
private operations against individual enemy factions. And immediately came to fruition!
Today, we are seeing a decline IAF combat capability, as they are forced to operate in disparate
groups. The actions of terrorists is completely dictated by the operational environment. Given the
fact that the strategic initiative is fully on the side of the APU, the actions of illegal armed
groups cropped, are predictable and can be controlled. While the IAF will not solve the problems
with communications around Donetsk, they have no opportunity for meaningful operations on other sites.
Maneuver warfare strategy can be compared to the battle in zero gravity, when one of the opponents,
getting zubodrobilny kick gets a chance to continue the fight, that only lasts with some kind of
support. In our case, this leg is large metropolitan areas. Having lost the strategic initiative,
the IAF will be forced to pull their main forces in the Donetsk and Lugansk, allowing the APU, if
necessary, to conduct the operation on the closure of the border with Russia. Everything is good
in its season!
The intelligentsia (Latin: intellegentia, Polish: inteligencja, Russian: интеллигенция; IPA: [ɪntʲɪlʲɪˈɡʲentsɨjə])
is a social class of people engaged in complex mental labor aimed at guiding or critiquing, or
otherwise playing a leadership role in shaping a society's culture and politics.[1] This therefore
might include everyone from artists to school teachers, as well as academics, writers, journalists,
and other hommes de lettres (men of letters) more usually thought of as being the main constituents
of the intelligentsia.
Intelligentsia is the subject of active polemics concerning its own role in the development of
modern society not always positive historically, often contributing to higher degree of progress,
but also to its backward movement.[2]... In pre-revolutionary Russia the term was first used to
describe people possessing cultural and political initiative.[3] It was commonly used by
those individuals themselves to create an apparent distance from the masses, and generally retained
that narrow self-definition. [citation needed]
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders
of society the situation would become much worse. Because they have neither
the sense of reality, nor common sense. For them, the words and speeches are
more important than the actual social laws and the dominant trends, the dominant
social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of the intellectuals
is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to
do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of
society as they wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under
conditions that are not present now are not feasible in the future. Therefore
they are not able to act even at the level of current leaders of the society,
which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social pressures, by
the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals
are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it
wrong. that makes them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while
in reality being sophisticated professional idiots.
The intelligentsia (Latin: intellegentia, Polish: inteligencja, Russian: интеллигенция; IPA: [ɪntʲɪlʲɪˈɡʲentsɨjə])
is a social class of people engaged in complex mental labor aimed at guiding or critiquing, or
otherwise playing a leadership role in shaping a society's culture and politics.[1] This therefore
might include everyone from artists to school teachers, as well as academics, writers, journalists,
and other hommes de lettres (men of letters) more usually thought of as being the main constituents
of the intelligentsia.
Intelligentsia is the subject of active polemics concerning its own role in the development of
modern society not always positive historically, often contributing to higher degree of progress,
but also to its backward movement.[2]... In pre-revolutionary Russia the term was first used to
describe people possessing cultural and political initiative.[3] It was commonly used by
those individuals themselves to create an apparent distance from the masses, and generally retained
that narrow self-definition. [citation needed]
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders
of society the situation would become much worse. Because they have neither
the sense of reality, nor common sense. For them, the words and speeches are
more important than the actual social laws and the dominant trends, the dominant
social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of the intellectuals
is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to
do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of
society as they wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under
conditions that are not present now are not feasible in the future. Therefore
they are not able to act even at the level of current leaders of the society,
which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social pressures, by
the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals
are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it
wrong. that makes them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while
in reality being sophisticated professional idiots.
"... Though while bereaved families are forced to crowd fund to bring Blair to court, any legal defence mounted by the multimillionaire will come from the public purse. They have raised over £160,000 to date so the story is not yet over. ..."
"... Yet Blair has no shame and remains belligerent. On the day the Chilcot Inquiry report was published he declared he would do the same again. Later that day veteran anti-war campaigner and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called a press conference to apologise on behalf of Labour for the war. Such a move is central to why Corbyn has won such an enthusiastic mass following after first standing for and winning the Labour leadership in the summer of 2015. ..."
"... The seeds of the deep bitterness about mainstream politicians and the establishment were sown in 2003. When Britain joined the US assault on Iraq despite the opposition of the majority of the population it politicised millions. The 2 million strong demonstration organised by the Stop the War Coalition in February 2003 was Britain's biggest ever. But Chilcot proved that Blair had already promised US president George W Bush that Britain would be with him "whatever". ..."
"... The warmongers' contempt for the electorate, let alone the people of Iraq and region, is staggering. ..."
The Chilcot report went further than many expected in condemning Tony Blair's
role in the invasion of Iraq. As Judith Orr says, it also reinforced the need
to be vigilant against all warmongers.
It took 12 days for the Chilcot report on the Iraq war to be read aloud non-stop
at the Edinburgh Festival event last month. The 2.6 million words of the report
were not the whitewash some had feared. In fact they were a confirmation of
what so many of those who protested against the war at the time said.
There were no lawyers on the Chilcot panel; this inquiry was never going
to call for charges against chief British warmonger Tony Blair. But families
of soldiers killed in the war are using the evidence brought forward in the
report to pursue a legal case against him. Because, although he didn't take
a line on the legality of the war, Chilcot criticised the process Blair drove
through to declare that invasion was legal: "We have, however, concluded that
the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK
military action were far from satisfactory."
As human rights lawyer Philippe Sands pointed out, "'Far from satisfactory'
is a career-ending phrase in mandarin-speak, a large boot put in with considerable
force."
Though while bereaved families are forced to crowd fund to bring Blair
to court, any legal defence mounted by the multimillionaire will come from the
public purse. They have raised over £160,000 to date so the story is not yet
over.
Yet Blair has no shame and remains belligerent. On the day the Chilcot
Inquiry report was published he declared he would do the same again. Later that
day veteran anti-war campaigner and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called a press
conference to apologise on behalf of Labour for the war. Such a move is central
to why Corbyn has won such an enthusiastic mass following after first standing
for and winning the Labour leadership in the summer of 2015.
The seeds of the deep bitterness about mainstream politicians and the
establishment were sown in 2003. When Britain joined the US assault on Iraq
despite the opposition of the majority of the population it politicised millions.
The 2 million strong demonstration organised by the Stop the War Coalition in
February 2003 was Britain's biggest ever. But Chilcot proved that Blair had
already promised US president George W Bush that Britain would be with him "whatever".
The warmongers' contempt for the electorate, let alone the people of
Iraq and region, is staggering.
"... What is "Globalization" and "Free Trade" really?… Does it encompass the slave trade, trading in narcotics, deforestation and export of a nation's tropical hardwood forests, environmentally damaging transnational oil pipelines or coal ports, fisheries depletion, laying off millions of workers and replacing them and the products they make with workers and products made in a foreign country, trading with an enemy, investing capital in a foreign country through a subsidiary or supplier that abuses its workers to the point that some commit suicide, no limits on or regulation of financial derivatives and transnational financial intermediaries?… the list is endless. ..."
"... As always, the questions are "Cui bono?"… "Who benefits"?… How and Why they benefit?… Who selects the short-term "Winners" and "Losers"? And WRT those questions, the final sentence of this post hints at its purpose. ..."
"... Yeah, how is European colonialism - starting in, what, like the 15th century, or something - not "globalisation"? What about the Roman and Persian and Selucid empires? Wasn't that globalisation? I think we've pretty much always lived in a globalised world, one way or another (if "globalised world" even makes sense). ..."
"... Bring back the broader, and more meaningful conception of Political Economy and some actual understanding can be gained. The study of economics cannot be separated from the political dimension of society. Politics being defined as who gets what in social interactions. ..."
"... The neoliberal experiment has run its course. Milton Friedman and his tribe had their alternative plan ready to go and implemented it when they could- to their great success. The best looting system developed-ever. This system only works with the availability of abundant resources and the mental justifications to support that gross exploitation. Both of which are reaching limits. ..."
"... If only the Milton Friedman tribe had interested itself in sports instead of economics. They could have argued that referees and umpires should be removed from the game for greater efficiency of play, and that sports teams would follow game rules by self-regulation. ..."
"... Wouldn't the whole thing just work out more efficiently if you leave traffic lights and rules out of it? Just let everyone figure it out at each light, survival of the fittest. ..."
"... With increasingly free movement of people as tourists whose spending impacts nations GDP, where does it fit in to discussions on globalization and trade? ..."
What is "Globalization" and "Free Trade" really?… Does it encompass
the slave trade, trading in narcotics, deforestation and export of a nation's
tropical hardwood forests, environmentally damaging transnational oil pipelines
or coal ports, fisheries depletion, laying off millions of workers and replacing
them and the products they make with workers and products made in a foreign
country, trading with an enemy, investing capital in a foreign country through
a subsidiary or supplier that abuses its workers to the point that some
commit suicide, no limits on or regulation of financial derivatives and
transnational financial intermediaries?… the list is endless.
As always, the questions are "Cui bono?"… "Who benefits"?… How and
Why they benefit?… Who selects the short-term "Winners" and "Losers"? And
WRT those questions, the final sentence of this post hints at its purpose.
diptherio
Yeah, how is European colonialism - starting in, what, like the 15th
century, or something - not "globalisation"? What about the Roman and Persian
and Selucid empires? Wasn't that globalisation? I think we've pretty much
always lived in a globalised world, one way or another (if "globalised world"
even makes sense).
Norb
Bring back the broader, and more meaningful conception of Political
Economy and some actual understanding can be gained. The study of economics
cannot be separated from the political dimension of society. Politics being
defined as who gets what in social interactions.
What folly. All this complexity and strident study of minutia to bring
about what end? Human history on this planet has been about how societies
form, develop, then recede form prominence. This flow being determined by
how well the society provided for its members or could support their worldview.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
The neoliberal experiment has run its course. Milton Friedman and
his tribe had their alternative plan ready to go and implemented it when
they could- to their great success. The best looting system developed-ever.
This system only works with the availability of abundant resources and the
mental justifications to support that gross exploitation. Both of which
are reaching limits.
Only by thinking, and communicating in the broader terms of political
economy can we hope to understand our current conditions. Until then, change
will be difficult to enact. Hard landings for all indeed.
flora
If only the Milton Friedman tribe had interested itself in sports
instead of economics. They could have argued that referees and umpires should
be removed from the game for greater efficiency of play, and that sports
teams would follow game rules by self-regulation.
LA Mike September 17, 2016 at 8:15 pm
While in traffic, I was thinking about that today. For some time now,
I've viewed the traffic intersection as being a good example of the social
contract. We all agree on its benefits. But today, I thought about it in
terms of the Friedman Neoliberals.
Why should they have to stop at red lights. Wouldn't the whole thing
just work out more efficiently if you leave traffic lights and rules out
of it? Just let everyone figure it out at each light, survival of the fittest.
sd
Something I have wondered for some time, how does tourism fit into trade?
With increasingly free movement of people as tourists whose spending
impacts nations GDP, where does it fit in to discussions on globalization
and trade?
I Have Strange Dreams
Other things to consider:
– negative effects of immigration (skilled workers leave developing countries
where they are most needed)
– environmental pollution
– destruction of cultures/habitats
– importation of western diet leading to decreased health
– spread of disease (black death, hiv, ebola, bird flu)
– resource wars
– drugs
– happiness
How are these "externalities" calculated?
"... Seems a dangerous practice to rely on one's size to shield them from consequences of ineffectual decisions. I think we are already stretched thin, but our size buffers the stumbles. ..."
"... Like the runner on pain killers, who keeps running despite a shattered knee caps. Sometimes we press through our pain. Sometimes we need to slow down. Sometimes we need to stop. But unless we experience the pain – we simply don't know. ..."
"... It all starts with that ridiculous belief in "American Exceptionalism". The belief that we are the one country, the only country, who is going to save the world, again and again. ..."
"... Once you've adopted this frame of reference, what happens anywhere in the world for any Reason is America's fault and responsibility. And once you put on those exceptionally colored glasses it's not possible to have a rational view of other countries and their actions; because they can never be seen as anything other than an affirmation or rejection of our exceptionalism. Another effect of this is, being exceptional, whatever America does is just and pure and right. ..."
"... It blinds us to our own stupidity and errors, it gets us sucked into other peoples troubles and it makes it easy for other countries to manipulate us to their ends. ..."
Ben Denison
criticizes a familiar flaw in foreign policy commentary:
When a surprising event occurs that threatens U.S. interests, many are
quick to blame Washington's lack of leadership and deride the administration
for failing to anticipate and prevent the crisis. Recent examples from the
continuing conflict in Syria, Russia's intervention in Ukraine, Iran's pursuit
of a nuclear weapon, and even the attempted coup in Turkey, all illustrate
how this is a regular impulse for the foreign policy punditry class. This
impulse, while comforting to some, fails to consider the interests and agency
of the other countries involved in the crisis. Instead of turning to detailed
analysis and tracing the international context of a crisis, often we are
bombarded with an abundance of concerns about a lack of American leadership.
The inability or unwillingness to acknowledge and take into account the agency
and interests of other political actors around the world is one of the more
serious flaws in the way many Americans think and talk about these issues. This
not only fails to consider how other actors are likely to respond to a proposed
U.S. action, but it credits the U.S. with far more control over other parts
of the world and much more competence in handling any given issue than any government
has ever possessed or ever will. Because the U.S. is the preeminent major power
in the world, there is a tendency to treat any undesirable event as something
that our government has "allowed" to happen through carelessness, misplaced
priorities, or some other mistake. Many foreign policy pundits recoil from the
idea that there are events beyond our government's ability to "shape" or that
there are actors that cannot be compelled to behave as we wish (provided we
simply have enough "resolve"), because it means that there are many problems
around the world that the U.S. cannot and shouldn't attempt to fix.
When a protest movement takes to the streets in another country and is then
brutally suppressed, many people, especially hawkish pundits, decry our government's
"failure" to "support" the movement, as if it were the lack of U.S. support
and not internal political factors that produced the outcome. When the overthrow
of a foreign government by a protest movement leads to an intervention by a
neighboring major power, the U.S. is again faulted for "failing" to stop the
intervention, as if it could have done so short of risking great power conflict.
Even more absurdly, the same intervention is sometimes blamed on a U.S. decision
not to attack a third country in another part of the world unrelated to the
crisis in question. In order to claim all these things, one not only has to
fail to take account of the interests and agency of other states, but one also
has to believe that the rest of the world revolves around us and every action
others take can ultimately be traced back to what our government does (or doesn't
do). That's not just shoddy analysis, but a serious delusion about how people
all around the world behave. At the same time, there is a remarkable eagerness
on the part of many of the same people to overlook the consequences of things
that the U.S. has actually done, so that many of our pundits ignore our own
government's agency when it suits them.
"At the same time, there is a remarkable eagerness on the part of many
of the same people to overlook the consequences of things that the U.S.
has actually done, so that many of our pundits ignore our own government's
agency when it suits them."
It is the failure of the after party assessment. Regardless of success
or failure (however defined) the tend not to have an after action report
by the political class is why there's little movement in this area.
Seems a dangerous practice to rely on one's size to shield them from
consequences of ineffectual decisions. I think we are already stretched
thin, but our size buffers the stumbles.
Like the runner on pain killers, who keeps running despite a shattered
knee caps. Sometimes we press through our pain. Sometimes we need to slow
down. Sometimes we need to stop. But unless we experience the pain – we
simply don't know.
It all starts with that ridiculous belief in "American Exceptionalism".
The belief that we are the one country, the only country, who is going to
save the world, again and again.
Once you've adopted this frame of reference, what happens anywhere
in the world for any Reason is America's fault and responsibility. And once
you put on those exceptionally colored glasses it's not possible to have
a rational view of other countries and their actions; because they can never
be seen as anything other than an affirmation or rejection of our exceptionalism.
Another effect of this is, being exceptional, whatever America does is just
and pure and right.
It blinds us to our own stupidity and errors, it gets us sucked into
other peoples troubles and it makes it easy for other countries to manipulate
us to their ends.
"one also has to believe that the rest of the world revolves around us
and every action others take can ultimately be traced back to what our government
does (or doesn't do). That's not just shoddy analysis, but a serious delusion
about how people all around the world behave."
It also overlooks the quality of those we send to do the meddling and
intervening.
We don't have enough intelligent, educated, competent people.
The imperial Brits had their own problems, Lord knows, But the general
level of British competence, intelligence, and education in the Raj and
other colonies was far higher than that of our own congeries of corrupt,
half-educated hacks and incompetents.
(arstechnica.com)
23
Posted
by manishs
on Tuesday September 06, 2016 @02:00PM
from the
security-woes
dept.
Sean Gallagher, writing for ArsTechnica:
Another
major site breach from four years ago has
resurfaced. Today, LeakedSource revealed that it had
received a copy of a February 2012 dump of the user
database of Rambler.ru
, a Russian search, news,
and e-mail portal site that closely mirrors the
functionality of Yahoo. The dump included usernames,
passwords, and ICQ instant messaging accounts for
over 98 million users. And while previous breaches
uncovered by LeakedSource this year had at least
some encryption of passwords, the Rambler.ru
database stored user passwords in plain text --
meaning that whoever breached the database instantly
had access to the e-mail accounts of all of
Rambler.ru's users. The breach is the latest in a
series of "mega-breaches" that LeakedSource says it
is processing for release. Rambler isn't the only
Russian site that has been caught storing
unencrpyted passwords by hackers. In June, a hacker
offered for sale the entire user database of the
Russian-language social networking site VK.com
(formerly VKontakte) from a breach that took place
in late 2012 or early 2013; that database also
included unencrypted user passwords, as ZDNet's Zach
Whittaker reported.
(theintercept.com)
94
Posted
by manishs
on Monday September 12, 2016 @04:00PM
from the
truth-is-out-there
dept.
The Intercept has today published
200-page documents revealing details about Harris
Corp's Stingray surveillance device
, which has
been one of the closely guarded secrets in law
enforcement for more than 15 years. The firm, in
collaboration with police clients across the U.S.
have "fought" to keep information about the mobile
phone-monitoring boxes from the public against which
they are used. The publication reports that the
surveillance equipment carries a price tag in the
"low six figures." From the report:
The San
Bernardino Sheriff's Department alone has snooped
via Stingray, sans warrant, over 300 times. Richard
Tynan, a technologist with Privacy International,
told The Intercept that the "manuals released today
offer the
most up-to-date view on the operation of
"
Stingrays and similar cellular surveillance devices,
with powerful capabilities that threaten civil
liberties, communications infrastructure, and
potentially national security. He noted that the
documents show the "Stingray II" device can
impersonate four cellular communications towers at
once, monitoring up to four cellular provider
networks simultaneously, and with an add-on can
operate on so-called 2G, 3G, and 4G networks
simultaneously.
Clinton is neither well-liked nor trusted. She is just a marionette promoted
by neocon cabal. Sanders team has a point that Clinton is like the job candidate
wit the impressive resume who sounds great on paper, but then when you meet her
in person, you realize she's not he right person for the job.
Notable quotes:
"... She has never acknowledged, maybe even to herself, that routing diplomatic emails with classified information through a homebrew server was an outrageous, reckless and foolish thing to do, and disloyal to Obama, whose administration put in place rules for record-keeping that she flouted. ..."
"... And Hillary did not merely fail the ask the right questions. The questions were asked and the answers were given. Joe Biden, Robert Gates and much of the military and intelligence communities advised against the Libya intervention. Hillary just chose to ignore the advice, because she is a radical neoconservative at heart. ..."
"... She volunteered that that the United States should continue to "look for missions" that NATO will support ..."
"... She vows to go around looking for new military adventures. ..."
"... Maureen is right that Hillary has huge character problems. Sure, she can't admit mistakes and compulsively blames others when things go wrong. That's a given. But it's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that she will take our country down the wrong path, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy. ..."
"... She has had 40-some years to develop this kind of judgment, imagination and long term reflection, and she has proudly, aggressively, mean-spiritedly run the opposite direction every time and viciously attacked anyone who called her on it. It's time to stop this game of "wondering" whether she can change, wondering whether all of these terrible moments were "the real Hillary" or not. They were. Voting someone in as President on the hope that they will be a completely different person once in office then they have been in 40 years is the definition of insanity. ..."
"... it's about her paranoia about secrecy that made her think she could get away with a private email server in one of the nation's most high-profile jobs, or taking huge sums of money for Wall Street speeches she now refuses to release, or doubling-down on her ill-considered, if not ill-informed (as you note), hawkish regime change views by advocating for it again in Libya that has, as a result, turned into an ISIS outpost. ..."
"... Clinton did herself no favors in the debate, drawing even more attention to her dependence on that money and the impossibility of being completely free to make policy without repaying debts. ..."
"... They don't, but it is telling that Bill said that. His chosen exaggeration displays who he sees as Hillary's side in this. When he says, "they are coming for us" he means Wall Street. ..."
"... "Clinton, who talked Obama into it" on Libya and claimed credit, but when it went poorly, she blamed Obama for listening to her, "On Libya, she noted that "the decision was the president's."" That is her claim to experience, and not something we ought to vote to experience again. ..."
"... Hillary is a self-serving, power hungry politician. She is only ever sorry if she fails to get what she wants, or is forced to explain her actions. She feels she is above "the masses." As for her qualifications, job titles alone don't cut it. What did she actually accomplish as a Senator or SecState? Any major laws? Treaties? No. She failed with Russia, Syria and Libya to name just a few. She is not qualified to be president based on qualifications and personality. ..."
... Clinton sowed suspicion again, refusing to cough up her Wall Street speech
transcripts.
... ... ...
Hillary alternately tried to blame and hug the men in her life, divvying
up credit in a self-serving way.
After showing some remorse for the 1994 crime bill, saying it had had "unintended"
consequences, she stressed that her husband "was the president who actually
signed it." On Libya, she noted that "the decision was the president's." And
on her desire to train and arm Syrian rebels, she recalled, "The president said
no."
But she wrapped herself in President Obama's record on climate change and,
when criticized on her "super PACs," said, well, Obama did it, too.
Sanders accused her of pandering to Israel after she said that "if Yasir
Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David," there would have been a Palestinian
state for 15 years.
Bernie is right that Hillary's judgment has often been faulty.
She has shown an unwillingness to be introspective and learn from her mistakes.
From health care to Iraq to the email server, she only apologizes at the point
of a gun. And even then, she leaves the impression that she is merely sorry
to be facing criticism, not that she miscalculated in the first place.
... ... ...
She has never acknowledged, maybe even to herself, that routing diplomatic
emails with classified information through a homebrew server was an outrageous,
reckless and foolish thing to do, and disloyal to Obama, whose administration
put in place rules for record-keeping that she flouted.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story Wouldn't it be a relief to
people if Hillary just acknowledged some mistakes?
... ... ...
Clinton accused Sanders of not doing his homework on how he would break up
the banks. And she is the queen of homework, always impressively well versed
in meetings. But that is what makes her failure to read the National Intelligence
Estimate that raised doubts about whether Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. so
egregious.
P. Greenberg El Cerrito, CA
Maureen Dowd fundamentally misunderstands Hillary Clinton's foreign policy
failings. When it comes to Libya, Clinton does not merely need to apologize
for getting distracted by other global issues and "taking her eye off the
ball". The decision to go in was wrong, not the failure to follow through.
And Hillary did not merely fail the ask the right questions. The
questions were asked and the answers were given. Joe Biden, Robert Gates
and much of the military and intelligence communities advised against the
Libya intervention. Hillary just chose to ignore the advice, because she
is a radical neoconservative at heart.
Clinton continues to adhere to the neoconservative approach to foreign
policy. Her choice of words during the Brooklyn debate were significant.
She volunteered that that the United States should continue to "look
for missions" that NATO will support. That says it all. She vows
to go around looking for new military adventures.
Maureen is right that Hillary has huge character problems. Sure,
she can't admit mistakes and compulsively blames others when things go wrong.
That's a given. But it's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is
that she will take our country down the wrong path, both in terms of domestic
and foreign policy.
And please Maureen, stop denigrating Bernie Sanders with pejorative adjectives
and vague accusations. He has held elective office for 35 years, showing
leadership and good judgment and good values.
Brett Morris California,
She has had 40-some years to develop this kind of judgment, imagination
and long term reflection, and she has proudly, aggressively, mean-spiritedly
run the opposite direction every time and viciously attacked anyone who
called her on it. It's time to stop this game of "wondering" whether she
can change, wondering whether all of these terrible moments were "the real
Hillary" or not. They were. Voting someone in as President on the hope that
they will be a completely different person once in office then they have
been in 40 years is the definition of insanity.
That said, of course she is better than the republicans. But she is the
worst possible candidate for the Democratic Party, especially in this era
where we have a serious opportunity to turn away from Reagan's Overton Window.
And right now we actually have a candidate available who represents our
best ideas. Can't we just ditch her while we have the chance? If she gets
elected, more war is absolutely guaranteed. A one-term Presidency is also
highly likely, because nobody will be on her side. She loses trust and support
the more she exposes herself, every time.
Paul Long island
I agree when you say of Hillary Clinton, "She has shown an unwillingness
to be introspective and learn from her mistakes." That is only part of her
problem because her judgment seems always wrong, despite all the "listening
tours," whether it's about her paranoia about secrecy that made her
think she could get away with a private email server in one of the nation's
most high-profile jobs, or taking huge sums of money for Wall Street speeches
she now refuses to release, or doubling-down on her ill-considered, if not
ill-informed (as you note), hawkish regime change views by advocating for
it again in Libya that has, as a result, turned into an ISIS outpost.
To say she's "sorry" would only confirm her consistently bad judgment since
she has so much to be sorry about. So, what we have instead is a very "sorry"
candidate who, despite her resume and establishment backing, is having immense
trouble overcoming "a choleric 74-year-old democratic socialist" and will
have an even harder time if she's the Democratic nominee in November.
Rima Regas is a trusted commenter Mission Viejo, CA
Hillary isn't sorry. Bill is definitely not sorry. Bernie Sanders isn't
a senator with few accomplishments.
Hillary isn't sorry about anything. She hasn't apologized for the superpredator
comment. Saying she wouldn't say it now is hardly an apology and during
Thursday's debate, she talked about her husband apologizing for it instead
of talking about herself (since that was what she was being asked to do),
when Bill has yet to apologize. (Clips here: http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2bw) If
anything, he doubled down on defending her and himself. When it comes to
mass-incarceration, they both exhibit a kind of moral absenteeism. http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2b7
On money in politics, Clinton did herself no favors in the debate,
drawing even more attention to her dependence on that money and the impossibility
of being completely free to make policy without repaying debts. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz was no help to her this week when in an answer, she included
big money in the "Big Tent" that the democratic party is supposed to be.
http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2bO
During his entire tenure in both houses of Congress, Sanders has distinguished
himself as one who can work with the other side, propose legislation gets
things done through amendments. There is a yuuuge difference in approach
between Clinton and Sanders and the willingness to trust Sanders over Clinton.
When the choice in front of Americans becomes Trump versus Clinton or Sanders,
Sanders wins by a wider margin. Sanders will take more from Trump.
Mark Thomason is a trusted commenter Clawson, Mich
So Bill claimed Bernie supporters think, "Just shoot every third person
on Wall Street and everything will be fine."
They don't, but it is telling that Bill said that. His chosen exaggeration
displays who he sees as Hillary's side in this. When he says, "they are
coming for us" he means Wall Street.
"Clinton, who talked Obama into it" on Libya and claimed credit,
but when it went poorly, she blamed Obama for listening to her, "On Libya,
she noted that "the decision was the president's.""
That is her claim to experience, and not something we ought to vote to
experience again.
That is important, because she still wants to sink us deeper into it.
Her own adviser on this says, Hillary "does not see the Libya intervention
as a failure, but as a work in progress."
"Like other decisions, it was put through a political filter and a paranoid
mind-set." That is the essence of what makes Hillary so dangerous in a responsible
office. From Iraq in the beginning to Libya now, the homework lady did all
her work and then saw the wrong things and got it wrong.
Joe Pike Gotham City
Hillary is a self-serving, power hungry politician. She is only ever
sorry if she fails to get what she wants, or is forced to explain her actions.
She feels she is above "the masses." As for her qualifications, job titles
alone don't cut it. What did she actually accomplish as a Senator or SecState?
Any major laws? Treaties? No. She failed with Russia, Syria and Libya to
name just a few. She is not qualified to be president based on qualifications
and personality.
"... It's unclear how a jetliner is [more] powerful than an earthquake, and how, if such requirements failed to save the WTC towers, preparing for even more powerful earthquakes is going to prevent a recurrence of the same. ..."
"... The heavy, black smoke emanating from the structures belies your premise. ..."
No offense is meant but fewer articles from Ms. Scofield, please, with transparent, dubious,
questionable, or propagandistic angles. The article 'How building design changed after 9/11' has
been written annually for fifteen years.
"In fact, for years building codes from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American
Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute have required structural supports
to be designed with high enough ductility to withstand a major earthquake so rare its probability
of happening is once every 2,000 years. "
It's unclear how a jetliner is [more] powerful than an earthquake, and how, if such requirements
failed to save the WTC towers, preparing for even more powerful earthquakes is going to prevent
a recurrence of the same.
This would also go for any articles entitled 'How the US Can Win the War in Syria' in which
no objectives are articulated, non-evidential articles entitled 'U.S. Could Pay a High Price for
Suing the Saudis,' any more New Yorker articles, the motives of which are transparently political
and actually create disinformation around veritable realities, about 'Trump and the Truth', e.g.
'The Unemployment Rate Hoax,' etc. I'm sure posting links is largely a thankless job, but if I
wanted to I could turn on CNN and 'learn' these very things.
"In fact, for years building codes from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the
American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute have required
structural supports to be designed with high enough ductility to withstand a major earthquake
so rare its probability of happening is once every 2,000 years."
Hate to break it to you, but earthquake forces - seismic events - are considerably different
than thermal events. Granted, fire often erupt as a result of severed gas and electric lines caused
by an earthquake, but an earthquake is a brief, violent, hard shaking or rolling. A high-rise
fire of sustained intensity sits in one place and does its work within a confined setting. In
the case of the multiple floors damaged by the impact of the planes in 9-11, that confined setting
bore a striking resemblance to a combination blast furnace and chimney. (People tend to forget
that skyscrapers tend to create their own wind patterns, in this case well over 500 feet high.
Just like air being pumped into a fire by a bellows.
The second order partial differentiation equation* governing structure responding during a
dynamic event like an earthquakes shows that the force on the structure is related to its mass.
The heavier a structure, the bigger force it is subjected to, going through the same quake.
The force of an impacting plane is same regardless of the building size, all else being equal.
*(mass x acceleration) + (damping coefficient x velocity) + (stiffness modulus x displacement)
= zero.
"... Liberal hawks will complain that the Iraq war was run incompetently (and it was), but they don't give up on the idea of preventive war or the belief that the U.S. is entitled to attack other states more or less at will in the name of "leadership." Neoconservatives will fault Obama for not doing more in Libya after the regime was overthrown, but it would never occur to them that toppling foreign governments by force is wrong or undesirable. There remains a broad consensus that the U.S. "leads" the world and in order to exercise that "leadership" it is free to destabilize and attack other states as it sees fit. The justifications change from country to country, but the assumptions behind them are always the same: we have the right to interfere in the affairs of other nations, our interference is benevolent and beneficial (and any bad results cannot be tied to our interference), and "failure" to interfere constitutes abdication of "leadership." ..."
"... Everyone is familiar with Iraq war dead-enders, who continue to claim to this day that the war had been "won" by the end of Bush's second term and that it was only by withdrawing that the U.S. frittered away its "victory." The defense of the Libyan war is somewhat different, but at its core it shares the same ideological refusal to own up to failure. In Libya, the mistake was not in taking sides in a civil war in which the U.S. had nothing at stake, but in failing to commit to an open-ended mission to stabilize the country after the regime was overthrown. Libyan war supporters don't accept that their preferred policy backfired and harmed the country it was supposedly trying to help. That would not only require them to acknowledge that they got one of the more important foreign policy questions of the last decade badly wrong, but it would contradict one of their core assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. As far as they're concerned, Libya is still the "model" and "good" intervention that they claimed it was five years ago, and nothing that has happened in Libya can ever prove otherwise. ..."
"... unfortunately pro-war dead-enders continue to have considerable influence in shaping our foreign policy debates on other issues. They bring the same bankrupt assumptions to debates over what the U.S. should be doing in Syria, Ukraine, Iran, and elsewhere, and they apply the same faulty judgment that led them to think regime change and taking sides in foreign civil wars was smart. They still haven't learned anything from the failures of previous interventions (because they don't accept that they were failures), and so keep making many of the same mistakes of analysis and prescription that they made in the past. ..."
Andrew Bacevich has written an excellent
article on the need to end our ongoing "war for the Greater Middle East."
This part jumped out at me in connection with the debate over the
Libyan war:
A particular campaign that goes awry [bold mine-DL]
like Somalia or Iraq or Libya may attract passing attention, but
never the context in which that campaign was undertaken [bold mine-DL].
We can be certain that the election of 2016 will be no different.
It is almost never mentioned now, so it is easy to forget that many Libyan
war supporters initially argued for intervention in order to save the "Arab
Spring." Their idea was that the U.S. and its allies could discourage other
regimes from forcibly putting down protests by siding with the opposition in
Libya, and that if the U.S. didn't do this it would "signal" dictators that
they could crush protests with impunity. This never made sense at the time.
Other regimes would have to believe that the U.S. would consistently side with
their opponents, and there was never any chance of that happening. If it sent
any message to them, the intervention in Libya sent other regimes a very different
message: don't let yourself be internationally isolated like Gaddafi, and you
won't suffer his fate. Another argument for the intervention was that it would
change the way the U.S. was perceived in the region for the better. That didn't
make sense, either, since Western intervention in Libya wasn't popular in most
countries there, and even if it had been it wouldn't change the fact that the
U.S. was pursuing many other policies hated by people throughout the region.
It was on the foundation of shoddy arguments such as these that the case for
war in Libya was built.
Bacevich is right that many critics fault specific interventions for their
failings without questioning the larger assumptions about the U.S. role in the
region that led to those wars. Liberal hawks will complain that the Iraq
war was run incompetently (and it was), but they don't give up on the idea of
preventive war or the belief that the U.S. is entitled to attack other states
more or less at will in the name of "leadership." Neoconservatives will fault
Obama for not doing more in Libya after the regime was overthrown, but
it would never occur to them that toppling foreign governments by force is wrong
or undesirable. There remains a broad consensus that the U.S. "leads" the world
and in order to exercise that "leadership" it is free to destabilize and attack
other states as it sees fit. The justifications change from country to country,
but the assumptions behind them are always the same: we have the right to interfere
in the affairs of other nations, our interference is benevolent and beneficial
(and any bad results cannot be tied to our interference), and "failure" to interfere
constitutes abdication of "leadership."
To make matters worse, every intervention always has a die-hard group of
dead-enders that will defend the rightness and success of their war no matter
what results it produces. They don't think the war they supported every really
went "awry" except when it was ended "too soon." Everyone is familiar with
Iraq war dead-enders, who continue to claim to this day that the war
had been "won" by the end of Bush's second term and that it was only by withdrawing
that the U.S. frittered away its "victory." The defense of the Libyan war is
somewhat different, but at its core it shares the same ideological refusal to
own up to failure. In Libya, the mistake was not in taking sides in a civil
war in which the U.S. had nothing at stake, but in failing to commit to an open-ended
mission to stabilize the country after the regime was overthrown. Libyan war
supporters don't accept that their preferred policy backfired and harmed the
country it was supposedly trying to help. That would not only require them to
acknowledge that they got one of the more important foreign policy questions
of the last decade badly wrong, but it would contradict one of their core assumptions
about the U.S. role in the world. As far as they're concerned, Libya is still
the "model" and "good" intervention that they claimed it was five years ago,
and nothing that has happened in Libya can ever prove otherwise.
That might not matter too much, but unfortunately pro-war dead-enders
continue to have considerable influence in shaping our foreign policy debates
on other issues. They bring the same bankrupt assumptions to debates over what
the U.S. should be doing in Syria, Ukraine, Iran, and elsewhere, and they apply
the same faulty judgment that led them to think regime change and taking sides
in foreign civil wars was smart. They still haven't learned anything from the
failures of previous interventions (because they don't accept that they were
failures), and so keep making many of the same mistakes of analysis and prescription
that they made in the past.
Remember when Larry Lindsey was fired as Bush's economic advisor when he
suggested
that the costs could be as high as $200 billion?
Good times, but at this point the Dems own it as much as the GOP.
"... It's unclear how a jetliner is [more] powerful than an earthquake, and how, if such requirements failed to save the WTC towers, preparing for even more powerful earthquakes is going to prevent a recurrence of the same. ..."
"... The heavy, black smoke emanating from the structures belies your premise. ..."
No offense is meant but fewer articles from Ms. Scofield, please, with transparent, dubious,
questionable, or propagandistic angles. The article 'How building design changed after 9/11' has
been written annually for fifteen years.
"In fact, for years building codes from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American
Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute have required structural supports
to be designed with high enough ductility to withstand a major earthquake so rare its probability
of happening is once every 2,000 years. "
It's unclear how a jetliner is [more] powerful than an earthquake, and how, if such requirements
failed to save the WTC towers, preparing for even more powerful earthquakes is going to prevent
a recurrence of the same.
This would also go for any articles entitled 'How the US Can Win the War in Syria' in which
no objectives are articulated, non-evidential articles entitled 'U.S. Could Pay a High Price for
Suing the Saudis,' any more New Yorker articles, the motives of which are transparently political
and actually create disinformation around veritable realities, about 'Trump and the Truth', e.g.
'The Unemployment Rate Hoax,' etc. I'm sure posting links is largely a thankless job, but if I
wanted to I could turn on CNN and 'learn' these very things.
"In fact, for years building codes from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the
American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute have required
structural supports to be designed with high enough ductility to withstand a major earthquake
so rare its probability of happening is once every 2,000 years."
Hate to break it to you, but earthquake forces - seismic events - are considerably different
than thermal events. Granted, fire often erupt as a result of severed gas and electric lines caused
by an earthquake, but an earthquake is a brief, violent, hard shaking or rolling. A high-rise
fire of sustained intensity sits in one place and does its work within a confined setting. In
the case of the multiple floors damaged by the impact of the planes in 9-11, that confined setting
bore a striking resemblance to a combination blast furnace and chimney. (People tend to forget
that skyscrapers tend to create their own wind patterns, in this case well over 500 feet high.
Just like air being pumped into a fire by a bellows.
The second order partial differentiation equation* governing structure responding during a
dynamic event like an earthquakes shows that the force on the structure is related to its mass.
The heavier a structure, the bigger force it is subjected to, going through the same quake.
The force of an impacting plane is same regardless of the building size, all else being equal.
*(mass x acceleration) + (damping coefficient x velocity) + (stiffness modulus x displacement)
= zero.
Clinton is neither well-liked nor trusted. She is just a marionette promoted
by neocon cabal. Sanders team has a point that Clinton is like the job candidate
wit the impressive resume who sounds great on paper, but then when you meet her
in person, you realize she's not he right person for the job.
Notable quotes:
"... She has never acknowledged, maybe even to herself, that routing diplomatic emails with classified information through a homebrew server was an outrageous, reckless and foolish thing to do, and disloyal to Obama, whose administration put in place rules for record-keeping that she flouted. ..."
"... And Hillary did not merely fail the ask the right questions. The questions were asked and the answers were given. Joe Biden, Robert Gates and much of the military and intelligence communities advised against the Libya intervention. Hillary just chose to ignore the advice, because she is a radical neoconservative at heart. ..."
"... She volunteered that that the United States should continue to "look for missions" that NATO will support ..."
"... She vows to go around looking for new military adventures. ..."
"... Maureen is right that Hillary has huge character problems. Sure, she can't admit mistakes and compulsively blames others when things go wrong. That's a given. But it's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that she will take our country down the wrong path, both in terms of domestic and foreign policy. ..."
"... She has had 40-some years to develop this kind of judgment, imagination and long term reflection, and she has proudly, aggressively, mean-spiritedly run the opposite direction every time and viciously attacked anyone who called her on it. It's time to stop this game of "wondering" whether she can change, wondering whether all of these terrible moments were "the real Hillary" or not. They were. Voting someone in as President on the hope that they will be a completely different person once in office then they have been in 40 years is the definition of insanity. ..."
"... it's about her paranoia about secrecy that made her think she could get away with a private email server in one of the nation's most high-profile jobs, or taking huge sums of money for Wall Street speeches she now refuses to release, or doubling-down on her ill-considered, if not ill-informed (as you note), hawkish regime change views by advocating for it again in Libya that has, as a result, turned into an ISIS outpost. ..."
"... Clinton did herself no favors in the debate, drawing even more attention to her dependence on that money and the impossibility of being completely free to make policy without repaying debts. ..."
"... They don't, but it is telling that Bill said that. His chosen exaggeration displays who he sees as Hillary's side in this. When he says, "they are coming for us" he means Wall Street. ..."
"... "Clinton, who talked Obama into it" on Libya and claimed credit, but when it went poorly, she blamed Obama for listening to her, "On Libya, she noted that "the decision was the president's."" That is her claim to experience, and not something we ought to vote to experience again. ..."
"... Hillary is a self-serving, power hungry politician. She is only ever sorry if she fails to get what she wants, or is forced to explain her actions. She feels she is above "the masses." As for her qualifications, job titles alone don't cut it. What did she actually accomplish as a Senator or SecState? Any major laws? Treaties? No. She failed with Russia, Syria and Libya to name just a few. She is not qualified to be president based on qualifications and personality. ..."
... Clinton sowed suspicion again, refusing to cough up her Wall Street speech
transcripts.
... ... ...
Hillary alternately tried to blame and hug the men in her life, divvying
up credit in a self-serving way.
After showing some remorse for the 1994 crime bill, saying it had had "unintended"
consequences, she stressed that her husband "was the president who actually
signed it." On Libya, she noted that "the decision was the president's." And
on her desire to train and arm Syrian rebels, she recalled, "The president said
no."
But she wrapped herself in President Obama's record on climate change and,
when criticized on her "super PACs," said, well, Obama did it, too.
Sanders accused her of pandering to Israel after she said that "if Yasir
Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David," there would have been a Palestinian
state for 15 years.
Bernie is right that Hillary's judgment has often been faulty.
She has shown an unwillingness to be introspective and learn from her mistakes.
From health care to Iraq to the email server, she only apologizes at the point
of a gun. And even then, she leaves the impression that she is merely sorry
to be facing criticism, not that she miscalculated in the first place.
... ... ...
She has never acknowledged, maybe even to herself, that routing diplomatic
emails with classified information through a homebrew server was an outrageous,
reckless and foolish thing to do, and disloyal to Obama, whose administration
put in place rules for record-keeping that she flouted.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story Wouldn't it be a relief to
people if Hillary just acknowledged some mistakes?
... ... ...
Clinton accused Sanders of not doing his homework on how he would break up
the banks. And she is the queen of homework, always impressively well versed
in meetings. But that is what makes her failure to read the National Intelligence
Estimate that raised doubts about whether Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. so
egregious.
P. Greenberg El Cerrito, CA
Maureen Dowd fundamentally misunderstands Hillary Clinton's foreign policy
failings. When it comes to Libya, Clinton does not merely need to apologize
for getting distracted by other global issues and "taking her eye off the
ball". The decision to go in was wrong, not the failure to follow through.
And Hillary did not merely fail the ask the right questions. The
questions were asked and the answers were given. Joe Biden, Robert Gates
and much of the military and intelligence communities advised against the
Libya intervention. Hillary just chose to ignore the advice, because she
is a radical neoconservative at heart.
Clinton continues to adhere to the neoconservative approach to foreign
policy. Her choice of words during the Brooklyn debate were significant.
She volunteered that that the United States should continue to "look
for missions" that NATO will support. That says it all. She vows
to go around looking for new military adventures.
Maureen is right that Hillary has huge character problems. Sure,
she can't admit mistakes and compulsively blames others when things go wrong.
That's a given. But it's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is
that she will take our country down the wrong path, both in terms of domestic
and foreign policy.
And please Maureen, stop denigrating Bernie Sanders with pejorative adjectives
and vague accusations. He has held elective office for 35 years, showing
leadership and good judgment and good values.
Brett Morris California,
She has had 40-some years to develop this kind of judgment, imagination
and long term reflection, and she has proudly, aggressively, mean-spiritedly
run the opposite direction every time and viciously attacked anyone who
called her on it. It's time to stop this game of "wondering" whether she
can change, wondering whether all of these terrible moments were "the real
Hillary" or not. They were. Voting someone in as President on the hope that
they will be a completely different person once in office then they have
been in 40 years is the definition of insanity.
That said, of course she is better than the republicans. But she is the
worst possible candidate for the Democratic Party, especially in this era
where we have a serious opportunity to turn away from Reagan's Overton Window.
And right now we actually have a candidate available who represents our
best ideas. Can't we just ditch her while we have the chance? If she gets
elected, more war is absolutely guaranteed. A one-term Presidency is also
highly likely, because nobody will be on her side. She loses trust and support
the more she exposes herself, every time.
Paul Long island
I agree when you say of Hillary Clinton, "She has shown an unwillingness
to be introspective and learn from her mistakes." That is only part of her
problem because her judgment seems always wrong, despite all the "listening
tours," whether it's about her paranoia about secrecy that made her
think she could get away with a private email server in one of the nation's
most high-profile jobs, or taking huge sums of money for Wall Street speeches
she now refuses to release, or doubling-down on her ill-considered, if not
ill-informed (as you note), hawkish regime change views by advocating for
it again in Libya that has, as a result, turned into an ISIS outpost.
To say she's "sorry" would only confirm her consistently bad judgment since
she has so much to be sorry about. So, what we have instead is a very "sorry"
candidate who, despite her resume and establishment backing, is having immense
trouble overcoming "a choleric 74-year-old democratic socialist" and will
have an even harder time if she's the Democratic nominee in November.
Rima Regas is a trusted commenter Mission Viejo, CA
Hillary isn't sorry. Bill is definitely not sorry. Bernie Sanders isn't
a senator with few accomplishments.
Hillary isn't sorry about anything. She hasn't apologized for the superpredator
comment. Saying she wouldn't say it now is hardly an apology and during
Thursday's debate, she talked about her husband apologizing for it instead
of talking about herself (since that was what she was being asked to do),
when Bill has yet to apologize. (Clips here: http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2bw) If
anything, he doubled down on defending her and himself. When it comes to
mass-incarceration, they both exhibit a kind of moral absenteeism. http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2b7
On money in politics, Clinton did herself no favors in the debate,
drawing even more attention to her dependence on that money and the impossibility
of being completely free to make policy without repaying debts. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz was no help to her this week when in an answer, she included
big money in the "Big Tent" that the democratic party is supposed to be.
http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2bO
During his entire tenure in both houses of Congress, Sanders has distinguished
himself as one who can work with the other side, propose legislation gets
things done through amendments. There is a yuuuge difference in approach
between Clinton and Sanders and the willingness to trust Sanders over Clinton.
When the choice in front of Americans becomes Trump versus Clinton or Sanders,
Sanders wins by a wider margin. Sanders will take more from Trump.
Mark Thomason is a trusted commenter Clawson, Mich
So Bill claimed Bernie supporters think, "Just shoot every third person
on Wall Street and everything will be fine."
They don't, but it is telling that Bill said that. His chosen exaggeration
displays who he sees as Hillary's side in this. When he says, "they are
coming for us" he means Wall Street.
"Clinton, who talked Obama into it" on Libya and claimed credit,
but when it went poorly, she blamed Obama for listening to her, "On Libya,
she noted that "the decision was the president's.""
That is her claim to experience, and not something we ought to vote to
experience again.
That is important, because she still wants to sink us deeper into it.
Her own adviser on this says, Hillary "does not see the Libya intervention
as a failure, but as a work in progress."
"Like other decisions, it was put through a political filter and a paranoid
mind-set." That is the essence of what makes Hillary so dangerous in a responsible
office. From Iraq in the beginning to Libya now, the homework lady did all
her work and then saw the wrong things and got it wrong.
Joe Pike Gotham City
Hillary is a self-serving, power hungry politician. She is only ever
sorry if she fails to get what she wants, or is forced to explain her actions.
She feels she is above "the masses." As for her qualifications, job titles
alone don't cut it. What did she actually accomplish as a Senator or SecState?
Any major laws? Treaties? No. She failed with Russia, Syria and Libya to
name just a few. She is not qualified to be president based on qualifications
and personality.
"... In fact, HRC may be a better prospect for neocons, because they can distract the Dem base with how cool it is for a "strong woman" to send men into battle. Anyone opposed must be a misogynist/sexist pig. By contrast Jeb would be too obvious. ..."
"... "There is no prospect of a non-interventionist president." ..."
"... Exactly. Obama has certainly proved this to be true, for those who might've thought otherwise. And since it is true, if one is going to vote anyway, then the decision won't be made on the basis of not "wanting more wars with terrible outcomes." There will have to be another, different, deciding factor, since that factor would rule out Ms. Clinton AND every other candidate. ..."
"... Yes, I have to second Lysander's view. People - both in and outside the US - must first disabuse themselves of ANY notion that the US is a democratic state, that "changes" in leadership will actually bring about ANY difference in foreign/domestic policy and that the American war criminal ship can be righted by the people utilizing the "democratic" mechanisms at their disposal. ..."
"... Furthermore, after the Obama debacle and his utter betrayal etc of his supporters if anyone thinks someone in the American Establishment is looking out for their peon asses why then they probably also believe that the US was "surprised/caught off guard" - yet again - by ISIS et al in Iraq. ..."
"... I wish Rand Paul had his fathers balls, but he doesnt. Ron was a Libertarian pretending to be a Republican, while Rand is a Republican pretending to be a Libertarian... Rand would be no different than any other Republican or Democratic establishment schmuck. ..."
"... I never did like Ron Pauls economic policy, being left leaning, and I'm doubtful whether he would have actually accomplished anything useful as President, but his NonInterventionism was admirable and I was happy to put his name in in the Rethug primary in 2012 for that reason alone. ..."
"... Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed "more willingness to rethink" neoconservatism, which he called "vindicated to some degree" by the fruits of Mr. Obama's detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives historical heft to arguments "that are very consistent with the arguments I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago." ..."
"... After all the slaughter these people feel like crowing. They are clearly, as JSorrentine often reminds us, pyschopath butchers. ..."
"... Incidentally, where is the outrage from Samantha Powers about the ISIS massacre in Tikrit? ..."
"... Well, I guess the world just can't talk about how the amazingly rapid rise of ISIS/L and fall of Iraq completely continues the plans of the apartheid genocidal state of Israel's - and their traitorous Zionist partners in the American Establishment - as set out in the Yinon Plan and Clean Break strategies because - HOW FORTUITOUS...I mean, terribly sad and unexpected, sorry - some unlucky Israeli teenagers just happened to be "kidnapped" by "Hamas" just as the ISIS show was kicking off or so that's what the apartheid genocidal state of Israel is telling the world. ..."
"... Shrillary wouldn't be where she is today if she wasn't criminally insane. I want her to become President. She'll redefine the meaning of Eerily Inept (a label coined by Gore Vidal and attached to G Dubya Bush). Her greatest moment was when Lavrov called her out on her RESET button and pointed out, with a chuckle, "You got it wrong. It doesn't say RESET it says SHORT CIRCUIT." ..."
"... Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who argued in favor of arming Syrian rebels, said last week at an event in New York hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, "this is not just a Syrian problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought it was a regional problem. ..."
"... Why, even HILLARY is just SOOOO SURPRISED about people trying to erase boundaries, huh? Funny, she should have read further into yesterday's times where it seems that the Zionist mouthpiece of record was desperately trying to get "out in front" of anyone mentioning that the fracturing of Iraq and the ME was all part of long-time Israeli strategy: ..."
"... In 2006, it was Ralph Peters, the retired lieutenant colonel turned columnist, who sketched a map that subdivided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and envisioned Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics emerging from a no-longer-united Iraq. Two years later, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg imagined similar partings-of-the-ways, with new microstates -- an Alawite Republic, an Islamic Emirate of Gaza -- taking shape and Afghanistan splitting up as well. Last year, it was Robin Wright's turn in this newspaper, in a map that (keeping up with events) subdivided Libya as well. ..."
"... As president she's da bomb! ..."
"... Hillary is a loathsome war mongering bitch. She almost had a public orgasm when Libyan leader Quadaffi was tortured and murdered by US supported Libyan rebels. The muder of Chris Stevens was a case of what goes around comes around. ..."
"... A point which nobody else has made as far as I know. To wit there is a big overlap between the banking and Israel lobbies since wealthy Jews account for a hugely disproportionate number of top financial movers and shakers. Anything that helps the financial industry also helps the war mongering Israel and neo con lobbies. The heavily Jewish Fed is another enabler of all that is wrong with America today. ..."
"... I, also agree, with the possible exception of replacing the word "Zionist", with the word "Corporatist", although both can be rightly used. We'll still get the person the 1%ers want us to have. Ain't Oligarchies grand? ..."
"... Hillary's election depends on two things still unknown: her health and whether the Republicans can manage to choose someone sufficiently batshit crazy to make her the best of abysmal alternatives. ..."
"... HRH is a Neo Liberal of Arianne 'Sniff Sniff' Huffington's type, the 'Third Way Up Your Ass' of Globalist NAFTA/TPP Free Trade Neonazi destruction of labor and environmental protections, and in your face with NOOOOO apologies. ..."
"... And Victoria Nuland indicates that she agrees with her husband Robert Kagan's criticism of Obama's foreign policy. ..."
"... Would it be safe to say Hillary's White Trash ? ..."
"... There are some really nice photographs of Hillary being very friendly with bearded famous Libyan Islamists (Gaddafi was still alive then). In combination with Benghazi - I think you probably can connect the people greeting Hillary with what happened there (and today's Iraq) I would not think she has a chance to convince with foreign policy. ..."
"... 'You have a schism between Sunni and Shia throughout the region that is profound. Some of it is directed or abetted by states who are in contests for power there.'" Now, if only he had mentioned the states included and featured the (United) States and Israel. Obama...usually a day late and a dollar short and leading or retreating from behind. ..."
"... I would rank Obama as the most cynical one. He is doing the dark colonial art. You can berate Bush for bombing Iraq (Obama did that with Libya, just as bad), but he did sink American manpower and treasure for all this futile nation building stuff, ie he tried to repair it. ..."
"... Obama tried to double down on the nation building stuff in Afghanistan, even copying the "surge". He is still not out of Afghanistan. ..."
"... He then tried to continue Bush's policy on the cheap, scrapping the nation building stuff and concentrating on shock and awe in Libya. When Russia put a stop to that in Syria he doubled down on the subversion supporting guerilla groups. He is now back in Iraq with allies supporting a "Sunni" insurrection by proxy. After a "color revolution" in Ukraine. ..."
"... It is not "US foreign policy" but the policy of the british empire. If he was running a US foreign policy, he would at least sometimes do something positive for Americans, by accident if nothing more. ..."
"... Economic policy to vote on? Are you joking? Whichever party we elect we get Neoliberalism anyway. ..."
"... "That smile and her gloating about his death made me feel she was some sort of sociopath." Massinissa, you meant psychopath, didn't you? ..."
Here is the reason why Hillary Clinton should never ever become President
of the United States.
A (sympathetic) New York Times profile of neocon Robert Kagan has
this on Clinton II:
But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his "mainstream" view of
American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists
are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently
attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the
guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy
heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.
"I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Mr. Kagan said,
adding that the next step after Mr. Obama's more realist approach "could
theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table" if elected president.
"If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue," he added,
"it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly
her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it
something else."
Want more wars with terrible outcomes and no winner at all? Vote the neocon's
vessel, Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, by the way, is also
a coward,
unprincipled and
greedy. Her achievements as Secretary of State were about zero. Why would
anyone vote for her?
Posted by b on June 16, 2014 at 09:09 AM |
Permalink
I'm afraid you focus too much on elections that have no meaning. It seems
we may be cornered into choosing between HR Clinton and Jeb Bush. The latter,
I'm sure, would earn equal praise from the Kagan clan. There is no prospect
of a non-interventionist president. There is no prospect of a president
that is not a Zionist stooge.
In fact, HRC may be a better prospect for neocons, because they can
distract the Dem base with how cool it is for a "strong woman" to send men
into battle. Anyone opposed must be a misogynist/sexist pig. By contrast
Jeb would be too obvious.
Personally, I don't think she is anyone to worry about gaining the office.
Too much hatred of her by most Americans, from her serial lying to her terrible
foreign policy, to her standing by bent dick, in her lust for power. She
will be backed by feminazis,homonazis and zionazis(Kagan).
Not enough devil worshippers in America,at least not yet,and I believe
Americans,from current events that our traitor MSM will be unable to counter
with their usual BS,that we are down the rabbit hole of idiotic intervention,and
we will end this nonsense,and return to worrying about America,not foreign
malevolent monsters like Israel.
Well,I can at least hope,it springs eternal.
"There is no prospect of a non-interventionist president."
Exactly. Obama has certainly proved this to be true, for those who
might've thought otherwise. And since it is true, if one is going to vote
anyway, then the decision won't be made on the basis of not "wanting more
wars with terrible outcomes." There will have to be another, different,
deciding factor, since that factor would rule out Ms. Clinton AND every
other candidate.
Yes, I have to second Lysander's view. People - both in and outside
the US - must first disabuse themselves of ANY notion that the US is a democratic
state, that "changes" in leadership will actually bring about ANY difference
in foreign/domestic policy and that the American war criminal ship can be
righted by the people utilizing the "democratic" mechanisms at their disposal.
I understand that some speak to how corrupt our institutions are but
there always seems to be a "feel-goodiness" - i.e., we can still fix it
all, boys and girls, if you all just clap your hands LOUDER!! - implicit
in their analyses/prescriptions when there should be nothing but anger,
fear and revulsion towards the fascist war criminal state that we live within.
Furthermore, after the Obama debacle and his utter betrayal etc of
his supporters if anyone thinks someone in the American Establishment is
looking out for their peon asses why then they probably also believe that
the US was "surprised/caught off guard" - yet again - by ISIS et al in Iraq.
"There is no chance of a non-interventionist president"
I wish Rand Paul had his fathers balls, but he doesnt. Ron was a
Libertarian pretending to be a Republican, while Rand is a Republican pretending
to be a Libertarian... Rand would be no different than any other Republican
or Democratic establishment schmuck.
I never did like Ron Pauls economic policy, being left leaning, and
I'm doubtful whether he would have actually accomplished anything useful
as President, but his NonInterventionism was admirable and I was happy to
put his name in in the Rethug primary in 2012 for that reason alone.
Great post, b. I saw the article and felt the same thing. While commentators
are right to say that the foreign policy of the U.S. remains largely untouched
regardless of which candidate or party wins the White House (which the NYT
piece does a fine job illustrating), I do think Hillary is the worst the
Democrats have to offer.
What I found amazing about the story is how neocons are now preening
about as if they have been vindicated:
Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed "more willingness to rethink" neoconservatism,
which he called "vindicated to some degree" by the fruits of Mr. Obama's
detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives
historical heft to arguments "that are very consistent with the arguments
I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago."
After all the slaughter these people feel like crowing. They are clearly,
as JSorrentine often reminds us, pyschopath butchers.
Incidentally,
where is the outrage from Samantha Powers about the ISIS massacre in Tikrit?
Well, I guess the world just can't talk about how the amazingly rapid
rise of ISIS/L and fall of Iraq completely continues the plans of the apartheid
genocidal state of Israel's - and their traitorous Zionist partners in the
American Establishment - as set out in the
Yinon Plan and Clean Break strategies because - HOW FORTUITOUS...I mean,
terribly sad and unexpected, sorry - some unlucky Israeli teenagers just
happened to be "kidnapped" by "Hamas" just as the ISIS show was kicking
off or so that's what the apartheid genocidal state of Israel is telling
the world.
Yeah, I bet the apartheid genocidal state of Israel probably has just
NO IDEA about what's going on in Iraq what with their harrowing search -
read: collective punishment for the residents of the
illegally occupied territories - for the 3 missing boys who haven't
been ransomed or claimed to have been taken by anyone.
Wait a second...what if it was ISIS/L and NOT Hamas that "kidnapped"
the boys!!!Holy tie-in, Bat-Man!!!!
Then there would be NO WAY that what we're witnessing is the furthering
of the Yinon Plan because the apartheid genocidal Israelis would never instigate
false flag terror to further/distract from their own ends/agenda, would
they?
Nah.
A Qaeda-inspired group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria - Palestine, West Bank claimed responsibility for the kidnappings,
saying it wanted to avenge Israel's killing of three of its group in
the Hebron area late last year and to try to free prisoners from Israeli
jails. The credibility of the claim was not immediately clear.
But clear enough for the Zionist mouthpiece of the NYT to print it, right?
Shrillary wouldn't be where she is today if she wasn't criminally
insane. I want her to become President. She'll redefine the meaning of Eerily
Inept (a label coined by Gore Vidal and attached to G Dubya Bush). Her greatest
moment was when Lavrov called her out on her RESET button and pointed out,
with a chuckle, "You got it wrong. It doesn't say RESET it says SHORT CIRCUIT."
Then he laughed. At her, not with her. She's a sick, intellectually lazy,
dumb, joke. America deserves her.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who argued in
favor of arming Syrian rebels, said last week at an event in New York
hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, "this is not just a Syrian
problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought
it was a regional problem. I could not have predicted, however,
the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq
and trying to erase boundaries to create an Islamic state."
Why, even HILLARY is just SOOOO SURPRISED about people trying to
erase boundaries, huh? Funny, she should have read further into yesterday's
times where it seems that the Zionist mouthpiece of record was desperately
trying to get "out in front" of anyone mentioning that the fracturing of
Iraq and the ME was all part of long-time Israeli strategy:
In 2006, it was Ralph Peters, the retired lieutenant colonel turned
columnist, who sketched a map that subdivided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
and envisioned Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics emerging from a no-longer-united
Iraq. Two years later, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg imagined similar
partings-of-the-ways, with new microstates -- an Alawite Republic, an
Islamic Emirate of Gaza -- taking shape and Afghanistan splitting up
as well. Last year, it was Robin Wright's turn in this newspaper, in
a map that (keeping up with events) subdivided Libya as well.
Peters's map, which ran in Armed Forces Journal, inspired conspiracy
theories about how this was America's real plan for remaking the Middle
East. But the reality is entirely different: One reason these maps have
remained strictly hypothetical, even amid regional turmoil, is that
the United States has a powerful interest in preserving the Sykes-Picot
status quo.
This is not because the existing borders are in any way ideal. Indeed,
there's a very good chance that a Middle East that was more politically
segregated by ethnicity and faith might become a more stable and harmonious
region in the long run.
My favorite part of the above column is that it references a previous
column from the Zionist NYT from last year in which a war criminal even
drew up the
new map of the ME!!
Oh, but that war criminal thought SYRIA was going to be the trigger that
allowed for the culmination of the Yinon Plan. Oops!
And then ALSO YESTERDAY in the
NYT everyone's favorite little war Establishment mouthpiece Nicholas
Kristoff had this to say:
The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to
try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis
while accepting decentralization of government.
If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without
that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already
squandered far, far too much.
DECENTRALIZATION, huh? Why, Nicky, that sounds like what Putin has suggested
for Ukraine, huh? Shhhhhhhh
And of course Mr. Fuckhead Tom Friedman weighs in ALSO YESTERDAY in the
NYT with this:
THE disintegration of Iraq and Syria is upending an order that has defined
the Middle East for a century. It is a huge event, and we as a country
need to think very carefully about how to respond. Having just returned
from Iraq two weeks ago, my own thinking is guided by five principles,
and the first is that, in Iraq today, my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
Other than the Kurds, we have no friends in this fight. Neither Sunni
nor Shiite leaders spearheading the war in Iraq today share our values.
The ME is going to be split up inevitably: check
The US/Israel are JUST NOWHERE to be found: check
Thanks, Tom, you fucking war criminal scum!!!
To review:
Everyone in the Establishment - fake left, right, center, dove, hawk,
blah blah - says that it's just inevitable now that Iraq and the ME will
probably be broken up.
Everyone in the Establishment also agrees that NO ONE could see this
whole ISIS etc shitpile coming, right?
Anyone else get the feeling that this is a coordinated continuation of
the Zionist Plan for the Middle East?
Naahh. Nothing to see here, fuckers!!! Move along!!!!
She ties right in with the whole pink power agenda. She is the woMAN
version and can also be useful for the women=victims, but, no way for the
women/whore
women/victim/whore is quintessentially Pussy Riot
And if you criticize HC you are just a woman hater!
(you know like antisemitic)
Same as Obama- criticize him, you are just a racist
Shuts the complaints right off!
Hillary is a loathsome war mongering bitch. She almost had a public
orgasm when Libyan leader Quadaffi was tortured and murdered by US supported
Libyan rebels. The muder of Chris Stevens was a case of what goes around
comes around.
A point which nobody else has made as far as I know. To wit there
is a big overlap between the banking and Israel lobbies since wealthy Jews
account for a hugely disproportionate number of top financial movers and
shakers. Anything that helps the financial industry also helps the war mongering
Israel and neo con lobbies. The heavily Jewish Fed is another enabler of
all that is wrong with America today.
lysander @ 4: "There is no prospect of a president that is not a Zionist
stooge."
I, also agree, with the possible exception of replacing the word
"Zionist", with the word "Corporatist", although both can be rightly used.
We'll still get the person the 1%ers want us to have. Ain't Oligarchies
grand?
Hillary's election depends on two things still unknown: her health
and whether the Republicans can manage to choose someone sufficiently batshit
crazy to make her the best of abysmal alternatives. I think her health
is the critical variable, as the PTB are going to make sure that the Republican
candidate will come out strongly for privatization of social security and
reversing the 19th amendment. Vote-rigging and gerrymandering will maintain
a sufficiently close election to preserve the simulacrum of a free election.
HRH is a Neo Liberal of Arianne 'Sniff Sniff' Huffington's type,
the 'Third Way Up Your
Ass' of Globalist NAFTA/TPP Free Trade Neonazi destruction of labor and
environmental
protections, and in your face with NOOOOO apologies.
That she is a totally-disjointed Royal is clear in her 'dead broke' claim.
That she is a famous Hectorian, constantly checking which way public opinion
is flowing, then crafting
her confabulated dialogue as screed to her real intents, is well known.
Der Prevaricator.
What should be equally well known, if news got around, Hillary (and UKs
Milliband) grifted
Hamid Karzai $5 BILLION of Americans' last life savings, stolen from US
Humanitarian Aid
to Afghanistan, then made five trips to Kabul for no apparent purpose, before
announcing
that her $-35 MILLION 'dead broke' presidential campaign had been paid off
by 'anonymous
donors'. This is all public record; in the 2009 International Conference
on Afghanistan in
London, right in the conference speeches, framed as 'Karzai's demand', but
in fact, that
speech of Karzai's was written by US State Department. I read the drafts.
'Bicycling'.
Hillary soon had to fly back one more time and grift Karzai an emergency
$3.5 BILLION
theft, after he lost Americans' $5 BILLION while speculating in Dubai R/E
by looting
his Bank of Kabul. Her 'injection of capital' saved the bank from being
audited, and
no doubt saved all the Kaganites from an embarrassing and public episiotomy.
In the end, Hillary retired with a fortune of $50 MILLION, again announced
publicly, which
together with the $-35 MILLION campaign payoff in violation of all US election
regulations,
is exactly 1% of the $8.5 BILLION she grifted to Karzai. She's in the 'One
Percent Club'.
"It's a Great Big Club, ...and you ain't in it!" George 'The Man' Carlin
But who cares? I'll tell you. The Russian know about this grift, certainly
the Israelis
know about this grift, the Millibandits know, the London Karzais know, and
if G-d forbid,
Hillary became HRHOTUS, Americans will be blackmailed down to their underdrawers.
There are some really nice photographs of Hillary being very friendly
with bearded famous Libyan Islamists (Gaddafi was still alive then). In
combination with Benghazi - I think you probably can connect the people
greeting Hillary with what happened there (and today's Iraq) I would not
think she has a chance to convince with foreign policy.
"Well at the risk of being a smartass her achievements were negative,
the American hegemony is in worse condition because of her."
Because of her and it.
Dubhaltach gets it right, and as applied to events inclusive of and after
9-11-2001. The purported masterful seamless garment of conspiracy,
yet it weakened the US and helped get Israel whacked good by Hezbollah.
As for the unmentioned Saudi, it is of course impossible that Saudi could
outplay longterm both the US and Israel longterm.
Just as it was impossible Chalabi could outplay the neocons and help
win Iran the Iraq War. Who is playing catch up and who is
playing masterfully cohesive and unbeatable conspiracy?
Dubhaltach gets it right, the US will be pushed out of the Mideast and
Israel is longterm DOOMED.
Here is Obama in the very recent Remnick interview
"Obama said:
'You have a schism between Sunni and Shia throughout the region
that is profound. Some of it is directed or abetted by states who are in
contests for power there.'" Now, if only he had mentioned the states
included and featured the (United) States and Israel. Obama...usually a
day late and a dollar short and leading or retreating from behind.
I would rank Obama as the most cynical one. He is doing the dark
colonial art. You can berate Bush for bombing Iraq (Obama did that with
Libya, just as bad), but he did sink American manpower and treasure for
all this futile nation building stuff, ie he tried to repair it.
Obama tried to double down on the nation building stuff in Afghanistan,
even copying the "surge". He is still not out of Afghanistan.
He then tried to continue Bush's policy on the cheap, scrapping the
nation building stuff and concentrating on shock and awe in Libya. When
Russia put a stop to that in Syria he doubled down on the subversion supporting
guerilla groups. He is now back in Iraq with allies supporting a "Sunni"
insurrection by proxy. After a "color revolution" in Ukraine.
He just "sold" US foreign policy in a different target group, Hillary
will sell it to her target group, Jeb Bush to his.
It is not "US foreign policy" but the policy of the british empire.
If he was running a US foreign policy, he would at least sometimes do something
positive for Americans, by accident if nothing more.
"That smile and her gloating about his death made me feel she was
some sort of sociopath." Massinissa, you meant psychopath, didn't you?
the following is an excerpt from essay written by James at Winter Patriot:
"... Psychopaths are people without a conscience; without compassion
for others; without a sense of shame or guilt. The majority of people carry
within them the concern for others that evolution has instilled in us to
allow us to survive as groups. This is the evolutionary basis of the quality
of compassion. Compassion is not just a matter of virtue; it is a matter
of survival. Psychopaths do not have this concern for others and so are
a danger to the survival of the rest of us.
Psychopaths, as a homogeneous group, would not survive one or two generations
by themselves. They are motivated only by self interest and would exploit
each other till they ended up killing each other. Which gives one pause
for thought! They are parasites and need the rest of us to survive. In doing
so they compromise the survival of the whole species.
Psychopaths represent approximately between 1% and 20% of the population
in western countries depending on whose research you go by and also depending
on how broad a definition of the condition you adopt. It is generally held,
though, that there is a hard core of between 4-6% or so and maybe another
10 -15% of the population that is functionally psychopathic in that they
will exploit their fellow human being without hesitation.
The hard core are untreatable. They see nothing wrong with who or what
they are. The other 10-15% group may be persuaded to act differently in
a different environment or a different society. The second group act out
of a misguided strategy of survival. I'll concentrate on the hard core 5%
and the singular fact that must be borne in mind with them is that they
are incapable of change for the better. They cannot reform or be reformed.
And you can take that to the bank in every case! They must never be trusted.
Documented liars like those that populate the current Kiev regime
can be confidently assumed to be psychopaths from their behaviour and so
will never negotiate in good faith and will always renege on any deals they
make. The same can be said for the governments of the US and UK who back
them. Historically, they have never made a treaty that they did not subsequently
break."
James' essay is extremely informative wrt group psychopathy... some of
you may want to give it a read:
psychopath: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal
or violent social behavior.
an unstable and aggressive person. "schoolyard psychopaths will gather around
a fight to encourage the combatants"
Mina, now that I've looked up these links for you, I am confused myself!
Since a sociopath is less of a danger to the rest of us, I prefer to call
TPTB and their puppets psychopaths. Not your bad at all, apparently the
two are so similar as to there being difficulty telling them apart.
btw, I always enjoy your posts ~ not only do I get new info, but often
new sources... which is great. Thanks!
"... Hillary Clinton's National Security Advisers Are a "Who's Who" of the Warfare State ..."
"... The list of key advisers - which includes the general who executed the troop surge in Iraq and a former Bush homeland security chief turned terror profiteer - is a strong indicator that Clinton's national security policy will not threaten the post-9/11 national-security status quo that includes active use of military power abroad and heightened security measures at home. ..."
Hillary Clinton's National Security Advisers Are a "Who's Who" of the
Warfare State By Zaid Jilani, Alex Emmons, and Naomi LaChance
HILLARY CLINTON IS meeting with a new national security "working group"
that is filled with an elite "who's who" of the military-industrial complex
and the security deep state.
The list of key advisers - which includes the general who executed the
troop surge in Iraq and a former Bush homeland security chief turned terror
profiteer - is a strong indicator that Clinton's national security policy
will not threaten the post-9/11 national-security status quo that includes
active use of military power abroad and heightened security measures at
home.
It's a story we've seen before in President Obama's early appointments.
In retrospect, analysts have pointed to the continuity in national security
and intelligence advisers as an early sign that despite his campaign rhetoric
Obama would end up building on - rather than tearing down - the often-extralegal,
Bush-Cheney counterterror regime. For instance, while Obama promised in
2008 to reform the NSA, its director was kept on and its reach continued
to grow.
Obama's most fateful decision may have been choosing former National
Counterterrorism Center Director John Brennan to be national security adviser,
despite Brennan's support of Bush's torture program. Brennan would go on
to run the president's drone program, lead the CIA, fight the Senate's torture
investigation, and then lie about searching Senate computers.
That backdrop is what makes Clinton's new list of advisers so significant.
It includes Gen. David Petraeus, the major architect of the 2007 Iraq
War troop surge, which brought 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Picking him indicates
at partiality to combative ideology. It also represents a return to good
standing for the general after he pled guilty to leaking notebooks full
of classified information to his lover, Paula Broadwell, and got off with
two years of probation and a fine. Petraeus currently works at the investment
firm KKR & Co.
Another notable member of Clinton's group is Michael Chertoff, a hardliner
who served as President George W. Bush's last secretary of the Department
of Homeland Security, and who since leaving government in 2009 has helmed
a corporate consulting firm called the Chertoff Group that promotes security-industry
priorities. For example, in 2010, he gave dozens of media interviews touting
full-body scanners at airports while his firm was employed by a company
that produced body scanning machines. His firmalso employs a number of other
ex-security state officials, such as former CIA and NSA Director Michael
Hayden. It does not disclose a complete list of its clients - all of whom
now have a line of access to Clinton.
Many others on the list are open advocates of military escalation overseas.
Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, endorsed Clinton last
month in a New York Times opinion piece that accused Trump of being an "unwitting
agent of the Russian Federation." The Times was criticized for not disclosing
his current employment by Beacon Global Strategies, a politically powerful
national-security consulting firm with strong links to Clinton. Three days
later, Morell told Charlie Rose in a PBS interview that the CIA should actively
assassinate Russians and Iranians in Syria.
During his time at the CIA, Morell was connected to some of the worst
scandals and intelligence failures of the Bush administration. In his book,
he apologizes for giving flawed intelligence to Colin Powell about Iraq's
supposed weapons of mass destruction, but defends the CIA torture program
as legal and ethical.
Jim Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander Europe on Clinton's
advisory group, told Fox News Radio in July, when he was being vetted by
Clinton as a possible vice presidential nominee, that "we have got to get
more aggressive going into Syria and Iraq and go after [ISIS] because if
we don't they're going to come to us. It's a pretty simple equation." He
said he would "encourage the president to take a more aggressive stance
against Iran, to increase our military forces in Iraq and Syria, and to
confront Vladmir Putin" over his moves in Crimea.
The New York Times reported in 2011 that Michael Vickers, a former Pentagon
official on Clinton's new list, led the use of drone strikes. He would grin
and tell his colleagues at meetings, "I just want to kill those guys."
Others on the list played a role in the targeted killing policies of
the Obama administration, including Chris Fussell, a top aide to Gen. Stanley
McChrystal, and now a partner with him at his lucrative consulting firm,
the McChrystal Group....
"... In fact, HRC may be a better prospect for neocons, because they can distract the Dem base with how cool it is for a "strong woman" to send men into battle. Anyone opposed must be a misogynist/sexist pig. By contrast Jeb would be too obvious. ..."
"... "There is no prospect of a non-interventionist president." ..."
"... Exactly. Obama has certainly proved this to be true, for those who might've thought otherwise. And since it is true, if one is going to vote anyway, then the decision won't be made on the basis of not "wanting more wars with terrible outcomes." There will have to be another, different, deciding factor, since that factor would rule out Ms. Clinton AND every other candidate. ..."
"... Yes, I have to second Lysander's view. People - both in and outside the US - must first disabuse themselves of ANY notion that the US is a democratic state, that "changes" in leadership will actually bring about ANY difference in foreign/domestic policy and that the American war criminal ship can be righted by the people utilizing the "democratic" mechanisms at their disposal. ..."
"... Furthermore, after the Obama debacle and his utter betrayal etc of his supporters if anyone thinks someone in the American Establishment is looking out for their peon asses why then they probably also believe that the US was "surprised/caught off guard" - yet again - by ISIS et al in Iraq. ..."
"... I wish Rand Paul had his fathers balls, but he doesnt. Ron was a Libertarian pretending to be a Republican, while Rand is a Republican pretending to be a Libertarian... Rand would be no different than any other Republican or Democratic establishment schmuck. ..."
"... I never did like Ron Pauls economic policy, being left leaning, and I'm doubtful whether he would have actually accomplished anything useful as President, but his NonInterventionism was admirable and I was happy to put his name in in the Rethug primary in 2012 for that reason alone. ..."
"... Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed "more willingness to rethink" neoconservatism, which he called "vindicated to some degree" by the fruits of Mr. Obama's detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives historical heft to arguments "that are very consistent with the arguments I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago." ..."
"... After all the slaughter these people feel like crowing. They are clearly, as JSorrentine often reminds us, pyschopath butchers. ..."
"... Incidentally, where is the outrage from Samantha Powers about the ISIS massacre in Tikrit? ..."
"... Well, I guess the world just can't talk about how the amazingly rapid rise of ISIS/L and fall of Iraq completely continues the plans of the apartheid genocidal state of Israel's - and their traitorous Zionist partners in the American Establishment - as set out in the Yinon Plan and Clean Break strategies because - HOW FORTUITOUS...I mean, terribly sad and unexpected, sorry - some unlucky Israeli teenagers just happened to be "kidnapped" by "Hamas" just as the ISIS show was kicking off or so that's what the apartheid genocidal state of Israel is telling the world. ..."
"... Shrillary wouldn't be where she is today if she wasn't criminally insane. I want her to become President. She'll redefine the meaning of Eerily Inept (a label coined by Gore Vidal and attached to G Dubya Bush). Her greatest moment was when Lavrov called her out on her RESET button and pointed out, with a chuckle, "You got it wrong. It doesn't say RESET it says SHORT CIRCUIT." ..."
"... Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who argued in favor of arming Syrian rebels, said last week at an event in New York hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, "this is not just a Syrian problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought it was a regional problem. ..."
"... Why, even HILLARY is just SOOOO SURPRISED about people trying to erase boundaries, huh? Funny, she should have read further into yesterday's times where it seems that the Zionist mouthpiece of record was desperately trying to get "out in front" of anyone mentioning that the fracturing of Iraq and the ME was all part of long-time Israeli strategy: ..."
"... In 2006, it was Ralph Peters, the retired lieutenant colonel turned columnist, who sketched a map that subdivided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and envisioned Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics emerging from a no-longer-united Iraq. Two years later, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg imagined similar partings-of-the-ways, with new microstates -- an Alawite Republic, an Islamic Emirate of Gaza -- taking shape and Afghanistan splitting up as well. Last year, it was Robin Wright's turn in this newspaper, in a map that (keeping up with events) subdivided Libya as well. ..."
"... As president she's da bomb! ..."
"... Hillary is a loathsome war mongering bitch. She almost had a public orgasm when Libyan leader Quadaffi was tortured and murdered by US supported Libyan rebels. The muder of Chris Stevens was a case of what goes around comes around. ..."
"... A point which nobody else has made as far as I know. To wit there is a big overlap between the banking and Israel lobbies since wealthy Jews account for a hugely disproportionate number of top financial movers and shakers. Anything that helps the financial industry also helps the war mongering Israel and neo con lobbies. The heavily Jewish Fed is another enabler of all that is wrong with America today. ..."
"... I, also agree, with the possible exception of replacing the word "Zionist", with the word "Corporatist", although both can be rightly used. We'll still get the person the 1%ers want us to have. Ain't Oligarchies grand? ..."
"... Hillary's election depends on two things still unknown: her health and whether the Republicans can manage to choose someone sufficiently batshit crazy to make her the best of abysmal alternatives. ..."
"... HRH is a Neo Liberal of Arianne 'Sniff Sniff' Huffington's type, the 'Third Way Up Your Ass' of Globalist NAFTA/TPP Free Trade Neonazi destruction of labor and environmental protections, and in your face with NOOOOO apologies. ..."
"... And Victoria Nuland indicates that she agrees with her husband Robert Kagan's criticism of Obama's foreign policy. ..."
"... Would it be safe to say Hillary's White Trash ? ..."
"... There are some really nice photographs of Hillary being very friendly with bearded famous Libyan Islamists (Gaddafi was still alive then). In combination with Benghazi - I think you probably can connect the people greeting Hillary with what happened there (and today's Iraq) I would not think she has a chance to convince with foreign policy. ..."
"... 'You have a schism between Sunni and Shia throughout the region that is profound. Some of it is directed or abetted by states who are in contests for power there.'" Now, if only he had mentioned the states included and featured the (United) States and Israel. Obama...usually a day late and a dollar short and leading or retreating from behind. ..."
"... I would rank Obama as the most cynical one. He is doing the dark colonial art. You can berate Bush for bombing Iraq (Obama did that with Libya, just as bad), but he did sink American manpower and treasure for all this futile nation building stuff, ie he tried to repair it. ..."
"... Obama tried to double down on the nation building stuff in Afghanistan, even copying the "surge". He is still not out of Afghanistan. ..."
"... He then tried to continue Bush's policy on the cheap, scrapping the nation building stuff and concentrating on shock and awe in Libya. When Russia put a stop to that in Syria he doubled down on the subversion supporting guerilla groups. He is now back in Iraq with allies supporting a "Sunni" insurrection by proxy. After a "color revolution" in Ukraine. ..."
"... It is not "US foreign policy" but the policy of the british empire. If he was running a US foreign policy, he would at least sometimes do something positive for Americans, by accident if nothing more. ..."
"... Economic policy to vote on? Are you joking? Whichever party we elect we get Neoliberalism anyway. ..."
"... "That smile and her gloating about his death made me feel she was some sort of sociopath." Massinissa, you meant psychopath, didn't you? ..."
Here is the reason why Hillary Clinton should never ever become President
of the United States.
A (sympathetic) New York Times profile of neocon Robert Kagan has
this on Clinton II:
But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his "mainstream" view of
American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists
are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently
attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the
guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy
heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.
"I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Mr. Kagan said,
adding that the next step after Mr. Obama's more realist approach "could
theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table" if elected president.
"If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue," he added,
"it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly
her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it
something else."
Want more wars with terrible outcomes and no winner at all? Vote the neocon's
vessel, Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, by the way, is also
a coward,
unprincipled and
greedy. Her achievements as Secretary of State were about zero. Why would
anyone vote for her?
Posted by b on June 16, 2014 at 09:09 AM |
Permalink
I'm afraid you focus too much on elections that have no meaning. It seems
we may be cornered into choosing between HR Clinton and Jeb Bush. The latter,
I'm sure, would earn equal praise from the Kagan clan. There is no prospect
of a non-interventionist president. There is no prospect of a president
that is not a Zionist stooge.
In fact, HRC may be a better prospect for neocons, because they can
distract the Dem base with how cool it is for a "strong woman" to send men
into battle. Anyone opposed must be a misogynist/sexist pig. By contrast
Jeb would be too obvious.
Personally, I don't think she is anyone to worry about gaining the office.
Too much hatred of her by most Americans, from her serial lying to her terrible
foreign policy, to her standing by bent dick, in her lust for power. She
will be backed by feminazis,homonazis and zionazis(Kagan).
Not enough devil worshippers in America,at least not yet,and I believe
Americans,from current events that our traitor MSM will be unable to counter
with their usual BS,that we are down the rabbit hole of idiotic intervention,and
we will end this nonsense,and return to worrying about America,not foreign
malevolent monsters like Israel.
Well,I can at least hope,it springs eternal.
"There is no prospect of a non-interventionist president."
Exactly. Obama has certainly proved this to be true, for those who
might've thought otherwise. And since it is true, if one is going to vote
anyway, then the decision won't be made on the basis of not "wanting more
wars with terrible outcomes." There will have to be another, different,
deciding factor, since that factor would rule out Ms. Clinton AND every
other candidate.
Yes, I have to second Lysander's view. People - both in and outside
the US - must first disabuse themselves of ANY notion that the US is a democratic
state, that "changes" in leadership will actually bring about ANY difference
in foreign/domestic policy and that the American war criminal ship can be
righted by the people utilizing the "democratic" mechanisms at their disposal.
I understand that some speak to how corrupt our institutions are but
there always seems to be a "feel-goodiness" - i.e., we can still fix it
all, boys and girls, if you all just clap your hands LOUDER!! - implicit
in their analyses/prescriptions when there should be nothing but anger,
fear and revulsion towards the fascist war criminal state that we live within.
Furthermore, after the Obama debacle and his utter betrayal etc of
his supporters if anyone thinks someone in the American Establishment is
looking out for their peon asses why then they probably also believe that
the US was "surprised/caught off guard" - yet again - by ISIS et al in Iraq.
"There is no chance of a non-interventionist president"
I wish Rand Paul had his fathers balls, but he doesnt. Ron was a
Libertarian pretending to be a Republican, while Rand is a Republican pretending
to be a Libertarian... Rand would be no different than any other Republican
or Democratic establishment schmuck.
I never did like Ron Pauls economic policy, being left leaning, and
I'm doubtful whether he would have actually accomplished anything useful
as President, but his NonInterventionism was admirable and I was happy to
put his name in in the Rethug primary in 2012 for that reason alone.
Great post, b. I saw the article and felt the same thing. While commentators
are right to say that the foreign policy of the U.S. remains largely untouched
regardless of which candidate or party wins the White House (which the NYT
piece does a fine job illustrating), I do think Hillary is the worst the
Democrats have to offer.
What I found amazing about the story is how neocons are now preening
about as if they have been vindicated:
Mr. Kristol said he, too, sensed "more willingness to rethink" neoconservatism,
which he called "vindicated to some degree" by the fruits of Mr. Obama's
detached approach to Syria and Eastern Europe. Mr. Kagan, he said, gives
historical heft to arguments "that are very consistent with the arguments
I made, and he made, 20 years ago, 10 years ago."
After all the slaughter these people feel like crowing. They are clearly,
as JSorrentine often reminds us, pyschopath butchers.
Incidentally,
where is the outrage from Samantha Powers about the ISIS massacre in Tikrit?
Well, I guess the world just can't talk about how the amazingly rapid
rise of ISIS/L and fall of Iraq completely continues the plans of the apartheid
genocidal state of Israel's - and their traitorous Zionist partners in the
American Establishment - as set out in the
Yinon Plan and Clean Break strategies because - HOW FORTUITOUS...I mean,
terribly sad and unexpected, sorry - some unlucky Israeli teenagers just
happened to be "kidnapped" by "Hamas" just as the ISIS show was kicking
off or so that's what the apartheid genocidal state of Israel is telling
the world.
Yeah, I bet the apartheid genocidal state of Israel probably has just
NO IDEA about what's going on in Iraq what with their harrowing search -
read: collective punishment for the residents of the
illegally occupied territories - for the 3 missing boys who haven't
been ransomed or claimed to have been taken by anyone.
Wait a second...what if it was ISIS/L and NOT Hamas that "kidnapped"
the boys!!!Holy tie-in, Bat-Man!!!!
Then there would be NO WAY that what we're witnessing is the furthering
of the Yinon Plan because the apartheid genocidal Israelis would never instigate
false flag terror to further/distract from their own ends/agenda, would
they?
Nah.
A Qaeda-inspired group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria - Palestine, West Bank claimed responsibility for the kidnappings,
saying it wanted to avenge Israel's killing of three of its group in
the Hebron area late last year and to try to free prisoners from Israeli
jails. The credibility of the claim was not immediately clear.
But clear enough for the Zionist mouthpiece of the NYT to print it, right?
Shrillary wouldn't be where she is today if she wasn't criminally
insane. I want her to become President. She'll redefine the meaning of Eerily
Inept (a label coined by Gore Vidal and attached to G Dubya Bush). Her greatest
moment was when Lavrov called her out on her RESET button and pointed out,
with a chuckle, "You got it wrong. It doesn't say RESET it says SHORT CIRCUIT."
Then he laughed. At her, not with her. She's a sick, intellectually lazy,
dumb, joke. America deserves her.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who argued in
favor of arming Syrian rebels, said last week at an event in New York
hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, "this is not just a Syrian
problem anymore. I never thought it was just a Syrian problem. I thought
it was a regional problem. I could not have predicted, however,
the extent to which ISIS could be effective in seizing cities in Iraq
and trying to erase boundaries to create an Islamic state."
Why, even HILLARY is just SOOOO SURPRISED about people trying to
erase boundaries, huh? Funny, she should have read further into yesterday's
times where it seems that the Zionist mouthpiece of record was desperately
trying to get "out in front" of anyone mentioning that the fracturing of
Iraq and the ME was all part of long-time Israeli strategy:
In 2006, it was Ralph Peters, the retired lieutenant colonel turned
columnist, who sketched a map that subdivided Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
and envisioned Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics emerging from a no-longer-united
Iraq. Two years later, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg imagined similar
partings-of-the-ways, with new microstates -- an Alawite Republic, an
Islamic Emirate of Gaza -- taking shape and Afghanistan splitting up
as well. Last year, it was Robin Wright's turn in this newspaper, in
a map that (keeping up with events) subdivided Libya as well.
Peters's map, which ran in Armed Forces Journal, inspired conspiracy
theories about how this was America's real plan for remaking the Middle
East. But the reality is entirely different: One reason these maps have
remained strictly hypothetical, even amid regional turmoil, is that
the United States has a powerful interest in preserving the Sykes-Picot
status quo.
This is not because the existing borders are in any way ideal. Indeed,
there's a very good chance that a Middle East that was more politically
segregated by ethnicity and faith might become a more stable and harmonious
region in the long run.
My favorite part of the above column is that it references a previous
column from the Zionist NYT from last year in which a war criminal even
drew up the
new map of the ME!!
Oh, but that war criminal thought SYRIA was going to be the trigger that
allowed for the culmination of the Yinon Plan. Oops!
And then ALSO YESTERDAY in the
NYT everyone's favorite little war Establishment mouthpiece Nicholas
Kristoff had this to say:
The crucial step, and the one we should apply diplomatic pressure to
try to achieve, is for Maliki to step back and share power with Sunnis
while accepting decentralization of government.
If Maliki does all that, it may still be possible to save Iraq. Without
that, airstrikes would be a further waste in a land in which we've already
squandered far, far too much.
DECENTRALIZATION, huh? Why, Nicky, that sounds like what Putin has suggested
for Ukraine, huh? Shhhhhhhh
And of course Mr. Fuckhead Tom Friedman weighs in ALSO YESTERDAY in the
NYT with this:
THE disintegration of Iraq and Syria is upending an order that has defined
the Middle East for a century. It is a huge event, and we as a country
need to think very carefully about how to respond. Having just returned
from Iraq two weeks ago, my own thinking is guided by five principles,
and the first is that, in Iraq today, my enemy's enemy is my enemy.
Other than the Kurds, we have no friends in this fight. Neither Sunni
nor Shiite leaders spearheading the war in Iraq today share our values.
The ME is going to be split up inevitably: check
The US/Israel are JUST NOWHERE to be found: check
Thanks, Tom, you fucking war criminal scum!!!
To review:
Everyone in the Establishment - fake left, right, center, dove, hawk,
blah blah - says that it's just inevitable now that Iraq and the ME will
probably be broken up.
Everyone in the Establishment also agrees that NO ONE could see this
whole ISIS etc shitpile coming, right?
Anyone else get the feeling that this is a coordinated continuation of
the Zionist Plan for the Middle East?
Naahh. Nothing to see here, fuckers!!! Move along!!!!
She ties right in with the whole pink power agenda. She is the woMAN
version and can also be useful for the women=victims, but, no way for the
women/whore
women/victim/whore is quintessentially Pussy Riot
And if you criticize HC you are just a woman hater!
(you know like antisemitic)
Same as Obama- criticize him, you are just a racist
Shuts the complaints right off!
Hillary is a loathsome war mongering bitch. She almost had a public
orgasm when Libyan leader Quadaffi was tortured and murdered by US supported
Libyan rebels. The muder of Chris Stevens was a case of what goes around
comes around.
A point which nobody else has made as far as I know. To wit there
is a big overlap between the banking and Israel lobbies since wealthy Jews
account for a hugely disproportionate number of top financial movers and
shakers. Anything that helps the financial industry also helps the war mongering
Israel and neo con lobbies. The heavily Jewish Fed is another enabler of
all that is wrong with America today.
lysander @ 4: "There is no prospect of a president that is not a Zionist
stooge."
I, also agree, with the possible exception of replacing the word
"Zionist", with the word "Corporatist", although both can be rightly used.
We'll still get the person the 1%ers want us to have. Ain't Oligarchies
grand?
Hillary's election depends on two things still unknown: her health
and whether the Republicans can manage to choose someone sufficiently batshit
crazy to make her the best of abysmal alternatives. I think her health
is the critical variable, as the PTB are going to make sure that the Republican
candidate will come out strongly for privatization of social security and
reversing the 19th amendment. Vote-rigging and gerrymandering will maintain
a sufficiently close election to preserve the simulacrum of a free election.
HRH is a Neo Liberal of Arianne 'Sniff Sniff' Huffington's type,
the 'Third Way Up Your
Ass' of Globalist NAFTA/TPP Free Trade Neonazi destruction of labor and
environmental
protections, and in your face with NOOOOO apologies.
That she is a totally-disjointed Royal is clear in her 'dead broke' claim.
That she is a famous Hectorian, constantly checking which way public opinion
is flowing, then crafting
her confabulated dialogue as screed to her real intents, is well known.
Der Prevaricator.
What should be equally well known, if news got around, Hillary (and UKs
Milliband) grifted
Hamid Karzai $5 BILLION of Americans' last life savings, stolen from US
Humanitarian Aid
to Afghanistan, then made five trips to Kabul for no apparent purpose, before
announcing
that her $-35 MILLION 'dead broke' presidential campaign had been paid off
by 'anonymous
donors'. This is all public record; in the 2009 International Conference
on Afghanistan in
London, right in the conference speeches, framed as 'Karzai's demand', but
in fact, that
speech of Karzai's was written by US State Department. I read the drafts.
'Bicycling'.
Hillary soon had to fly back one more time and grift Karzai an emergency
$3.5 BILLION
theft, after he lost Americans' $5 BILLION while speculating in Dubai R/E
by looting
his Bank of Kabul. Her 'injection of capital' saved the bank from being
audited, and
no doubt saved all the Kaganites from an embarrassing and public episiotomy.
In the end, Hillary retired with a fortune of $50 MILLION, again announced
publicly, which
together with the $-35 MILLION campaign payoff in violation of all US election
regulations,
is exactly 1% of the $8.5 BILLION she grifted to Karzai. She's in the 'One
Percent Club'.
"It's a Great Big Club, ...and you ain't in it!" George 'The Man' Carlin
But who cares? I'll tell you. The Russian know about this grift, certainly
the Israelis
know about this grift, the Millibandits know, the London Karzais know, and
if G-d forbid,
Hillary became HRHOTUS, Americans will be blackmailed down to their underdrawers.
There are some really nice photographs of Hillary being very friendly
with bearded famous Libyan Islamists (Gaddafi was still alive then). In
combination with Benghazi - I think you probably can connect the people
greeting Hillary with what happened there (and today's Iraq) I would not
think she has a chance to convince with foreign policy.
"Well at the risk of being a smartass her achievements were negative,
the American hegemony is in worse condition because of her."
Because of her and it.
Dubhaltach gets it right, and as applied to events inclusive of and after
9-11-2001. The purported masterful seamless garment of conspiracy,
yet it weakened the US and helped get Israel whacked good by Hezbollah.
As for the unmentioned Saudi, it is of course impossible that Saudi could
outplay longterm both the US and Israel longterm.
Just as it was impossible Chalabi could outplay the neocons and help
win Iran the Iraq War. Who is playing catch up and who is
playing masterfully cohesive and unbeatable conspiracy?
Dubhaltach gets it right, the US will be pushed out of the Mideast and
Israel is longterm DOOMED.
Here is Obama in the very recent Remnick interview
"Obama said:
'You have a schism between Sunni and Shia throughout the region
that is profound. Some of it is directed or abetted by states who are in
contests for power there.'" Now, if only he had mentioned the states
included and featured the (United) States and Israel. Obama...usually a
day late and a dollar short and leading or retreating from behind.
I would rank Obama as the most cynical one. He is doing the dark
colonial art. You can berate Bush for bombing Iraq (Obama did that with
Libya, just as bad), but he did sink American manpower and treasure for
all this futile nation building stuff, ie he tried to repair it.
Obama tried to double down on the nation building stuff in Afghanistan,
even copying the "surge". He is still not out of Afghanistan.
He then tried to continue Bush's policy on the cheap, scrapping the
nation building stuff and concentrating on shock and awe in Libya. When
Russia put a stop to that in Syria he doubled down on the subversion supporting
guerilla groups. He is now back in Iraq with allies supporting a "Sunni"
insurrection by proxy. After a "color revolution" in Ukraine.
He just "sold" US foreign policy in a different target group, Hillary
will sell it to her target group, Jeb Bush to his.
It is not "US foreign policy" but the policy of the british empire.
If he was running a US foreign policy, he would at least sometimes do something
positive for Americans, by accident if nothing more.
"That smile and her gloating about his death made me feel she was
some sort of sociopath." Massinissa, you meant psychopath, didn't you?
the following is an excerpt from essay written by James at Winter Patriot:
"... Psychopaths are people without a conscience; without compassion
for others; without a sense of shame or guilt. The majority of people carry
within them the concern for others that evolution has instilled in us to
allow us to survive as groups. This is the evolutionary basis of the quality
of compassion. Compassion is not just a matter of virtue; it is a matter
of survival. Psychopaths do not have this concern for others and so are
a danger to the survival of the rest of us.
Psychopaths, as a homogeneous group, would not survive one or two generations
by themselves. They are motivated only by self interest and would exploit
each other till they ended up killing each other. Which gives one pause
for thought! They are parasites and need the rest of us to survive. In doing
so they compromise the survival of the whole species.
Psychopaths represent approximately between 1% and 20% of the population
in western countries depending on whose research you go by and also depending
on how broad a definition of the condition you adopt. It is generally held,
though, that there is a hard core of between 4-6% or so and maybe another
10 -15% of the population that is functionally psychopathic in that they
will exploit their fellow human being without hesitation.
The hard core are untreatable. They see nothing wrong with who or what
they are. The other 10-15% group may be persuaded to act differently in
a different environment or a different society. The second group act out
of a misguided strategy of survival. I'll concentrate on the hard core 5%
and the singular fact that must be borne in mind with them is that they
are incapable of change for the better. They cannot reform or be reformed.
And you can take that to the bank in every case! They must never be trusted.
Documented liars like those that populate the current Kiev regime
can be confidently assumed to be psychopaths from their behaviour and so
will never negotiate in good faith and will always renege on any deals they
make. The same can be said for the governments of the US and UK who back
them. Historically, they have never made a treaty that they did not subsequently
break."
James' essay is extremely informative wrt group psychopathy... some of
you may want to give it a read:
psychopath: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal
or violent social behavior.
an unstable and aggressive person. "schoolyard psychopaths will gather around
a fight to encourage the combatants"
Mina, now that I've looked up these links for you, I am confused myself!
Since a sociopath is less of a danger to the rest of us, I prefer to call
TPTB and their puppets psychopaths. Not your bad at all, apparently the
two are so similar as to there being difficulty telling them apart.
btw, I always enjoy your posts ~ not only do I get new info, but often
new sources... which is great. Thanks!
"... Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. ..."
"... Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen. ..."
"... After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare, and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's legacy! ..."
"... I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. ..."
"... amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience. ..."
"... Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution. Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons. ..."
"... The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies US enemies. ..."
"... The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny.. ..."
"... There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. ..."
"... With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the so-called US military-industrial complex. ..."
"... Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ... all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light. ..."
"... The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy. ..."
"... What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money we don't have. ..."
"... Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian airstrikes? ..."
"... That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international law all the time. ..."
"... Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation? ..."
"... The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S. was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel, while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria. The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes. ..."
"... Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions. ..."
"... I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated. ..."
"... Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR? ..."
"... Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military, throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy, and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion. ..."
"... You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain this to the public, sadly. ..."
"... Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything he says anymore. ..."
"... There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war, UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene. ..."
"... You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically, WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both? ..."
"... ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against our own mercenaries make sense??? ..."
"... Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts! ..."
"... ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to suffer. ..."
"... The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America lost any claim to 'leadership' by now. ..."
"... Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. ..."
"... Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc. ..."
"... The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's a War Crime by every standard ..."
"... See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR. ..."
"... But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve up Syria a sovereign country. ..."
"... Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is a sovereign country. ..."
"... Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering neo-Nazi's. ..."
"... Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the opposite fronts on the Syrian soil? ..."
"... Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law. ..."
"... Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law ..."
"... As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change. ..."
"... You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting demonstrators who demonstrated against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively. ..."
"... However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional) human beings. ..."
"... What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international law? ..."
NATO and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria .... they make a desert and call
it peace.
ID7582903 1 Nov 2015 06:19
"Credibility"? Beware and be aware folks. This isn't a monopoly game being played here; it's
for real.
2015 Valdai conference is Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict
in Tomorrow's World. In the period between October 19 and 22, experts from 30 countries have been
considering various aspects of the perception of war and peace both in the public consciousness
and in international relations, religion and economic interaction between states. Videos w live
translations and english transcripts (a keeper imho)
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548
30 Oct, 2015 - The day US announces Ground troops into Syria, and the day before the downing/crash
of the Russian Airbus 321 in the Sinai, this happened:
Russia has conducted a major test of its strategic missile forces, firing numerous ballistic and
cruise missiles from various training areas across the country, videos
uploaded by the Ministry of Defense have shown.
A routine exercise, possibly the largest of its kind this year, was intended to test the command
system of transmitting orders among departments and involved launches
from military ranges on the ground, at sea and in the air, the ministry said Friday.
30.10.2015
Since the beginning of its operation in Syria on September 30, Russian Aerospace Forces have carried
out 1,391 sorties in Syria, destroying a total of 1,623 terrorist targets, the Russian General
Staff said Friday.
In particular, Russian warplanes destroyed 249 Islamic State command posts, 51 training camps,
and 131 depots, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Russian General Staff Main Operations Directorate
said.
"In Hanshih, a suburb of Damascus, 17 militants of the Al-Ghuraba group were executed in public
after they tried to leave the combat area and flee to Jordan," he specified. "The whole scene
was filmed in order to disseminate the footage among the other groups operating in the vicinity
of Damascus and other areas", the General Staff spokesman said. In the central regions of the
country, the Syrian Army managed to liberate 12 cities in the Hama province, Kartapolov said.
"The Syrian armed forces continue their advance to the north," the general added.
Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried
to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow
statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. What an insult to our intelligence! We
are well aware that the US provides the logistical and technical support, and refuelling of warplanes
to the Saudi coalition illegal war in Yemen. Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and
other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and
destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen.
After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to
diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish
alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare,
and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened
ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's
legacy!
Barmaidfromhell -> WSCrips 1 Nov 2015 03:52
Well said.
I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the
anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. Obviously carefully selected
to follow any line given them and amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience.
Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution.
Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as
the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear
day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons.
Michael Imanual Christos -> Pete Piper 1 Nov 2015 00:28
Pete Piper
In brief;
The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies
US enemies.
... ... ...
midnightschild10 31 Oct 2015 21:35
When Obama denounced Russia's actions in Syria, and blamed them for massive loss of civilian
lives, Russia responded by asking them to show their proof. The Administration spokesperson said
they got their information from social media. No one in the Administration seems to realize how
utterly stupid that sounds. Marie Harf is happily developing the Administration's foreign policy
via Twitter. As the CIA and NSA read Facebook for their daily planning, Obama reads the comments
section of newspapers to prepare for his speech to the American public in regard to putting boots
on the ground in Syria, and adding to the boots in Iraq. If it didn't result in putting soldiers
lives in jeopardy, it would be considered silly. Putin makes his move and watches as the Obama
Administration makes the only move they know, after minimal success in bombing, Obama does send
in the troops. Putin is the one running the game. Obama's response is so predictable. No wonder
the Russians are laughing. In his quest to outdo Cheyney, Obama has added to the number of wars
the US is currently involved in. His original claim to fame was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which then resulted in starting Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 2.0. Since helping to depose the existing
governments in the Middle East, leading not only to the resurgence of AlQuaeda, and giving birth
to ISIS, and leaving chaos and destruction in his wake, he decided to take down the last standing
ruler, hoping that if he does the same thing over and over, he will get a different result. Obama's
foreign policy legacy had been considered impotent at best, now its considered ridiculous.
SomersetApples 31 Oct 2015 20:03
We bombed them, we sent armies of terrorist in to kill them, we destroyed their hospitals and
power plants and cities, we put sanctions on them and we did everything in our power to cut off
their trading with the outside world, and yet they are still standing.
The only thing left to do, lets send in some special military operatives.
This is so out of character, or our perceived character of Obama. It must be that deranged
idiot John McCain pulling the strings.
Rafiqac01 31 Oct 2015 16:58
The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny....having
just watched CNNs Long Road to Hell in Iraq....and the idiots advising Bush and Blair you have
to wonder the extent to which these are almighty balls ups or very sophisticated planning followed
up by post disaster rationalisation....
whatever the conclusion it proves that the intervention or non interventions prove their is
little the USA has done that has added any good value to the situation...indeed it is an unmitigated
disaster strewn around the world! Trump is the next generation frothing at the mouth ready to
show what a big John Wayne he is!!
DavidFCanada 31 Oct 2015 13:56
There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling
countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. That US legacy
will forever remain, burnt into skins and bodies of the living and dead, together with a virtually
unanimous recognition in the ME of the laughable US pretexts of supporting democracy, the rule
of law, religious freedom and, best of all, peace. Obama is merely the chief functionary of a
nation of lies.
Informed17 -> WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:47
Are you saying that there was no illegal invasion of Iraq? No vial of laundry detergent was
presented at the UN as "proof" that Iraq has WMDs? No hue and cry from "independent" media supported
that deception campaign? Were you in a deep coma at the time?
Informed17 -> somethingbrite 31 Oct 2015 13:36
No. But the US trampled on the international law for quite a while now, starting with totally
illegal interference in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:18
Hey Guardian Editors.....and all those who worshipped Obama....In America, there were folks
from the older generation that warned us that this Community Organizer was not ready for the Job
of President of the United States....it had nothing to do with his color, he just was not ready.....he
was a young, inexperienced Senator, who never, ever had a real job, never had a street fight growing
up pampered in Hawaii, was given a pass to great universities because his parents had money, and
was the dream Affirmative Action poster boy for the liberal left. Obama has not disappointed anyone
who tried to warn us......and now we will reap what he has sowed:
1. 8 Trillion to our debt
2. Nightmare in the Middleast (how is that Arab Spring)
3. Polarized America....Dems and Republicans hate each other....hate each other like the Irish
and English...10 x over.
4. War on Cops
5. War with China
6. Invasion from Central America
I see a great depression and World War IV on the horizon....and I am being positive!
SaveRMiddle 31 Oct 2015 12:47
Nothing Obama says has any value. We've watched the man lie with a grin and a chuckle.
Forever Gone is all trust.
His continued abuse of Red Line threats spoke volumes about the lawyer who Reactively micromanages
that which required and deserved an expert Proactive plan.
Let History reflect the horrific death CIA meddling Regime Change/Divide and Conquer creates.
HeadInSand2013 31 Oct 2015 12:45
Liberal activists were in little doubt that Obama has failed to live up to his commitment
to avoid getting dragged directly into the war.
With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President
is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the
so-called US military-industrial complex.
Liberal activists are stupid enough to think that M. Obama is actually in charge of the US
military or the US foreign policy. Just go back and count how many times during the last 6 years
M. Obama has made a declaration and then - sometimes the next day - US military has over-ruled
him.
Mediaking 31 Oct 2015 10:00
Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the
Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration
camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their
respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ...
all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone
has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light.
USA forces coming to the aid of their 5 individuals... yes 1,2,3,4,5 ( stated by US command-
there are only that amount of FSA fighters left - the rest have gone over to ISIL with their equipment -- ) the local population all speak of ISIL/Daesh being American/Israeli ,they say if this is a
civil war how come all the opposition are foreigners -- I think perhaps it's like the Ukraine affair...
a bunch of CIA paid Nazi thugs instigating a coup ... or like Venezuela agents on roof tops shooting
at both sides in demonstrations to get things going. The usual business of CIA/Mossad stuff in
tune with the mass media with their engineered narratives -- Followed by the trolls on cyber space...
no doubt we shall see them here too.
All note that an Intervention in Syria would be "ILLEGAL" by Int. law and sooner than later
will be sued in billions for it...on top of the billions spent on having a 5 person strong force
of FSA...spent from the American tax payers money . Syria has a government and is considered a
state at the UN . Iran and Russia are there at the request and permission of Syria .
Russia and Iran have been methodically wiping out Washington's mercenaries on the ground while
recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists. Now that the terrorists
are getting wiped out the west and the Saudis are are screaming blue murder !
I for one would have Assad stay , as he himself suggests , till his country is completely free
of terrorists, then have free elections . I would add , to have the Saudis and the ones in the
west/Turkey/Jordan charged for crimes against humanity for supplying and creating Daesh/ISIS .
This element cannot be ignored . Also Kurdistan can form their new country in the regions they
occupy as of this moment and Mosul to come. Iran,Russia,Iraq, Syria and the new Kurdistan will
sign up to this deal . Millions of Syrian refugees can then come back home and rebuild their broken
lives with Iranian help and cash damages from the mentioned instigators $400 billion . The cash
must be paid into the Syrian central bank before any elections take place ... Solved...
My consultancy fee - 200ml pounds sterling... I know ... you wish I ruled the world (who knows
!) - no scams please or else -- ( the else would be an Apocalypse upon the western equity markets
via the Illuminati i.e a 49% crash )... a week to pay , no worries since better to pay for a just
solution than to have million descend upon EU as refugees . It is either this or God's revenge
with no mercy .
amacd2 31 Oct 2015 09:52
Obama, being more honest but also more dangerous than Flip Wilson says, "The Empire made me
do it",
Bernie, having "reservations" about what Obama has done, says nothing against Empire, but continues
to pretend, against all evidence, that this is a democracy.
Hillary, delighting in more war, says "We came, we bombed, they all died, but the Empire won."
Talk about 'The Issue' to debate for the candidates in 2016?
"What's your position on the Empire?"
"Oh, what Empire, you ask?"
"The friggin Empire that you are auditioning to pose as the president of --- you lying tools
of both the neocon 'R' Vichy party and you smoother lying neoliberal-cons of the 'D' Vichy party!"
lightstroke -> Pete Piper 31 Oct 2015 09:41
Nukes are not on the table. Mutually Assured Destruction.
The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to
have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy.
It's not necessary to win wars to exercise that power. All they have to do is start them and
keep them going until the arms industry makes as much dough from them as possible. That's the
only win they care about.
What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money
we don't have.
Taku2 31 Oct 2015 09:26
Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are
fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will
he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian
airstrikes?
How stupid can a President get?
Obama does need to pull back on this one, even though it will make his stupid and erroneous
policy towards the Syrian tragedy seem completely headless. If this stupid and brainless policy
is meant to be symbolic, its potential for future catastrophic consequences is immeasurable.
phillharmonic -> nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:56
That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign
troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international
law all the time.
nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:35
Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State
And who are those then? Do they exist, do we have any reliable source confirming they are really
simultaneously fighting IS and Syrian Army or is it yet another US fairy tale?
Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government
or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why
is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation?
phillharmonic 31 Oct 2015 08:33
The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S.
was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel,
while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were
arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't
going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria.
The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused
a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to
oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes.
amacd2 -> Woody Treasure 31 Oct 2015 08:31
Woody, did you mean "Obama is a foil (for the Disguised Global Crony-Capitalist Empire--- which
he certainly is), or did you mean to say "fool" (which he certainly is not, both because he is
a well paid puppet/poodle for this Global Empire merely HQed in, and 'posing' as, America ---
as Blair and Camron are for the same singular Global Empire --- and because Obama didn't end his
role as Faux/Emperor-president like JFK), eh?
Nena Cassol -> TonyBlunt 31 Oct 2015 06:48
Assad's father seized power with a military coup and ruled the country for 30 years, before
dying he appointed his son, who immediately established marshal law, prompting discontent even
among his father's die-hard loyalists ...this is plain history, is this what you call a legitimate
leader?
Cycles 31 Oct 2015 06:41
Forced to go in otherwise the Russians and Iranians get full control. Welcome to the divided
Syria a la Germany after WW2.
TonyBlunt -> Nena Cassol 31 Oct 2015 06:36
"It does not take much research to find out that Assad is not legitimate at all"
Please share your source with us Nena. But remember Langley Publications don't count.
TonyBlunt -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 06:29
The Americans do not recognise international law. They do not sign up to any of it and proclaim
the right to break it with their "exceptionalism".
Katrin3 -> herrmaya 31 Oct 2015 05:27
The Russians, US, Iran etc are all meeting right now in Vienna. The Russians and the US military
do communicate with each other, to avoid attacking each other by mistake.
The Russians are in the West and N.West of Syria. The US is going into the N. East, near IS
headquarters in Raqqa, to support the Kurdish YPG, who are only a few kilometers from the city.
Katrin3 -> ID6693806 31 Oct 2015 05:15
Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are
also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following
the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions.
I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend
their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated.
centerline ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:48
The Kurds are the fabled moderate opposition who are willing to negotiate, and who have also
fought with the Syrian government against US backed ISIS and al Nusra so called moderate opposition.
Pete Piper -> Verbum 31 Oct 2015 04:47
@Verbum Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became
insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR?
Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds
corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being
invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military,
throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total
surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy,
and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have
laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion.
gabriel90 -> confettifoot 31 Oct 2015 04:46
ISiS is destroying Syria thanks to the US and Saudi Arabia; its an instrument to spread chaos
in the Middle East and attack Iran and Russia...
ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:21
So, on the day peace talks open, the US unilaterally announces advice boots on the ground to
support one of the many sides in the Syrian War, who will undoubtedly want self determination,
right on Turkey's border, as they always have, and as has always been opposed by the majority
of the Syrian population. What part of that isn't completely mad?
Great sympathy for the situation of the Kurds in Syria under Assad, but their nationalism issue
and inability to work together with the Sunni rebels, was a major factor in the non formation
of a functioning opposition in Syria, and will be a block to peace, not its cause. It's also part
of a larger plan to have parts of Turkey and Iraq under Kurdish control to create a contingent
kingdom. Whatever the merits of that, the US deciding to support them at this stage is completely
irrational, and with Russia and Iran supporting Assad will lengthen the war, not shorten it.
MissSarajevo 31 Oct 2015 04:21
Just a couple of things here. How does the US know who the moderates are?!? Is this another
occasion that the US is going to use International law as toilet paper? The US will enter (as
if they weren't already there, illegally. They were not invited in by the legitimate leader of
Syria.
gabriel90 31 Oct 2015 04:19
Warbama is just trying to save his saudi/qatari/turk/emirati dogs of war... they will be wiped
out by Russia and the axis of resistance...
Pete Piper -> Michael Imanual Christos 31 Oct 2015 04:08
Does anyone see anything rational in US foreign policy? When I hear attempts to explain, they
vary around .. "it's about oil". But no one ever shows evidence continuous wars produced more
oil for anyone. So, are we deliberately creating chaos and misery? Why? To make new enemies we
can use to justify more war? We've now classified the number of countries we are bombing. Why?
The countries being bombed surely know.
Pete Piper -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 03:50
You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade
Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized
by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain
this to the public, sadly.
Only the US routinely violates other nations' sovergnity. Since Korea, the only nation that
has ever used military force against a nation not on its border is the US.
Can anyone find rationality in US foreign policy? We are supposed to be fighting ISIL, but
Saudi Arabia and Israel appear to be helping ISIL to force Syrian regime change. And the US is
supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia that are routed to ISIL. Supposedly because eliminating President
Asad is more important than fighting ISIL? The US public is being misled into thinking we are
NOW fighting ISIL. After Asad is killed, then we will genuinely fight ISIL? Russia, Iran, and
more(?) will fight to keep Asad in power and then fight ISIL? THIS IS OBVIOUS BS, AND ALSO FUBAR.
By all means, get everyone together for some diplomacy.
oldholbornian -> lesmandalasdeniki 31 Oct 2015 03:36
Well lets look at Germany the centre of christian culture and the EU
reminds me of emporer franz josef in europe about 100 years ago .. meant well but led to ruination
..i dont think that there has been an american president involved in more wars than obama
obama by his cairo speech kicked of the arab spring ..shows that words can kill
however.. the experience he now has gained may lead to an avoidance of a greater sunni shia
war in syria if the present vienna talks can offer something tangible and preserve honour to the
sunnis .. in the mid east honour and macho are key elements in negotiations
iran however is a shia caliphate based regime and unless it has learnt the lesson from yemen
on the limitations of force may push for further success via army and diplomacy and control in
syria and iraq
oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 02:42
But Obama's latest broken promise to avoid an "open-ended action" in Syria could lead to a
full-blown war with Russia considering that Russian military has been operating in Syria for weeks.
" For the first time ever, the American strategists have developed an illusion that they
may defeat a nuclear power in a non-nuclear war," Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin
told AP. "It's nonsense, and it will never happen."
Any US / terrorist engagement with the Syrian security forces will include engaging with its
allies Russia
Once the firing starts Russia will include the US as terrorists with no rights to be in Syrian
and under the UN RULES have the right to defend themselves against the US
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:32
Hmm Foreign snipers on rooftops ( not in the control of the government) how many times is this
scenario going to be played out before the 'press' twigs it than something is not making sense.
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:29
Though in one demonstration there was snipers on rooftops shooting both deconstratirs and the
police - far more police were killed than demonstrators - what does this reming you of? Was these
actions seemingly out of the control of the government a preliminary to what happened in Kiev
during the maidan - practices get the technics right I suppose. - outside forces were obviously
at work ' stirring the pot.
Anna Eriksson 31 Oct 2015 02:24
Let's hope that the US will help out with taking in some refugees as well! In Germany, and
Sweden locals are becoming so frustrated and angry that they set refugee shelters on fire. This
is a trend in both Sweden and Germany, as shown in the maps in the links. There have almost been
90 arsons in Germany so far this year, almost 30 in Sweden.
Nobody tells the American people and nobody else really cares, but these 40-something guys
being sent to Syria are possibly there as:
cannon fodder: to deter the Russians from bombing and Iranians from attacking on the ground
the American friendly anti-Assad militant groups;
to collect and report more accurate intel from the front line (again about the Russian/Iranian
troops deployment/movement).
The Russian and Iranian troops on the ground will soon engage and sweep anti-Assad forces in
key regions in Western Syria. This will be slightly impeded if Americans are among them. But accidents
do happen, hence the term "cannon fodder".
The Russians and Iranians will likely take a step back militarily though for the duration of
talks, so the American plan to protect Saudi backed fighters is likely to work.
I never involved or mentioned ISIS because this is NOT about fighting ISIS. It's about counteracting
the Russian/Irania sweep in the area, and ultimately keeping the Americans in the game (sorry,
war).
petervietnam 31 Oct 2015 01:13
The world's policeman or the world's trouble maker?
Austin Young -> Will D 31 Oct 2015 00:34
But he's the "change we can believe in" guy! Oh right... Dem or republican, they spew anything
and everything their voters want to hear but when it comes time to walk the walk the only voice
in their head is Cash Money.
lesmandalasdeniki -> Bardhyl Cenolli 30 Oct 2015 23:34
It frustrates me, anyone who will be the problem-solver will be labeled as dangerous by the
Western political and business leaders if the said person or group of people can not be totally
controlled for their agenda.
This will be the first time I will be speaking about the Indonesian forest fires that started
from June this year until now. During the period I was not on-line, I watched the local news and
all channels were featuring the same problem every day during the last two-weeks.
US is also silent about it during Obama - Jokowi meeting, even praising Jokowi being on the
right track. After Jokowi came back, his PR spin is in the force again, he went directly to Palembang,
he held office and trying to put up an image of a President that cared for his people. He couldn't
solve the Indonesian forest fires from June - October, is it probably because Jusuf Kalla has
investment in it?
My point is, US and the Feds, World Bank and IMF are appointing their puppets on each country
they have put up an investment on terms of sovereign debt and corporate debt/bonds.
And Obama is their puppet.
Will D 30 Oct 2015 23:30
Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises
and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything
he says anymore.
He has turned out to be a massive disappointment to all those who had such high hopes that
he really would make the world a better place. His failure and his abysmal track record will cause
him to be remembered as the Nobel Peace prize wining president who did exactly the opposite of
what he promised, and failed to further the cause of peace.
Greg_Samsa -> Greenacres2002 30 Oct 2015 23:07
Consistency is at the heart of logic, all mathematics, and hard sciences.
Even the legal systems strive to be free of contradictions.
I'd rather live in world with consistency of thought and action as represented by the Russian
Federation, then be mired in shit created by the US who have shed all the hobgoblins pestering
the consistency of their thoughts and actions.
Never truly understood the value of this stupid quote really...
Phil Atkinson -> PaulF77 30 Oct 2015 22:28
There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic
and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something
critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit
and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war,
UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene.
You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically,
WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both?
MainstreamMedia Propaganda 30 Oct 2015 22:03
ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against
our own mercenaries make sense???
I think blatant policy changes like this show just how ineffectual the US president actually
is. The hand over between Bush and Obama has been seamless. Gitmo still going, patriot act renewed,
Libya a smoldering ruin (4 years down the line), no progress on gun control, troops in Afganistan
and Iraq... it goes on...
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:58
"It's really hard to see how this tiny number of troops embedded on the ground is going
to turn the tide in any way."
Or the U.S. could carry out air strikes against Hezbollah which has been fighting ISIS for
a while now. They could also supply weapons to ISIS (who are dubbed 'moderates') to counter Russian
airstrikes and Iranian man power.
Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its
foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This
is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those
countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements
with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different
groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking
about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts!
Phil Atkinson -> Harry Bhai 30 Oct 2015 21:57
Fuck the al-Sauds and their oil. If the US wants their oil (and there's plenty of other oil
sellers in the world) then just take it. Why not be consistent?
templeforjerusalem 30 Oct 2015 21:51
IS has shown itself to be deeply hateful of anything that conflicts with their narrow religious
interpretations. Destroying Palmyra, murdering indiscriminately, without any clear international
agenda other than the formation of a new Sunni Sharia State, makes them essentially enemies of
everybody. Although I do agree that belligerent secular Netanyahu's Israel sets a bad example
in the area, Israel does not tend to murder over the same primitive values that IS uses, although
there's not much difference in reality.
IS uses extermination tactics, Israel used forced land clearance and concentration camp bombing
(Gaza et al), while the US in Iraq used brutal force. None of this is good but nothing justifies
the shear barbarism of IS. Is there hope in any of this? No. Is Russian and US involvement a major
escalation? Yes.
Ultimately, this is about religious identities refusing to share and demand peace. Sunni vs
Shia, Judeo/Catholic/Protestant West vs Russian Orthodox, secular vs orthodox Israel. No wonder
people are saying Armageddon.
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:50
ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have
an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to
suffer. The only countries and groups that have been successfully fighting ISIS - Assad's
forces, Iranians, Hezbollah, Russians, and Kurds are in fact enemies of either the U.S., Saudis,
Israelis, or Turks. Isn't that strange? The countries and peoples that have suffered the most
and that have actually fought against ISIS effectively are seen as the enemy. Do the powers that
be really want to wipe out ISIS at all costs? No, especially if it involves the Iranians and Russians.
How are Russian boots on the ground - of which there have been many for some time - ok
and American boots bad?
The difference is that of a poison and the antidotum. The American/NATO meddling in Iraq, Libya
and Syria created a truly sick situation which needs to be fixed. That's what the Russians are
doing. Obviously, they have their own objectives and motives for that and are protecting their
own interests, but nevertheless this is the surest way to re-establish semblance of stability
in the Middle East, rebuilt Syria and Iraq, stop the exodus of the refugees, and mend relations
in the region.
The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing
short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America
lost any claim to 'leadership' by now.
I feel sorry for Mr Obama, and indeed America, because he is a decent person, yet most of us
are unaware what forces he has to reckon with behind the scenes. It is clear by now that interests
of corporations and rich individuals, as well as a couple of seemingly insignificant foreign states,
beat the national interest of America all time, anytime. It is astonishing how a powerful, hard
working and talented nation can become beholden to such forces, to its own detriment.
In the end, I do not think the situation is uniquely American. Russia or China given a chance
of total hegemony would behave the same. That's why we need a field of powers/superpowers to keep
one another in check and negotiate rather than enforce solutions.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:02
Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. Yes,
the me has its own problems, including rival versions of Islam and fundamentalism as well as truly
megalomaniac leaders. But in instances (Libya for example) they did truly contribute to the country's
destruction (and I am not excusing Gaddafi, but for the people there sometimes having these leaders
and waiting for generational transformations may be a better solution than instant democracy pills.)
ID7582903 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:00
Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according
to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc.
The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops
into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's
a War Crime by every standard
Obama and the "regime" that rules the United Snakes of America have all gone over the edge
into insanity writ large.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 20:55
To clarify, I meant that all these groups are funded by these Arabic sheikhdoms and it increasingly
appears that th us of a is not as serious in eradicating all of them in the illusion that the
so called softer ones will over through Assad and then it will be democracy, the much misused
and fetishised term. Meanwhile we can carve up the country, Turkey gets a bite and our naughty
bloated allies in Arabia will be happy with their influence. Only if it happened that way...
There is much more than this short and simplified scenario, and yes Russia played its hand
rather well taking the west off guard. And I am not trying to portray Putin as some liberation
prophet either. So perhaps you could say that yes, maybe I have looked into it deep...
BlooperMario -> RedEyedOverlord 30 Oct 2015 20:52
China and Russia are only responding to NY World Bank and IMF cheats and also standing up to
an evil empire that has ruined the middle east.
Time you had a rethink old chap and stopped worshipping Blair; Bush; Rumsfeld etc as your heros.
See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR.
Silly Sailors provoking Chinese Lighthouse keepers.
RoyRoger 30 Oct 2015 19:30
Their Plan B is fucked !!
But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate
corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve
up Syria a sovereign country.
Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian
rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is
a sovereign country.
The real battle/plan for the Corporate corrupt White House is to try and get a foothold in
Syria and establish a military dictator after a coup d'etat'. As we know it's what they, the West,
do best.
Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering
neo-Nazi's.
In the interest of right is right; Good Luck Mr Putin !! I'm with you all the way.
weematt 30 Oct 2015 19:25
War (and poverty too) a consequence, concomitant, of competing for markets, raw materials and
trade routes or areas of geo-political dominance, come to be seen as 'natural' outcomes of society,
but are merely concomitants of a changeable social system.
... ... ...
Greg_Samsa 30 Oct 2015 19:21
Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the
opposite fronts on the Syrian soil?
This gives a whole new dimension to the term 'blue-on-blue'.
Kevin Donegan 30 Oct 2015 18:59
Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law.
"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty
over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle
of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how
large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia,
signed in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, in which the major continental European states
– the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic – agreed to respect one
another's territorial integrity. As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian
principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and
to the prevailing world order.[1]"
foolisholdman 30 Oct 2015 18:41
As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such
as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance
of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change.
If ever there was a government hat had lost its legitimacy the present US government is it.
foolisholdman -> Johnny Kent 30 Oct 2015 18:31
Johnny Kent
The slight question of legality in placing troops in a sovereign country without permission
or UN approval is obviously of no importance to the US...and yet they criticise Russia for
'annexing Crimea...
Yes, but you see: the two cases are not comparable because the USA is exceptional.
You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting
demonstrators who demonstrated
against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime
had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot
up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but
on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their
weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively.
However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional)
human beings.
WalterCronkiteBot 30 Oct 2015 17:11
What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international
law?
Noone seems to even raise it as an issue, its all about congressional approval. Just like the
UK drone strikes.
"... millions of people in the Islamic world have reached their own conclusion about responsibility. ..."
"... Deeply distrusting anything coming from Washington, many are buying into a theory based not on facts or evidence but the assumption that the West and Israel are capable of anything. ..."
"... When I was in Iraq in 2004 I had a Turkish contractor I worked with there (he owned a generator maintenance/repair shop) tell me it was unfortunate that Bush did not understand that the Israelis paid for and helped to execute the WTC blowup. ..."
"... To be perfectly frank, I told him it would not have surprised me in the least if it were true. ..."
While Western leaders declare they have incontrovertible, if
not yet public, proof that Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden was behind
the attacks, millions of people in the Islamic world have
reached their own conclusion about responsibility.
Deeply distrusting anything coming
from Washington, many are buying into a theory based not on facts or
evidence but the assumption that the West and Israel are capable of
anything.
It's only a conspiracy theory if you have a deerstalker turban.
This story has been circulating in various forms over there for years.
When I was in Iraq in 2004 I had a Turkish contractor I worked with there
(he owned a generator maintenance/repair shop) tell me it was unfortunate
that Bush did not understand that the Israelis paid for and helped to execute
the WTC blowup.
To be perfectly frank, I told him it would not have surprised me in the
least if it were true.
...the dystopia of the Wachowski Brothers' Matrix trilogy is already here: the
technological-industrial 'machine' is already running the world, a world where individual
humans are but insignificant little cogs with barely any autonomy. No single human
being - neither the most powerful politician, nor the most powerful businessman
- has the power to rein in the system. They necessarily have to follow the inexorable
logic of what has been unleashed.
~ G Sampath on John Zerzan
Neo: I can't go back, can I?
Morpheus: No. But if you could, would you really want to? ...We never free a mind
once it's reached a certain age. It's dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go...
As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.
~ The Matrix
Notable quotes:
"... And if they (Pentagon, DoD, etc…) resist new guidance, what is going to be done about it? ..."
"... It seems to me like the major sovereignty-violating actions of the US Gov't happen with the approval of the executive branch. The military and intelligence services generally don't speak out or publicly act against the president's policies. They do leak a bunch of shit everywhere (the mysterious "high-ranking anonymous Obama official" who seems to pop up whenever the president's policies need to be opposed), but that you can live with. ..."
Are we assuming that the Pentagon, DoD, etc… are just going to accept
new guidance from the top? (That sounds like wishful thinking to me.)
And if they (Pentagon, DoD, etc…) resist new guidance, what is going
to be done about it? Currently more Americans trust the military than any
institution or politician. I highly doubt anyone could swing public opinion
against the Deep State at this point in time.
Daryl
It seems to me like the major sovereignty-violating actions of the US
Gov't happen with the approval of the executive branch. The military and
intelligence services generally don't speak out or publicly act against
the president's policies. They do leak a bunch of shit everywhere (the mysterious
"high-ranking anonymous Obama official" who seems to pop up whenever the
president's policies need to be opposed), but that you can live with.
JKF? I didn't know that the historian John King Fairbank was assassinated.
roadrider
Then I guess you have solid evidence to account for the actions of Allen
Dulles, David Atlee Phillips, William Harvey, David Morales, E. Howard Hunt,
Richard Helms, James Angleton and other CIA personnel and assets who had
perhaps the strongest motives to murder Kennedy
the means to carry out the crime, namely, their executive action
(assassination) capability and blackmail the government into aiding their
cover up and
the opportunity to carry out such a plan given their complete
lack of accountability to the rest of the government and their unmatched
expertise in lying, deceit, secrecy, fraud.
Because if you actually took the time to research or at least read about
their actions in this matter instead of just spouting bald assertions that
you decline to back up with any facts you would find their behavior nearly
impossible to explain other than having at, the very least, guilty knowledge
of the crime.
"... Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. ..."
"... Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen. ..."
"... After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare, and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's legacy! ..."
"... I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. ..."
"... amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience. ..."
"... Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution. Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons. ..."
"... The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies US enemies. ..."
"... The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny.. ..."
"... There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. ..."
"... With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the so-called US military-industrial complex. ..."
"... Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ... all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light. ..."
"... The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy. ..."
"... What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money we don't have. ..."
"... Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian airstrikes? ..."
"... That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international law all the time. ..."
"... Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation? ..."
"... The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S. was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel, while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria. The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes. ..."
"... Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions. ..."
"... I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated. ..."
"... Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR? ..."
"... Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military, throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy, and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion. ..."
"... You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain this to the public, sadly. ..."
"... Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything he says anymore. ..."
"... There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war, UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene. ..."
"... You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically, WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both? ..."
"... ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against our own mercenaries make sense??? ..."
"... Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts! ..."
"... ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to suffer. ..."
"... The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America lost any claim to 'leadership' by now. ..."
"... Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. ..."
"... Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc. ..."
"... The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's a War Crime by every standard ..."
"... See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR. ..."
"... But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve up Syria a sovereign country. ..."
"... Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is a sovereign country. ..."
"... Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering neo-Nazi's. ..."
"... Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the opposite fronts on the Syrian soil? ..."
"... Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law. ..."
"... Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law ..."
"... As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change. ..."
"... You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting demonstrators who demonstrated against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively. ..."
"... However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional) human beings. ..."
"... What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international law? ..."
NATO and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria .... they make a desert and call
it peace.
ID7582903 1 Nov 2015 06:19
"Credibility"? Beware and be aware folks. This isn't a monopoly game being played here; it's
for real.
2015 Valdai conference is Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict
in Tomorrow's World. In the period between October 19 and 22, experts from 30 countries have been
considering various aspects of the perception of war and peace both in the public consciousness
and in international relations, religion and economic interaction between states. Videos w live
translations and english transcripts (a keeper imho)
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548
30 Oct, 2015 - The day US announces Ground troops into Syria, and the day before the downing/crash
of the Russian Airbus 321 in the Sinai, this happened:
Russia has conducted a major test of its strategic missile forces, firing numerous ballistic and
cruise missiles from various training areas across the country, videos
uploaded by the Ministry of Defense have shown.
A routine exercise, possibly the largest of its kind this year, was intended to test the command
system of transmitting orders among departments and involved launches
from military ranges on the ground, at sea and in the air, the ministry said Friday.
30.10.2015
Since the beginning of its operation in Syria on September 30, Russian Aerospace Forces have carried
out 1,391 sorties in Syria, destroying a total of 1,623 terrorist targets, the Russian General
Staff said Friday.
In particular, Russian warplanes destroyed 249 Islamic State command posts, 51 training camps,
and 131 depots, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Russian General Staff Main Operations Directorate
said.
"In Hanshih, a suburb of Damascus, 17 militants of the Al-Ghuraba group were executed in public
after they tried to leave the combat area and flee to Jordan," he specified. "The whole scene
was filmed in order to disseminate the footage among the other groups operating in the vicinity
of Damascus and other areas", the General Staff spokesman said. In the central regions of the
country, the Syrian Army managed to liberate 12 cities in the Hama province, Kartapolov said.
"The Syrian armed forces continue their advance to the north," the general added.
Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried
to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow
statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. What an insult to our intelligence! We
are well aware that the US provides the logistical and technical support, and refuelling of warplanes
to the Saudi coalition illegal war in Yemen. Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and
other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and
destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen.
After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to
diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish
alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare,
and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened
ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's
legacy!
Barmaidfromhell -> WSCrips 1 Nov 2015 03:52
Well said.
I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the
anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. Obviously carefully selected
to follow any line given them and amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience.
Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution.
Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as
the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear
day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons.
Michael Imanual Christos -> Pete Piper 1 Nov 2015 00:28
Pete Piper
In brief;
The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies
US enemies.
... ... ...
midnightschild10 31 Oct 2015 21:35
When Obama denounced Russia's actions in Syria, and blamed them for massive loss of civilian
lives, Russia responded by asking them to show their proof. The Administration spokesperson said
they got their information from social media. No one in the Administration seems to realize how
utterly stupid that sounds. Marie Harf is happily developing the Administration's foreign policy
via Twitter. As the CIA and NSA read Facebook for their daily planning, Obama reads the comments
section of newspapers to prepare for his speech to the American public in regard to putting boots
on the ground in Syria, and adding to the boots in Iraq. If it didn't result in putting soldiers
lives in jeopardy, it would be considered silly. Putin makes his move and watches as the Obama
Administration makes the only move they know, after minimal success in bombing, Obama does send
in the troops. Putin is the one running the game. Obama's response is so predictable. No wonder
the Russians are laughing. In his quest to outdo Cheyney, Obama has added to the number of wars
the US is currently involved in. His original claim to fame was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which then resulted in starting Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 2.0. Since helping to depose the existing
governments in the Middle East, leading not only to the resurgence of AlQuaeda, and giving birth
to ISIS, and leaving chaos and destruction in his wake, he decided to take down the last standing
ruler, hoping that if he does the same thing over and over, he will get a different result. Obama's
foreign policy legacy had been considered impotent at best, now its considered ridiculous.
SomersetApples 31 Oct 2015 20:03
We bombed them, we sent armies of terrorist in to kill them, we destroyed their hospitals and
power plants and cities, we put sanctions on them and we did everything in our power to cut off
their trading with the outside world, and yet they are still standing.
The only thing left to do, lets send in some special military operatives.
This is so out of character, or our perceived character of Obama. It must be that deranged
idiot John McCain pulling the strings.
Rafiqac01 31 Oct 2015 16:58
The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny....having
just watched CNNs Long Road to Hell in Iraq....and the idiots advising Bush and Blair you have
to wonder the extent to which these are almighty balls ups or very sophisticated planning followed
up by post disaster rationalisation....
whatever the conclusion it proves that the intervention or non interventions prove their is
little the USA has done that has added any good value to the situation...indeed it is an unmitigated
disaster strewn around the world! Trump is the next generation frothing at the mouth ready to
show what a big John Wayne he is!!
DavidFCanada 31 Oct 2015 13:56
There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling
countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. That US legacy
will forever remain, burnt into skins and bodies of the living and dead, together with a virtually
unanimous recognition in the ME of the laughable US pretexts of supporting democracy, the rule
of law, religious freedom and, best of all, peace. Obama is merely the chief functionary of a
nation of lies.
Informed17 -> WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:47
Are you saying that there was no illegal invasion of Iraq? No vial of laundry detergent was
presented at the UN as "proof" that Iraq has WMDs? No hue and cry from "independent" media supported
that deception campaign? Were you in a deep coma at the time?
Informed17 -> somethingbrite 31 Oct 2015 13:36
No. But the US trampled on the international law for quite a while now, starting with totally
illegal interference in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:18
Hey Guardian Editors.....and all those who worshipped Obama....In America, there were folks
from the older generation that warned us that this Community Organizer was not ready for the Job
of President of the United States....it had nothing to do with his color, he just was not ready.....he
was a young, inexperienced Senator, who never, ever had a real job, never had a street fight growing
up pampered in Hawaii, was given a pass to great universities because his parents had money, and
was the dream Affirmative Action poster boy for the liberal left. Obama has not disappointed anyone
who tried to warn us......and now we will reap what he has sowed:
1. 8 Trillion to our debt
2. Nightmare in the Middleast (how is that Arab Spring)
3. Polarized America....Dems and Republicans hate each other....hate each other like the Irish
and English...10 x over.
4. War on Cops
5. War with China
6. Invasion from Central America
I see a great depression and World War IV on the horizon....and I am being positive!
SaveRMiddle 31 Oct 2015 12:47
Nothing Obama says has any value. We've watched the man lie with a grin and a chuckle.
Forever Gone is all trust.
His continued abuse of Red Line threats spoke volumes about the lawyer who Reactively micromanages
that which required and deserved an expert Proactive plan.
Let History reflect the horrific death CIA meddling Regime Change/Divide and Conquer creates.
HeadInSand2013 31 Oct 2015 12:45
Liberal activists were in little doubt that Obama has failed to live up to his commitment
to avoid getting dragged directly into the war.
With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President
is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the
so-called US military-industrial complex.
Liberal activists are stupid enough to think that M. Obama is actually in charge of the US
military or the US foreign policy. Just go back and count how many times during the last 6 years
M. Obama has made a declaration and then - sometimes the next day - US military has over-ruled
him.
Mediaking 31 Oct 2015 10:00
Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the
Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration
camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their
respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ...
all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone
has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light.
USA forces coming to the aid of their 5 individuals... yes 1,2,3,4,5 ( stated by US command-
there are only that amount of FSA fighters left - the rest have gone over to ISIL with their equipment -- ) the local population all speak of ISIL/Daesh being American/Israeli ,they say if this is a
civil war how come all the opposition are foreigners -- I think perhaps it's like the Ukraine affair...
a bunch of CIA paid Nazi thugs instigating a coup ... or like Venezuela agents on roof tops shooting
at both sides in demonstrations to get things going. The usual business of CIA/Mossad stuff in
tune with the mass media with their engineered narratives -- Followed by the trolls on cyber space...
no doubt we shall see them here too.
All note that an Intervention in Syria would be "ILLEGAL" by Int. law and sooner than later
will be sued in billions for it...on top of the billions spent on having a 5 person strong force
of FSA...spent from the American tax payers money . Syria has a government and is considered a
state at the UN . Iran and Russia are there at the request and permission of Syria .
Russia and Iran have been methodically wiping out Washington's mercenaries on the ground while
recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists. Now that the terrorists
are getting wiped out the west and the Saudis are are screaming blue murder !
I for one would have Assad stay , as he himself suggests , till his country is completely free
of terrorists, then have free elections . I would add , to have the Saudis and the ones in the
west/Turkey/Jordan charged for crimes against humanity for supplying and creating Daesh/ISIS .
This element cannot be ignored . Also Kurdistan can form their new country in the regions they
occupy as of this moment and Mosul to come. Iran,Russia,Iraq, Syria and the new Kurdistan will
sign up to this deal . Millions of Syrian refugees can then come back home and rebuild their broken
lives with Iranian help and cash damages from the mentioned instigators $400 billion . The cash
must be paid into the Syrian central bank before any elections take place ... Solved...
My consultancy fee - 200ml pounds sterling... I know ... you wish I ruled the world (who knows
!) - no scams please or else -- ( the else would be an Apocalypse upon the western equity markets
via the Illuminati i.e a 49% crash )... a week to pay , no worries since better to pay for a just
solution than to have million descend upon EU as refugees . It is either this or God's revenge
with no mercy .
amacd2 31 Oct 2015 09:52
Obama, being more honest but also more dangerous than Flip Wilson says, "The Empire made me
do it",
Bernie, having "reservations" about what Obama has done, says nothing against Empire, but continues
to pretend, against all evidence, that this is a democracy.
Hillary, delighting in more war, says "We came, we bombed, they all died, but the Empire won."
Talk about 'The Issue' to debate for the candidates in 2016?
"What's your position on the Empire?"
"Oh, what Empire, you ask?"
"The friggin Empire that you are auditioning to pose as the president of --- you lying tools
of both the neocon 'R' Vichy party and you smoother lying neoliberal-cons of the 'D' Vichy party!"
lightstroke -> Pete Piper 31 Oct 2015 09:41
Nukes are not on the table. Mutually Assured Destruction.
The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to
have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy.
It's not necessary to win wars to exercise that power. All they have to do is start them and
keep them going until the arms industry makes as much dough from them as possible. That's the
only win they care about.
What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money
we don't have.
Taku2 31 Oct 2015 09:26
Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are
fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will
he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian
airstrikes?
How stupid can a President get?
Obama does need to pull back on this one, even though it will make his stupid and erroneous
policy towards the Syrian tragedy seem completely headless. If this stupid and brainless policy
is meant to be symbolic, its potential for future catastrophic consequences is immeasurable.
phillharmonic -> nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:56
That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign
troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international
law all the time.
nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:35
Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State
And who are those then? Do they exist, do we have any reliable source confirming they are really
simultaneously fighting IS and Syrian Army or is it yet another US fairy tale?
Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government
or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why
is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation?
phillharmonic 31 Oct 2015 08:33
The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S.
was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel,
while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were
arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't
going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria.
The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused
a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to
oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes.
amacd2 -> Woody Treasure 31 Oct 2015 08:31
Woody, did you mean "Obama is a foil (for the Disguised Global Crony-Capitalist Empire--- which
he certainly is), or did you mean to say "fool" (which he certainly is not, both because he is
a well paid puppet/poodle for this Global Empire merely HQed in, and 'posing' as, America ---
as Blair and Camron are for the same singular Global Empire --- and because Obama didn't end his
role as Faux/Emperor-president like JFK), eh?
Nena Cassol -> TonyBlunt 31 Oct 2015 06:48
Assad's father seized power with a military coup and ruled the country for 30 years, before
dying he appointed his son, who immediately established marshal law, prompting discontent even
among his father's die-hard loyalists ...this is plain history, is this what you call a legitimate
leader?
Cycles 31 Oct 2015 06:41
Forced to go in otherwise the Russians and Iranians get full control. Welcome to the divided
Syria a la Germany after WW2.
TonyBlunt -> Nena Cassol 31 Oct 2015 06:36
"It does not take much research to find out that Assad is not legitimate at all"
Please share your source with us Nena. But remember Langley Publications don't count.
TonyBlunt -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 06:29
The Americans do not recognise international law. They do not sign up to any of it and proclaim
the right to break it with their "exceptionalism".
Katrin3 -> herrmaya 31 Oct 2015 05:27
The Russians, US, Iran etc are all meeting right now in Vienna. The Russians and the US military
do communicate with each other, to avoid attacking each other by mistake.
The Russians are in the West and N.West of Syria. The US is going into the N. East, near IS
headquarters in Raqqa, to support the Kurdish YPG, who are only a few kilometers from the city.
Katrin3 -> ID6693806 31 Oct 2015 05:15
Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are
also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following
the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions.
I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend
their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated.
centerline ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:48
The Kurds are the fabled moderate opposition who are willing to negotiate, and who have also
fought with the Syrian government against US backed ISIS and al Nusra so called moderate opposition.
Pete Piper -> Verbum 31 Oct 2015 04:47
@Verbum Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became
insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR?
Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds
corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being
invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military,
throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total
surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy,
and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have
laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion.
gabriel90 -> confettifoot 31 Oct 2015 04:46
ISiS is destroying Syria thanks to the US and Saudi Arabia; its an instrument to spread chaos
in the Middle East and attack Iran and Russia...
ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:21
So, on the day peace talks open, the US unilaterally announces advice boots on the ground to
support one of the many sides in the Syrian War, who will undoubtedly want self determination,
right on Turkey's border, as they always have, and as has always been opposed by the majority
of the Syrian population. What part of that isn't completely mad?
Great sympathy for the situation of the Kurds in Syria under Assad, but their nationalism issue
and inability to work together with the Sunni rebels, was a major factor in the non formation
of a functioning opposition in Syria, and will be a block to peace, not its cause. It's also part
of a larger plan to have parts of Turkey and Iraq under Kurdish control to create a contingent
kingdom. Whatever the merits of that, the US deciding to support them at this stage is completely
irrational, and with Russia and Iran supporting Assad will lengthen the war, not shorten it.
MissSarajevo 31 Oct 2015 04:21
Just a couple of things here. How does the US know who the moderates are?!? Is this another
occasion that the US is going to use International law as toilet paper? The US will enter (as
if they weren't already there, illegally. They were not invited in by the legitimate leader of
Syria.
gabriel90 31 Oct 2015 04:19
Warbama is just trying to save his saudi/qatari/turk/emirati dogs of war... they will be wiped
out by Russia and the axis of resistance...
Pete Piper -> Michael Imanual Christos 31 Oct 2015 04:08
Does anyone see anything rational in US foreign policy? When I hear attempts to explain, they
vary around .. "it's about oil". But no one ever shows evidence continuous wars produced more
oil for anyone. So, are we deliberately creating chaos and misery? Why? To make new enemies we
can use to justify more war? We've now classified the number of countries we are bombing. Why?
The countries being bombed surely know.
Pete Piper -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 03:50
You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade
Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized
by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain
this to the public, sadly.
Only the US routinely violates other nations' sovergnity. Since Korea, the only nation that
has ever used military force against a nation not on its border is the US.
Can anyone find rationality in US foreign policy? We are supposed to be fighting ISIL, but
Saudi Arabia and Israel appear to be helping ISIL to force Syrian regime change. And the US is
supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia that are routed to ISIL. Supposedly because eliminating President
Asad is more important than fighting ISIL? The US public is being misled into thinking we are
NOW fighting ISIL. After Asad is killed, then we will genuinely fight ISIL? Russia, Iran, and
more(?) will fight to keep Asad in power and then fight ISIL? THIS IS OBVIOUS BS, AND ALSO FUBAR.
By all means, get everyone together for some diplomacy.
oldholbornian -> lesmandalasdeniki 31 Oct 2015 03:36
Well lets look at Germany the centre of christian culture and the EU
reminds me of emporer franz josef in europe about 100 years ago .. meant well but led to ruination
..i dont think that there has been an american president involved in more wars than obama
obama by his cairo speech kicked of the arab spring ..shows that words can kill
however.. the experience he now has gained may lead to an avoidance of a greater sunni shia
war in syria if the present vienna talks can offer something tangible and preserve honour to the
sunnis .. in the mid east honour and macho are key elements in negotiations
iran however is a shia caliphate based regime and unless it has learnt the lesson from yemen
on the limitations of force may push for further success via army and diplomacy and control in
syria and iraq
oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 02:42
But Obama's latest broken promise to avoid an "open-ended action" in Syria could lead to a
full-blown war with Russia considering that Russian military has been operating in Syria for weeks.
" For the first time ever, the American strategists have developed an illusion that they
may defeat a nuclear power in a non-nuclear war," Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin
told AP. "It's nonsense, and it will never happen."
Any US / terrorist engagement with the Syrian security forces will include engaging with its
allies Russia
Once the firing starts Russia will include the US as terrorists with no rights to be in Syrian
and under the UN RULES have the right to defend themselves against the US
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:32
Hmm Foreign snipers on rooftops ( not in the control of the government) how many times is this
scenario going to be played out before the 'press' twigs it than something is not making sense.
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:29
Though in one demonstration there was snipers on rooftops shooting both deconstratirs and the
police - far more police were killed than demonstrators - what does this reming you of? Was these
actions seemingly out of the control of the government a preliminary to what happened in Kiev
during the maidan - practices get the technics right I suppose. - outside forces were obviously
at work ' stirring the pot.
Anna Eriksson 31 Oct 2015 02:24
Let's hope that the US will help out with taking in some refugees as well! In Germany, and
Sweden locals are becoming so frustrated and angry that they set refugee shelters on fire. This
is a trend in both Sweden and Germany, as shown in the maps in the links. There have almost been
90 arsons in Germany so far this year, almost 30 in Sweden.
Nobody tells the American people and nobody else really cares, but these 40-something guys
being sent to Syria are possibly there as:
cannon fodder: to deter the Russians from bombing and Iranians from attacking on the ground
the American friendly anti-Assad militant groups;
to collect and report more accurate intel from the front line (again about the Russian/Iranian
troops deployment/movement).
The Russian and Iranian troops on the ground will soon engage and sweep anti-Assad forces in
key regions in Western Syria. This will be slightly impeded if Americans are among them. But accidents
do happen, hence the term "cannon fodder".
The Russians and Iranians will likely take a step back militarily though for the duration of
talks, so the American plan to protect Saudi backed fighters is likely to work.
I never involved or mentioned ISIS because this is NOT about fighting ISIS. It's about counteracting
the Russian/Irania sweep in the area, and ultimately keeping the Americans in the game (sorry,
war).
petervietnam 31 Oct 2015 01:13
The world's policeman or the world's trouble maker?
Austin Young -> Will D 31 Oct 2015 00:34
But he's the "change we can believe in" guy! Oh right... Dem or republican, they spew anything
and everything their voters want to hear but when it comes time to walk the walk the only voice
in their head is Cash Money.
lesmandalasdeniki -> Bardhyl Cenolli 30 Oct 2015 23:34
It frustrates me, anyone who will be the problem-solver will be labeled as dangerous by the
Western political and business leaders if the said person or group of people can not be totally
controlled for their agenda.
This will be the first time I will be speaking about the Indonesian forest fires that started
from June this year until now. During the period I was not on-line, I watched the local news and
all channels were featuring the same problem every day during the last two-weeks.
US is also silent about it during Obama - Jokowi meeting, even praising Jokowi being on the
right track. After Jokowi came back, his PR spin is in the force again, he went directly to Palembang,
he held office and trying to put up an image of a President that cared for his people. He couldn't
solve the Indonesian forest fires from June - October, is it probably because Jusuf Kalla has
investment in it?
My point is, US and the Feds, World Bank and IMF are appointing their puppets on each country
they have put up an investment on terms of sovereign debt and corporate debt/bonds.
And Obama is their puppet.
Will D 30 Oct 2015 23:30
Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises
and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything
he says anymore.
He has turned out to be a massive disappointment to all those who had such high hopes that
he really would make the world a better place. His failure and his abysmal track record will cause
him to be remembered as the Nobel Peace prize wining president who did exactly the opposite of
what he promised, and failed to further the cause of peace.
Greg_Samsa -> Greenacres2002 30 Oct 2015 23:07
Consistency is at the heart of logic, all mathematics, and hard sciences.
Even the legal systems strive to be free of contradictions.
I'd rather live in world with consistency of thought and action as represented by the Russian
Federation, then be mired in shit created by the US who have shed all the hobgoblins pestering
the consistency of their thoughts and actions.
Never truly understood the value of this stupid quote really...
Phil Atkinson -> PaulF77 30 Oct 2015 22:28
There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic
and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something
critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit
and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war,
UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene.
You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically,
WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both?
MainstreamMedia Propaganda 30 Oct 2015 22:03
ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against
our own mercenaries make sense???
I think blatant policy changes like this show just how ineffectual the US president actually
is. The hand over between Bush and Obama has been seamless. Gitmo still going, patriot act renewed,
Libya a smoldering ruin (4 years down the line), no progress on gun control, troops in Afganistan
and Iraq... it goes on...
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:58
"It's really hard to see how this tiny number of troops embedded on the ground is going
to turn the tide in any way."
Or the U.S. could carry out air strikes against Hezbollah which has been fighting ISIS for
a while now. They could also supply weapons to ISIS (who are dubbed 'moderates') to counter Russian
airstrikes and Iranian man power.
Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its
foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This
is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those
countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements
with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different
groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking
about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts!
Phil Atkinson -> Harry Bhai 30 Oct 2015 21:57
Fuck the al-Sauds and their oil. If the US wants their oil (and there's plenty of other oil
sellers in the world) then just take it. Why not be consistent?
templeforjerusalem 30 Oct 2015 21:51
IS has shown itself to be deeply hateful of anything that conflicts with their narrow religious
interpretations. Destroying Palmyra, murdering indiscriminately, without any clear international
agenda other than the formation of a new Sunni Sharia State, makes them essentially enemies of
everybody. Although I do agree that belligerent secular Netanyahu's Israel sets a bad example
in the area, Israel does not tend to murder over the same primitive values that IS uses, although
there's not much difference in reality.
IS uses extermination tactics, Israel used forced land clearance and concentration camp bombing
(Gaza et al), while the US in Iraq used brutal force. None of this is good but nothing justifies
the shear barbarism of IS. Is there hope in any of this? No. Is Russian and US involvement a major
escalation? Yes.
Ultimately, this is about religious identities refusing to share and demand peace. Sunni vs
Shia, Judeo/Catholic/Protestant West vs Russian Orthodox, secular vs orthodox Israel. No wonder
people are saying Armageddon.
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:50
ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have
an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to
suffer. The only countries and groups that have been successfully fighting ISIS - Assad's
forces, Iranians, Hezbollah, Russians, and Kurds are in fact enemies of either the U.S., Saudis,
Israelis, or Turks. Isn't that strange? The countries and peoples that have suffered the most
and that have actually fought against ISIS effectively are seen as the enemy. Do the powers that
be really want to wipe out ISIS at all costs? No, especially if it involves the Iranians and Russians.
How are Russian boots on the ground - of which there have been many for some time - ok
and American boots bad?
The difference is that of a poison and the antidotum. The American/NATO meddling in Iraq, Libya
and Syria created a truly sick situation which needs to be fixed. That's what the Russians are
doing. Obviously, they have their own objectives and motives for that and are protecting their
own interests, but nevertheless this is the surest way to re-establish semblance of stability
in the Middle East, rebuilt Syria and Iraq, stop the exodus of the refugees, and mend relations
in the region.
The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing
short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America
lost any claim to 'leadership' by now.
I feel sorry for Mr Obama, and indeed America, because he is a decent person, yet most of us
are unaware what forces he has to reckon with behind the scenes. It is clear by now that interests
of corporations and rich individuals, as well as a couple of seemingly insignificant foreign states,
beat the national interest of America all time, anytime. It is astonishing how a powerful, hard
working and talented nation can become beholden to such forces, to its own detriment.
In the end, I do not think the situation is uniquely American. Russia or China given a chance
of total hegemony would behave the same. That's why we need a field of powers/superpowers to keep
one another in check and negotiate rather than enforce solutions.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:02
Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. Yes,
the me has its own problems, including rival versions of Islam and fundamentalism as well as truly
megalomaniac leaders. But in instances (Libya for example) they did truly contribute to the country's
destruction (and I am not excusing Gaddafi, but for the people there sometimes having these leaders
and waiting for generational transformations may be a better solution than instant democracy pills.)
ID7582903 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:00
Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according
to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc.
The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops
into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's
a War Crime by every standard
Obama and the "regime" that rules the United Snakes of America have all gone over the edge
into insanity writ large.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 20:55
To clarify, I meant that all these groups are funded by these Arabic sheikhdoms and it increasingly
appears that th us of a is not as serious in eradicating all of them in the illusion that the
so called softer ones will over through Assad and then it will be democracy, the much misused
and fetishised term. Meanwhile we can carve up the country, Turkey gets a bite and our naughty
bloated allies in Arabia will be happy with their influence. Only if it happened that way...
There is much more than this short and simplified scenario, and yes Russia played its hand
rather well taking the west off guard. And I am not trying to portray Putin as some liberation
prophet either. So perhaps you could say that yes, maybe I have looked into it deep...
BlooperMario -> RedEyedOverlord 30 Oct 2015 20:52
China and Russia are only responding to NY World Bank and IMF cheats and also standing up to
an evil empire that has ruined the middle east.
Time you had a rethink old chap and stopped worshipping Blair; Bush; Rumsfeld etc as your heros.
See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR.
Silly Sailors provoking Chinese Lighthouse keepers.
RoyRoger 30 Oct 2015 19:30
Their Plan B is fucked !!
But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate
corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve
up Syria a sovereign country.
Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian
rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is
a sovereign country.
The real battle/plan for the Corporate corrupt White House is to try and get a foothold in
Syria and establish a military dictator after a coup d'etat'. As we know it's what they, the West,
do best.
Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering
neo-Nazi's.
In the interest of right is right; Good Luck Mr Putin !! I'm with you all the way.
weematt 30 Oct 2015 19:25
War (and poverty too) a consequence, concomitant, of competing for markets, raw materials and
trade routes or areas of geo-political dominance, come to be seen as 'natural' outcomes of society,
but are merely concomitants of a changeable social system.
... ... ...
Greg_Samsa 30 Oct 2015 19:21
Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the
opposite fronts on the Syrian soil?
This gives a whole new dimension to the term 'blue-on-blue'.
Kevin Donegan 30 Oct 2015 18:59
Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law.
"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty
over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle
of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how
large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia,
signed in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, in which the major continental European states
– the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic – agreed to respect one
another's territorial integrity. As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian
principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and
to the prevailing world order.[1]"
foolisholdman 30 Oct 2015 18:41
As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such
as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance
of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change.
If ever there was a government hat had lost its legitimacy the present US government is it.
foolisholdman -> Johnny Kent 30 Oct 2015 18:31
Johnny Kent
The slight question of legality in placing troops in a sovereign country without permission
or UN approval is obviously of no importance to the US...and yet they criticise Russia for
'annexing Crimea...
Yes, but you see: the two cases are not comparable because the USA is exceptional.
You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting
demonstrators who demonstrated
against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime
had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot
up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but
on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their
weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively.
However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional)
human beings.
WalterCronkiteBot 30 Oct 2015 17:11
What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international
law?
Noone seems to even raise it as an issue, its all about congressional approval. Just like the
UK drone strikes.
"... millions of people in the Islamic world have reached their own conclusion about responsibility. ..."
"... Deeply distrusting anything coming from Washington, many are buying into a theory based not on facts or evidence but the assumption that the West and Israel are capable of anything. ..."
"... When I was in Iraq in 2004 I had a Turkish contractor I worked with there (he owned a generator maintenance/repair shop) tell me it was unfortunate that Bush did not understand that the Israelis paid for and helped to execute the WTC blowup. ..."
"... To be perfectly frank, I told him it would not have surprised me in the least if it were true. ..."
While Western leaders declare they have incontrovertible, if
not yet public, proof that Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden was behind
the attacks, millions of people in the Islamic world have
reached their own conclusion about responsibility.
Deeply distrusting anything coming
from Washington, many are buying into a theory based not on facts or
evidence but the assumption that the West and Israel are capable of
anything.
It's only a conspiracy theory if you have a deerstalker turban.
This story has been circulating in various forms over there for years.
When I was in Iraq in 2004 I had a Turkish contractor I worked with there
(he owned a generator maintenance/repair shop) tell me it was unfortunate
that Bush did not understand that the Israelis paid for and helped to execute
the WTC blowup.
To be perfectly frank, I told him it would not have surprised me in the
least if it were true.
Is this a plan of the elite to introduce national security state in action. Are they afraid of the collapse of neoliberal social
order and try to take precautions?
Notable quotes:
"... These factors would have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full
structural integrity, i.e., strength and stiffness. ..."
"... the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. ..."
"... Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping of
a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse. ..."
"... A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires
still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." ..."
"... Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants.
Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S.
Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories : ..."
"... Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were
the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be? ..."
"... Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002, Silverstein
was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was only $386,000,000.
..."
"... Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if an
attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could be greatly
reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way. ..."
"... All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies,
and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never clarified).
..."
"... This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down. ..."
"... http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every
aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully flawed NIST report ..."
"... There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something that
would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area. ..."
"... The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what happened
at WTC. ..."
"... If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless. ..."
"... Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt.
It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob. ..."
"... The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose
information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. ..."
What does the evidence show about the Solomon Brothers Building in Manhattan?
Numerous structural engineers – the people who know the most about office building vulnerabilities and accidents – say that the
official explanation of why building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11 is "impossible", "defies common logic" and "violates
the law of physics":
The collapse of WTC7 looks like it may have been the result of a controlled demolition. This should have been looked
into as part of the original investigation
Robert F. Marceau, with over 30 years of structural
engineering experience:
From videos of the collapse of building 7, the penthouse drops first prior to the collapse, and it can be noted that
windows, in a vertical line, near the location of first interior column line are blown out, and reveal smoke from those
explosions. This occurs in a vertical line in symmetrical fashion an equal distance in toward the center of the building
from each end. When compared to controlled demolitions, one can see the similarities
Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley and 30 years of engineering experience,
says:
Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite
in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition
Steven L. Faseler, structural engineer with
over 20 years of experience in the design and construction industry:
World Trade Center 7 appears to be a controlled demolition. Buildings do not suddenly fall straight down by accident
Alfred Lee Lopez, with 48 years of experience
in all types of buildings:
I agree the fire did not cause the collapse of the three buildings [please ignore any reference in this essay to the
Twin Towers. This essay focuses solely on Building 7]. The most realistic cause of the collapse is that the buildings were
imploded
Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis,
writes:
Why would all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven seconds the same day [i.e. on September
11th]? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three collapses
including the surviving steel samples and the composition of the dust
WTC 7 Building could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and external debris. NO plane hit this building. This
is the only case of a steel frame building collapsing through fire in the world. The fire on this building was small & localized
therefore what is the cause?
In my view, the chances of the three buildings collapsing symmetrically into their own footprint, at freefall speed, by
any other means than by controlled demolition, are so remote that there is no other plausible explanation
How did the structures collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating causes were asymmetrical loading?
The collapses defies common logic from an elementary structural engineering perspective.
***
Heat transmission (diffusion) through the steel members would have been irregular owing to differing sizes of the individual
members; and, the temperature in the members would have dropped off precipitously the further away the steel was from the flames-just
as the handle on a frying pan doesn't get hot at the same rate as the pan on the burner of the stove. These factors would
have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity,
i.e., strength and stiffness.
Structural steel is highly ductile, when subjected to compression and bending it buckles and bends long before reaching
its tensile or shear capacity. Under the given assumptions, "if" the structure in the vicinity started to weaken, the superstructure
above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. The opposite, intact, side of the building would resist
toppling until the ultimate capacity of the structure was reached, at which point, a weak-link failure would undoubtedly occur.
Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping
of a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse.
For this reason alone, I rejected the official explanation for the collapse .
We design and analyze buildings for the overturning stability to resist the lateral loads with the combination of the gravity
loads. Any tall structure failure mode would be a fall over to its side. It is impossible that heavy steel columns could collapse
at the fraction of the second within each story and subsequently at each floor below.We do not know the phenomenon of the high
rise building to disintegrate internally faster than the free fall of the debris coming down from the top.
The engineering science and the law of physics simply doesn't know such possibility. Only very sophisticated controlled
demolition can achieve such result, eliminating the natural dampening effect of the structural framing huge mass that should
normally stop the partial collapse. The pancake theory is a fallacy, telling us that more and more energy would be generated
to accelerate the collapse. Where would such energy would be coming from?
Antonio Artha,with 15+ years of experience
in building design
Fire and impact were insignificant in all three buildings [Again, please ignore any reference to the Twin Towers this essay
focuses solely on WTC7]. Impossible for the three to collapse at free-fall speed. Laws of physics were not suspended on 9/11,
unless proven otherwise
James Milton Bruner, Major, U.S. Air Force,
instructor and assistant professor in the Deptartment of Engineering Mechanics & Materials, USAF Academy, and a technical writer
and editor, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
It is very suspicious that fire brought down Building 7 yet the Madrid hotel fire was still standing after 24 hours of fire.
This is very suspicious to me because I design buildings for a living
David Anthony Dorau, practicing structural
engineer with 18 years' experience in the inspection and design of buildings under 5 stories tall, who worked as a policy analyst
for the Office of Technology Assessment, an arm of the U.S. Congress providing independent research and reports on technological
matters
Russell T. Connors, designed many buildings
and other types of structures
The above is just a sample. Many other structural
engineers have questioned the collapse of Building 7, as have numerous top experts in other relevant disciplines, including:
The top European expert on controlled building demolition, Danny Jowenko (part
1, part 2,
part 3)
Harry G. Robinson, III – Professor and Dean Emeritus, School of Architecture and Design, Howard University. Past President
of two major national architectural organizations – National Architectural Accrediting Board, 1996, and National Council of Architectural
Registration Boards, 1992. In 2003 he was awarded the highest honor bestowed by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute
of Architects, the Centennial Medal. In 2004 he was awarded the District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architecture Societies
Architect of the Year award. Principal, TRG Consulting Global / Architecture, Urban Design, Planning, Project Strategies. Veteran
U.S. Army, awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Viet Nam –
says:
The collapse was too symmetrical to have been eccentrically generated. The destruction was symmetrically initiated to
cause the buildings to implode as they did
Watch this short video on Building 7 by Architects and Engineers (ignore any reference to the Twin Towers, deaths on 9/11, or
any other topics other than WTC7):
Fish In a Barrel
Poking holes in the government's spin on Building 7 is so easy that it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
As just one example, the spokesman for the government agency which says that the building collapsed due to fire said there was
no molten metal at ground zero:
And see witness statements at the beginning of this video
Indeed, not only was structural steel somehow melted on 9/11, but it was evaporated. As the New York Times
reports, an expert
stated about World Trade Center building 7:
A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers
said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated
in extraordinarily high temperatures.
(pay-per-view). Evaporation means conversion from a liquid
to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate
them
Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants.
Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the
U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratories:
Approximately three million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts, and 1 million gallons fell as
rainwater, between 9/11 and 9/21 .
"Firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on [ground zero]. You couldn't even begin to imagine how much water was
pumped in there," said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. "It was like you
were creating a giant lake."
This photograph may capture a sense of how wet the ground became due to the constant spraying:
The fact that there were raging fires and molten metal even after the application of
massive quantities of water and fire retardants shows how silly the government spokesman's claim is.
Again, this has nothing to do with "inside job" no one was killed in the collapse of Building 7, no wars were launched based on
a rallying cry of "remember the Solomon Brothers building", and no civil liberties were lost based on a claim that we have to prevent
future WTC7 tragedies.
It is merely meant to show that government folks sometimes lie even about issues tangentially related to 9/11.
Pooua > Wolfen Batroach • 2 years ago
Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were
the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be?
JusticeFor911 > Pooua
Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002,
Silverstein was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was
only $386,000,000.
I'd say nearly half of $1,000,000,000.00 was the primary cause to include this building with the towers. Keep in mind that
President Bush's brother Marvin was a principal in the company Securacom that provided security for the WTC, United Airlines and
Dulles International Airport. Are dots connecting yet?
Pooua > JusticeFor911
If you buy a new car, you take out full coverage insurance on it. Insuring billion-dollar buildings is standard procedure,
especially when one had already suffered a terrorist attack. You insinuation is nothing but gossip and suggestion.
No, Securacom did not provide security for WTC; that's the job of the Port Authority of NY & NJ. Securacom had a contract to
perform a limited service for PANYNJ, and Marvin Bush was only a bit player (he was on the board of directors) in the company.
Your paranoid ramblings are lies.
IBSHILLIN > Pooua
Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if
an attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could
be greatly reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way.
All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies,
and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never
clarified).
This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down.
Pooua > IBSHILLIN
I find it amazing that you consider yourself such an unquestionable expert that you not only feel qualified to insist that
explosives brought down the WTC buildings, even in contradiction to scores of scientists, engineers and investigators of NIST,
FEMA, FBI and MIT who say otherwise, and you do so without offering any evidence at all to support your bizarre claim.
No building the size of any of the WTC buildings has ever been brought down by controlled demolition, but of those that come
closest, the planning took years, and the rigging took months of hard work by teams of experts working around the clock. This
is not something that can be hidden.
Your suggestion is entirely preposterous and without merit.
NIST, FEMA, FBI and MIT are worthless entities! What about the experts in that documentary? Nanothermite brought them down
smart guy!
Pooua > ihaveabrain • 25 days ago
You posted a 1.5-hour video. I am not here to watch a 1.5-hour video; I'm here to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC
7. If you have something to say, say it here.
NIST has been the premier standards body used by the US government for a century, covering virtually every aspect of engineering
and public safety in this country. It employes thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians. For you to claim that it is
a worthless entity is idiocy on your part.
linked1 > Pooua • 24 days ago
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video
that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully
flawed NIST report
You claim to want to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC-7 but you can't be bothered to watch painstakingly researched
documentaries that include thousands of witnesses, victims, scientists, and structural professionals.
You ought to educate yourself before calling other's claims 'worthless idiocy'. You are wrong, and history will prove you wrong.
Pooua > linked1
I've been reading arguments about 9/11 for two years. I've been arguing about other issues for the last 25 years, at least
since I took a class in classical logic. What you need to understand is, you aren't arguing anything when you send me off to listen
to someone else. The other guy might be arguing something, but you aren't doing anything. And, the fact that I've spent two years
reading everything I could find on the subject makes me strongly suspect that this five-hour video would be just a waste of my
time.
If you want to discuss this matter, then discuss it. Don't send me off to spend hours of my time listening to someone else.
You explain it. If you can't explain it, then you don't understand it, and you are wasting everyone's time.
mulegino1 . > Pooua
The levels of energy required to turn most of the Twin Towers and WTC7 into nanoparticles (thus the pyrocastic flow which only
occurs in volcanic eruptions and nuclear detonations) would be thousands of orders of magnitude greater than airliner impacts
and hydrocarbon based office fires, which are claimed to have initiated a "gravity collapse".
How could a "gravity collapse" perfectly mimic the detonation of a small tactical nuclear device or devices-electromagnetic
pulse, molten lava and a mushroom cloud?
Pooua > mulegino1
I want you to look at this image from the WTC on 9/11. It shows the debris after the Towers collapsed. Does this look like
nanoparticles to you? Most of the debris was bigger than a man's fist.
Thumbnail
There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something
that would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area.
The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what
happened at WTC.
mulegino1 . > Pooua
If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless.
There was indeed a pyroclasticas flow as anyone with youtube can determine for themselves.
Pooua > WilliamBinney • a year ago
It is your job to do more than make idiotic, speculative assertions and pretend that constitutes a reason for disregarding
the government's account of the event. Yet, you all have completely failed to do anything except expose your own inability to
account for the events of that day.
Dizzer13 > Pooua • a year ago
Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt.
It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob.
mulegino1 . > Pooua • 2 years ago
The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose
information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.
The official narrative is so ludicrous from any standpoint that the "debunkers" resort to wildly implausible scenarios in order
to convince the above cited demographic that the government and the major national media were reporting factual information when
in fact they were reading from a script. And it was a very poorly written script. The Bin Laden bogeyman was already being invoked
before the buildings exploded.
What you've got here is a pseudo-religious narrative designed to so enrage the dumbed down sheeple that they will lash out
in their fury against virtually anyone designated by the powers that be as the enemy- a Sorelian myth.
Like any false narrative, the official story breaks down at the level of discrete facts and can only survive as a holistic
mythologized, meta-historical events.
"... If undertaken in earnest, the exercise will prove uncomfortable. The establishment centrists who oppose Trump worry, as they should, that he will violate the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, yet few spoke up when Michael Bloomberg presided over a secret program that profiled and spied on Muslim American students, sowing mistrust while generating zero counterterrorism leads. ..."
"... The establishment centrists who denounced Edward Snowden would have to admit that, if Trump is half as bad as they fear, Americans will be better served knowing the scope and capabilities of NSA surveillance than living in ignorance of it. Some will be forced to admit to themselves that they hope the military remains sprinkled with whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning to speak out against serious abuses. ..."
"... For 16 years or more, establishment centrists have been complicit in a historically reckless trend. Come 2017, it may place Donald Trump at a big table, much like the one on The Apprentice ..."
Wake up, establishment centrists: Donald Trump is coming!
After the Vietnam War and Watergate and the spying scandals uncovered by
the Church Committee and the Nixon Administration cronies who nearly firebombed
the Brookings Institution, Americans were briefly inclined to rein in executive
power-a rebuke to Richard Nixon's claim that "if the president does it, that
means it's not illegal." Powerful committees were created to oversee misconduct-prone
spy agencies. The War Powers Resolution revived a legislative check on warmaking.
"In 34 years," Vice President Dick Cheney would lament to ABC News in a January
2002 interview, "I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability
of the president of the United States to do his job. I feel an obligation...
to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them to our successors."
The Bush Administration aggressively moved to expand executive power, drawing
on the dubious legal maneuvering of David Addington, John Yoo, and their enablers.
Starting in 2005, the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, would repeatedly
insist that Bush's assertions of executive power violated the Constitution.
Nonetheless, Obama inherited a newly powerful executive branch, just as Cheney
had hoped. And rather than dismantle it, Obama spent two terms lending the imprimatur
of centrist, establishment bipartisanship to Cheney's vision.
Now, Donald Trump is coming.
Civil libertarians have long warned the partisans who trusted Bush and Obama,
and the establishment centrists who couldn't imagine anyone in the White House
besides an Al Gore or John Kerry or John McCain or Mitt Romney, that they were
underestimating both the seriousness of civil liberties abuses under Bush and
Obama and the likelihood of even less responsible leaders wreaking havoc in
the White House.
Three years ago, in "
All the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama ,"
I warned that "more and more, we're counting on having angels in office and
making ourselves vulnerable to devils," and that come January, 2017, an unknown
person would enter the Oval Office and inherit all of these precedents:
The president can order American citizens killed, in secret, without
any judicial or legislative review, by declaring them terrorists posing
an imminent threat.
The president can detain prisoners indefinitely without charges or trial.
The president can start a torture program with impunity.
The president can conduct warrantless surveillance on tens of millions
of Americans and tap a database that allows metadata archived in 2007 to
be accessed in 2017.
The federal government can
collect and store DNA swabs of people who have been arrested even if
they are released and never convicted of any crime.
Now, Donald Trump is coming. And many establishment centrists are professing
alarm. There is nothing more establishment than Robert Kagan, a fellow at the
Brookings Institution, writing an op-ed in the Washington Post. He
begins by observing that if Trump wins, his coalition will include tens of millions
of Americans.
"Imagine the power he would wield then," Kagan
wrote . "In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following,
he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command:
the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who
would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that laid down
before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with
infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious,
more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life?
Does vast power un-corrupt?"
Kagan's article seemed well-received and widely shared among establishment
centrists.
Yet neither he nor most others who share his fears have yet acknowledged
their bygone failures of imagination, or granted that civil libertarians were
right: The establishment has permitted the American presidency to get dangerously
powerful.
While writing or sharing articles that compare Trump to Hitler, Mussolini,
and Franco, few if any have called on Obama or Congress to act now "
to tyrant-proof the White House ." However much they fear Trump, however
rhetorically maximalist they are in warning against his elevation, even the
prospect of him controlling the entire apparatus of the national security state
is not enough to cause them to rethink their reckless embrace of what Gene Healy
calls "
The Cult of the Presidency ," a centrist religion that persisted across
the Bush administration's torture chambers and the Obama administration's unlawful
War in Libya.
With a reality-TV bully is on the doorstep of the White House, still they
hesitate to urge reform to a branch of government they've long regarded as more
than co-equal.
They needn't wait for the Nixon-era abuses to replay themselves as farce
or worse to change course. Their inaction is irresponsible. Just as the conservative
movement is duty bound to grapple with its role in a populist demagogue seizing
control of the Republican Party, establishment centrists ought to grapple with
the implicit blessing they've given to the extraordinary powers Trump would
inherit, and that even the less-risky choice, Hillary Clinton, would likely
abuse.
If undertaken in earnest, the exercise will prove uncomfortable. The
establishment centrists who oppose Trump worry, as they should, that he will
violate the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, yet few spoke up when Michael
Bloomberg presided over a secret program that profiled and spied on Muslim American
students, sowing mistrust while generating zero counterterrorism leads.
The establishment centrists who denounced Edward Snowden would have to
admit that, if Trump is half as bad as they fear, Americans will be better served
knowing the scope and capabilities of NSA surveillance than living in ignorance
of it. Some will be forced to admit to themselves that they hope the military
remains sprinkled with whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning to speak out against
serious abuses.
For 16 years or more, establishment centrists have been complicit in a historically
reckless trend. Come 2017, it may place Donald Trump at a big table, much like
the one on The Apprentice , where he'll decide not which B-list celebrity
to fire, but which humans to kill. Establishment centrists could work to strip
the presidency of that power.
"... I hope that Jonathan Steele's excellent critique of Richard Sakwa's book Frontline Ukraine ( Review , 21 February) will be widely read. It is the first piece I have discovered in the UK press to provide a realistic synopsis of the background to current events. ..."
"... the process was deliberately sabotaged by US intelligence agencies, working from the hypothesis that a tie-up between the EU and a democratic Russia would pose a major threat to American long-term economic interests. ..."
"... (Lieut Cdr, Ret'd; Former Nato intelligence analyst), Deddington, Oxfordshire ..."
I hope that Jonathan Steele's excellent critique of Richard Sakwa's book Frontline Ukraine
(Review,
21 February) will be widely read. It is the first piece I have discovered in the UK press to provide
a realistic synopsis of the background to current events.
The real ending of the cold war was in 1986, when the USSR leadership resolved on a five-year
programme to move to parliamentary democracy and a market economy. The intention in Moscow was to
use that period to achieve a progressive convergence with the EU.
There could have been huge benefits to Europe in such convergence, but the process was deliberately
sabotaged by US intelligence agencies, working from the hypothesis that a tie-up between the EU and
a democratic Russia would pose
a major threat to American long-term economic interests.
The chaos that we now have, and the distrust of America which motivates Russian policy, stems
primarily from decisions taken in Washington 30 years ago.
Martin Packard (Lieut Cdr, Ret'd; Former Nato intelligence analyst), Deddington, Oxfordshire
"... I hope that Jonathan Steele's excellent critique of Richard Sakwa's book Frontline Ukraine ( Review , 21 February) will be widely read. It is the first piece I have discovered in the UK press to provide a realistic synopsis of the background to current events. ..."
"... the process was deliberately sabotaged by US intelligence agencies, working from the hypothesis that a tie-up between the EU and a democratic Russia would pose a major threat to American long-term economic interests. ..."
"... (Lieut Cdr, Ret'd; Former Nato intelligence analyst), Deddington, Oxfordshire ..."
I hope that Jonathan Steele's excellent critique of Richard Sakwa's book Frontline Ukraine
(Review,
21 February) will be widely read. It is the first piece I have discovered in the UK press to provide
a realistic synopsis of the background to current events.
The real ending of the cold war was in 1986, when the USSR leadership resolved on a five-year
programme to move to parliamentary democracy and a market economy. The intention in Moscow was to
use that period to achieve a progressive convergence with the EU.
There could have been huge benefits to Europe in such convergence, but the process was deliberately
sabotaged by US intelligence agencies, working from the hypothesis that a tie-up between the EU and
a democratic Russia would pose
a major threat to American long-term economic interests.
The chaos that we now have, and the distrust of America which motivates Russian policy, stems
primarily from decisions taken in Washington 30 years ago.
Martin Packard (Lieut Cdr, Ret'd; Former Nato intelligence analyst), Deddington, Oxfordshire
"... A lot of commenters here do not understand the danger of yet another neocon warmonger as POTUS. A person who never has a war she did not like. They never experienced the horrors of wars in their lives. Only highly sanitized coverage from MSM. ..."
"... Demonizing of Trump went way too far in this forum. And a lot of commenters like most Web hamsters enjoy denigrating him, forgetting the fact that a vote for Hillary is the vote for a war criminal. ..."
"... Moreover, lesser evilism considerations are not working for war criminals. They are like absolute zero in Kelvin scale. You just can't go lower. ..."
"... But again those are secondary considerations. "War vs peace" question in the one that matters most. Another reckless warmongers and all bets might be off for the country (with an unexpected solution for global warming problem) ..."
Obama and Hill Clinton are Saudi tools same as W. Keeping AUMF going the
past 8 years lets W off a lot of the Iraq/WMD and Afghanistan hooks!
Bill's adventures included firing a general for commenting on the craziness
of losing people over Serbia.
Bill's evolutionary adventures in the Balkans are anti Russian neocon
trials. Their exceptionalism pushed Russia around and moved NATO eastward
reneging on deals Bush Sr. had with the Russians.
Hillary, extending Bill's neocon meme* over Ukraine and Libya are nearing
W level insanity.
Nuland (married to the neocon Kagan family) came with Strobe Talbot in
1993.
We really facing a vote for a person who would probably be convicted
by Nuremberg tribunal.
All those factors that are often discussed like Supreme court nominations,
estate tax, etc, are of secondary importance to the cardinal question --
"war vs peace" question.
A lot of commenters here do not understand the danger of yet another
neocon warmonger as POTUS. A person who never has a war she did not like.
They never experienced the horrors of wars in their lives. Only highly sanitized
coverage from MSM.
Demonizing of Trump went way too far in this forum. And a lot of commenters
like most Web hamsters enjoy denigrating him, forgetting the fact that a
vote for Hillary is the vote for a war criminal.
"Trump this and Trump that" blabbing can't hide this important consideration.
Moreover, lesser evilism considerations are not working for war criminals.
They are like absolute zero in Kelvin scale. You just can't go lower.
Moreover, after Bush II there is a consensus that are very few people
in the USA who are unqualified to the run the country. From this point of
view Trump is extremely qualified (and actually managed to master English
language unlike Bush II with his famous Bushisms ).
But again those are secondary considerations. "War vs peace" question
in the one that matters most. Another reckless warmongers and all bets might
be off for the country (with an unexpected solution for global warming problem)
Bill Clinton was a regular neoliberal bottom feeder (in essence not that different from drunkard
Yeltsin) without any strategical vision or political courage, He destroyed the golden possibility of
rapprochement of the USA and Russia (which would require something like Marshall plan to help Russia).
Instead he decided to plunder the country. It's sad that now Hillary will continue his policies, only
in more jingoistic, dangerous fashion. She learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency. ..."
"... Russia simply ceased to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic horizon. ..."
"... The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian leadership. ..."
"... This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward: they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999), this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high . ..."
America won the Cold War. But in addition to the USSR, has it defeated Russia? This question,
which is still in the nineties sounded absurd to most people, began to appear in the last decade,
thanks to the work of historians such as Dimitri Simes, John Lewis Gaddis, or in Italy, Adriano Roccucci.
In the United States is widely believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused in large
part by strategic decisions of the Reagan administration. Surely the military and economic pressure
exerted by these contributed to the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and then the final crisis of
the Soviet system. However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution
of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency.
This has resulted, in retrospect, in an overestimation of U.S. policy choices in the mid-eighties
onwards, and in a parallel underestimation of the role played by the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev
came to power in 1985 determined to solve the problems left behind by Brezhnev: overexposure military
in Afghanistan and subsequent explosion of spending on defense, imposed on an economy tremendously
inefficient. But if Reagan pushed the USSR on the edge of the precipice, Gorbachev was disposable,
albeit unwittingly, triggering reforms that escaped the hands of his own theorist.
That fact has been largely removed from public debate and U.S. historiography which has led America
in the second mistake: underestimating the enemy defeated, confusing the defunct Soviet Union with
what was left of his heart - Russia.
In fact, Reagan and Bush Sr. after him fully understand the dangers inherent in the collapse of
the superpower enemy, dealing with Gorbachev touch, even without discounts: the Soviet leader was
refused the pressing demands for economic aid, incompatible with the military escalation Reagan once
to crush the Soviet Union under the weight of war spending.
Even the first Gulf War (1990-91), who saw the massive American intervention in a country (Iraq)
at the time near the borders of the USSR, did not provoke a diplomatic rupture between the two superpowers.
This Soviet weakness undoubtedly was the result of an empire in decline, but remember that even in
1990 no one - least of all, the leadership in Moscow - the Soviet Union finally gave up on us yet.
Despite an election campaign played on the charge to GH Bush to focus too much on foreign policy,
ignoring the economics (It's the economy, stupid), newly installed in the White House Bill Clinton
was not spared aid to Russia, agreeing to this line of credit to be logged on to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), from June 1992. Clinton's support was directed mainly toward the figure of Yeltsin
and his policies, with the exception of waging war against Chechen separatism, in 1994.
If Clinton with these moves proved to understand, like its two predecessors, the importance of
"accompany" the Russian transition, avoiding - or at least contain - the chaos following the collapse
of a continental empire, the other part of his administration demonstrated sinful paternalism and,
above all, acquired the illusion of omnipotence that he saw in the "unipolar moment" end not only
the U.S. opposed the US-USSR, but also of any power ambitions of Russia. Russia simply ceased
to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic
horizon.
The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time
the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost
of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a
power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its
projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian
leadership.
This went hand in hand with growing resentment for the permanent position of inferiority which
they were relegated by Washington. To the point that even the then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,
known by the nickname "Yes sir" for his acquiescence to the dictates of Americans, showed growing
impatience with the brutal Russian downgrading by America.
Indeed, the United States administration did not lack critics: former President Nixon, a number
of businessmen and experts of Russia expressed skepticism or opposition to the Clinton administration
attitude that did not seem to pay particular attention to wounded pride and the strategic interests
of a nation that continued to think of itself as empire. However, these positions does not affect
the dominant view in the administration of the establishment and much of the U.S., where consencus
was that Russia in no longer entitled to have an independent foreign policy.
This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward:
they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999),
this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction
of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high .
Bill Clinton was a regular neoliberal bottom feeder (in essence not that different from drunkard
Yeltsin) without any strategical vision or political courage, He destroyed the golden possibility of
rapprochement of the USA and Russia (which would require something like Marshall plan to help Russia).
Instead he decided to plunder the country. It's sad that now Hillary will continue his policies, only
in more jingoistic, dangerous fashion. She learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency. ..."
"... Russia simply ceased to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic horizon. ..."
"... The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian leadership. ..."
"... This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward: they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999), this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high . ..."
America won the Cold War. But in addition to the USSR, has it defeated Russia? This question,
which is still in the nineties sounded absurd to most people, began to appear in the last decade,
thanks to the work of historians such as Dimitri Simes, John Lewis Gaddis, or in Italy, Adriano Roccucci.
In the United States is widely believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused in large
part by strategic decisions of the Reagan administration. Surely the military and economic pressure
exerted by these contributed to the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and then the final crisis of
the Soviet system. However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution
of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency.
This has resulted, in retrospect, in an overestimation of U.S. policy choices in the mid-eighties
onwards, and in a parallel underestimation of the role played by the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev
came to power in 1985 determined to solve the problems left behind by Brezhnev: overexposure military
in Afghanistan and subsequent explosion of spending on defense, imposed on an economy tremendously
inefficient. But if Reagan pushed the USSR on the edge of the precipice, Gorbachev was disposable,
albeit unwittingly, triggering reforms that escaped the hands of his own theorist.
That fact has been largely removed from public debate and U.S. historiography which has led America
in the second mistake: underestimating the enemy defeated, confusing the defunct Soviet Union with
what was left of his heart - Russia.
In fact, Reagan and Bush Sr. after him fully understand the dangers inherent in the collapse of
the superpower enemy, dealing with Gorbachev touch, even without discounts: the Soviet leader was
refused the pressing demands for economic aid, incompatible with the military escalation Reagan once
to crush the Soviet Union under the weight of war spending.
Even the first Gulf War (1990-91), who saw the massive American intervention in a country (Iraq)
at the time near the borders of the USSR, did not provoke a diplomatic rupture between the two superpowers.
This Soviet weakness undoubtedly was the result of an empire in decline, but remember that even in
1990 no one - least of all, the leadership in Moscow - the Soviet Union finally gave up on us yet.
Despite an election campaign played on the charge to GH Bush to focus too much on foreign policy,
ignoring the economics (It's the economy, stupid), newly installed in the White House Bill Clinton
was not spared aid to Russia, agreeing to this line of credit to be logged on to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), from June 1992. Clinton's support was directed mainly toward the figure of Yeltsin
and his policies, with the exception of waging war against Chechen separatism, in 1994.
If Clinton with these moves proved to understand, like its two predecessors, the importance of
"accompany" the Russian transition, avoiding - or at least contain - the chaos following the collapse
of a continental empire, the other part of his administration demonstrated sinful paternalism and,
above all, acquired the illusion of omnipotence that he saw in the "unipolar moment" end not only
the U.S. opposed the US-USSR, but also of any power ambitions of Russia. Russia simply ceased
to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic
horizon.
The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time
the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost
of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a
power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its
projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian
leadership.
This went hand in hand with growing resentment for the permanent position of inferiority which
they were relegated by Washington. To the point that even the then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,
known by the nickname "Yes sir" for his acquiescence to the dictates of Americans, showed growing
impatience with the brutal Russian downgrading by America.
Indeed, the United States administration did not lack critics: former President Nixon, a number
of businessmen and experts of Russia expressed skepticism or opposition to the Clinton administration
attitude that did not seem to pay particular attention to wounded pride and the strategic interests
of a nation that continued to think of itself as empire. However, these positions does not affect
the dominant view in the administration of the establishment and much of the U.S., where consencus
was that Russia in no longer entitled to have an independent foreign policy.
This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward:
they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999),
this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction
of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high .
"... Our leaders are shallow on the subject of war. No, worse than shallow-they're silent. Which is one reason they will likely not be fully trusted should they make rough decisions down the road on Syria, or Iran, or elsewhere. ..."
"... War is terrible. That should be said over and over, not because it's a box you ought to check on the way to the presidency but because you're human and have a brain. ..."
"... War is always terrible, and it is made even more so when it is waged when it doesn't have to be. Most wars are avoidable and unnecessary, and yet most of our political leaders are reliably in favor of every U.S. military intervention around the world when it matters. Some may later say they regret their support for a previous war, especially if it was a much costlier one than they expected, but at the time the "safe" and "smart" position for ambitious politicians to take is to be for bombing and/or invading. Almost all of the political incentives at least since Desert Storm have flowed in the direction of supporting military action, and so most of the people that seek the presidency have learned not to be an early opponent of any proposed intervention. ..."
"... While there is near-constant U.S. warfare somewhere in the world, hardly anyone in politics talks about the need for peace. Just as our candidates don't express their hatred of war, they typically don't profess their desire for peace for fear that they will be pilloried as "weak." ..."
Peggy Noonan wrote a thoughtful
column on the horrors of war last week:
Our leaders are shallow on the subject of war. No, worse than shallow-they're silent. Which
is one reason they will likely not be fully trusted should they make rough decisions down the
road on Syria, or Iran, or elsewhere.
War is terrible. That should be said over and over, not because it's a box you ought to
check on the way to the presidency but because you're human and have a brain.
War is always terrible, and it is made even more so when it is waged when it doesn't have
to be. Most wars are avoidable and unnecessary, and yet most of our political leaders are reliably
in favor of every U.S. military intervention around the world when it matters. Some may later say
they regret their support for a previous war, especially if it was a much costlier one than they
expected, but at the time the "safe" and "smart" position for ambitious politicians to take is to
be for bombing and/or invading. Almost all of the political incentives at least since Desert Storm
have flowed in the direction of supporting military action, and so most of the people that seek the
presidency have learned not to be an early opponent of any proposed intervention.
Noonan recounts a telling exchange with a politician in which she asked him if he hated war. After
being reassured that he wasn't walking into a trap, he said yes, but still qualified the answer by
saying that war is sometimes necessary. The trouble is that most of our politicians, and almost all
of our presidential candidates, have never seen a war that they thought was unnecessary. Reflexive
interventionists may sometimes include the caveat that they don't want war, but in the next breath
they are keen to tell you why "action" is imperative. Sometimes they dress this up with euphemisms.
They don't talk about going to war, but say that that the U.S. shouldn't be standing "on the sidelines"
or that the U.S. needs to "lead," but invariably this amounts to a demand that force be used in another
country. Sometimes they dress up calls for war with technical terms, such as the much-abused "no-fly
zone" phrase, that obscure what they are talking about. At other times, they simply acquiesce in
a policy of lending support to a client state's horrific war, and that way they don't have to say
anything and can pretend to have nothing to do with it.
It is in this environment that relatively dovish candidates have to emphasize their readiness
to use force while hawkish candidates are under much less pressure to prove that they aren't warmongers.
While there is near-constant U.S. warfare somewhere in the world, hardly anyone in politics talks
about the need for peace. Just as our candidates don't express their hatred of war, they typically
don't profess their desire for peace for fear that they will be pilloried as "weak."
Despite the fact that U.S. forces have been engaged in hostilities for Obama's entire presidency,
the loudest and most frequent criticisms of his foreign policy are that he is supposedly too reluctant
to use force and didn't bomb Syria. If one of the most activist, militarized presidencies in modern
U.S. history is being portrayed in the media as insufficiently aggressive, we aren't likely to hear
our leaders regularly condemning the evils of war.
"... Near the start of the speech, Clinton said, "We are an exceptional nation because we are an
indispensable nation. In fact, we are the indispensable nation." That isn't true, but Clinton's acceptance
of this claim confirms that she understands "American exceptionalism" in a particularly warped way that
justifies interfering all over the globe. That is what Albright's "indispensable nation" rhetoric meant
twenty years ago, and it's what Clinton's rhetoric means today. ..."
"... Cozying up to authoritarian rulers has been and continues to be a significant part of U.S.
"leadership," and if you are in favor of the latter you are going to be stuck with the former. This
rhetoric is especially absurd coming from someone who has repeatedly stressed the importance of supporting
U.S. clients in the Gulf. ..."
"... Overall, Clinton's speech could have been given by a conventional Republican hawk, and some
of the lines could have been lifted from the speeches of some of this year's Republican presidential
contenders. ..."
"... That's exactly what Clinton believes, unfortunately. When she unveiled her "stronger together"
slogan, one of the points she made was that we should have "a bipartisan, even non-partisan foreign
policy." She is basically a Scoop Jackson Democrat. ..."
"... Bill Kristol used to call himself a Scoop Jackson Democrat, too. Maybe he will again. Hillary
must be the only person left who actually thinks embracing the neocons is a way to win votes. But if
that were true, Rubio would be the GOP nominee, rather than the guy who, for all his many faults, didn't
pander to them. ..."
"... Cozying up to dictators is bad, unless they donate large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation.
In that case, you're not "cozying up" to the dictators - you're "reassuring allies" and "protecting
America's credibility." ..."
"... Would the mushroom cloud campaign ad that obliterated the Goldwater candidacy have the same
effect today upon a neocon candidate? Is the ad even copyrighted or otherwise available? ..."
"... Has the American Legion given any Democrat running for president a warm response? Muted sounds
about right to me. Clinton was speaking to many more people than the audience in front of her. She won't
get very many votes from those in the military. No Democrat ever does. Undecided voters (all 2 or 3%
of them), especially Republicans are her real target audience. She looks to sound suitably strong more
important, calm and measured. A safe if not perfect choice for President. Old World Order , August 31,
2016 at 4:32 pm She has learned nothing. Nothing at all. Indeed, she just doubled down on permanent
war. Not surprising, but deeply depressing all the same. ..."
"... If our foreign policy wasn't so obviously failed, I wouldn't mind bipartisan consensus but
since it is FUBAR, I want something new. I just wish I had the ear of any of my fellow Republicans who
consider themselves Religious Conservatives. I just can't get over their blind faith in U.S. hegemony,
especially when they screech at the thought of U.S. politicians doing something as benign as running
a Transportation Fund. Yet they have no problem inflicting these imbeciles with life and death decisions
on the rest of the world. ..."
"... When I see Ted Cruz or a Rubio gaze into the camera about how vital it is for the U.S. to suppress
Russia and China and run the M.E. (they use different words), it astounds me since it contradicts the
Protestant tradition so much where one should be suspicious of human nature. ..."
"... Indispensable to what? Wholesale destabilization of the Middle East? ..."
"... I don't want Trump to win, but neither do I want Clinton to think she has a mandate for this
kind of militarism. Sadly, when it comes foreign policy, it appears not to matter which party has the
presidency anymore. ..."
"... Meanwhile, over at the WaPo, neocon cheerleader Jennifer Rubin loves the same speech: Hillary
Clinton is a responsible centrist .. . ..."
"... If she gets elected I see a high probability of a hot war with Russia. She wouldn't start it
intentionally, it would be the pinnacle of our foreign policy establishment living in their own reality.
I actually have a scenario in mind, when I read Russian sourced sites it strengthens my convictions.
To bad our 'Russian experts' use Ouija boards and entrails instead of actually studying the Russians.
..."
"... Don't be surprised if Clinton pushes Russia to the edge or the US gets mired in a proxy war
with Russia. Everything is a Russian hack/conspiracy these days. They will find a reason to start something.
Smells like yellow cake to me. ..."
"... Hilary should figure out that she is losing votes to Johnson and Stein and perhaps tone back
the rhetoric. Granted she was probably trying to look all Commander in Chiefy but she is so tone deaf
on this stuff. ..."
"... The problem is that the cult that passes for Conservatives in this country values strength
over all. Clinton cannot afford to come across as weak to these people. She is aiming exactly for the
Jennifer Rubins of the world. In America, we do the strong thing, even if it is the wrong thing, because
we will go to hell if we appear to be weak. ..."
Hillary Clinton's
speech to the American Legion in Cincinnati didn't contain anything new or surprising. It was
billed as an endorsement of "American exceptionalism" defined as support for activist foreign policy
and global "leadership," and that is what Clinton delivered. One thing that struck me while listening
to it was the muted response from the audience. Despite Clinton's fairly heavy-handed efforts to
present herself as a friend of veterans and champion of the military, the crowd didn't seem very
impressed. The delivery of the speech was typically wooden, but then no one expects stirring oratory
from Clinton. Either the audience wasn't interested in what they were hearing, or they found Clinton
to be a poor messenger, or both.
The substance was mostly boilerplate cheerleading for the status quo in foreign policy, but a
few particularly jarring lines stood out. Near the start of the speech, Clinton said, "We are
an exceptional nation because we are an indispensable nation. In fact, we are the indispensable
nation." That isn't true, but Clinton's acceptance of this claim confirms that she understands "American
exceptionalism" in a particularly warped way that justifies interfering all over the globe. That
is what Albright's "indispensable nation" rhetoric meant twenty years ago, and it's what Clinton's
rhetoric means today.
Clinton thought that she was dinging Trump when she said, "We can't cozy up to dictators." That
would be all right if it were true, but it is hard to take seriously from a committed supporter of
U.S. "leadership." Cozying up to authoritarian rulers has been and continues to be a significant
part of U.S. "leadership," and if you are in favor of the latter you are going to be stuck with the
former. This rhetoric is especially absurd coming from someone who has repeatedly stressed the importance
of supporting U.S. clients in the Gulf. Clinton has made a point of promising that the U.S.
will stay quite cozy with our despotic clients when she is president, and it is likely that the U.S.
will probably get even cozier still if she has anything to say about it.
Overall, Clinton's speech could have been given by a conventional Republican hawk, and some
of the lines could have been lifted from the speeches of some of this year's Republican presidential
contenders. There were brief nods to the nuclear deal with Iran and New START that a Republican
wouldn't have made, but they were only mentioned in passing. Clinton insisted that "America must
lead" and conjured up a vision of the vacuums that would be created if the U.S. did not do this.
This is a standard hawkish line that implies that the U.S. always has to be involved in conflict
and crises no matter how little the U.S. has at stake in them.
At one point, Clinton asserted, "Defending American exceptionalism should always be above politics."
That amounts to saying that our foreign policy debates should always be narrowly circumscribed and
most of our current policies should always remain beyond challenge or major revision. That's not
healthy for the quality of our foreign policy debates or our foreign policy as a whole, and it shows
the degree to which Clinton is out of touch with much of the country that she thinks this is a credible
thing to say.
"At one point, Clinton asserted, 'Defending American exceptionalism should always be above politics.'
That amounts to saying that our foreign policy debates should always be narrowly circumscribed
and most of our current policies should always remain beyond challenge or major revision."
That's exactly what Clinton believes, unfortunately. When she unveiled her "stronger together"
slogan, one of the points she made was that we should have "a bipartisan, even non-partisan foreign
policy." She is basically a Scoop Jackson Democrat.
Broad consensus is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I'd argue that some degree of consensus
is necessary in order for a democratic system to function. But any such consensus should emerge
from vigorous debate, which does not exist in Washington or in the mainstream media. It should
not be simply imposed on the country by an unchallenged, ossified elite that is either stuck in
the Cold War past or has a vested interest in renewing the Cold War.
Bill Kristol used to call himself a Scoop Jackson Democrat, too. Maybe he will again. Hillary
must be the only person left who actually thinks embracing the neocons is a way to win votes.
But if that were true, Rubio would be the GOP nominee, rather than the guy who, for all his many
faults, didn't pander to them.
Cozying up to dictators is bad, unless they donate large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation.
In that case, you're not "cozying up" to the dictators - you're "reassuring allies" and "protecting
America's credibility."
Would the mushroom cloud campaign ad that obliterated the Goldwater candidacy have the same
effect today upon a neocon candidate? Is the ad even copyrighted or otherwise available?
Has the American Legion given any Democrat running for president a warm response? Muted sounds
about right to me. Clinton was speaking to many more people than the audience in front of her.
She won't get very many votes from those in the military. No Democrat ever does.
Undecided voters (all 2 or 3% of them), especially Republicans are her real target audience.
She looks to sound suitably strong more important, calm and measured. A safe if not perfect choice
for President.
She has learned nothing. Nothing at all. Indeed, she just doubled down on permanent war. Not
surprising, but deeply depressing all the same.
Here's hoping that someone – anyone, really – keeps this loathsome throwback to the worst aspects
of US foreign policy of the past 20 years out of the White House.
If our foreign policy wasn't so obviously failed, I wouldn't mind bipartisan consensus but
since it is FUBAR, I want something new. I just wish I had the ear of any of my fellow Republicans
who consider themselves Religious Conservatives. I just can't get over their blind faith in U.S.
hegemony, especially when they screech at the thought of U.S. politicians doing something as benign
as running a Transportation Fund. Yet they have no problem inflicting these imbeciles with life
and death decisions on the rest of the world.
When I see Ted Cruz or a Rubio gaze into the camera about how vital it is for the U.S.
to suppress Russia and China and run the M.E. (they use different words), it astounds me since
it contradicts the Protestant tradition so much where one should be suspicious of human nature.
Do these people believe that corrupt politicians in the U.S. are suddenly anointed by God and
transformed into world leaders in a sudden act of Grace? Sorry for the rant but I would seriously
love to ask someone this question. This is not a troll at all. I have pondered this many times.
How would Huckabee respond to this? He wrote a lucid essay on Iran about 10yrs ago before he went
full Neocon.
What a choice we face in November – give full executive authority to either:
1. The volatile vulgarian who is smart enough to reject the tired nation-building, Democracy
Evangelization, Responsibility-to-Protect, and other dangerous establishment policies. But who
doesn't think much at all about foreign policy and could even blunder into a big war out of personal
pique.
OR
2. The champion of mindless and discredited bellicosity. Who is - probably - smart enough to
avoid a new large ground war or nuclear despite her dangerous anti-Russian rhetoric, but who will
CERTAINLY initiate one or more new unnecessary, unjust and futile military interventions.
I wish she would stop putting out this nonsense. I really don't want to skip my vote for president,
but this sort of nonsense leaves me cold. I don't want Trump to win, but neither do I want
Clinton to think she has a mandate for this kind of militarism. Sadly, when it comes foreign policy,
it appears not to matter which party has the presidency anymore.
We are an Exceptional nation because we are an Indispensable nation
This is a tautology. You can swap the words exceptional and indispensable and have the exact
same sentence.
Commenter Man, yet another example of how people will create their own reality. I am certain
I will read the same tripe tomorrow when I peruse the links on 'realclearpolitics.com'. It is
the only Neocon portal that I bother with.
If she gets elected I see a high probability of a hot war with Russia. She wouldn't start
it intentionally, it would be the pinnacle of our foreign policy establishment living in their
own reality. I actually have a scenario in mind, when I read Russian sourced sites it strengthens
my convictions. To bad our 'Russian experts' use Ouija boards and entrails instead of actually
studying the Russians.
Don't be surprised if Clinton pushes Russia to the edge or the US gets mired in a proxy war
with Russia. Everything is a Russian hack/conspiracy these days. They will find a reason to start
something. Smells like yellow cake to me.
Hilary should figure out that she is losing votes to Johnson and Stein and perhaps tone back
the rhetoric. Granted she was probably trying to look all Commander in Chiefy but she is so tone
deaf on this stuff.
The problem is that the cult that passes for Conservatives in this country values strength
over all. Clinton cannot afford to come across as weak to these people. She is aiming exactly
for the Jennifer Rubins of the world. In America, we do the strong thing, even if it is the wrong
thing, because we will go to hell if we appear to be weak.
"... It is fascinating that younger US neoliberals (e.g. Matthew Yglesias) are totally sold on the the positives of 'metrics', statistics, testing, etc, to the point where they ignore all the negatives of those approaches, but absolutely and utterly loathe being tracked, having the performance of their preferred policies and predictions analyzed, and called out on the failures thereof. Is sure seems to me that the campaign to quash the use of the US, Charles Peters version of neoliberal is part of the effort to avoid accountability for their actions. ..."
"... If "conservative" is to be a third way to the opposition of "reactionary" and "revolutionary", the "liberals" are a species of conservative - like all conservatives, seeking to preserve the existing order as far as this is possible, but appealing to reason, reason's high principles, and a practical politics of incremental reform and "inevitable" progress. The liberals disguise their affection for social and political hierarchy as a preference for "meritocracy" and place their faith in the powers of Reason and Science to discover Truth. ..."
"... Liberalism adopts nationalism as a vehicle for popular mobilization which conservatives can share and as an ideal of governance, the self-governing democratic nation-state with a liberal constitution. ..."
"... It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject failures of Liberalism that created fascism. ..."
"... he Liberal projects to create liberal democratic nation-states ran aground in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia between 1870 and 1910 and instead of gradual reform of the old order, Europe experienced catastrophic collapse, and Liberalism was ill-prepared to devise working governments and politics in the crisis that followed. ..."
"... What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were arguably results of the earlier program's success. ..."
= = = I am actually honestly suggesting an intellectual exercise which, I think, might
be worth your (extremely valuable) time. I propose you rewrite this post without using the
word "neoliberalism" (or a synonym). = = =
It is fascinating that younger US neoliberals (e.g. Matthew Yglesias) are totally sold
on the the positives of 'metrics', statistics, testing, etc, to the point where they ignore all
the negatives of those approaches, but absolutely and utterly loathe being tracked, having the
performance of their preferred policies and predictions analyzed, and called out on the failures
thereof. Is sure seems to me that the campaign to quash the use of the US, Charles Peters version
of neoliberal is part of the effort to avoid accountability for their actions.
bruce wilder 09.03.16 at 7:47 pm
In the politics of antonyms, I suppose we are always going get ourselves confused.
Perhaps because of American usage of the root, liberal, to mean the mildly social democratic
New Deal liberal Democrat, with its traces of American Populism and American Progressivism, we
seem to want "liberal" to designate an ideology of the left, or at least, the centre-left. Maybe,
it is the tendency of historical liberals to embrace idealistic high principles in their contest
with reactionary claims for hereditary aristocracy and arbitrary authority.
If "conservative" is to be a third way to the opposition of "reactionary" and "revolutionary",
the "liberals" are a species of conservative - like all conservatives, seeking to preserve the
existing order as far as this is possible, but appealing to reason, reason's high principles,
and a practical politics of incremental reform and "inevitable" progress. The liberals disguise
their affection for social and political hierarchy as a preference for "meritocracy" and place
their faith in the powers of Reason and Science to discover Truth.
All of that is by way of preface to a thumbnail history of modern political ideology different
from the one presented by Will G-R.
Modern political ideology is a by-product of the Enlightenment and the resulting imperative
to find a basis and purpose for political Authority in Reason, and apply Reason to the design
of political and social institutions.
Liberalism doesn't so much defeat conservatism as invent conservatism as an alternative to
purely reactionary politics. The notion of an "inevitable progress" allows liberals to reconcile
both themselves and their reactionary opponents to practical reality with incremental reform.
Political paranoia and rhetoric are turned toward thinking about constitutional design.
Mobilizing mass support and channeling popular discontents is a source of deep ambivalence
and risk for liberals and liberalism. Popular democracy can quickly become noisy and vulgar, the
proliferation of ideas and conflicting interests paralyzing. Inventing a conservatism that competes
with the liberals, but also mobilizes mass support and channels popular discontent, puts bounds
on "normal" politics.
Liberalism adopts nationalism as a vehicle for popular mobilization which conservatives
can share and as an ideal of governance, the self-governing democratic nation-state with a liberal
constitution.
I would put the challenges to liberalism from the left and right well behind in precedence
the critical failures and near-failures of liberalism in actual governance.
Liberalism failed abjectly to bring about a constitutional monarchy in France during the first
decade of the French Revolution, or a functioning deliberative assembly or religious toleration
or even to resolve the problems of state finance and legal administration that destroyed the ancient
regime. In the end, the solution was found in Napoleon Bonaparte, a precedent that would arguably
inspire the fascism of dictators and vulgar nationalism, beginning with Napoleon's nephew fifty
years later.
It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject
failures of Liberalism that created fascism. And, this was especially true in the wake of
World War I, which many have argued persuasively was Liberalism's greatest and most catastrophic
failure. T he Liberal projects to create liberal democratic nation-states ran aground in Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Russia between 1870 and 1910 and instead of gradual reform of the old order,
Europe experienced catastrophic collapse, and Liberalism was ill-prepared to devise working governments
and politics in the crisis that followed.
If liberals invented conservatism, it seems to me that would-be socialists were at pains to
re-invent liberalism, and they did it several times going in radically different directions, but
always from a base in the basic liberal idea of rationalizing authority. A significant thread
in socialism adopted incremental progress and socialist ideas became liberal and conservative
means for taming popular discontent in an increasingly urban society.
Where and when liberalism actually was triumphant, both the range of liberal views and the
range of interests presenting a liberal front became too broad for a stable politics. Think about
the Liberal Party landslide of 1906, which eventually gave rise to the Labour Party in its role
of Left Party in the British two-party system. Or FDR's landslide in 1936, which played a pivotal
role in the march of the Southern Democrats to the Right. Or the emergence of the Liberal Consensus
in American politics in the late 1950s.
What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism
running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial
in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were
arguably results of the earlier program's success.
It is almost a rote reaction to talk about the Republican's Southern Strategy, but they didn't
invent the crime wave that enveloped the country in the late 1960s or the riots that followed
the enactment of Civil Rights legislation.
Will G-R's "As soon [as] liberalism feels it can plausibly claim to have . . .overcome the
socialist and fascist challenges [liberals] are empowered to act as if liberalism's adaptive response
to the socialist and fascist challenges was never necessary in the first place - bye bye welfare
state, hello neoliberalism" doesn't seem to me to concede enough to Clinton and Blair entrepreneurially
inventing a popular politics in response to Reagan and Thatcher, after the actual failures
of an older model of social democratic programs and populist politics on its behalf.
I write more about this
over at
my blog (in a somewhat different context).
John Quiggin 09.04.16 at 6:57 am
RW @113 I wrote a whole book using "market liberalism" instead of "neoliberalism", since I wanted
a term more neutral and less pejorative. So, going back to "neoliberalism" was something I did
advisedly. You say
The word is abstract and has completely different meanings west and east of the Atlantic. In
the USA it refers to weak tea center leftisms. In Europe to hard core liberalism.
Well, yes. That's precisely why I've used the term, introduced the hard/soft distinction and explained
the history. The core point is that, despite their differences soft (US meaning) and hard (European
meaning) neoliberalism share crucial aspects of their history, theoretical foundations and policy
implications.
=== quote ===
Neoliberalism is an ideology of market fundamentalism based on deception that promotes "markets"
as a universal solution for all human problems in order to hide establishment of neo-fascist regime
(pioneered by Pinochet in Chile), where militarized government functions are limited to external
aggression and suppression of population within the country (often via establishing National Security
State using "terrorists" threat) and corporations are the only "first class" political players.
Like in classic corporatism, corporations are above the law and can rule the country as they see
fit, using political parties for the legitimatization of the regime.
The key difference with classic fascism is that instead of political dominance of the corporations
of particular nation, those corporations are now transnational and states, including the USA are
just enforcers of the will of transnational corporations on the population. Economic or "soft"
methods of enforcement such as debt slavery and control of employment are preferred to brute force
enforcement. At the same time police is militarized and due to technological achievements the
level of surveillance surpasses the level achieved in Eastern Germany.
Like with bolshevism in the USSR before, high, almost always hysterical, level of neoliberal
propaganda and scapegoating of "enemies" as well as the concept of "permanent war for permanent
peace" are used to suppress the protest against the wealth redistribution up (which is the key
principle of neoliberalism) and to decimate organized labor.
Multiple definitions of neoliberalism were proposed. Three major attempts to define this social
system were made:
Definitions stemming from the concept of "casino capitalism"
Definitions stemming from the concept of Washington consensus
Definitions stemming from the idea that Neoliberalism is Trotskyism for the rich. This
idea has two major variations:
Definitions stemming from Professor Wendy Brown's concept of Neoliberal rationality
which developed the concept of Inverted Totalitarism of Sheldon Wolin
Definitions stemming Professor Sheldon Wolin's older concept of Inverted Totalitarism
- "the heavy statism forging the novel fusions of economic with political power that he
took to be poisoning democracy at its root." (Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism
Common Dreams )
The first two are the most popular.
likbez 09.04.16 at 5:03 pm
bruce,
@117
Thanks for your post. It contains several important ideas:
"It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject failures
of Liberalism that created fascism."
"What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism
running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial
in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were
arguably results of the earlier program's success."
Moreover as Will G-R noted:
"neoliberalism will be every bit the wellspring of fascism that old-school liberalism was."
Failure of neoliberalism revives neofascist, far right movements. That's what the rise of far
right movements in Europe now demonstrates pretty vividly.
"... Already feeling marginalized and often targeted, the boys and men described themselves as "searchers" or "seekers," kids looking for a group with which to identify and where they would feel they belonged. "When you enter puberty, it's like you have to choose a branch," said one ex-Nazi. "You have to choose between being a Nazi, anti-Nazi, punk or hip- hopper-in today's society, you just can't choose to be neutral" (cited in Wahlstrom 2001, 13-14). ..."
"... The systematic deprivation of adequate rest and food may have been a deliberate ploy of the camp organizers to reduce the chances of dissent since time, energy, initiative, and planning are needed to develop a collective sense of grievance. ..."
"... Festivals are excellent opportunities for far-right groups to spread the word about their successes to like-minded activists and sympathizers, since visitors come from as far away as Italy to see White Power music bands. In the festival mentioned above, a folk-dance act in the afternoon attracted only some hundred spectators, but evening performances by the U.S. band Youngland drew a large crowd that pushed to the front of the stage, leaving only limited space for burly skinheads indulging in pogo dancing. The music created a ritual closeness and attachment among the audience, shaping the emotions and aggression of the like-minded crowd, initially in a playful way, but one that switched into brutality a few moments later. ..."
"... it is intriguing to see some of the same mechanisms and dynamics in play in creating and sustaining an extremist movement. The importance of performance and music in eliciting loyal participation from young adherents comes up in the articles about Germany, Sweden, and India. Likewise the importance of the emotional needs of boys as they approach manhood, and the hyper-masculine themes of violence and brutality in the neo-Nazi organizations that appeal to them, recurs in several of the essays. ..."
nderstand the dynamics of far-right extremism without understanding far-right extremists? Probably
not; it seems clear we need to have a much more "micro" understanding of the actors than we currently
have if we are to understand these movements so antithetical to the values of liberal democracy.
And yet there isn't much of a literature on this subject.
An important exception is a 2007 special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
, curated by Kathleen Blee (
link ). This volume brings
together several ethnographic studies of extremist groups, and it makes for very interesting reading.
Kathleen Blee is a pioneer in this field and is the author of
Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (2002). She writes in Inside Organized
Racism :
Intense, activist racism typically does not arise on its own; it is learned in racist groups
. These groups promote ideas radically different from the racist attitudes held by many whites.
They teach a complex and contradictory mix of hatred for enemies, belief in conspiracies, and
allegiance to an imaginary unified race of "Aryans." (3)
One of Blee's key contributions has been to highlight the increasingly important and independent
role played by women in right-wing extremist movements in the United States and Europe.
The JCE issue includes valuable studies of right-wing extremist groups in India, France, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. And each of the essays is well worth reading, including especially
Blee's good introduction. Here is the table of contents:
Key questions concerning the mechanisms of mobilization arise in almost all the essays. What are
the mechanisms through which new adherents are recruited? What psychological and emotional mechanisms
are in play that keep loyalists involved in the movement? Contributors to this volume find a highly
heterogeneous set of circumstances leading to extremist activism. Blee argues that an internalist
approach is needed to allow us to have a more nuanced understanding of the social and personal
dynamics of extremist movements. What she means by externalist here is the idea that there
are societal forces and "risk factors" that contribute to the emergence of hate and racism within
a population, and that these factors can be studied in a general way. An internalist approach, by
contrast, aims at discovering the motives and causes of extremist engagement through study of the
actors themselves, within specific social circumstances.
But it is problematic to use data garnered in externalist studies to draw conclusions about micromobilization
since it is not possible to infer the motivations of activists from the external conditions in
which the group emerged. Because people are drawn to far-right movements for a variety of reasons
that have little connection to political ideology (Blee 2002)-including a search for community,
affirmation of masculinity, and personal loyalties- what motivates someone to join an anti-immigrant
group, for example, might-or might not-be animus toward immigrants. (120)
Based on interviews, participant-observation, and life-history methods, contributors find a mix of
factors leading to the choice of extremist involvement: adolescent hyper-masculinity, a desire to
belong, a history of bullying and abuse, as well as social exposure to adult hate activists. But
this work is more difficult than many other kinds of ethnographic research because of the secrecy,
suspiciousness, and danger associated with these kinds of activism:
Close-up or "internalist" studies of far-right movements can provide a better understanding of
the workings of far-right groups and the beliefs and motivations of their activists and supporters,
but such studies are rare because data from interviews with members, observations of group activities,
and internal documents are difficult to obtain.... Few scholars want to invest the considerable
time or to establish the rapport necessary for close-up studies of those they regard as inexplicable
and repugnant, in addition to dangerous and difficult. Yet, as the articles in this volume demonstrate,
internalist studies of the far right can reveal otherwise obscured and important features of extreme
rightist political mobilization. (121-122)
A few snippets will give some flavor of the volume. Here is Michael Kimmel's description
of some of the young men and boys attracted to the neo-Nazi movement in Sweden:
Insecure and lonely at twelve years old, Edward started hanging out with skinheads because he
"moved to a new town, knew nobody, and needed friends." Equally lonely and utterly alienated from
his distant father, Pelle met an older skinhead who took him under his wing and became a sort
of mentor. Pelle was a "street hooligan" hanging out in street gangs, brawling and drinking with
other gangs. "My group actually looked down on the neo-Nazis," he says, because "they weren't
real fighters." "All the guys had an insecure role as a man," says Robert. "They were all asking
'who am I?'" ...
Already feeling marginalized and often targeted, the boys and men described themselves
as "searchers" or "seekers," kids looking for a group with which to identify and where they would
feel they belonged. "When you enter puberty, it's like you have to choose a branch," said one
ex-Nazi. "You have to choose between being a Nazi, anti-Nazi, punk or hip- hopper-in today's society,
you just can't choose to be neutral" (cited in Wahlstrom 2001, 13-14). ...
For others, it was a sense of alienation from family and especially the desire to rebel against
their fathers. "Grown-ups often forget an important component of Swedish racism, the emotional
conviction," says Jonas Hallen (2000). "If you have been beaten, threatened, and stolen from,
you won't listen to facts and numbers."(209-210)
Here is Meera Sehgal's description of far-right Hindu nationalist training camps for
young girls in India:
The overall atmosphere of this camp and the Samiti's camps in general was rigid and authoritarian,
with a strong emphasis on discipline. ... A number of girls fell ill with diarrhea, exhaustion,
and heat stroke. Every day at least five to ten girls could be seen crying, wanting to go home.
They pleaded with their city's local Samiti leaders, camp instructors, and organizers to be allowed
to call their parents, but were not allowed to do so. ... Neither students nor instructors were
allowed to get sufficient rest or decent food.
The training was at a frenetic pace in physically trying conditions. Participants were kept
awake and physically and mentally engaged from dawn to late night. Approximately four hours a
day were devoted to physical training; five hours to ideological indoctrination through lectures,
group discussions, and rote memorization; and two hours to indoctrination through cultural programming
like songs, stories, plays, jokes, and skits. Many girls and women were consequently soon physically
exhausted, and yet were forced to continue. The systematic deprivation of adequate rest and
food may have been a deliberate ploy of the camp organizers to reduce the chances of dissent since
time, energy, initiative, and planning are needed to develop a collective sense of grievance.
Indoctrination, which was the Samiti's first priority, ranged from classroom lectures and small
and large group discussions led by different instructors, to nightly cultural programs where skits,
storytelling, songs, and chants were taught by the instructors and seasoned activists, based on
the lives of various "Hindu" women, both mythical and historical. (170)
And here is Fabian Virchow's description of the emotional power of music and spectacle
at a neo-Nazi rally in Germany:
Festivals are excellent opportunities for far-right groups to spread the word about their
successes to like-minded activists and sympathizers, since visitors come from as far away as Italy
to see White Power music bands. In the festival mentioned above, a folk-dance act in the afternoon
attracted only some hundred spectators, but evening performances by the U.S. band Youngland drew
a large crowd that pushed to the front of the stage, leaving only limited space for burly skinheads
indulging in pogo dancing. The music created a ritual closeness and attachment among the audience,
shaping the emotions and aggression of the like-minded crowd, initially in a playful way, but
one that switched into brutality a few moments later.
The aggression of White Power music is evident in the messages of its songs, which are either
confessing, demonstrating self-assertion against what is perceived as totally hostile surroundings,
or requesting action (Meyer 1995). Using Heavy Metal or Oi Punk as its musical basis, White Power
music not only attracts those who see themselves as part of the same political movement as the
musicians, but also serves as one of the most important tools for recruiting new adherents to
the politics of the far right (Dornbusch and Raabe 2002).
Since the festival I visited takes place only once a year, and because performances of White
Power bands are organized clandestinely in most cases and are often disrupted by the police, the
far-right movement needs additional events to shape and sustain its collective identity. As the
far right and the NPD and neo-Nazi groupuscules in particular regard themselves as a "movement
of action," it is no surprise that rallies play an important role in this effort. (151)
Each of these essays is based on first-hand observation and interaction, and they give some insight
into the psychological forces playing on the participants as well as the mobilizational strategies
used by the leaders of these kinds of movements. The articles published here offer a good cross-section
of the ways in which ethnographic methods can be brought to bear on the phenomenon of extremist right-wing
activism. And because the studies are drawn from five quite different national contexts (Sweden,
Germany, Netherlands, India, France), it is intriguing to see some of the same mechanisms and
dynamics in play in creating and sustaining an extremist movement. The importance of performance
and music in eliciting loyal participation from young adherents comes up in the articles about Germany,
Sweden, and India. Likewise the importance of the emotional needs of boys as they approach manhood,
and the hyper-masculine themes of violence and brutality in the neo-Nazi organizations that appeal
to them, recurs in several of the essays.
Along with KA Kreasap, Kathleen Blee is also the author of a 2010 review article on right-wing
extremist movements in Annual Reviews of Sociology (
link ). These are the kinds of hate-based organizations and activists tracked by the Southern
Poverty Law Center (
link ), and that seem to be more visible than ever before during the current presidential campaign.
The essay pays attention to the question of the motivations and "risk factors" that lead people to
join right-wing movements. Blee and Kreasap argue that the motivations and circumstances of mobilization
into right-wing organizations are substantially more heterogeneous than a simple story leading from
racist attitudes to racist mobilization would suggest. They argue that antecedent racist ideology
is indeed a factor, but that music, culture, social media, and continent social networks also play
significant causal roles.
"... Several recent posts have commented on the rise of a nationalistic, nativist politics in numerous contemporary democracies around the world. ..."
"... Wasserman emphasizes the importance of ideas and culture within the rise of Austrofascism, and he makes use of Gramsci's concept of hegemony as a way of understanding the link between philosophy and politics. The pro-fascist right held a dominant role within major Viennese cultural and educational institutions. ..."
"... The ideas represented within its institutions ran a broad spectrum, yet its discourse centered on radical anti-Semitism, German nationalism, völkisch authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment (and antimodernist) thinking, and corporatism. The potential for collaboration between Catholic conservatives and German nationalists has only in recent years begun to attract scholarly attention. ..."
Several recent posts have commented on the rise of a nationalistic, nativist politics in numerous
contemporary democracies around the world. The implications of this political process are deeply
challenging to the values of liberal democracy. We need to try to understand these developments.
(Peter Merkl's research on European right-wing extremism is very helpful here;
Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-first Century .)
One plausible approach to trying to understand the dynamics of this turn to the far right is to
consider relevantly similar historical examples. A very interesting study on the history of Austria's
right-wing extremism between the wars was published recently by Janek Wasserman,
Black Vienna: The Radical Right in the Red City, 1918-1938 .
Wasserman emphasizes the importance of ideas and culture within the rise of Austrofascism,
and he makes use of Gramsci's concept of hegemony as a way of understanding the link between philosophy
and politics. The pro-fascist right held a dominant role within major Viennese cultural and educational
institutions. Here is how Wasserman describes the content of ultra-conservative philosophy and
ideology in inter-war Vienna:
The ideas represented within its institutions ran a broad spectrum, yet its discourse centered
on radical anti-Semitism, German nationalism, völkisch authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment
(and antimodernist) thinking, and corporatism. The potential for collaboration between Catholic
conservatives and German nationalists has only in recent years begun to attract scholarly attention.
(6)
This climate was highly inhospitable towards ideas and values from progressive thinkers. Wasserman
describes the intellectual and cultural climate of Vienna in these terms:
At the turn of the century, Austria was one of the most culturally conservative nations in Europe.
The advocacy of avant-garde scientific theories therefore put the First Vienna Circle- and its
intellectual forbears- under pressure. Ultimately, it left them in marginal positions until several
years after the Great War. In the wake of the Wahrmund affair, discussed in chapter 1, intellectuals
advocating secularist, rationalist, or liberal views faced a hostile academic landscape.
Ernst Mach, for example, was an intellectual outsider at the University of Vienna from 1895
until his death in 1916. Always supportive of socialist causes, he left a portion of his estate
to the Social Democrats in his last will and testament. His theories of sensationalism and radical
empiricism were challenged on all sides, most notably by his successor Ludwig Boltzmann. His students,
among them David Josef Bach and Friedrich Adler, either had to leave the country to find appointments
or give up academics altogether. Unable to find positions in Vienna, Frank moved to Prague and
Neurath to Heidelberg. Hahn did not receive a position until after the war. The First Vienna Circle
disbanded because of a lack of opportunity at home. (110-111)
"... Our leaders are shallow on the subject of war. No, worse than shallow-they're silent. Which is one reason they will likely not be fully trusted should they make rough decisions down the road on Syria, or Iran, or elsewhere. ..."
"... War is terrible. That should be said over and over, not because it's a box you ought to check on the way to the presidency but because you're human and have a brain. ..."
"... War is always terrible, and it is made even more so when it is waged when it doesn't have to be. Most wars are avoidable and unnecessary, and yet most of our political leaders are reliably in favor of every U.S. military intervention around the world when it matters. Some may later say they regret their support for a previous war, especially if it was a much costlier one than they expected, but at the time the "safe" and "smart" position for ambitious politicians to take is to be for bombing and/or invading. Almost all of the political incentives at least since Desert Storm have flowed in the direction of supporting military action, and so most of the people that seek the presidency have learned not to be an early opponent of any proposed intervention. ..."
"... While there is near-constant U.S. warfare somewhere in the world, hardly anyone in politics talks about the need for peace. Just as our candidates don't express their hatred of war, they typically don't profess their desire for peace for fear that they will be pilloried as "weak." ..."
Peggy Noonan wrote a thoughtful
column on the horrors of war last week:
Our leaders are shallow on the subject of war. No, worse than shallow-they're silent. Which
is one reason they will likely not be fully trusted should they make rough decisions down the
road on Syria, or Iran, or elsewhere.
War is terrible. That should be said over and over, not because it's a box you ought to
check on the way to the presidency but because you're human and have a brain.
War is always terrible, and it is made even more so when it is waged when it doesn't have
to be. Most wars are avoidable and unnecessary, and yet most of our political leaders are reliably
in favor of every U.S. military intervention around the world when it matters. Some may later say
they regret their support for a previous war, especially if it was a much costlier one than they
expected, but at the time the "safe" and "smart" position for ambitious politicians to take is to
be for bombing and/or invading. Almost all of the political incentives at least since Desert Storm
have flowed in the direction of supporting military action, and so most of the people that seek the
presidency have learned not to be an early opponent of any proposed intervention.
Noonan recounts a telling exchange with a politician in which she asked him if he hated war. After
being reassured that he wasn't walking into a trap, he said yes, but still qualified the answer by
saying that war is sometimes necessary. The trouble is that most of our politicians, and almost all
of our presidential candidates, have never seen a war that they thought was unnecessary. Reflexive
interventionists may sometimes include the caveat that they don't want war, but in the next breath
they are keen to tell you why "action" is imperative. Sometimes they dress this up with euphemisms.
They don't talk about going to war, but say that that the U.S. shouldn't be standing "on the sidelines"
or that the U.S. needs to "lead," but invariably this amounts to a demand that force be used in another
country. Sometimes they dress up calls for war with technical terms, such as the much-abused "no-fly
zone" phrase, that obscure what they are talking about. At other times, they simply acquiesce in
a policy of lending support to a client state's horrific war, and that way they don't have to say
anything and can pretend to have nothing to do with it.
It is in this environment that relatively dovish candidates have to emphasize their readiness
to use force while hawkish candidates are under much less pressure to prove that they aren't warmongers.
While there is near-constant U.S. warfare somewhere in the world, hardly anyone in politics talks
about the need for peace. Just as our candidates don't express their hatred of war, they typically
don't profess their desire for peace for fear that they will be pilloried as "weak."
Despite the fact that U.S. forces have been engaged in hostilities for Obama's entire presidency,
the loudest and most frequent criticisms of his foreign policy are that he is supposedly too reluctant
to use force and didn't bomb Syria. If one of the most activist, militarized presidencies in modern
U.S. history is being portrayed in the media as insufficiently aggressive, we aren't likely to hear
our leaders regularly condemning the evils of war.
"... Already feeling marginalized and often targeted, the boys and men described themselves as "searchers" or "seekers," kids looking for a group with which to identify and where they would feel they belonged. "When you enter puberty, it's like you have to choose a branch," said one ex-Nazi. "You have to choose between being a Nazi, anti-Nazi, punk or hip- hopper-in today's society, you just can't choose to be neutral" (cited in Wahlstrom 2001, 13-14). ..."
"... The systematic deprivation of adequate rest and food may have been a deliberate ploy of the camp organizers to reduce the chances of dissent since time, energy, initiative, and planning are needed to develop a collective sense of grievance. ..."
"... Festivals are excellent opportunities for far-right groups to spread the word about their successes to like-minded activists and sympathizers, since visitors come from as far away as Italy to see White Power music bands. In the festival mentioned above, a folk-dance act in the afternoon attracted only some hundred spectators, but evening performances by the U.S. band Youngland drew a large crowd that pushed to the front of the stage, leaving only limited space for burly skinheads indulging in pogo dancing. The music created a ritual closeness and attachment among the audience, shaping the emotions and aggression of the like-minded crowd, initially in a playful way, but one that switched into brutality a few moments later. ..."
"... it is intriguing to see some of the same mechanisms and dynamics in play in creating and sustaining an extremist movement. The importance of performance and music in eliciting loyal participation from young adherents comes up in the articles about Germany, Sweden, and India. Likewise the importance of the emotional needs of boys as they approach manhood, and the hyper-masculine themes of violence and brutality in the neo-Nazi organizations that appeal to them, recurs in several of the essays. ..."
nderstand the dynamics of far-right extremism without understanding far-right extremists? Probably
not; it seems clear we need to have a much more "micro" understanding of the actors than we currently
have if we are to understand these movements so antithetical to the values of liberal democracy.
And yet there isn't much of a literature on this subject.
An important exception is a 2007 special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
, curated by Kathleen Blee (
link ). This volume brings
together several ethnographic studies of extremist groups, and it makes for very interesting reading.
Kathleen Blee is a pioneer in this field and is the author of
Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (2002). She writes in Inside Organized
Racism :
Intense, activist racism typically does not arise on its own; it is learned in racist groups
. These groups promote ideas radically different from the racist attitudes held by many whites.
They teach a complex and contradictory mix of hatred for enemies, belief in conspiracies, and
allegiance to an imaginary unified race of "Aryans." (3)
One of Blee's key contributions has been to highlight the increasingly important and independent
role played by women in right-wing extremist movements in the United States and Europe.
The JCE issue includes valuable studies of right-wing extremist groups in India, France, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. And each of the essays is well worth reading, including especially
Blee's good introduction. Here is the table of contents:
Key questions concerning the mechanisms of mobilization arise in almost all the essays. What are
the mechanisms through which new adherents are recruited? What psychological and emotional mechanisms
are in play that keep loyalists involved in the movement? Contributors to this volume find a highly
heterogeneous set of circumstances leading to extremist activism. Blee argues that an internalist
approach is needed to allow us to have a more nuanced understanding of the social and personal
dynamics of extremist movements. What she means by externalist here is the idea that there
are societal forces and "risk factors" that contribute to the emergence of hate and racism within
a population, and that these factors can be studied in a general way. An internalist approach, by
contrast, aims at discovering the motives and causes of extremist engagement through study of the
actors themselves, within specific social circumstances.
But it is problematic to use data garnered in externalist studies to draw conclusions about micromobilization
since it is not possible to infer the motivations of activists from the external conditions in
which the group emerged. Because people are drawn to far-right movements for a variety of reasons
that have little connection to political ideology (Blee 2002)-including a search for community,
affirmation of masculinity, and personal loyalties- what motivates someone to join an anti-immigrant
group, for example, might-or might not-be animus toward immigrants. (120)
Based on interviews, participant-observation, and life-history methods, contributors find a mix of
factors leading to the choice of extremist involvement: adolescent hyper-masculinity, a desire to
belong, a history of bullying and abuse, as well as social exposure to adult hate activists. But
this work is more difficult than many other kinds of ethnographic research because of the secrecy,
suspiciousness, and danger associated with these kinds of activism:
Close-up or "internalist" studies of far-right movements can provide a better understanding of
the workings of far-right groups and the beliefs and motivations of their activists and supporters,
but such studies are rare because data from interviews with members, observations of group activities,
and internal documents are difficult to obtain.... Few scholars want to invest the considerable
time or to establish the rapport necessary for close-up studies of those they regard as inexplicable
and repugnant, in addition to dangerous and difficult. Yet, as the articles in this volume demonstrate,
internalist studies of the far right can reveal otherwise obscured and important features of extreme
rightist political mobilization. (121-122)
A few snippets will give some flavor of the volume. Here is Michael Kimmel's description
of some of the young men and boys attracted to the neo-Nazi movement in Sweden:
Insecure and lonely at twelve years old, Edward started hanging out with skinheads because he
"moved to a new town, knew nobody, and needed friends." Equally lonely and utterly alienated from
his distant father, Pelle met an older skinhead who took him under his wing and became a sort
of mentor. Pelle was a "street hooligan" hanging out in street gangs, brawling and drinking with
other gangs. "My group actually looked down on the neo-Nazis," he says, because "they weren't
real fighters." "All the guys had an insecure role as a man," says Robert. "They were all asking
'who am I?'" ...
Already feeling marginalized and often targeted, the boys and men described themselves
as "searchers" or "seekers," kids looking for a group with which to identify and where they would
feel they belonged. "When you enter puberty, it's like you have to choose a branch," said one
ex-Nazi. "You have to choose between being a Nazi, anti-Nazi, punk or hip- hopper-in today's society,
you just can't choose to be neutral" (cited in Wahlstrom 2001, 13-14). ...
For others, it was a sense of alienation from family and especially the desire to rebel against
their fathers. "Grown-ups often forget an important component of Swedish racism, the emotional
conviction," says Jonas Hallen (2000). "If you have been beaten, threatened, and stolen from,
you won't listen to facts and numbers."(209-210)
Here is Meera Sehgal's description of far-right Hindu nationalist training camps for
young girls in India:
The overall atmosphere of this camp and the Samiti's camps in general was rigid and authoritarian,
with a strong emphasis on discipline. ... A number of girls fell ill with diarrhea, exhaustion,
and heat stroke. Every day at least five to ten girls could be seen crying, wanting to go home.
They pleaded with their city's local Samiti leaders, camp instructors, and organizers to be allowed
to call their parents, but were not allowed to do so. ... Neither students nor instructors were
allowed to get sufficient rest or decent food.
The training was at a frenetic pace in physically trying conditions. Participants were kept
awake and physically and mentally engaged from dawn to late night. Approximately four hours a
day were devoted to physical training; five hours to ideological indoctrination through lectures,
group discussions, and rote memorization; and two hours to indoctrination through cultural programming
like songs, stories, plays, jokes, and skits. Many girls and women were consequently soon physically
exhausted, and yet were forced to continue. The systematic deprivation of adequate rest and
food may have been a deliberate ploy of the camp organizers to reduce the chances of dissent since
time, energy, initiative, and planning are needed to develop a collective sense of grievance.
Indoctrination, which was the Samiti's first priority, ranged from classroom lectures and small
and large group discussions led by different instructors, to nightly cultural programs where skits,
storytelling, songs, and chants were taught by the instructors and seasoned activists, based on
the lives of various "Hindu" women, both mythical and historical. (170)
And here is Fabian Virchow's description of the emotional power of music and spectacle
at a neo-Nazi rally in Germany:
Festivals are excellent opportunities for far-right groups to spread the word about their
successes to like-minded activists and sympathizers, since visitors come from as far away as Italy
to see White Power music bands. In the festival mentioned above, a folk-dance act in the afternoon
attracted only some hundred spectators, but evening performances by the U.S. band Youngland drew
a large crowd that pushed to the front of the stage, leaving only limited space for burly skinheads
indulging in pogo dancing. The music created a ritual closeness and attachment among the audience,
shaping the emotions and aggression of the like-minded crowd, initially in a playful way, but
one that switched into brutality a few moments later.
The aggression of White Power music is evident in the messages of its songs, which are either
confessing, demonstrating self-assertion against what is perceived as totally hostile surroundings,
or requesting action (Meyer 1995). Using Heavy Metal or Oi Punk as its musical basis, White Power
music not only attracts those who see themselves as part of the same political movement as the
musicians, but also serves as one of the most important tools for recruiting new adherents to
the politics of the far right (Dornbusch and Raabe 2002).
Since the festival I visited takes place only once a year, and because performances of White
Power bands are organized clandestinely in most cases and are often disrupted by the police, the
far-right movement needs additional events to shape and sustain its collective identity. As the
far right and the NPD and neo-Nazi groupuscules in particular regard themselves as a "movement
of action," it is no surprise that rallies play an important role in this effort. (151)
Each of these essays is based on first-hand observation and interaction, and they give some insight
into the psychological forces playing on the participants as well as the mobilizational strategies
used by the leaders of these kinds of movements. The articles published here offer a good cross-section
of the ways in which ethnographic methods can be brought to bear on the phenomenon of extremist right-wing
activism. And because the studies are drawn from five quite different national contexts (Sweden,
Germany, Netherlands, India, France), it is intriguing to see some of the same mechanisms and
dynamics in play in creating and sustaining an extremist movement. The importance of performance
and music in eliciting loyal participation from young adherents comes up in the articles about Germany,
Sweden, and India. Likewise the importance of the emotional needs of boys as they approach manhood,
and the hyper-masculine themes of violence and brutality in the neo-Nazi organizations that appeal
to them, recurs in several of the essays.
Along with KA Kreasap, Kathleen Blee is also the author of a 2010 review article on right-wing
extremist movements in Annual Reviews of Sociology (
link ). These are the kinds of hate-based organizations and activists tracked by the Southern
Poverty Law Center (
link ), and that seem to be more visible than ever before during the current presidential campaign.
The essay pays attention to the question of the motivations and "risk factors" that lead people to
join right-wing movements. Blee and Kreasap argue that the motivations and circumstances of mobilization
into right-wing organizations are substantially more heterogeneous than a simple story leading from
racist attitudes to racist mobilization would suggest. They argue that antecedent racist ideology
is indeed a factor, but that music, culture, social media, and continent social networks also play
significant causal roles.
"... Several recent posts have commented on the rise of a nationalistic, nativist politics in numerous contemporary democracies around the world. ..."
"... Wasserman emphasizes the importance of ideas and culture within the rise of Austrofascism, and he makes use of Gramsci's concept of hegemony as a way of understanding the link between philosophy and politics. The pro-fascist right held a dominant role within major Viennese cultural and educational institutions. ..."
"... The ideas represented within its institutions ran a broad spectrum, yet its discourse centered on radical anti-Semitism, German nationalism, völkisch authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment (and antimodernist) thinking, and corporatism. The potential for collaboration between Catholic conservatives and German nationalists has only in recent years begun to attract scholarly attention. ..."
Several recent posts have commented on the rise of a nationalistic, nativist politics in numerous
contemporary democracies around the world. The implications of this political process are deeply
challenging to the values of liberal democracy. We need to try to understand these developments.
(Peter Merkl's research on European right-wing extremism is very helpful here;
Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-first Century .)
One plausible approach to trying to understand the dynamics of this turn to the far right is to
consider relevantly similar historical examples. A very interesting study on the history of Austria's
right-wing extremism between the wars was published recently by Janek Wasserman,
Black Vienna: The Radical Right in the Red City, 1918-1938 .
Wasserman emphasizes the importance of ideas and culture within the rise of Austrofascism,
and he makes use of Gramsci's concept of hegemony as a way of understanding the link between philosophy
and politics. The pro-fascist right held a dominant role within major Viennese cultural and educational
institutions. Here is how Wasserman describes the content of ultra-conservative philosophy and
ideology in inter-war Vienna:
The ideas represented within its institutions ran a broad spectrum, yet its discourse centered
on radical anti-Semitism, German nationalism, völkisch authoritarianism, anti-Enlightenment
(and antimodernist) thinking, and corporatism. The potential for collaboration between Catholic
conservatives and German nationalists has only in recent years begun to attract scholarly attention.
(6)
This climate was highly inhospitable towards ideas and values from progressive thinkers. Wasserman
describes the intellectual and cultural climate of Vienna in these terms:
At the turn of the century, Austria was one of the most culturally conservative nations in Europe.
The advocacy of avant-garde scientific theories therefore put the First Vienna Circle- and its
intellectual forbears- under pressure. Ultimately, it left them in marginal positions until several
years after the Great War. In the wake of the Wahrmund affair, discussed in chapter 1, intellectuals
advocating secularist, rationalist, or liberal views faced a hostile academic landscape.
Ernst Mach, for example, was an intellectual outsider at the University of Vienna from 1895
until his death in 1916. Always supportive of socialist causes, he left a portion of his estate
to the Social Democrats in his last will and testament. His theories of sensationalism and radical
empiricism were challenged on all sides, most notably by his successor Ludwig Boltzmann. His students,
among them David Josef Bach and Friedrich Adler, either had to leave the country to find appointments
or give up academics altogether. Unable to find positions in Vienna, Frank moved to Prague and
Neurath to Heidelberg. Hahn did not receive a position until after the war. The First Vienna Circle
disbanded because of a lack of opportunity at home. (110-111)
"... So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify such a course as well as the demonization of Putin. ..."
"... The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of the orders from Washington. ..."
All this anti-Russian warmongering from esteemed commenters here is suspect. And should be
taken with a grain of salt.
The USA neoliberal elite considers Russia to be an obstacle in the creation of the USA led
global neoliberal empire (with EU and Japan as major vassals),
So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify
such a course as well as the demonization of Putin.
The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color
revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because
the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but
just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of
the orders from Washington.
That means that as bad as Trump is, he is a safer bet than Hillary, because the latter is a
neocon warmonger, which can get us in the hot war with Russia. And this is the most principal,
cardinal issue of the November elections.
All other issues like climate change record (although nuclear winter will definitely reverse
global warming), Supreme Court appointments, etc. are of secondary importance.
As John Kenneth Galbraith said, "Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and
the unpalatable."
I just found this via Hacker News… perhaps it was in yesterday's links and I missed it. Truly
scary in the Orwellian sense and yet another reason not to use a smartphone. Chilling read.
SAN FRANCISCO - Want to invisibly spy on 10 iPhone owners without their knowledge? Gather their
every keystroke, sound, message and location? That will cost you $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup
fee with an Israeli outfit called the NSO Group. You can spy on more people if you would like
- just check out the company's price list.
The NSO Group is one of a number of companies that sell surveillance tools that can capture
all the activity on a smartphone, like a user's location and personal contacts. These tools can
even turn the phone into a secret recording device.
Since its founding six years ago, the NSO Group has kept a low profile. But last month, security
researchers caught its spyware trying to gain access to the iPhone of a human rights activist
in the United Arab Emirates. They also discovered a second target, a Mexican journalist who wrote
about corruption in the Mexican government.
Now, internal NSO Group emails, contracts and commercial proposals obtained by The New York
Times offer insight into how companies in this secretive digital surveillance industry operate.
The emails and documents were provided by two people who have had dealings with the NSO Group
but would not be named for fear of reprisals.
I could be wrong, but the promos for Sixty Minutes on the local news make it seem they might
be about this subject. Either way it is another scare you about what your cell phone can do story,
possibly justified this time.
An anecdote which I cannot support with links or other evidence:
A friend of mine used to work for a (non USA) security intelligence service. I was bouncing
ideas off him for a book I'm working on, specifically ideas about how monitoring/electronics/spying
can be used to measure and manipulate societies. He was useful for telling if my ideas (for a
Science Fiction novel) were plausible without ever getting into details. Always very careful to
keep his replies in the "white" world of what any computer security person would know, without
delving into anything classified.
One day we were way out in the back blocks, and I laid out one scenario for him to see if it
would be plausible. All he did was small cryptically, and point at a cell phone lying on a table
10 meters away. He wouldn't say a word on the subject.
It wasn't his cellphone, and we were in a relatively remote region with no cell phone coverage.
It told me that my book idea was far too plausible. It also told me that every cellphone is
likely recording everything all the time, for later upload when back in signal range. (Or at least
there was the inescapable possibility that the cell phones were doing so, and that he had to assume
foreign (or domestic?) agencies could be following him through monitoring of cell phones of friends
and neighbors.)
It was a clarifying moment for me.
Every cellphone has a monumental amount of storage space (especially for audio files). Almost
every cellphone only has a software "switch" for turning it off, not a hardware interlock where
you can be sure off is off. So how can you ever really be sure it is "off"? Answer- you can't
Sobering thought. Especially when you consider the Bluffdale facility in the USA.
There are dozens of digital spying companies that can
track everything a target does on a smartphone.
Credit
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
SAN FRANCISCO - Want to invisibly spy on 10
iPhone
owners without their knowledge? Gather their every keystroke, sound,
message and location? That will cost you $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup fee with an
Israeli outfit called the NSO Group. You can spy on more people if you would like -
just check out the company's price list.
The NSO Group is one of a number of companies that
sell surveillance tools
that can capture all the activity on a smartphone, like a
user's location and personal contacts. These tools can even turn the phone into a
secret recording device.
Since its founding six years ago, the NSO Group has kept a low profile. But last
month, security researchers
caught its spyware trying to gain access
to the iPhone of a human rights activist
in the United Arab Emirates. They also discovered a second target, a Mexican
journalist who wrote about corruption in the Mexican government.
Now, internal NSO Group emails, contracts and commercial proposals obtained by The
New York Times offer insight into how companies in this secretive digital
surveillance industry operate. The emails and documents were provided by two people
who have had dealings with the NSO Group but would not be named for fear of
reprisals.
The company is one of dozens of digital spying outfits that track everything a target
does on a smartphone. They aggressively market their services to governments and law
enforcement agencies around the world. The industry argues that this spying is
necessary to track terrorists, kidnappers and drug lords. The NSO Group's corporate
mission statement is "Make the world a safe place."
Ten people familiar with the company's sales, who refused to be identified, said that
the NSO Group has a strict internal vetting process to determine who it will sell to.
An ethics committee made up of employees and external counsel vets potential
customers based on human rights rankings set by the World Bank and other global
bodies. And to date, these people all said, NSO has yet to be denied an export
license.
But critics note that the company's spyware has also been used to track journalists
and human rights activists.
"There's no check on this," said Bill Marczak, a senior fellow at the Citizen Lab at
the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. "Once NSO's systems are
sold, governments can essentially use them however they want. NSO can say they're
trying to make the world a safer place, but they are also making the world a more
surveilled place."
The NSO Group's capabilities are in higher demand now that companies like Apple,
Facebook and Google are using stronger encryption to protect data in their systems,
in the process making it harder for government agencies to track suspects.
The NSO Group's spyware finds ways around encryption by baiting targets to click
unwittingly on texts containing malicious links or by exploiting previously
undiscovered software flaws. It was taking advantage of
three such flaws in Apple software
- since fixed - when it was discovered by
researchers last month.
The cyberarms industry typified by the NSO Group operates in a legal gray area, and
it is often left to the companies to decide how far they are willing to dig into a
target's personal life and what governments they will do business with. Israel has
strict export controls for digital weaponry, but the country has never barred the
sale of NSO Group technology.
Since it is privately held, not much is known about the NSO Group's finances, but its
business is clearly growing. Two years ago, the NSO Group sold a controlling stake in
its business to Francisco Partners, a
private equity
firm based in San Francisco, for $120 million. Nearly a year
later, Francisco Partners was exploring a sale of the company for 10 times that
amount, according to two people approached by the firm but forbidden to speak about
the discussions.
The company's internal documents detail pitches to countries throughout Europe and
multimillion-dollar contracts with Mexico, which paid the NSO Group more than $15
million for three projects over three years, according to internal NSO Group emails
dated in 2013.
"Our intelligence systems are subject to Mexico's relevant legislation and have legal
authorization," Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Washington,
said in an emailed statement. "They are not used against journalists or activists.
All contracts with the federal government are done in accordance with the law."
Zamir Dahbash, an NSO Group spokesman, said that the sale of its spyware was
restricted to authorized governments and that it was used solely for criminal and
terrorist investigations. He declined to comment on whether the company would cease
selling to the U.A.E. and Mexico after last week's disclosures.
For the last six years, the NSO Group's main product, a tracking system called
Pegasus, has been used by a growing number of government agencies to target a range
of smartphones - including iPhones, Androids, and BlackBerry and Symbian systems -
without leaving a trace.
Among the Pegasus system's capabilities, NSO Group contracts assert, are the
abilities to extract text messages, contact lists, calendar records, emails, instant
messages and GPS locations. One capability that the NSO Group calls "room tap" can
gather sounds in and around the room, using the phone's own microphone.
Pegasus can use the camera to take snapshots or screen grabs. It can deny the phone
access to certain websites and applications, and it can grab search histories or
anything viewed with the phone's web browser. And all of the data can be sent back to
the agency's server in real time.
In its commercial proposals, the NSO Group asserts that its tracking software and
hardware can install itself in any number of ways, including "over the air stealth
installation," tailored text messages and emails, through public Wi-Fi hot spots
rigged to secretly install NSO Group software, or the old-fashioned way, by spies in
person.
Much like a traditional software company, the NSO Group prices its surveillance tools
by the number of targets, starting with a flat $500,000 installation fee. To spy on
10 iPhone users, NSO charges government agencies $650,000; $650,000 for 10 Android
users; $500,000 for five BlackBerry users; or $300,000 for five Symbian users - on
top of the setup fee, according to one commercial proposal.
You can pay for more targets. One hundred additional targets will cost $800,000, 50
extra targets cost $500,000, 20 extra will cost $250,000 and 10 extra costs $150,000,
according to an NSO Group commercial proposal. There is an annual system maintenance
fee of 17 percent of the total price every year thereafter.
What that gets you, NSO Group documents say, is "unlimited access to a target's
mobile devices." In short, the company says: You can "remotely and covertly collect
information about your target's relationships, location, phone calls, plans and
activities - whenever and wherever they are."
And, its proposal adds, "It leaves no traces whatsoever."
"... So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify such a course as well as the demonization of Putin. ..."
"... The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of the orders from Washington. ..."
All this anti-Russian warmongering from esteemed commenters here is suspect. And should be
taken with a grain of salt.
The USA neoliberal elite considers Russia to be an obstacle in the creation of the USA led
global neoliberal empire (with EU and Japan as major vassals),
So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify
such a course as well as the demonization of Putin.
The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color
revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because
the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but
just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of
the orders from Washington.
That means that as bad as Trump is, he is a safer bet than Hillary, because the latter is a
neocon warmonger, which can get us in the hot war with Russia. And this is the most principal,
cardinal issue of the November elections.
All other issues like climate change record (although nuclear winter will definitely reverse
global warming), Supreme Court appointments, etc. are of secondary importance.
As John Kenneth Galbraith said, "Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and
the unpalatable."
The bizarre thing is that any elected politician dumb enough to take
Kissenger's advice has not prospered. Nixon was impeached, Ford defeated, and
when Carter was dumb enough to take Kissenger's advice about letting the Shah
of Iran into the US, his presidency went into meltdown. Why would anyone listen
to him? putting aside the question that he is a war criminal.
Yes, since we know that for Clinton, his war criminal credentials fall
into the "feature not a bug" category, the question is why the smartest,
most qualified candidate
evuh
would not see pattern of failure
attendant on those who tie their wagon to his star.
Like so many Clinton failures (from both), it wasn't the fault of the
advisor, but those taking the advice didn't do it exactly the way Henry K
told them to do it. Think Welfare Reform, Libya, etc. All the fault of
those putting the plans into operation.
Smartest people in the room, gravitating toward each other understand
how their brilliance can be misunderstood.
"Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign raised an eye-popping $143 million
in August for her candidacy and the Democratic Party, the best showing of her
campaign, her team said Thursday"
And yet my spam folder yesterday contained 46 (count 'em) pleas for
donations from HillaryClinton.com, sent over the last ten days, including the
one I read that said "Just send us a dollar."
And yes, since there was absolutely NO "unsubscribe" link on the emails I
initially received from the Clinton Cult, I did consign all further
communication to spam, thank you very much.
I'm sure they were just trying to make sure that 'eye-popping' amount
isn't from the fewest donors in history. By about the fourth one of those I
finally determined they really didn't need me to donate money they just
needed to be able to count me as a donor
Following right after that link is the withdrawal of $$$ for airtime from
Ted Strickland's campaign. Not some House race, not even a unlikely Senate
attempt, but they don't have enough money to hammer on somebody who not only
is chasing a big prize but actually already
won
the damn race once
already.
And you can convince me that it is 100% likely Strickland will lose. But
if you don't support him, you don't allow an alternative view to be
developed and used to hammer the winner during his term. Isn't that how you
play politics? You don't just show up around election, play nice, and if
polls – yeech, polls – don't go your way you just go home.
But the Democrats don't even want those kinds of victories. They want
1) The Executive Branch
2) No other branch of government so they can
blame what they don't (or worse, do) do – haha, if you read that right you
get "dodo" – on the other side.
Ms Clinton has an insane amount of money. And what she spends it on
(herself) and what she doesn't (anybody else) is what tells you what you
need to know.
The article on the difficulty of taking over the Democratic Party hits the
nail on the head, but it misses the Michels-ian problem: organizations have a
tendency (but not this is a tendency, not a rule or fate) towards increasing
oligarchy over time, and organizational members are socialized to trust and
obey party leadership. Factional dissidents within the Dems have to contend not
only with the party oligarchy and its formidable resources, the decentralized
and sprawling nature of the organization, but with a membership that barely
participates but, when it does, turns out when and how the leadership wants.
The Militant Labour tendency example isn't perfect – entryism into a
Parliamentary party is easier than our party system – but it speaks volumes. To
get a hearing from the party membership you can only criticize so much of the
organization itself; if you and a faction entered and created a "Destroy the
Dems" faction you'd be ignored or hunted out of the party, especially if you
pointedly attacked the Dems oligarchy and were openly hostile to their
officials, platform and the president – though I would argue you'd need exactly
a "Destroy the Dems" faction to succeed in smashing the party oligarchy and
changing the culture.
Keep in mind I do say this as a Green and a person who did his PhD on
inner-party democracy (or lack thereof). Lack of democracy is a persistent
theme in studies of parties for the last century.
It would make more sense to really unite the left around electoral reform in
the long run and push for proportional representation at the state/local level
for legislatures and city councils. While it would probably be preferable for
democracy's sake to have one big district elected with an open-list vote, in
the US context we'd probably go the German route of mixed-member proportional
that combines geographical single-member districts with proportional voting.
Speculating very freely: Could there be a flow of goods we don't know
about? Like containers full of opioids? Or is there a capital flow that
shouldn't exist, but does? Money laundering from those same opioids? Money
laundering generally? The Bezzle? Readers?
There's an enormous amount of people in the USA who are working on some kind
of black market. You don't have ten million unemployed men who are simply
sitting idle all the time.
Those people will never report that they are making money on the black
market.
For instance, there's going to be an enormous amount of weed leaving
Colorado and Washington and transported to other states. Whatever used to be
traveling over the border, we can now produce domestically. Which is great,
don't get me wrong, but until it's legalized in all fifty states, it doesn't
show up on the books. Doing this is as easy as staying in CO for a few weeks,
buying your maximum each day, then going a few states over and selling.
If you are implying that Hillary Clinton supports the center left, you
have clearly not been paying attention her entire career, or to the careers
of those with whom she has surrounded herself. Even with today's
ridiculously shifted Overton window, there is nothing "left" about being an
oligarch or a war criminal.
Can't speak for NC as a whole, but in my opinion, NC writers are
criticizing the person likely to win the election. These issues of
corruption need to be hashed out and handled well before inauguration.
Perhaps NC is providing a bit of balance, given the rest of the MSM has
about 11 anti-Trump pieces for every 2 anti-HRC ones?
And having browsed through the FBI interview notes with Clinton, her
defence against serious wrongdoing is that she is a mixture of forgetful and
incompetent. Is this really the best the Dems can do?
Good question, this NC reader is just pretty fed up with the status quo
(maybe others want to chime in):
– Unlimited immunity from prosecution
for banking executive criminals
– More shiny new undeclared
"nation-building" and "RTP" wars
– Globalist trade deals that enshrine
unaccountable corporate tribunals over national sovereignty, environmental
and worker protection, and self-determination
– America's national
business conducted in secrecy at the behest of corporate donors to
tax-exempt foundations
– Paid-for quid-pro-quo media manipulation of
candidate and election coverage
– Health care system reform designed to
benefit entrenched insurance providers over providing access to
reasonable-cost basic care.
Based on the above I'd say the 11:2 ratio
looks about right.
In reality we have a center leans extreme right Democratic candidate and
a left, right and center Republican candidate. One has a clear record of
supporting and increasing conservative policies in American and the other
has given speeches that have been all over the spectrum.
But hey, you keep trying to shame people who don't give a fig about
useless and false labels but are vastly interested in the normalization of
corruption.
I personally would like to see the reform/ takeover the Democratic party
squad concede that third parties don't have a level playing field(which may
indeed be why they consistently fail) and then help work to fix the problem.
A starting point would be opening every single primary to every voting age
individual or forcing the private parties to pay for their own darn soiree.
It's the democratic way to settle the debate on whether or not it will be
easier to reform the DNC or use a third party to enact progressive policy.
(Sigh ."Exhibit "A" for "why I'm not a Republican" anymore .)
A law mandating that AG workers get paid overtime just like about everyone
else is not a "tax".
The excuses they come up with for justifying the status quo are also a
treat:
-No O/T pay because it's "Seasonal Work", and farmers can't spread their
harvest labor over the whole year? (But nothing said about the months when the
labor is making zero bucks, when the seasonal workers aren't on the payroll)
– Can't find additional help because of "labor shortages"? Easy enough to
fix. PAY MORE MONEY. Why don't "free market" principles ever apply to labor?
-A "regressive tax on poor people"? Maybe they wouldn't be so poor, if they
were paid for their O/T.
-Encouraging automation because "labor costs too much". Au contraire. It's
the other way around. Development of automation (and the skills/jobs needed to
design build and support these machines) is slowed, because labor is too cheap.
And finally, "a $1Billion tax" ..assuming their calculations are correct (a
big if, figures don't lie but liars figure):
.a billion dollar nationwide tax amounts to ( ..one billion divvied by
300 million, carry the one .) .about four bucks a year per person. OMG, I
might have to skip that McNuggets Value Meal (that will also be made by robots
instead of "overpaid" labor) once a year.
People like this are so full of s##t, their eyes are brown.
I'm actually thankful to the folks running ZH some months ago they made
a (likely mobile-driven) change to their site layout, with result that it no
longer renders readably in my default browser, a legacy FF version, dating
from just before the Mozilla weenies decided to remove the 'image display'
toggle from the user preferences menu (disabling bandwidth-hogging image
rendering is really useful in a shared-WiFi context and when you want to
focus on textual content). So now I'm not even tempted to quick-scan the
site's inane alarmist headlines for yuks.
Whether Clinton's strategy of trying to peel off a small percentage of Republicans to win the
presidency will actually work remains to be seen. There seems to be scant evidence in the polls that
a significant amount of Republicans will support her; Clinton's advantage mostly stems from the fact
that black and Hispanic Americans understandably oppose Trump in historic numbers. But if the strategy
hinders Democrats from retaking Congress, the damage is going to be seen for years.
"Commentary: Who is hacking U.S. election databases and why are they so difficult to identify?"
[
Reuters ]. "This summer has been rife with news of election-related hacking. Last month it was
the Democratic National Committee; this week, voter election databases in Illinois and Arizona…
The
FBI has said that government-affiliated Russian hackers are responsible for both intrusions. Yet
the hackers' motivation is unclear. We don't know whether the hackers were engaging in espionage,
attempting to manipulate the election, or just harvesting low-hanging cyber-fruit for their own financial
gain." Well, the FBI is totes apolitical, so that settles that. There are brave Russkis out there.
Let's go kill them!
So much for keeping the military out of politics:
In a joint statement, two Four Star Generals, Bob Sennewald and David Maddox are endorsing
Hillary Clinton for President. Sennewald is the former Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces Command,
and Maddox was formerly Commander in Chief, U.S. Army- Europe. Clinton spoke at the American Legion
on Wednesday:
"Having each served over 34 years and retired as an Army 4- star general, we each have worked
closely with America's strongest allies, both in NATO and throughout Asia. Our votes have always
been private, and neither of us has ever previously lent his name or voice to a presidential candidate.
Having studied what is at stake for this country and the alternatives we have now, we see only
one viable leader, and will be voting this November for Secretary Hillary Clinton."
"... For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability, ..."
"... The Clinton's special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt 'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation' status rather than personal animus. ..."
"... That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility of political pragmatism freed from principle. ..."
"... That Hillary Clinton is the candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.' ..."
"... As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries. ..."
"... Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices' of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class interests put forward as systemic intent. ..."
"... The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those they serve within the existing economic order. ..."
into political power. The structure of economic distribution seen through Foundation 'contributors;'
oil and gas magnates, pharmaceutical and technology entrepreneurs of public largesse, the murder-for-hire
industry (military) and various and sundry managers of social decline, makes evident the dissociation
of social production from those that produced it.
For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the
Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability,
if not exactly from the need for regular and robust public support, served to hold at bay the perpetual
tomorrow of lives lived for the theorized greater good of accumulated self-interest. The Clinton's
special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter
of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt
'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions.
Being three or more decades in the making, the current political season was never about the candidates
except inasmuch as they embody the grotesquely disfigured and depraved condition of the body politic.
The 'consumer choice' politics of Democrat versus Republican, Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump,
poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now
in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic
predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary
Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government
as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation'
status rather than personal animus.
That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of
those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility
of political pragmatism freed from principle. The absurd misdirection that we, the people, are
driving this migration is belied by the economic power that correlates 1:1 with the policies put
forward and enacted by 'the people's representatives', by the answers that actual human beings give
to pollsters when asked and by the ever more conspicuous hold that economic power has over political
considerations as evidenced by the roster of pleaders and opportunists granted official sees by the
political class in Washington.
To state the obvious, dysfunctional ideology- principles that don't 'work' in the sense of promoting
broadly conceived public wellbeing, should be dispensable. But this very formulation takes at face
value the implausible conceits of unfettered intentions mediated through functional political representation
that are so well disproved by entities like the Clinton Foundation. Political 'pragmatism' as it
is put forward by national Democrats quite closely resembles the principled opposition of Conservative
Republicans through unified service to the economic powers-that-be. That Hillary Clinton is the
candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated
environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.'
As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed
by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries.
The result, in addition to making connected insiders rich as they wield social power over less existentially
alienated peoples, has been the not-so-great wars, devastations, impositions and crimes-against-humanity
that were the regular occurrences of the twentieth century. The 'innovation' of corporatized militarization
to this proud tradition is as old as Western imperialism in its conception and as new as nuclear
and robotic weapons, mass surveillance and apparently unstoppable environmental devastation in its
facts.
Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political
resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous
the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question
becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions
like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices'
of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous
have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class
interests put forward as systemic intent.
The complaint that the Greens- Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, don't have an effective political
program approximates the claim that existing political and economic arrangements are open to challenge
through the electoral process when the process exists to assure that effective challenges don't arise.
The Democrats could have precluded the likelihood of a revolutionary movement, Left or Right, for
the next half-century by electing Bernie Sanders and then undermining him to 'prove' that challenges
to prevailing political economy don't work. The lack of imagination in running 'dirty Hillary' is
testament to how large- and fragile, the perceived stakes are. But as how unviable Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump are as political leaders becomes apparent- think George W. Bush had he run for office
after the economic collapse of 2009 and without the cover of '9/11,' the political possibilities
begin to open up.
The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting
as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those
they serve within the existing economic order. The premise that the ruling class will always
need dedicated servants grants coherent logic and aggregated self-interest that history has disproven
time and again. A crude metaphor would be the unintended consequences of capitalist production now
aggregating to environmental crisis.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both such conspicuously corrupt tools of an intellectually
and spiritually bankrupt social order that granting tactical brilliance to their ascendance, or even
pragmatism given the point in history and available choices, seems wildly generous. For those looking
for a political moment, one is on the way.
Agreeing with the 50 former Republican security officials who have called Trump "dangerous," Wolfowitz
ultimately admitted that he has no choice but to vote for Clinton.
"I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for," he continued. "I might have to
vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her."
Wolfowitz served as deputy secretary leading up to and during the Iraq war, a regime Trump has
been highly critical of since it began. Clinton, on the other hand. voted for the war, a point that
has been widely criticized by her opponents
"... Some "American" companies and public research institutions are surely victims of espionage, but for the most part private industry has brought this on itself by building offshore offices and *actively* directing their workers to transfer the knowledge and "train their replacements", so that they can do the work instead of US workers who are let go (or not again hired) because their skills are now "irrelevant". ..."
"... In "defense" or "national interest" related work, for the most part citizens of or even people originating from countries that are considered military or geopolitical adversaries are excluded from participation. This makes it much harder to infiltrate people in the US, as long as it is not offshored. But then the US govt and its contractors will pay higher rates for the product/service than US consumers who will have to do "more with less" (money). ..."
"... Oh, China (public and private entities) surely engages in those things it is accused of, but this is by far outweighed by US business captains shoving the "free" know-how and innovation down their throats to enable the short term "cost savings" (which will in short order be compensated for by declining aggregate demand when the formerly well paid local staff can only buy the cheapest stuff, and retail adjusts and mostly orders the cheapest). ..."
"... Likewise most "everybody else" also. I have a good number of colleagues from China and other Asian countries. Many of them take pride in coming up with their own solutions instead of copying stuff, like people everywhere. ..."
"... A German language article where this and other cases are mentioned: http://www.zeit.de/1998/28/199828.spionage.neu_.xml Nobody is squeaky clean in this game. ..."
"... At the time I was working in a tech company there, and new security protocols were instituted, like not sending certain confidential information by email or fax. There was even an anecdote (unverified) of how a foreign service (not US in that case) was allegedly intercepting business documents/negotiations that were conducted by fax, and making the information available to "their" own companies bidding for the same project. Whether true or not, that's what the management was concerned about. ..."
" If spying is the world's second oldest profession, the government of China has given it a
new, modern-day twist, enlisting an army of spies not to steal military secrets but the trade
secrets and intellectual property of American companies. It's being called "the great brain robbery
of America."
The Justice Department says that the scale of China's corporate espionage is so vast it constitutes
a national security emergency, with China targeting virtually every sector of the U.S. economy,
and costing American companies hundreds of billions of dollars in losses -- and more than two
million jobs.
John Carlin: They're targeting our private companies. And it's not a fair fight. A private
company can't compete against the resources of the second largest economy in the world."
John Carlin: This is a serious threat to our national security. I mean, our economy depends on
the ability to innovate. And if there's a dedicated nation state who's using its intelligence
apparatus to steal day in and day out what we're trying to develop, that poses a serious threat
to our country.
Lesley Stahl: What is their ultimate goal, the Chinese government's ultimate goal?
John Carlin: They want to develop certain segments of industry and instead of trying to out-innovate,
out-research, out-develop, they're choosing to do it through theft.
All you have to do, he says, is look at the economic plans published periodically by the Chinese
Politburo. They are, according to this recent report by the technology research firm INVNT/IP,
in effect, blueprints of what industries and what companies will be targeted for theft."
Some "American" companies and public research institutions are surely victims of espionage,
but for the most part private industry has brought this on itself by building offshore offices
and *actively* directing their workers to transfer the knowledge and "train their replacements",
so that they can do the work instead of US workers who are let go (or not again hired) because
their skills are now "irrelevant".
Likewise if a manufacturer outsources to an offshore supplier, they have to divulge some of
their secret sauce and technical skill to their "partner" if they want the product to meet specs
and quality metrics.
In "defense" or "national interest" related work, for the most part citizens of or even
people originating from countries that are considered military or geopolitical adversaries are
excluded from participation. This makes it much harder to infiltrate people in the US, as long
as it is not offshored. But then the US govt and its contractors will pay higher rates for the
product/service than US consumers who will have to do "more with less" (money).
Oh, China (public and private entities) surely engages in those things it is accused of, but
this is by far outweighed by US business captains shoving the "free" know-how and innovation down
their throats to enable the short term "cost savings" (which will in short order be compensated
for by declining aggregate demand when the formerly well paid local staff can only buy the cheapest
stuff, and retail adjusts and mostly orders the cheapest).
Likewise most "everybody else" also. I have a good number of colleagues from China and other
Asian countries. Many of them take pride in coming up with their own solutions instead of copying
stuff, like people everywhere.
"Stealing" of ideas is practiced everywhere. I know an anecdote from a "Western" company where
a high level engineering manager suggested inviting another academic/research group on the pretext
of exploring a collaboration, only to get enough of an idea of their approach, and then dump them.
Several of the present staff balked at this and it didn't go anywhere. But it was instructive.
I'd suggest stolen " recipes " to use Paul Romers term
Only encourage the parallel Han project
You can't really build something significantly novel
Simply out of specs
(1) How is it done (because we don't know)
(2) Which approach has been proven to work (out of many that we would have to try)
The focus in discussing the topic is often on (1), and it is certainly an important aspect,
perhaps the most important one if the adversary is in bootstrapping mode.
However once you are at a certain level, (2) becomes more important - the solution space is
simply too large, and knowing what has already worked elsewhere can cut through a lot of failed
experiments (including finding a better solution of course).
(2) also relates somewhat to "best practices" - don't try to innovate and create yet another
proprietary thing that only the people who created it understand, do what everybody else is doing,
then you can hire more people who "already know it", or if "others" improve or build on the existing
solution, that immediately applies to your version as well.
The downside is that your solution is not "differentiated". But if it is cheaper it doesn't
have to.
where US electronic surveillance was allegedly involved in a business dispute. In this case
there is no explicit claim about technology theft, but two companies were accusing each other
of patent violations, and espionage techniques were used to "obtain evidence".
BTW note the date - this kind of stuff was going on in the 90's. It is not a recent invention.
BTW this here was mentioned, you may have heard of it, in any case it was a big deal in Germany
where the US had several operational bases:
At the time I was working in a tech company there, and new security protocols were instituted,
like not sending certain confidential information by email or fax. There was even an anecdote
(unverified) of how a foreign service (not US in that case) was allegedly intercepting business
documents/negotiations that were conducted by fax, and making the information available to "their"
own companies bidding for the same project. Whether true or not, that's what the management was
concerned about.
"... The "neocons" believe American greatness is measured by our willingness to be a great power-through vast and virtually unlimited global military involvement. Other nations' problems invariably become our own because history and fate have designated America the world's top authority. ..."
"... neoconservatism has always been sold through the narrative of America's "greatness" or "exceptionalism." This is essentially the Republican Party's version of the old liberal notion promoted by President Woodrow Wilson that it is America's mission to "make the world safe for democracy." (meaning for international corporations). Douthat describes Rubio as the "great neoconservative hope" because the freshman senator is seen by the neocon intelligentsia as one of the few reliable Tea Party-oriented spokesman willing to still promote this ideology to the GOP base. I say "still" because many Republicans have begun to question the old neocon foreign policy consensus that dominated Bush's GOP. Douthat puts the neoconservatives' worries and the Republicans' shift into context... ..."
"... Almost to a man they have done everything possible to avoid serving in the military as have their children. ..."
"... The problem with the neoconservatives isn't that they flog American exceptionalism, it's that they aren't really Americans. ..."
"... Your piece leaves out three important threads in understanding neoconservatives. First, the movement was started by and is largely populated by Jews. The so-called "father of the neoconservative movement" was Irving Kristol, the father of William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard. Another prominent founder was Norman Podhoretz, who succeeded the elder Kristol as editor of Commentary. Many of the most prominent neoconservatives are Jewish: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, etc., etc. ..."
"... " For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality. Religion becomes what Plato called a noble lie. It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society by the philosophical elite in order to ensure social order… In being a kind of secretive elitist approach, Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians, could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know, who have this covert vision which they want to use to effect change in history, while concealing parts of it from people incapable of understanding it." ..."
"... Neoconservatives started out as Scoop Jackson Democratic Hawks. The several that I know well enough to know their non-war views are pretty much conventional Democrats in that they are pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-immigration, pro-big government. ..."
"... Their shift to the Republicans was tactical when they, led by Richard Perle, got their foot in the door of the Pentagon under Reagan. Under Bush 2, they completed the process and more-or-less took over the DoD. ..."
"... Neocons are mostly Zionist who put Israel interest above that of their country the USA. The majority are chicken hawks who never served a day in the military and have no problem sending other people kids to fight their wars. ..."
"... What's a neoconservative? An unrepentant Trotskyite, who recognized that Marxism wasn't the viable way to take over the world and so now proudly (and openly) pledges allegiance to America but always keeps Israel first in his heart. ..."
"... Exceptional is something I would hope other countries would say about us without having to remind them or ourselves. It's a form of group narcissism to keep bringing it up to convince ourselves our actions are just. ..."
"... What a fascinating article. The last paragraph was particularly smack on. When I spoke to a conservative friend recently, I was inflamed about our hyper-sized military and our overseas adventures as an example of very big government. ..."
"... The only thing I said in response was that he should take his 18 year old son by the arm and require him to sign up for the military to fight the battles he thinks we should be fighting. His response: "but he would rather go to college". I then reminded him that no American soldier has died for my freedom in my lifetime (I am 49 years old). That seemed to rankle him because the neocon argument concerning national defense requires that you buy into the propaganda that these soldiers are fighting for our freedom as a nation. ..."
"... Wish neoconservatism was a philosophy, but its not, only a bait-and-switch sales pitch for the military industrial complex. Since Scoop Jackson, the senator from Boeing, America's political-police-the-world crowd has been the complex's marketing firm. ..."
"... All work to keep the US government spending billions of dollars on mostly irrelevant military items. None seriously care about national defense: that's why no heads rolled when our billion-dollar air defense was helpless to protect the Pentagon against a small group of Muslem fanatics with box cutters. ..."
"... Re "American exceptionalism:" I am sixty-seven years old. When I was a child, my Dad (A Mustang officer), told me that the United States was exceptional for reason that the privileges of aristocracy in Europe were the ordinary civil rights of common equals here. ..."
"... They stand ready to compromise or to countenance disagreement on almost any strictly parochial American social or economic concern, so long as their foreign policy and other "high political" objectives are met. ..."
"... I had forgotten that I saved a copy of a book review by David Gordon that appeared in TAC this past October, entitled "Neoconservatism Defined." Actually, it is a combined review of two books, and it is a pretty good introduction to neoconservatism. http://www.amconmag.com/blog/anatomy-of-neoconservatism/ ..."
"... "Most, though certainly not all, of the leading neocons are Jewish and the defense of Israel is central to their political concerns." ..."
"... The neocons of the second age did not quit the Democratic Party until, after prolonged struggle, they had failed to take it over. They then discovered in the rising popularity of Ronald Reagan a new strategy to advance their goals; but even when Reagan and his aides received them warmly, many found it distinctly against the grain to vote for a Republican. Once they had overcome this aversion, the neocons proved able markedly to expand their political power and influence. Nevertheless, some neocons found Reagan insufficiently militant. For Norman Podhoretz, a literary critic who imagined himself a foreign policy expert, Reagan became an appeaser reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain. "In 1984-85, however, Podhoretz finally lost hope in his champion; he … lamented the president's desire to do whatever it took to present himself to Europeans and above all to American voters as a 'man of peace,' ready to negotiate with the Soviets." ..."
"... The "national greatness" neocons of our day continue the pattern of their second age predecessors in their constant warnings of peril and calls for a militant response. They do not apply the law of unintended consequences to foreign policy: skepticism about the efficacy of government action ends at the doors to the Pentagon." ..."
"... If military hostilities were actually going on in Libya, it certainly would be easy to distinguish between the offensive opponent (all the foreign countries operating under the NATO umbrella and firing all the missiles into Libya and dropping all the bombs on Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi) and the defensive opponent (the Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi, the nominal leader of Libya). ..."
"... What troubles me is that "Neoconservatism" has become mainstream Republicanism. In fact Ronald Reagan was perhaps the first Neocon president. And it looks as if the Tea Party has been hijacked by Palin, Bachmann and Rubio et al . Trying to change the Republican party from within simply will not work -- for Neocons don't just control the Republican party, they ARE the Republican party. We need a third party that overtly champions fiscal and social conservatism and international isolationism as its three main pillars! ..."
"... Gil, the GOP leadership may be neocon, but the grassroots are more or less non-interventionist. We see the same split on immigration. I think its too early to give up on the party. ..."
"... In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?" ..."
"... They all believe in projecting US military might in order to foster democracy overseas. They ultimately seem to care more about the welfare of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and, Afghanistan than the United States. ..."
"... What bothers me is what we consider "mainstream" conservatism today in the form of talk radio, Rush, and others is basically a neconservative movement. ..."
"... It never ceases to amazes me why any true conservative would go any where near a member of the Bush administration and yet Sean has Rove and others on his show routinely when a case can be made that they should stand trial for being responsible for the abuse of those detainees. I have been student of the Holocaust my entire life and to see some of the circumstances of pre war Germany unfold in front of me, the "we have to take these steps in the name of defending the country" the dehumanizing of the muslims which made it easy to justify torturing them, it is all so very scary. ..."
This is a jingoistic political ideology of the Us elite preached by Killary and characterized
by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.
The "neocons" believe American greatness is measured by our willingness to be a great power-through
vast and virtually unlimited global military involvement. Other nations' problems invariably become
our own because history and fate have designated America the world's top authority.
Critics say the US cannot afford to be the world's policeman. Neoconservatives not only say that
we can but we must-and that we will cease to be America if we don't. Writes Boston Globe neoconservative
columnist Jeff Jacoby: "Our world needs a policeman. And whether most Americans like it or not, only
their indispensable nation is fit for the job." Neocon intellectual Max Boot says explicitly that
the US should be the world's policeman because we are the best policeman.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) heartily champions the neoconservative view.
...neoconservatism has always been sold through the narrative of America's "greatness" or "exceptionalism."
This is essentially the Republican Party's version of the old liberal notion promoted by President
Woodrow Wilson that it is America's mission to "make the world safe for democracy." (meaning for
international corporations). Douthat describes Rubio as the "great neoconservative hope" because
the freshman senator is seen by the neocon intelligentsia as one of the few reliable Tea Party-oriented
spokesman willing to still promote this ideology to the GOP base. I say "still" because many Republicans
have begun to question the old neocon foreign policy consensus that dominated Bush's GOP. Douthat
puts the neoconservatives' worries and the Republicans' shift into context...
...But this has always been the neocon ruse-if neoconservatives can convince others that fighting
some war, somewhere is for America's actual defense, they will always make this argument and stretch
any logic necessary to do so. Whether or not it is true is less important than its effectiveness.
But their arguments are only a means to an end. Neoconservatives rarely show any reflection-much
less regret-for foreign policy mistakes because for them there are no foreign policy mistakes. America's
wars are valid by their own volition. America's "mission" is its missions. Writes Max Boot: "Why
should America take on the thankless task of policing the globe… As long as evil exists, someone
will have to protect peaceful people from predators."
Neoconservatives are primarily socially liberal hawks. Almost to a man they have done everything
possible to avoid serving in the military as have their children. Next to liberals they are the
greatest danger to our country.
Re "American exceptionalism". I thought America was exceptional until it started acting like any
old cynical, corrupt, doomed empire. It's silly to go about boasting of your exceptionalism even
as you repeat every hackneyed error of your predecessors, and trade your true character for a
handful of dust.
The problem with the neoconservatives isn't that they flog American exceptionalism, it's that
they aren't really Americans.
In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's
objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?"
Folks will say this is unfair and a gross distortion of reality, if not in fact a bigoted assertion,
but can you name any current neoconservative who is oppossed to US support for Israel? Or even
just wants tosee it reduced a bit. I suspect not.
On domestic issues, there's a greater range of variation across the neocon spectrum, but, unlike
the case back in the middle 70s when we first began to hear of this troubling new breed of political
apostates in the making, it's clear that foreign policy is of much greater importance to the neocons
than is domestic policy.
By the middle eastern sympathiesyou shall know them.
"My father suggested to me recently that it might be helpful to better explain what the term "neoconservative"
means. "A lot of people don't know," he said. As usual, Dad was right."
One of those people who didn't know what a "neoconservative" was is our former President, George
W. Bush. I remember reading somewhere that, when he was running for President in the late 90's,
George W. asked his father what a neoconservative was, and George H. W. replied that he had only
to remember one word to understand what a neoconservative was: Israel.
Your piece leaves out three important threads in understanding neoconservatives. First,
the movement was started by and is largely populated by Jews. The so-called "father of the neoconservative
movement" was Irving Kristol, the father of William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard.
Another prominent founder was Norman Podhoretz, who succeeded the elder Kristol as editor of Commentary.
Many of the most prominent neoconservatives are Jewish: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton,
etc., etc.
Secondly, the roots of neoconservatism traces back to very liberal political leanings, bordering
on socialism and even communism. The elder Kristol was a Trotskyite into his 20's. That would
explain their tendency to favor a strong central government, which, of course, allows them to
exert their influence more effectively despite their small numbers. It is also consistent with
the views of Leo Strauss, one of the great intellectual shapers of neoconservatism. According
to an account by a former neoconservative:
" For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality. Religion becomes
what Plato called a noble lie. It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society by the
philosophical elite in order to ensure social order… In being a kind of secretive elitist approach,
Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians,
could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know, who have this covert vision which
they want to use to effect change in history, while concealing parts of it from people incapable
of understanding it."
Thirdly, as evidenced by the George H.W. Bush comment above, a strong underlying belief that
seems to unite the neoconservatives is in the perceived need, above all, to make the world safe
for Israel.
Great piece Jack! Neoconservatives started out as Scoop Jackson Democratic Hawks. The several
that I know well enough to know their non-war views are pretty much conventional Democrats in
that they are pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-immigration, pro-big government.
Their shift to the Republicans
was tactical when they, led by Richard Perle, got their foot in the door of the Pentagon under
Reagan. Under Bush 2, they completed the process and more-or-less took over the DoD.
I expect
they are now triangulating frantically to determine if it in their best interests to remain nominally
Republicans or to slowly drift back to their natural habitat in the Democratic Party.
Neocons are mostly Zionist who put Israel interest above that of their country the USA. The
majority are chicken hawks who never served a day in the military and have no problem sending
other people kids to fight their wars.
let us not forget the distinction of constitutional authority for past interventions and the "now
in violation of the war powers act" Lybian effort. Those who call themselves conservatives, neo-con
or otherwise would do well to refer to their pocket constitution they claim to follow and carry.
Criticism of fellow party members who constitutionally oppose these interventions employ the same
hate-mongering tactics of the left. Silence the opposition at any cost and never stop feeding
the federal leviathan. Thanks to Church and Wilkow for the education.
What's a neoconservative? An unrepentant Trotskyite, who recognized that Marxism wasn't the viable
way to take over the world and so now proudly (and openly) pledges allegiance to America but always
keeps Israel first in his heart.
Exceptional is something I would hope other countries would say about us without having to
remind them or ourselves. It's a form of group narcissism to keep bringing it up to convince ourselves
our actions are just.
How about some American humility? More Gary Cooper and less Richard Simmons.
What a fascinating article. The last paragraph was particularly smack on. When I spoke to
a conservative friend recently, I was inflamed about our hyper-sized military and our overseas
adventures as an example of very big government.
The kind that he, as a conservative, should oppose. His retort, of course, was that national
security is one of the constitutional purposes of our government. There it is. This friend really
thinks that Iraq, Libya, our 1000's of bases all over the world, is what national defense is all
about. With his argument, there is literally no limit to the size of the military or the scope
of its mission. The neocons have defined it that way.
The only thing I said in response was that
he should take his 18 year old son by the arm and require him to sign up for the military to fight
the battles he thinks we should be fighting. His response: "but he would rather go to college".
I then reminded him that no American soldier has died for my freedom in my lifetime (I am 49 years
old). That seemed to rankle him because the neocon argument concerning national defense requires
that you buy into the propaganda that these soldiers are fighting for our freedom as a nation.
Wish neoconservatism was a philosophy, but its not, only a bait-and-switch sales pitch for
the military industrial complex. Since Scoop Jackson, the senator from Boeing, America's political-police-the-world
crowd has been the complex's marketing firm.
All work to keep the US government spending billions of dollars on mostly irrelevant military
items. None seriously care about national defense: that's why no heads rolled when our billion-dollar
air defense was helpless to protect the Pentagon against a small group of Muslem fanatics with
box cutters.
Worse, the military industrial complex will be entrenched until serious elected officials,
in the tradition of Dwight Eisenhower, create a peacetime economy to replace our warfare state.
Until then, too much money, too many jobs in America depend on the complex.
Re "American exceptionalism:" I am sixty-seven years old. When I was a child, my Dad (A
Mustang officer), told me that the United States was exceptional for reason that the privileges
of aristocracy in Europe were the ordinary civil rights of common equals here.
If I believe in "national greatness," by that I mean a nation of great- soul people,
the kind Aristotle calls megalopsychic .
"On domestic issues, there's a greater range of variation across the neocon spectrum,"
True, but then domestic issues cause a dull glaze to form over neoconservative eyes. They stand
ready to compromise or to countenance disagreement on almost any strictly parochial American social
or economic concern, so long as their foreign policy and other "high political" objectives are
met.
Revolutions are internal matters of a country … the revolution in Gypto was successful internally
… people were not killed, cities were not bombed, war was not raged, outside countries didn't
send their forces … whatever was done … it was within the country and by the people … without
outside support … that's a revolution.
Look at the massacre they are carrying out in Tibby … you call that a revolution man … you
call that an operation for the people?
Strictly speaking, a neoconservative, is a member of the traditional FDR coalition (unions, minorities
– including Catholics, Jews and African Americans, even Southern whites) who flipped to the Republican
party and some element of conservative ideology back in the 1970s. As a former FDR Democrat, Ronald
Reagan had elements of neoconservatism in his past.
And social liberalism is far from neocon orthodoxy. People like Gertrude Himmelfarb and John
Neuhaus were at the forefront of neoconservatism. Jeane Kirpatrick, by no means a wobbly or wimpy
neoconservative, had roots in socialist activism together with Irving Kristol and the like. Indeed,
losing its conservative moral sensibilities helped drive the Democratic Party mad.
It is only relatively recently that a few – but hardly all – Boom generation neocons such as
David Frum and David Brooks also contracted the same form of mental illness. Otherwise, this group
has become largely indistinguishable from the Republican mainstream, which draws its roots from
Roosevelt, Lincoln, Henry Clay and Alexander Hamilton.
Of course, with the onset of southern neocons with states rights and libertarian ideology,
the demographic advances of the GOP in the late 20th century imported Civil War divisions into
the party, a theme that Kevin Phillips has – sadistically – played upon. Still, one might well
say that there is nothing wrong with neoconservatism except for its detractors. Down with the
Traitor. Up with the Star.
A "great" power can be and is often less than a "good" power. So, the Neoconservatives manifesto
mandates foreign policy from the top – down! Who then, is there that stands – up for and represents,"We
the People"?
I had forgotten that I saved a copy of a book review by David Gordon that appeared in TAC
this past October, entitled "Neoconservatism Defined." Actually, it is a combined review of two
books, and it is a pretty good introduction to neoconservatism.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/anatomy-of-neoconservatism/
In the course of the review, Gordon makes the following observation:
"Most, though certainly not all, of the leading neocons are Jewish and the defense of Israel
is central to their political concerns."
One of the books concentrates on the intellectual founder of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss,
and the review makes some consise observations about him.
David Gordon's book review also contains the following observations:
"No one who absorbs Vaïsse's discussion of this second age can harbor any illusions about whether
the neocons count as genuine conservatives. [Senator Henry] Jackson made no secret of his statist
views of domestic policy, but this did not in the least impede his neocons allies from enlisting
in his behalf.
Vaïsse by the way understates Jackson's commitment to socialism, which dated from
his youth. Contrary to what our author suggests, the League for Industrial Democracy, which Jackson
joined while in college, was not "a moderate organization that backed unions and democratic principles."
It was a socialist youth movement that aimed to propagate socialism to the public.
It was not Jackson's domestic policy, though, that principally drew the necons to him. They
had an elective affinity for the pursuit of the Cold War. Vaïsse stresses in particular that they
collaborated with Paul Nitze and other Cold War hawks. In a notorious incident, "Team B," under
the control of the hawks, claimed that CIA estimates of Russian armaments were radically understated.
It transpired that the alarms of Team B were baseless; they nevertheless served their purpose
in promoting a bellicose foreign policy.
The neocons of the second age did not quit the Democratic Party until, after prolonged struggle,
they had failed to take it over. They then discovered in the rising popularity of Ronald Reagan
a new strategy to advance their goals; but even when Reagan and his aides received them warmly,
many found it distinctly against the grain to vote for a Republican. Once they had overcome this
aversion, the neocons proved able markedly to expand their political power and influence. Nevertheless,
some neocons found Reagan insufficiently militant. For Norman Podhoretz, a literary critic who
imagined himself a foreign policy expert, Reagan became an appeaser reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain.
"In 1984-85, however, Podhoretz finally lost hope in his champion; he … lamented the president's
desire to do whatever it took to present himself to Europeans and above all to American voters
as a 'man of peace,' ready to negotiate with the Soviets."
The "national greatness" neocons of our day continue the pattern of their second age predecessors
in their constant warnings of peril and calls for a militant response. They do not apply the law
of unintended consequences to foreign policy: skepticism about the efficacy of government action
ends at the doors to the Pentagon."
"U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study"
Excerpt:
The exercise was done by 60 officers dubbed "Jedi Knights," as all second-year SAMS students
are nicknamed.
The SAMS paper attempts to predict events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation,
and sees possible dangers for U.S. troops from both sides.
It calls Israel's armed forces a "500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates
in both Gaza and the West Bank. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very
unlikely to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially in air space management."
Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless
and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."
This would have had some point 200 years ago. Unfortunately, cannon now shoot more than three miles,
the 3 mile limit on national sovereignty is obsolete. You cannot distinguish between an offensive
and defensive opponent.
"You cannot distinguish between an offensive and defensive opponent."
If military hostilities were actually going on in Libya, it certainly would be easy to distinguish
between the offensive opponent (all the foreign countries operating under the NATO umbrella and
firing all the missiles into Libya and dropping all the bombs on Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi)
and the defensive opponent (the Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi, the nominal leader of Libya).
Nice article! I believe that what constitutes a neoconservative has changed over the years. Sure,
in an academic sense, a "neoconservative" is someone who might have supported Scoop Jackson in
Washington or Strauss at U of Chicago in the 70's- in essence, someone with democratic roots who
became more hawkish on foreign policy.
However, most conservative pundits- Rush, Hannity, Beck,
etc, support projecting US power in order to achieve Democracy overseas. As do Bachmann, Palin,
Romney, Gingrich, Boener, Perry and most other establishment Republicans.
They all supported war
in Afghanistan and Iraq, all support Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, and big oil, and all
fundamentally decry any attempt to cut the US military budget.
What troubles me is that "Neoconservatism"
has become mainstream Republicanism. In fact Ronald Reagan was perhaps the first Neocon president.
And it looks as if the Tea Party has been hijacked by Palin, Bachmann and Rubio et al . Trying
to change the Republican party from within simply will not work -- for Neocons don't just control
the Republican party, they ARE the Republican party. We need a third party that overtly champions
fiscal and social conservatism and international isolationism as its three main pillars!
Gil, the GOP leadership may be neocon, but the grassroots are more or less non-interventionist.
We see the same split on immigration. I think its too early to give up on the party.
By the way, I don't consider RR a neocon President. Along with Eisenhower, he was the most
non interventionist prez in recent history.
WE HAVE A WINNER!;
'Steve, on June 23rd, 2011 at 11:10 am Said:
Oh, come on guys.
In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's
objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?"
Sure, much of the grassroots is non-interventionist, although many, many Evangelicals support
the Likud party in Israel for biblical reasons, and those Republicans who listen regularly to
Neocons like Hannity and Limbaugh and Dennis Miller, or watch Krauthammer, Kristol and O'Reilly
are influenced to support an interventionist foreign policy. Here is the problem! How can you
change the Republican party from within when the Tea Party Caucus is headed by an interventionist
Neocon like Michelle Bachmann?
Ronald Reagan was a semi-isolationist. Except, of course, for bombing Libya, stationing troops
in Lebanon, and docking the 6th fleet in Israel. Sorry, I know many people consider him a saint,
and on both fiscal and social issues he was wonderful. But let's face it- Reagan was a former
democratic Union head who became a conservative later on in life and projected US power overseas
when it wasn't necessary. A Neocon? At least 75%
A neoconservative as an actual social phenomenon – free from intellectual definition – is from the
social upheaval of the 'spirit of the 60's'. With all their socialism and revolution against white-western-protestant
civilization.
You are fundamentally correct with respect to the origins of most Neoconservative "intellectuals."
However, definitions morph and change over time until their origins become so cloudy as to be
practically irrelevant. Let's get real - how many young people know that Bill Kristol's dad used
to be a Socialist? How many people even know who Bill Kristol is or Scoop Jackson was?
Ultimately one can only judge people by their actions. And, in my definition, anyone who ACTS
like a Neoconservative- or puts others in harm's way in order to further their expansionist aims-
IS a Neoconservative.
And we will never win our battle against the Neoconservatives unless we
call things as they are, without getting bogged down in biographical details about people and
philosophers who nobody ever hears about. So, while David Frum, Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Rush
Limbaugh, Lindsay Graham Michelle Bachmann and just about every modern republican congressman
or senator or conservative think tank member inside the Washington Beltway may never have been
hippies in the 60's, and almost all can claim to have been lifelong conservatives, 99% are Neoconservatives
because their ACTIONS define who they are.
They all believe in projecting US military might in
order to foster democracy overseas. They ultimately seem to care more about the welfare of Israel,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and, Afghanistan than the United States.
What bothers me is what we consider "mainstream" conservatism today in the form of talk radio,
Rush, and others is basically a neconservative movement.
What I would consider true conservatism
you find here in TAC and also in the Libertarian publications like Reason and Liberty but the
reach of talk radio and the neocon blogs seems to be far greater than that of real conservatives
and the neocons appear to be setting the agenda these days. It is nothing short of appalling isn't
it to see "conservatives" defending torture and the secret prisons run under the Bush administration,
all in the name of "defending" the country.
It never ceases to amazes me why any true conservative
would go any where near a member of the Bush administration and yet Sean has Rove and others on
his show routinely when a case can be made that they should stand trial for being responsible
for the abuse of those detainees. I have been student of the Holocaust my entire life and to see
some of the circumstances of pre war Germany unfold in front of me, the "we have to take these
steps in the name of defending the country" the dehumanizing of the muslims which made it easy
to justify torturing them, it is all so very scary.
"... The "neocons" believe American greatness is measured by our willingness to be a great power-through vast and virtually unlimited global military involvement. Other nations' problems invariably become our own because history and fate have designated America the world's top authority. ..."
"... neoconservatism has always been sold through the narrative of America's "greatness" or "exceptionalism." This is essentially the Republican Party's version of the old liberal notion promoted by President Woodrow Wilson that it is America's mission to "make the world safe for democracy." (meaning for international corporations). Douthat describes Rubio as the "great neoconservative hope" because the freshman senator is seen by the neocon intelligentsia as one of the few reliable Tea Party-oriented spokesman willing to still promote this ideology to the GOP base. I say "still" because many Republicans have begun to question the old neocon foreign policy consensus that dominated Bush's GOP. Douthat puts the neoconservatives' worries and the Republicans' shift into context... ..."
"... Almost to a man they have done everything possible to avoid serving in the military as have their children. ..."
"... The problem with the neoconservatives isn't that they flog American exceptionalism, it's that they aren't really Americans. ..."
"... Your piece leaves out three important threads in understanding neoconservatives. First, the movement was started by and is largely populated by Jews. The so-called "father of the neoconservative movement" was Irving Kristol, the father of William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard. Another prominent founder was Norman Podhoretz, who succeeded the elder Kristol as editor of Commentary. Many of the most prominent neoconservatives are Jewish: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, etc., etc. ..."
"... " For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality. Religion becomes what Plato called a noble lie. It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society by the philosophical elite in order to ensure social order… In being a kind of secretive elitist approach, Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians, could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know, who have this covert vision which they want to use to effect change in history, while concealing parts of it from people incapable of understanding it." ..."
"... Neoconservatives started out as Scoop Jackson Democratic Hawks. The several that I know well enough to know their non-war views are pretty much conventional Democrats in that they are pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-immigration, pro-big government. ..."
"... Their shift to the Republicans was tactical when they, led by Richard Perle, got their foot in the door of the Pentagon under Reagan. Under Bush 2, they completed the process and more-or-less took over the DoD. ..."
"... Neocons are mostly Zionist who put Israel interest above that of their country the USA. The majority are chicken hawks who never served a day in the military and have no problem sending other people kids to fight their wars. ..."
"... What's a neoconservative? An unrepentant Trotskyite, who recognized that Marxism wasn't the viable way to take over the world and so now proudly (and openly) pledges allegiance to America but always keeps Israel first in his heart. ..."
"... Exceptional is something I would hope other countries would say about us without having to remind them or ourselves. It's a form of group narcissism to keep bringing it up to convince ourselves our actions are just. ..."
"... What a fascinating article. The last paragraph was particularly smack on. When I spoke to a conservative friend recently, I was inflamed about our hyper-sized military and our overseas adventures as an example of very big government. ..."
"... The only thing I said in response was that he should take his 18 year old son by the arm and require him to sign up for the military to fight the battles he thinks we should be fighting. His response: "but he would rather go to college". I then reminded him that no American soldier has died for my freedom in my lifetime (I am 49 years old). That seemed to rankle him because the neocon argument concerning national defense requires that you buy into the propaganda that these soldiers are fighting for our freedom as a nation. ..."
"... Wish neoconservatism was a philosophy, but its not, only a bait-and-switch sales pitch for the military industrial complex. Since Scoop Jackson, the senator from Boeing, America's political-police-the-world crowd has been the complex's marketing firm. ..."
"... All work to keep the US government spending billions of dollars on mostly irrelevant military items. None seriously care about national defense: that's why no heads rolled when our billion-dollar air defense was helpless to protect the Pentagon against a small group of Muslem fanatics with box cutters. ..."
"... Re "American exceptionalism:" I am sixty-seven years old. When I was a child, my Dad (A Mustang officer), told me that the United States was exceptional for reason that the privileges of aristocracy in Europe were the ordinary civil rights of common equals here. ..."
"... They stand ready to compromise or to countenance disagreement on almost any strictly parochial American social or economic concern, so long as their foreign policy and other "high political" objectives are met. ..."
"... I had forgotten that I saved a copy of a book review by David Gordon that appeared in TAC this past October, entitled "Neoconservatism Defined." Actually, it is a combined review of two books, and it is a pretty good introduction to neoconservatism. http://www.amconmag.com/blog/anatomy-of-neoconservatism/ ..."
"... "Most, though certainly not all, of the leading neocons are Jewish and the defense of Israel is central to their political concerns." ..."
"... The neocons of the second age did not quit the Democratic Party until, after prolonged struggle, they had failed to take it over. They then discovered in the rising popularity of Ronald Reagan a new strategy to advance their goals; but even when Reagan and his aides received them warmly, many found it distinctly against the grain to vote for a Republican. Once they had overcome this aversion, the neocons proved able markedly to expand their political power and influence. Nevertheless, some neocons found Reagan insufficiently militant. For Norman Podhoretz, a literary critic who imagined himself a foreign policy expert, Reagan became an appeaser reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain. "In 1984-85, however, Podhoretz finally lost hope in his champion; he … lamented the president's desire to do whatever it took to present himself to Europeans and above all to American voters as a 'man of peace,' ready to negotiate with the Soviets." ..."
"... The "national greatness" neocons of our day continue the pattern of their second age predecessors in their constant warnings of peril and calls for a militant response. They do not apply the law of unintended consequences to foreign policy: skepticism about the efficacy of government action ends at the doors to the Pentagon." ..."
"... If military hostilities were actually going on in Libya, it certainly would be easy to distinguish between the offensive opponent (all the foreign countries operating under the NATO umbrella and firing all the missiles into Libya and dropping all the bombs on Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi) and the defensive opponent (the Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi, the nominal leader of Libya). ..."
"... What troubles me is that "Neoconservatism" has become mainstream Republicanism. In fact Ronald Reagan was perhaps the first Neocon president. And it looks as if the Tea Party has been hijacked by Palin, Bachmann and Rubio et al . Trying to change the Republican party from within simply will not work -- for Neocons don't just control the Republican party, they ARE the Republican party. We need a third party that overtly champions fiscal and social conservatism and international isolationism as its three main pillars! ..."
"... Gil, the GOP leadership may be neocon, but the grassroots are more or less non-interventionist. We see the same split on immigration. I think its too early to give up on the party. ..."
"... In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?" ..."
"... They all believe in projecting US military might in order to foster democracy overseas. They ultimately seem to care more about the welfare of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and, Afghanistan than the United States. ..."
"... What bothers me is what we consider "mainstream" conservatism today in the form of talk radio, Rush, and others is basically a neconservative movement. ..."
"... It never ceases to amazes me why any true conservative would go any where near a member of the Bush administration and yet Sean has Rove and others on his show routinely when a case can be made that they should stand trial for being responsible for the abuse of those detainees. I have been student of the Holocaust my entire life and to see some of the circumstances of pre war Germany unfold in front of me, the "we have to take these steps in the name of defending the country" the dehumanizing of the muslims which made it easy to justify torturing them, it is all so very scary. ..."
This is a jingoistic political ideology of the Us elite preached by Killary and characterized
by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.
The "neocons" believe American greatness is measured by our willingness to be a great power-through
vast and virtually unlimited global military involvement. Other nations' problems invariably become
our own because history and fate have designated America the world's top authority.
Critics say the US cannot afford to be the world's policeman. Neoconservatives not only say that
we can but we must-and that we will cease to be America if we don't. Writes Boston Globe neoconservative
columnist Jeff Jacoby: "Our world needs a policeman. And whether most Americans like it or not, only
their indispensable nation is fit for the job." Neocon intellectual Max Boot says explicitly that
the US should be the world's policeman because we are the best policeman.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) heartily champions the neoconservative view.
...neoconservatism has always been sold through the narrative of America's "greatness" or "exceptionalism."
This is essentially the Republican Party's version of the old liberal notion promoted by President
Woodrow Wilson that it is America's mission to "make the world safe for democracy." (meaning for
international corporations). Douthat describes Rubio as the "great neoconservative hope" because
the freshman senator is seen by the neocon intelligentsia as one of the few reliable Tea Party-oriented
spokesman willing to still promote this ideology to the GOP base. I say "still" because many Republicans
have begun to question the old neocon foreign policy consensus that dominated Bush's GOP. Douthat
puts the neoconservatives' worries and the Republicans' shift into context...
...But this has always been the neocon ruse-if neoconservatives can convince others that fighting
some war, somewhere is for America's actual defense, they will always make this argument and stretch
any logic necessary to do so. Whether or not it is true is less important than its effectiveness.
But their arguments are only a means to an end. Neoconservatives rarely show any reflection-much
less regret-for foreign policy mistakes because for them there are no foreign policy mistakes. America's
wars are valid by their own volition. America's "mission" is its missions. Writes Max Boot: "Why
should America take on the thankless task of policing the globe… As long as evil exists, someone
will have to protect peaceful people from predators."
Neoconservatives are primarily socially liberal hawks. Almost to a man they have done everything
possible to avoid serving in the military as have their children. Next to liberals they are the
greatest danger to our country.
Re "American exceptionalism". I thought America was exceptional until it started acting like any
old cynical, corrupt, doomed empire. It's silly to go about boasting of your exceptionalism even
as you repeat every hackneyed error of your predecessors, and trade your true character for a
handful of dust.
The problem with the neoconservatives isn't that they flog American exceptionalism, it's that
they aren't really Americans.
In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's
objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?"
Folks will say this is unfair and a gross distortion of reality, if not in fact a bigoted assertion,
but can you name any current neoconservative who is oppossed to US support for Israel? Or even
just wants tosee it reduced a bit. I suspect not.
On domestic issues, there's a greater range of variation across the neocon spectrum, but, unlike
the case back in the middle 70s when we first began to hear of this troubling new breed of political
apostates in the making, it's clear that foreign policy is of much greater importance to the neocons
than is domestic policy.
By the middle eastern sympathiesyou shall know them.
"My father suggested to me recently that it might be helpful to better explain what the term "neoconservative"
means. "A lot of people don't know," he said. As usual, Dad was right."
One of those people who didn't know what a "neoconservative" was is our former President, George
W. Bush. I remember reading somewhere that, when he was running for President in the late 90's,
George W. asked his father what a neoconservative was, and George H. W. replied that he had only
to remember one word to understand what a neoconservative was: Israel.
Your piece leaves out three important threads in understanding neoconservatives. First,
the movement was started by and is largely populated by Jews. The so-called "father of the neoconservative
movement" was Irving Kristol, the father of William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard.
Another prominent founder was Norman Podhoretz, who succeeded the elder Kristol as editor of Commentary.
Many of the most prominent neoconservatives are Jewish: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton,
etc., etc.
Secondly, the roots of neoconservatism traces back to very liberal political leanings, bordering
on socialism and even communism. The elder Kristol was a Trotskyite into his 20's. That would
explain their tendency to favor a strong central government, which, of course, allows them to
exert their influence more effectively despite their small numbers. It is also consistent with
the views of Leo Strauss, one of the great intellectual shapers of neoconservatism. According
to an account by a former neoconservative:
" For the neoconservatives, religion is an instrument of promoting morality. Religion becomes
what Plato called a noble lie. It is a myth which is told to the majority of the society by the
philosophical elite in order to ensure social order… In being a kind of secretive elitist approach,
Straussianism does resemble Marxism. These ex-Marxists, or in some cases ex-liberal Straussians,
could see themselves as a kind of Leninist group, you know, who have this covert vision which
they want to use to effect change in history, while concealing parts of it from people incapable
of understanding it."
Thirdly, as evidenced by the George H.W. Bush comment above, a strong underlying belief that
seems to unite the neoconservatives is in the perceived need, above all, to make the world safe
for Israel.
Great piece Jack! Neoconservatives started out as Scoop Jackson Democratic Hawks. The several
that I know well enough to know their non-war views are pretty much conventional Democrats in
that they are pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-immigration, pro-big government.
Their shift to the Republicans
was tactical when they, led by Richard Perle, got their foot in the door of the Pentagon under
Reagan. Under Bush 2, they completed the process and more-or-less took over the DoD.
I expect
they are now triangulating frantically to determine if it in their best interests to remain nominally
Republicans or to slowly drift back to their natural habitat in the Democratic Party.
Neocons are mostly Zionist who put Israel interest above that of their country the USA. The
majority are chicken hawks who never served a day in the military and have no problem sending
other people kids to fight their wars.
let us not forget the distinction of constitutional authority for past interventions and the "now
in violation of the war powers act" Lybian effort. Those who call themselves conservatives, neo-con
or otherwise would do well to refer to their pocket constitution they claim to follow and carry.
Criticism of fellow party members who constitutionally oppose these interventions employ the same
hate-mongering tactics of the left. Silence the opposition at any cost and never stop feeding
the federal leviathan. Thanks to Church and Wilkow for the education.
What's a neoconservative? An unrepentant Trotskyite, who recognized that Marxism wasn't the viable
way to take over the world and so now proudly (and openly) pledges allegiance to America but always
keeps Israel first in his heart.
Exceptional is something I would hope other countries would say about us without having to
remind them or ourselves. It's a form of group narcissism to keep bringing it up to convince ourselves
our actions are just.
How about some American humility? More Gary Cooper and less Richard Simmons.
What a fascinating article. The last paragraph was particularly smack on. When I spoke to
a conservative friend recently, I was inflamed about our hyper-sized military and our overseas
adventures as an example of very big government.
The kind that he, as a conservative, should oppose. His retort, of course, was that national
security is one of the constitutional purposes of our government. There it is. This friend really
thinks that Iraq, Libya, our 1000's of bases all over the world, is what national defense is all
about. With his argument, there is literally no limit to the size of the military or the scope
of its mission. The neocons have defined it that way.
The only thing I said in response was that
he should take his 18 year old son by the arm and require him to sign up for the military to fight
the battles he thinks we should be fighting. His response: "but he would rather go to college".
I then reminded him that no American soldier has died for my freedom in my lifetime (I am 49 years
old). That seemed to rankle him because the neocon argument concerning national defense requires
that you buy into the propaganda that these soldiers are fighting for our freedom as a nation.
Wish neoconservatism was a philosophy, but its not, only a bait-and-switch sales pitch for
the military industrial complex. Since Scoop Jackson, the senator from Boeing, America's political-police-the-world
crowd has been the complex's marketing firm.
All work to keep the US government spending billions of dollars on mostly irrelevant military
items. None seriously care about national defense: that's why no heads rolled when our billion-dollar
air defense was helpless to protect the Pentagon against a small group of Muslem fanatics with
box cutters.
Worse, the military industrial complex will be entrenched until serious elected officials,
in the tradition of Dwight Eisenhower, create a peacetime economy to replace our warfare state.
Until then, too much money, too many jobs in America depend on the complex.
Re "American exceptionalism:" I am sixty-seven years old. When I was a child, my Dad (A
Mustang officer), told me that the United States was exceptional for reason that the privileges
of aristocracy in Europe were the ordinary civil rights of common equals here.
If I believe in "national greatness," by that I mean a nation of great- soul people,
the kind Aristotle calls megalopsychic .
"On domestic issues, there's a greater range of variation across the neocon spectrum,"
True, but then domestic issues cause a dull glaze to form over neoconservative eyes. They stand
ready to compromise or to countenance disagreement on almost any strictly parochial American social
or economic concern, so long as their foreign policy and other "high political" objectives are
met.
Revolutions are internal matters of a country … the revolution in Gypto was successful internally
… people were not killed, cities were not bombed, war was not raged, outside countries didn't
send their forces … whatever was done … it was within the country and by the people … without
outside support … that's a revolution.
Look at the massacre they are carrying out in Tibby … you call that a revolution man … you
call that an operation for the people?
Strictly speaking, a neoconservative, is a member of the traditional FDR coalition (unions, minorities
– including Catholics, Jews and African Americans, even Southern whites) who flipped to the Republican
party and some element of conservative ideology back in the 1970s. As a former FDR Democrat, Ronald
Reagan had elements of neoconservatism in his past.
And social liberalism is far from neocon orthodoxy. People like Gertrude Himmelfarb and John
Neuhaus were at the forefront of neoconservatism. Jeane Kirpatrick, by no means a wobbly or wimpy
neoconservative, had roots in socialist activism together with Irving Kristol and the like. Indeed,
losing its conservative moral sensibilities helped drive the Democratic Party mad.
It is only relatively recently that a few – but hardly all – Boom generation neocons such as
David Frum and David Brooks also contracted the same form of mental illness. Otherwise, this group
has become largely indistinguishable from the Republican mainstream, which draws its roots from
Roosevelt, Lincoln, Henry Clay and Alexander Hamilton.
Of course, with the onset of southern neocons with states rights and libertarian ideology,
the demographic advances of the GOP in the late 20th century imported Civil War divisions into
the party, a theme that Kevin Phillips has – sadistically – played upon. Still, one might well
say that there is nothing wrong with neoconservatism except for its detractors. Down with the
Traitor. Up with the Star.
A "great" power can be and is often less than a "good" power. So, the Neoconservatives manifesto
mandates foreign policy from the top – down! Who then, is there that stands – up for and represents,"We
the People"?
I had forgotten that I saved a copy of a book review by David Gordon that appeared in TAC
this past October, entitled "Neoconservatism Defined." Actually, it is a combined review of two
books, and it is a pretty good introduction to neoconservatism.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/anatomy-of-neoconservatism/
In the course of the review, Gordon makes the following observation:
"Most, though certainly not all, of the leading neocons are Jewish and the defense of Israel
is central to their political concerns."
One of the books concentrates on the intellectual founder of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss,
and the review makes some consise observations about him.
David Gordon's book review also contains the following observations:
"No one who absorbs Vaïsse's discussion of this second age can harbor any illusions about whether
the neocons count as genuine conservatives. [Senator Henry] Jackson made no secret of his statist
views of domestic policy, but this did not in the least impede his neocons allies from enlisting
in his behalf.
Vaïsse by the way understates Jackson's commitment to socialism, which dated from
his youth. Contrary to what our author suggests, the League for Industrial Democracy, which Jackson
joined while in college, was not "a moderate organization that backed unions and democratic principles."
It was a socialist youth movement that aimed to propagate socialism to the public.
It was not Jackson's domestic policy, though, that principally drew the necons to him. They
had an elective affinity for the pursuit of the Cold War. Vaïsse stresses in particular that they
collaborated with Paul Nitze and other Cold War hawks. In a notorious incident, "Team B," under
the control of the hawks, claimed that CIA estimates of Russian armaments were radically understated.
It transpired that the alarms of Team B were baseless; they nevertheless served their purpose
in promoting a bellicose foreign policy.
The neocons of the second age did not quit the Democratic Party until, after prolonged struggle,
they had failed to take it over. They then discovered in the rising popularity of Ronald Reagan
a new strategy to advance their goals; but even when Reagan and his aides received them warmly,
many found it distinctly against the grain to vote for a Republican. Once they had overcome this
aversion, the neocons proved able markedly to expand their political power and influence. Nevertheless,
some neocons found Reagan insufficiently militant. For Norman Podhoretz, a literary critic who
imagined himself a foreign policy expert, Reagan became an appeaser reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain.
"In 1984-85, however, Podhoretz finally lost hope in his champion; he … lamented the president's
desire to do whatever it took to present himself to Europeans and above all to American voters
as a 'man of peace,' ready to negotiate with the Soviets."
The "national greatness" neocons of our day continue the pattern of their second age predecessors
in their constant warnings of peril and calls for a militant response. They do not apply the law
of unintended consequences to foreign policy: skepticism about the efficacy of government action
ends at the doors to the Pentagon."
"U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study"
Excerpt:
The exercise was done by 60 officers dubbed "Jedi Knights," as all second-year SAMS students
are nicknamed.
The SAMS paper attempts to predict events in the first year of a peace-enforcement operation,
and sees possible dangers for U.S. troops from both sides.
It calls Israel's armed forces a "500-pound gorilla in Israel. Well armed and trained. Operates
in both Gaza and the West Bank. Known to disregard international law to accomplish mission. Very
unlikely to fire on American forces. Fratricide a concern especially in air space management."
Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless
and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."
This would have had some point 200 years ago. Unfortunately, cannon now shoot more than three miles,
the 3 mile limit on national sovereignty is obsolete. You cannot distinguish between an offensive
and defensive opponent.
"You cannot distinguish between an offensive and defensive opponent."
If military hostilities were actually going on in Libya, it certainly would be easy to distinguish
between the offensive opponent (all the foreign countries operating under the NATO umbrella and
firing all the missiles into Libya and dropping all the bombs on Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi)
and the defensive opponent (the Libyan forces loyal to Qaddafi, the nominal leader of Libya).
Nice article! I believe that what constitutes a neoconservative has changed over the years. Sure,
in an academic sense, a "neoconservative" is someone who might have supported Scoop Jackson in
Washington or Strauss at U of Chicago in the 70's- in essence, someone with democratic roots who
became more hawkish on foreign policy.
However, most conservative pundits- Rush, Hannity, Beck,
etc, support projecting US power in order to achieve Democracy overseas. As do Bachmann, Palin,
Romney, Gingrich, Boener, Perry and most other establishment Republicans.
They all supported war
in Afghanistan and Iraq, all support Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, and big oil, and all
fundamentally decry any attempt to cut the US military budget.
What troubles me is that "Neoconservatism"
has become mainstream Republicanism. In fact Ronald Reagan was perhaps the first Neocon president.
And it looks as if the Tea Party has been hijacked by Palin, Bachmann and Rubio et al . Trying
to change the Republican party from within simply will not work -- for Neocons don't just control
the Republican party, they ARE the Republican party. We need a third party that overtly champions
fiscal and social conservatism and international isolationism as its three main pillars!
Gil, the GOP leadership may be neocon, but the grassroots are more or less non-interventionist.
We see the same split on immigration. I think its too early to give up on the party.
By the way, I don't consider RR a neocon President. Along with Eisenhower, he was the most
non interventionist prez in recent history.
WE HAVE A WINNER!;
'Steve, on June 23rd, 2011 at 11:10 am Said:
Oh, come on guys.
In 2011, a neoconservative is the person who always answers yes to the question "Are Israel's
objectives always more important than the objectives of the USA?"
Sure, much of the grassroots is non-interventionist, although many, many Evangelicals support
the Likud party in Israel for biblical reasons, and those Republicans who listen regularly to
Neocons like Hannity and Limbaugh and Dennis Miller, or watch Krauthammer, Kristol and O'Reilly
are influenced to support an interventionist foreign policy. Here is the problem! How can you
change the Republican party from within when the Tea Party Caucus is headed by an interventionist
Neocon like Michelle Bachmann?
Ronald Reagan was a semi-isolationist. Except, of course, for bombing Libya, stationing troops
in Lebanon, and docking the 6th fleet in Israel. Sorry, I know many people consider him a saint,
and on both fiscal and social issues he was wonderful. But let's face it- Reagan was a former
democratic Union head who became a conservative later on in life and projected US power overseas
when it wasn't necessary. A Neocon? At least 75%
A neoconservative as an actual social phenomenon – free from intellectual definition – is from the
social upheaval of the 'spirit of the 60's'. With all their socialism and revolution against white-western-protestant
civilization.
You are fundamentally correct with respect to the origins of most Neoconservative "intellectuals."
However, definitions morph and change over time until their origins become so cloudy as to be
practically irrelevant. Let's get real - how many young people know that Bill Kristol's dad used
to be a Socialist? How many people even know who Bill Kristol is or Scoop Jackson was?
Ultimately one can only judge people by their actions. And, in my definition, anyone who ACTS
like a Neoconservative- or puts others in harm's way in order to further their expansionist aims-
IS a Neoconservative.
And we will never win our battle against the Neoconservatives unless we
call things as they are, without getting bogged down in biographical details about people and
philosophers who nobody ever hears about. So, while David Frum, Bill Kristol, Sean Hannity, Rush
Limbaugh, Lindsay Graham Michelle Bachmann and just about every modern republican congressman
or senator or conservative think tank member inside the Washington Beltway may never have been
hippies in the 60's, and almost all can claim to have been lifelong conservatives, 99% are Neoconservatives
because their ACTIONS define who they are.
They all believe in projecting US military might in
order to foster democracy overseas. They ultimately seem to care more about the welfare of Israel,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and, Afghanistan than the United States.
What bothers me is what we consider "mainstream" conservatism today in the form of talk radio,
Rush, and others is basically a neconservative movement.
What I would consider true conservatism
you find here in TAC and also in the Libertarian publications like Reason and Liberty but the
reach of talk radio and the neocon blogs seems to be far greater than that of real conservatives
and the neocons appear to be setting the agenda these days. It is nothing short of appalling isn't
it to see "conservatives" defending torture and the secret prisons run under the Bush administration,
all in the name of "defending" the country.
It never ceases to amazes me why any true conservative
would go any where near a member of the Bush administration and yet Sean has Rove and others on
his show routinely when a case can be made that they should stand trial for being responsible
for the abuse of those detainees. I have been student of the Holocaust my entire life and to see
some of the circumstances of pre war Germany unfold in front of me, the "we have to take these
steps in the name of defending the country" the dehumanizing of the muslims which made it easy
to justify torturing them, it is all so very scary.
On August 5th, Michael Morell, a former acting Director of the CIA, pilloried GOP presidential
candidate Donald Trump, concluding that he was an "unwitting agent of Russia." Morell, who entitled
his New York Times op-ed "I Ran the CIA and now I'm endorsing Hillary Clinton," described the
process whereby Trump had been so corrupted. According to Morell, Putin, it seems, as a wily ex-career
intelligence officer, is "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit
them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities
In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting
agent of the Russian Federation."
So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United
States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington
but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because
there are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded
and very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were,
respectively, often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many
more: Chuck Schumer, Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey,
Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman, Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few
in the Congress. All are
major recipients
of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter
what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States.
And then there are the Clintons.
One only has to go back to Bill's
one-sided pro-Israeli
diplomacy
at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the
widely condemned January 2001
last minute pardon
of
Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons, to realize
that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved. The
only problem is that the Clintons, relying on Morell's formulation, might more reasonably be described
as witting agents of Israel rather than unwitting as they have certainly known what they have
been doing and have been actively supporting Israeli policies even when damaging to U.S. interests
since they first emerged from the primordial political swamps in Arkansas. If one were completely
cynical it might be possible to suggest that they understood from the beginning that pandering
to Israel and gaining access to Jewish power and money would be a major component in their rise
to political prominence. It certainly has worked out that way.
=====
So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United
States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington
but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because
there are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded
and very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were,
respectively, often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many
more: Chuck Schumer, Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey,
Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman, Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few
in the Congress. All are
major recipients
of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter
what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States.
And then there are the Clintons. One only has to go back to Bill's
one-sided pro-Israeli
diplomacy
at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the
widely condemned January 2001
last minute pardon
of
Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons, to realize
that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved. The
only problem is that the Clintons, relying on Morell's formulation, might more reasonably be described
as witting agents of Israel rather than unwitting as they have certainly known what they have
been doing and have been actively supporting Israeli policies even when damaging to U.S. interests
since they first emerged from the primordial political swamps in Arkansas. If one were completely
cynical it might be possible to suggest that they understood from the beginning that pandering
to Israel and gaining access to Jewish power and money would be a major component in their rise
to political prominence. It certainly has worked out that way.
Neocons will support Hillary breaking the ranks of Republican Party, as she is one of them:
"The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be saved, but
the country still can be."
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump calls the Iraq War a lie-fueled fiasco, admires Vladimir Putin and says he would be a "neutral" arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to America's global role he asks, "Why are we always at the forefront of everything?" ..."
"... Even more than his economic positions, Trump's foreign policy views challenge GOP orthodoxy in fundamental ways. But while parts of the party establishment are resigning themselves or even backing Trump's runaway train, one group is bitterly digging in against him: the hawkish foreign policy elites known as neoconservatives. ..."
"... In interviews with POLITICO, leading neocons - people who promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable - said Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say they could vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November. ..."
"... "Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin," said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad. Trump's election would be "an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy," Cohen said, adding that "he has already damaged it considerably." ..."
"... In a March 1 interview with Vox, Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton over Trump. "I'm literally losing sleep over Donald Trump," he said. "She would be vastly preferable to Trump." ..."
"... The letter was signed by dozens of Republican foreign policy experts, including Boot; Peter Feaver, a former senior national security aide in George W. Bush's White House; Robert Zoellick, a former deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Dov Zakheim, a former Bush Pentagon official; and Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a former Bush State Department official. ..."
"... Kristol and Abrams have advised Florida senator Marco Rubio, the preferred choice of several neoconservatives, who admire his call for "moral clarity" in foreign policy and strong emphasis on human rights and democracy. ..."
"... Alarm brewing for months in GOP foreign policy circles burst into public view last week, when Robert Kagan, a key backer of the Iraq War and American global might, wrote in the Washington Post that a Trump nomination would force him to cross party lines. ..."
"... "The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be." ..."
Donald Trump calls the Iraq War a lie-fueled fiasco, admires Vladimir Putin and says he would
be a "neutral" arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to America's global role
he asks, "Why are we always at the forefront of everything?"
Even more than his economic
positions, Trump's foreign policy views challenge GOP orthodoxy in fundamental ways. But while parts
of the party establishment are resigning themselves or even backing Trump's runaway train, one group
is bitterly digging in against him: the hawkish foreign policy elites known as neoconservatives.
In interviews with POLITICO, leading neocons - people who promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin
and consider Israel's security non-negotiable - said Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy
and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say they could vote
for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November.
"Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin," said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department
official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad.
Trump's election would be "an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy," Cohen said, adding
that "he has already damaged it considerably."
Cohen, an Iraq war backer who is often called a neoconservative but said he does not identify
himself that way, said he would "strongly prefer a third party candidate" to Trump, but added: "Probably
if absolutely no alternative: Hillary."
In a March 1
interview with Vox, Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed
the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton
over Trump. "I'm literally losing sleep over Donald Trump," he said. "She would be vastly preferable
to Trump."
Cohen helped to organize an open letter signed by several dozen GOP foreign policy insiders -
many of whom are not considered neocons - that
was published Wednesday night by the military blog War on the Rocks. "[W]e are unable to support
a Party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head," the letter declared. It cited everything from Trump's
"admiration for foreign dictators" to his "inexcusable" support for "the expansive use of torture."
The letter was signed by dozens of Republican foreign policy experts, including Boot; Peter
Feaver, a former senior national security aide in George W. Bush's White House; Robert Zoellick,
a former deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Dov Zakheim, a former Bush Pentagon official;
and Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a former Bush State Department
official.
Several other neocons said they find themselves in an impossible position, constitutionally incapable
of voting for Clinton but repelled by a Republican whose foreign policy views they consider somewhere
between nonexistent and dangerous - and disconnected from their views about American power and values
abroad.
"1972 was the first time I was old enough to vote for president, and I did not vote. Couldn't
vote for McGovern for foreign policy reasons, nor for Nixon because of Watergate," said Elliott Abrams,
a former national security council aide to George W. Bush who specializes in democracy and the Middle
East. "I may be in the same boat in 2016, unable to vote for Trump or Clinton."
Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, something of a dean of Washington neoconservatives,
said he would seek out a third option before choosing between Trump and Clinton.
"If it's Trump-Clinton, I'd work with others to recruit a strong conservative third party candidate,
and do my best to help him win (which by the way would be more possible than people think, especially
when people - finally - realize Trump shouldn't be president and Hillary is indicted)," Kristol wrote
in an email.
Kristol and Abrams have advised Florida senator Marco Rubio, the preferred choice of several
neoconservatives, who admire his call for "moral clarity" in foreign policy and strong emphasis on
human rights and democracy.
Alarm brewing for months in GOP foreign policy circles burst into public view last week, when
Robert Kagan, a key backer of the Iraq War and American global might,
wrote in the Washington Post that a Trump nomination would force him to cross party lines.
"The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be
saved, but the country still can be."
In an interview, Kagan said his opposition to Trump "has nothing to do with foreign policy."
"... Syndicalist is not usually how we think of our current economic structure. But remember that syndicalism means economic control by the producers. Capitalism is different. It places by virtue of market structures all control in the hands of the consumers. The only question for syndicalists, then, is which producers are going to enjoy political privilege. It might be the workers, but it can also be the largest corporations. ..."
"... Autarky is the name given to the idea of economic self-sufficiency. Mostly this refers to the economic self determination of the nation-state. The nation-state must be geographically huge in order to support rapid economic growth for a large and growing population. ..."
The most definitive study on fascism written in these years was As We Go Marching by John T. Flynn.
Flynn was a journalist and scholar of a liberal spirit who had written a number of best-selling books
in the 1920s. It was the New Deal that changed him. His colleagues all followed FDR into fascism,
while Flynn himself kept the old faith. That meant that he fought FDR every step of the way, and
not only his domestic plans. Flynn was a leader of the America First movement that saw FDR's drive
to war as nothing but an extension of the New Deal, which it certainly was.
As We Go Marching came out in 1944, just at the tail end of the war, and right in the midst of
wartime economic controls the world over. It is a wonder that it ever got past the censors. It is
a full-scale study of fascist theory and practice, and Flynn saw precisely where fascism ends: in
militarism and war as the fulfillment of the stimulus spending agenda. When you run out of everything
else to spend money on, you can always depend on nationalist fervor to back more military spending.
Flynn, like other members of the Old Right, was disgusted by the irony that what he saw, almost
everyone else chose to ignore. After reviewing this long history, Flynn proceeds to sum up with a
list of eight points he considers to be the main marks of the fascist state.
As I present them, I will also offer comments on the modern American central state.
Point 1. The government is totalitarian because it acknowledges no restraint on its powers.
If you become directly ensnared in the state's web, you will quickly discover that there are indeed
no limits to what the state can do. This can happen boarding a flight, driving around in your hometown,
or having your business run afoul of some government agency. In the end, you must obey or be caged
like an animal or killed. In this way, no matter how much you may believe that you are free, all
of us today are but one step away from Guantanamo.
No aspect of life is untouched by government intervention, and often it takes forms we do not
readily see. All of healthcare is regulated, but so is every bit of our food, transportation, clothing,
household products, and even private relationships. Mussolini himself put his principle this way:
"All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." I submit to you that
this is the prevailing ideology in the United States today. This nation, conceived in liberty, has
been kidnapped by the fascist state.
Point 2. Government is a de facto dictatorship based on the leadership principle.
I wouldn't say that we truly have a dictatorship of one man in this country, but we do have a
form of dictatorship of one sector of government over the entire country. The executive branch has
spread so dramatically over the last century that it has become a joke to speak of checks and balances.
The executive state is the state as we know it, all flowing from the White House down. The role
of the courts is to enforce the will of the executive. The role of the legislature is to ratify the
policy of the executive. This executive is not really about the person who seems to be in charge.
The president is only the veneer, and the elections are only the tribal rituals we undergo to confer
some legitimacy on the institution. In reality, the nation-state lives and thrives outside any "democratic
mandate." Here we find the power to regulate all aspects of life and the wicked power to create the
money necessary to fund this executive rule.
Point 3. Government administers a capitalist system with an immense bureaucracy.
The reality of bureaucratic administration has been with us at least since the New Deal, which
was modeled on the planning bureaucracy that lived in World War I. The planned economy- whether in
Mussolini's time or ours- requires bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the heart, lungs, and veins of the
planning state. And yet to regulate an economy as thoroughly as this one is today is to kill prosperity
with a billion tiny cuts.
So where is our growth? Where is the peace dividend that was supposed to come after the end of
the Cold War? Where are the fruits of the amazing gains in efficiency that technology has afforded?
It has been eaten by the bureaucracy that manages our every move on this earth. The voracious and
insatiable monster here is called the Federal Code that calls on thousands of agencies to exercise
the police power to prevent us from living free lives.
It is as Bastiat said: the real cost of the state is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that
don't exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into
existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The state has looted us just as surely as
a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.
Point 4. Producers are organized into cartels in the way of syndicalism.
Syndicalist is not usually how we think of our current economic structure. But remember that syndicalism
means economic control by the producers. Capitalism is different. It places by virtue of market structures
all control in the hands of the consumers. The only question for syndicalists, then, is which producers
are going to enjoy political privilege. It might be the workers, but it can also be the largest corporations.
In the case of the United States, in the last three years, we've seen giant banks, pharmaceutical
firms, insurers, car companies, Wall Street banks and brokerage houses, and quasi-private mortgage
companies enjoying vast privileges at our expense. They have all joined with the state in living
a parasitical existence at our expense.
Point 5. Economic planning is based on the principle of autarky.
Autarky is the name given to the idea of economic self-sufficiency. Mostly this refers to the
economic self determination of the nation-state. The nation-state must be geographically huge in
order to support rapid economic growth for a large and growing population.
Look at the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. We would be supremely naive to believe that
these wars were not motivated in part by the producer interests of the oil industry. It is true of
the American empire generally, which supports dollar hegemony. It is the reason for the North American
Union.
Point 6. Government sustains economic life through spending and borrowing.
This point requires no elaboration because it is no longer hidden. In the latest round, and with
a prime-time speech, Obama mused about how is it that people are unemployed at a time when schools,
bridges, and infrastructure need repairing. He ordered that supply and demand come together to match
up needed work with jobs.
Hello? The schools, bridges, and infrastructure that Obama refers to are all built and maintained
by the state. That's why they are falling apart. And the reason that people don't have jobs is because
the state has made it too expensive to hire them. It's not complicated. To sit around and dream of
other scenarios is no different from wishing that water flowed uphill or that rocks would float in
the air. It amounts to a denial of reality.
As for the rest of this speech, Obama promised yet another long list of spending projects. But
no government in the history of the world has spent as much, borrowed as much, and created as much
fake money as the United States, all thanks to the power of the Fed to create money at will. If the
United States doesn't qualify as a fascist state in this sense, no government ever has.
Point 7. Militarism is a mainstay of government spending.
Have you ever noticed that the military budget is never seriously discussed in policy debates?
The United States spends more than most of the rest of the world combined. And yet to hear our leaders
talk, the United States is just a tiny commercial republic that wants peace but is constantly under
threat from the world. Where is the debate about this policy? Where is the discussion? It is not
going on. It is just assumed by both parties that it is essential for the US way of life that the
United States be the most deadly country on the planet, threatening everyone with nuclear extinction
unless they obey.
Point 8. Military spending has imperialist aims.
We've had one war after another, wars waged by the United States against noncompliant countries,
and the creation of even more client states and colonies. US military strength has led not to peace
but the opposite. It has caused most people in the world to regard the United States as a threat,
and it has led to unconscionable wars on many countries. Wars of aggression were defined at Nuremberg
as crimes against humanity.
Obama was supposed to end this. He never promised to do so, but his supporters all believed that
he would. Instead, he has done the opposite. He has increased troop levels, entrenched wars, and
started new ones. In reality, he has presided over a warfare state just as vicious as any in history.
The difference this time is that the Left is no longer criticizing the US role in the world. In that
sense, Obama is the best thing ever to happen to the warmongers and the military-industrial complex.
The Future
I can think of no greater priority today than a serious and effective antifascist alliance. In
many ways, one is already forming. It is not a formal alliance. It is made up of those who protest
the Fed, those who refuse to go along with mainstream fascist politics, those who seek decentralization,
those who demand lower taxes and free trade, those who seek the right to associate with anyone they
want and buy and sell on terms of their own choosing, those who insist they can educate their children
on their own, the investors and savers who make economic growth possible, those who do not want to
be felt up at airports, and those who have become expatriates.
It is also made of the millions of independent entrepreneurs who are discovering that the number
one threat to their ability to serve others through the commercial marketplace is the institution
that claims to be our biggest benefactor: the government.
How many people fall into this category? It is more than we know. The movement is intellectual.
It is political. It is cultural. It is technological. They come from all classes, races, countries,
and professions. This is no longer a national movement. It is truly global.
And what does this movement want? Nothing more or less than sweet liberty. It does not ask that
the liberty be granted or given. It only asks for the liberty that is promised by life itself and
would otherwise exist were it not for the Leviathan state that robs us, badgers us, jails us, kills
us.
This movement is not departing. We are daily surrounded by evidence that it is right and true.
Every day, it is more and more obvious that the state contributes absolutely nothing to our wellbeing;
it massively subtracts from it.
Back in the 1930s, and even up through the 1980s, the partisans of the state were overflowing
with ideas. This is no longer true. Fascism has no new ideas, no big projects-and not even its partisans
really believe it can accomplish what it sets out to do. The world created by the private sector
is so much more useful and beautiful than anything the state has done that the fascists have themselves
become demoralized and aware that their agenda has no real intellectual foundation.
It is ever more widely known that statism does not and cannot work. Statism is the great lie.
Statism gives us the exact opposite of its promise. It promised security, prosperity, and peace;
it has given us fear, poverty, war, and death. If we want a future, it is one that we have to build
ourselves. The fascist state will not give it to us. On the contrary, it stands in the way.
In the end, this is the choice we face: the total state or total freedom. Which will we choose?
If we choose the state, we will continue to sink further and further and eventually lose all that
we treasure as a civilization. If we choose freedom, we can harness that remarkable power of human
cooperation that will enable us to continue to make a better world.
In the fight against fascism, there is no reason to be despairing. We must continue to fight with
every bit of confidence that the future belongs to us and not them.
Their world is falling apart. Ours is just being built.Their world is based on bankrupt ideologies.
Ours is rooted in the truth about freedom and reality. Their world can only look back to the glory
days. Ours looks forward to the future we are building for ourselves.
Their world is rooted in the corpse of the nation-state. Our world draws on the energies and creativity
of all peoples in the world, united in the great and noble project of creating a prospering civilization
through peaceful human cooperation. We possess the only weapon that is truly immortal: the right
idea. It is this that will lead to victory.
"All of the leftists out themselves by stating Communists are Fascists."
I have only heard leftists
vehemently deny that communists are fascists. I have never heard a leftist say that communists
are fascists. Do you have a link?
BTW, what could possibly be more fascist than re-education camps?
The State is that which is controlled by the nation in question. A Government is not the state,
nor is it the nation. A government is a secular organization emplaced to impose a set of rules
that benefit one nation over all other under the same government.
The failure of the west is not that it allows any one given state to control the power, but
that it allows secular governments dominante and forcibly submit all nations to it's demands by
a foreign nation. The argument against the state is one that decries the European dominance in
the US. It's an anti-European control in European created countries narrative.
The state that is allowed to exist and hold power within the US is not the state of her citizens
or the nations they consist of. It is a foreign state claiming rightful sovereignty through both
economic terrorist and threats of force and active persecution.
The US has been under the rule of a global criminal cartel for decades now. That cartel is
a nation onto it's own, and it uses deception, propaganda and economic means to hide it's existence.
It is successful because it controls the media, which is the largest propaganda outlet to have
ever been devised. It can chose whom to promote and whom to deny the right to exist. We are at
this very moment reading an article from one of it's propaganda arms on a site controlled by a
different proganda arm that it also controls.
"U.S. Military Now Says ISIS Leader Was Held in Notorious Abu Ghraib Prison" [
The
Intercept
]. "In the occupation's first few years, U.S. facilities like Abu Ghraib and Camp developed
a reputation as "jihadi universities" where hard-line extremists indoctrinated and recruited less
radical inmates. Analysts have long suspected that Baghdadi took full advantage of his time at Bucca
to link up with the jihadis and former Iraqi military officials who would later fill out the Islamic
State's leadership." Well played, all.
"[W]e should expect Clinton to shape her foreign policy to neutralise the
threat to her nomination in 2020 from the left of her party. So forget Hillary
the hawk. To consolidate her Democrat base she will be even more cautious
abroad than Barack Obama has been" [Lowy Interpreter]
They start with a false premise (that Obama has been "cautious" abroad) and
become even less credible from there.
Cautious as compared to what "the blob" would prefer; I see the Lowy
Institute as an antipodean tentacle of the blob. If you want to listen to a
truly terrifying podcast, try "The Editor's Roundtable" from Foreign Policy
.
From their perspective, Obama hasn't been nearly muscular enough, Clinton is
far preferable, and Trump is anethema. NPR-smooth, very professional, often
very funny, and utterly depraved.
It's a phenomenal example of Acela Bubble logic though: completely
prioritise theories about the way things "should" be versus the actual facts
on the ground of the way things are. Other common examples: "monetary
issuance
should
lead to inflation" "carpet bombing
should
demoralise them" "we
should
be greeted as liberators"… etc etc. The
great thing about our beloved pundit class is that they get paid to sit
around in thinktanks coming up with grand theories about the way things
should be, and no matter how often their "shoulds" gets blatantly disproven,
they can still keep on shoulding all over us.
When dealing with foreign policy it's important to think on at least 3
levels:
Grand Structure
State
Domestic
Will a Clinton presidency be hawkish?
A. Grand Structure: No clear successor to the United States as hegemon
has emerged to stymie hawkish ambitions. China and Russia exist, of course,
but can do little to stop US ambitions. Verdict, yes, hawkish.
B. State: though US hegemony is in a period of decline, clearly the
United States' ruling class is still very much interested and capable of
using the Middle East as a demented sandbox to cause other nations to
continue to need its security services. China looms as a potential rising
hegemon. Verdict: yes, still hawkish.
C. Domestic: the ruling class investor coalitions backing Clinton are
very, very interested in a robust foreign economic policy that favor an
interventionist foreign policy. The segments of US society that are opposed
to this will not be represented or listened to in Clinton's domestic
coalition, either: declining industries, the working class/labor. The
professional 10% that Thomas Frank identifies as the broader Dem base tends
to acquiesce to Democratic-led wars. Without a reborn, and far more
militant, anti-war movement, the verdict has to be: yes, Hawkish.
The professional 10% and much of middle class america, by and large,
doesn't serve in the military and doesn't encourage or let their kids
serve either, so they're ok with war. It also seems that the PTB through
a combination of corporate media marginalization, robust police state
repression, and the lack of conscription has minimized the impact of any
anti-war movement.
longer term movement politics to take power, at least before the PTB
blow us all up?
"[W]e should expect Clinton to shape her foreign policy to neutralise the
threat to her nomination in 2020 from the left of her party. So forget
Hillary the hawk. To consolidate her Democrat base she will be even more
cautious abroad than Barack Obama has been"
For the moment ignoring Obama's nuclear weapons policy and NATO
belligerence, don't I wish!
But this sounds very voluntaristic to me, as though the US doesn't face a
problem with its empire that might appear to oblige belligerence. For example,
if the case is valid that the US has much reason to fear economic consolidation
between Europe and Asia, then Clinton/Kagan/Nuland et al are servants of
empire, not mad dogs. If, as some say, such a consolidation would undermine
dollar hegemony, maybe they feel the script is written. That doesn't mean I
don't oppose them, it just means opposing them involves a lot more than being
for peace, nonviolent resolution of disputes and such.
Mike Whitney over at Counterpunch has an interesting article reviewing
Brzezinski's new book, The Broken Chessboard, with Brzezinski explaining that
the US has lost its ability to be the indispensable nation. Maybe HRC will
listen. Carter did when Brzezinski said the Shah of Iran was a friend of ours.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/25/the-broken-chessboard-brzezinski-gives-up-on-empire/
When has Clinton ever listened to anyone who wasn't promoting war, war,
and more war? Expecting Clinton to respond like Carter in respect to foreign
policy is as fruitless as expecting her foundation's "charitable works" to
be comparable to Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity.
– The Obama administration's reckless foreign policy, particularly the
toppling of governments in Libya and Ukraine, has greatly accelerated the
rate at which these anti-American coalitions have formed. In other words,
Washington's enemies have emerged in response to Washington's behavior.
Obama can only blame himself.
was editorial or a quote from Brz himself, and the top headline was from
2012:
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The man behind Obama's foreign policy
I still remember an interview in which B repeated the claim that they
started supporting the Taliban with the intention of provoking the
U.S.S.R. into intervening and getting them into a quagmire and also
claiming that this resulted in the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. – for
which he took credit. He also said pretty much the same as he did in
later writings, the bit about "what's more important, some angry Muslims
or the defeat of a nuclear armed adversary?" Then later in the interview,
which took place in the 90's he also claimed the U.S. needed to spend
more on the military because "The world has become a more dangerous place
since the breakup of the U.S.S.R."
Forget the rock, he deserves a deep, dark, dank pit to be dropped in.
And a very long life to be spent in that pit.
The tragic thing s that all the links to terrible things that Carter
did are true and yet he still manages to be head and shoulders above so
many other presidents in the 20th century.
Do I like Greg Mankiw's positions? No. But he and others of his
ilk are at least sane and intelligent, and certainly not "white
nationalists" (dog whistle: racists).
There are some many progressive
people here who perhaps aren't impressed with a lot of these
economists or HRC.
First off, there is only one practical goal: push HRC to more
progressive positions.
Second, elect and support progressives down the ballot.
Nihilism is an easy pose. Changing the world, a bit harder.
Like in 20th neoliberalism created the fertile soil for far
right.
So, in a way, those "sane and intelligent" neoliberals are
enablers and supporters of far right. That means that Greg Mankiw
can be legitimately viewed as an enabler of neofascism in the
USA.
You just need to see how this played in Europe to see the
writing on the wall. Boiling anger at neoliberal globalization,
stagnation or dramatic decline of family income (over 50 and
unemployed phenomena), growing debt, and loss of jobs (and perspectives)
is a dangerous, explosive mix.
Externality if you like, that neoliberals did not took into
account with all their rush to extract profits whenever they
can (vampire squid behavior is a neoliberal paradigm).
As Matt Tabbi aptly said "The world's most powerful investment
bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,
relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells
like money." The problem is that this is a standard neoliberal
behavior and in no way it is limited to GS.
Putting a large part of the US population against the wall
of poverty (there is another country within the USA -- a third
world county inhabited by Wall-Mart workers, single mothers and
like) was deliberate, government supported, and a very destructive
action. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reported that as
of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual
food stamp recipients (22.7 million households).
Neocons will support Hillary breaking the ranks of Republican Party, as she is one of them:
"The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be saved, but
the country still can be."
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump calls the Iraq War a lie-fueled fiasco, admires Vladimir Putin and says he would be a "neutral" arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to America's global role he asks, "Why are we always at the forefront of everything?" ..."
"... Even more than his economic positions, Trump's foreign policy views challenge GOP orthodoxy in fundamental ways. But while parts of the party establishment are resigning themselves or even backing Trump's runaway train, one group is bitterly digging in against him: the hawkish foreign policy elites known as neoconservatives. ..."
"... In interviews with POLITICO, leading neocons - people who promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable - said Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say they could vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November. ..."
"... "Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin," said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad. Trump's election would be "an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy," Cohen said, adding that "he has already damaged it considerably." ..."
"... In a March 1 interview with Vox, Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton over Trump. "I'm literally losing sleep over Donald Trump," he said. "She would be vastly preferable to Trump." ..."
"... The letter was signed by dozens of Republican foreign policy experts, including Boot; Peter Feaver, a former senior national security aide in George W. Bush's White House; Robert Zoellick, a former deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Dov Zakheim, a former Bush Pentagon official; and Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a former Bush State Department official. ..."
"... Kristol and Abrams have advised Florida senator Marco Rubio, the preferred choice of several neoconservatives, who admire his call for "moral clarity" in foreign policy and strong emphasis on human rights and democracy. ..."
"... Alarm brewing for months in GOP foreign policy circles burst into public view last week, when Robert Kagan, a key backer of the Iraq War and American global might, wrote in the Washington Post that a Trump nomination would force him to cross party lines. ..."
"... "The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be." ..."
Donald Trump calls the Iraq War a lie-fueled fiasco, admires Vladimir Putin and says he would
be a "neutral" arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to America's global role
he asks, "Why are we always at the forefront of everything?"
Even more than his economic
positions, Trump's foreign policy views challenge GOP orthodoxy in fundamental ways. But while parts
of the party establishment are resigning themselves or even backing Trump's runaway train, one group
is bitterly digging in against him: the hawkish foreign policy elites known as neoconservatives.
In interviews with POLITICO, leading neocons - people who promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin
and consider Israel's security non-negotiable - said Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy
and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say they could vote
for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November.
"Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin," said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department
official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad.
Trump's election would be "an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy," Cohen said, adding
that "he has already damaged it considerably."
Cohen, an Iraq war backer who is often called a neoconservative but said he does not identify
himself that way, said he would "strongly prefer a third party candidate" to Trump, but added: "Probably
if absolutely no alternative: Hillary."
In a March 1
interview with Vox, Max Boot, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed
the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton
over Trump. "I'm literally losing sleep over Donald Trump," he said. "She would be vastly preferable
to Trump."
Cohen helped to organize an open letter signed by several dozen GOP foreign policy insiders -
many of whom are not considered neocons - that
was published Wednesday night by the military blog War on the Rocks. "[W]e are unable to support
a Party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head," the letter declared. It cited everything from Trump's
"admiration for foreign dictators" to his "inexcusable" support for "the expansive use of torture."
The letter was signed by dozens of Republican foreign policy experts, including Boot; Peter
Feaver, a former senior national security aide in George W. Bush's White House; Robert Zoellick,
a former deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Dov Zakheim, a former Bush Pentagon official;
and Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a former Bush State Department
official.
Several other neocons said they find themselves in an impossible position, constitutionally incapable
of voting for Clinton but repelled by a Republican whose foreign policy views they consider somewhere
between nonexistent and dangerous - and disconnected from their views about American power and values
abroad.
"1972 was the first time I was old enough to vote for president, and I did not vote. Couldn't
vote for McGovern for foreign policy reasons, nor for Nixon because of Watergate," said Elliott Abrams,
a former national security council aide to George W. Bush who specializes in democracy and the Middle
East. "I may be in the same boat in 2016, unable to vote for Trump or Clinton."
Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, something of a dean of Washington neoconservatives,
said he would seek out a third option before choosing between Trump and Clinton.
"If it's Trump-Clinton, I'd work with others to recruit a strong conservative third party candidate,
and do my best to help him win (which by the way would be more possible than people think, especially
when people - finally - realize Trump shouldn't be president and Hillary is indicted)," Kristol wrote
in an email.
Kristol and Abrams have advised Florida senator Marco Rubio, the preferred choice of several
neoconservatives, who admire his call for "moral clarity" in foreign policy and strong emphasis on
human rights and democracy.
Alarm brewing for months in GOP foreign policy circles burst into public view last week, when
Robert Kagan, a key backer of the Iraq War and American global might,
wrote in the Washington Post that a Trump nomination would force him to cross party lines.
"The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton," Kagan warned. "The party cannot be
saved, but the country still can be."
In an interview, Kagan said his opposition to Trump "has nothing to do with foreign policy."
I think to the extent Israel elite interests are congruent with interests of the US neocons Clinton
is pro-Israel. If they stray, she can change. The key here are interests of global corporations and
neoliberal globalization. As such Israel is just a pawn in a big game.
Notable quotes:
"... So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because there are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded and very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were, respectively, often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many more: Chuck Schumer, Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman, Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few in the Congress. All are major recipients of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States. ..."
"... And then there are the Clintons. One only has to go back to Bill's one-sided pro-Israeli diplomacy at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the widely condemned January 2001 last minute pardon of Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons, to realize that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved ..."
"... Trump's crime, per Morell, is that he is disloyal to the United States because he is not sufficiently hostile to the evil Vladimir Putin, which somehow means that he is being manipulated by the clever Russian. Trump has indeed called for a positive working relationship with Putin to accomplish, among other objectives, the crushing of ISIS. And he is otherwise in favor of leaving Bashar al-Assad of Syria alone while also being disinclined to get involved in any additional military interventions in the Middle East or elsewhere, which pretty much makes him the antithesis of the Clintonian foreign policy promoted by Morell. ..."
"... The leading individual foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014 was Ukrainian Viktor Pinchuk, who "directed between $10 and $25 million" to its Global Initiative, has let the Clintons use his private jet, attended Bill's Hollywood 65 th birthday celebration and hosted daughter Chelsea and her husband on a trip to Ukraine. Pinchuk is a Jewish oligarch married to the daughter of notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. He is very closely tied to Israel, a supporter of regime change in his country, who was simultaneously donating money and also lobbying in Washington while Hillary was Secretary of State and promoting a similar agenda as part of her $5 billion program to "democratize" Ukraine. Clinton arranged a dozen meetings with substantive State Department officers for Pinchuk. ..."
"... Clinton supported Israel's actions in the 2014 Gaza War, which killed more than 500 children, describing them as an appropriate response to a situation that was provoked by Hamas. On the campaign trail recently husband Bill disingenuously defended Hillary's position on Gaza, saying that "Hamas is really smart. When they decide to rocket Israel they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools " placing all the blame for the large number of civilian casualties on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis. When the media began to report on the plight of the civilians trapped in Gaza Hillary dismissed the impending humanitarian catastrophe, saying "They're trapped by their leadership, unfortunately." ..."
"... Earlier, as a Senator from New York, Hillary supported Israel's building of the separation barrier on Palestinian land and cheer-led a crowd at a pro-Israel rally that praised Israel's 2006 devastation of Lebanon and Gaza. She nonsensically characterized and justified the bombing campaign as "efforts to send messages to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iranians – to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom " More than nine hundred civilians died in the onslaught and when a vote came up subsequently in Congress to stop the supply of cluster bombs to countries that use them on civilians Hillary voted against the bill together with 69 other pro-Israel senators. ..."
"... Hillary enjoys a particularly close relationship with Netanyahu, writing in November , "I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office." She has worked diligently to "reaffirm the unbreakable bond with Israel – and Benjamin Netanyahu." She has boasted of her being one of the promoters of annual increases in aid to Israel while she was in the Senate and Secretary of State and takes credit for repeatedly using America's Security Council veto to defend it in the United Nations. ..."
"... o you know how Prince Bandar was coaching G.W. Bush to circumvent the enmity of neocons towards his father? ..."
"... It looks very much like the US public is starting to mirror the Eastern European public under Communism by automatically disregarding government media + there's the added feature of the internet as a new kind of high-powered Samizdat, that clearly worries the Establishment. ..."
On August 5th, Michael Morell, a former acting Director of the CIA, pilloried GOP presidential
candidate Donald Trump, concluding that he was an "unwitting agent of Russia." Morell, who entitled
his New York Times
op-ed "I Ran the CIA and now I'm endorsing Hillary Clinton," described the process whereby Trump
had been so corrupted. According to Morell, Putin, it seems, as a wily ex-career intelligence officer,
is "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what
he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence
business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian
Federation."
I have previously
observed
how incomprehensible the designation of "unwitting agent" used in a sentence together with "recruited"
is, but perhaps I should add something more about Morell that might not be clear to the casual reader.
Morell was an Agency analyst, not a spy, who spent nearly his entire career in and around Washington.
The high point of his CIA experience consisted of briefing George W. Bush on the President's Daily
Brief (PDB).
Morell was not trained in the arduous CIA operational tradecraft course which agent recruiters
and handlers go through. This means that his understanding of intelligence operations and agents
is, to put it politely, derivative. If he had gone through the course he would understand that when
you recruit an agent you control him and tell him what to do. The agent might not know whom exactly
he is really answering to as in a false flag operation, but he cannot be unwitting.
Morell appears to have a tendency to make promises that others will have to deliver on, but perhaps
that's what delegation by senior U.S. government officials is all about. He was also not trained
in CIA paramilitary operations, which perhaps should be considered when he drops comments about the
desirability of "covertly" killing Russians and Iranians to make a point that they should not oppose
U.S. policies in Syria, as he did in a
softball interview with Charlie Rose on August 6th.
Morell appears to be oblivious to the possibility that going around assassinating foreigners might
be regarded as state sponsored terrorism and could well ignite World War 3. And, as is characteristic
of chickenhawks, it is highly unlikely that he was intending that either he or his immediate family
should go out and cut the throats or blow the heads off of those foreign devils who seek to derail
the Pax Americana. Nor would he expect to be in the firing line when the relatives of those victims
seek revenge. Someone else with the proper training would be found to do all that messy stuff and
take the consequences.
Be that as it may, Morell was a very senior officer and perhaps we should accept that he might
know something that the rest of us have missed, so let's just assume that he kind of misspoke and
give him a pass on the "recruited unwitting agent" expression. Instead let's look for other American
political figures who just might be either deliberately or inadvertently serving the interests of
a foreign government, which is presumably actually what Michael Morell meant to convey regarding
Trump. To be sure a well-run McCarthy-esque ferreting out of individuals who just might be disloyal
provides an excellent opportunity to undertake a purge of those who either by thought, word or deed
might be guilty of unacceptable levels of coziness with foreign interests.
So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United
States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington
but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because there
are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded and
very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were, respectively,
often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many more: Chuck Schumer,
Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman,
Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few in the Congress. All are
major recipients of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter
what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States.
And then there are the Clintons. One only has to go back to Bill's
one-sided pro-Israeli
diplomacy at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the widely
condemned January 2001 last minute
pardon of Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons,
to realize that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved.
The only problem is that the Clintons, relying on Morell's formulation, might more reasonably be
described as witting agents of Israel rather than unwitting as they have certainly known what they
have been doing and have been actively supporting Israeli policies even when damaging to U.S. interests
since they first emerged from the primordial political swamps in Arkansas. If one were completely
cynical it might be possible to suggest that they understood from the beginning that pandering to
Israel and gaining access to Jewish power and money would be a major component in their rise to political
prominence. It certainly has worked out that way.
Trump's crime, per Morell, is that he is disloyal to the United States because he is not sufficiently
hostile to the evil Vladimir Putin, which somehow means that he is being manipulated by the clever
Russian. Trump has indeed called for a positive working relationship with Putin to accomplish, among
other objectives, the crushing of ISIS. And he is otherwise in favor of leaving Bashar al-Assad of
Syria alone while also being disinclined to get involved in any additional military interventions
in the Middle East or elsewhere, which pretty much makes him the antithesis of the Clintonian foreign
policy promoted by Morell.
In comparison with the deeply and profoundly corrupt Clintons, Trump's alleged foreign policy
perfidy makes him appear to be pretty much a boy scout. To understand the Clintons one might consider
the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it from foreign sources, that have flowed into the Clinton
Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State. And there is the clear
email evidence that Hillary exploited her government position to favor both foreign and domestic
financial supporters.
The leading
individual foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014 was Ukrainian Viktor
Pinchuk,
who "directed between $10 and $25 million" to its Global Initiative, has let the Clintons use
his private jet, attended Bill's Hollywood 65th birthday celebration and hosted daughter
Chelsea and her husband on a trip to Ukraine. Pinchuk is a Jewish oligarch married to the daughter
of notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. He is very closely tied to Israel,
a supporter of regime change in his country, who was simultaneously
donating money and also lobbying in Washington while Hillary was Secretary of State and promoting
a similar agenda as part of her $5 billion program to "democratize" Ukraine. Clinton arranged a dozen
meetings with substantive State Department officers for Pinchuk.
Hillary and Bill's predilection for all things Israeli and her promise to do even more in the
future is a matter of public record. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz asserted
that of all the political candidates in the primaries "Clinton had the longest public record of engagement
with Israel, and has spent decades diligently defending the Jewish state." In a speech to AIPAC in
March
she promised to take the "U.S.-Israel alliance to the next level." Hillary's current principal
financial supporter in her presidential run is Haim Saban, an Israeli who has described himself as
a "one issue" guy and that issue is Israel.
Hillary Clinton boasts of having "stood with Israel my entire career." Her website
promises to maintain "Israel's qualitative military edge to ensure the IDF is equipped to deter
and defeat aggression from the full spectrum of threats," "stand up against the boycott, divestment
and sanctions movement (BDS)," and "cut off efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood
outside of the context of negotiations with Israel." In a letter to Haim Saban, Hillary
declared that "we need to make countering BDS a priority," which means she is prepared to support
laws limiting First Amendment rights in the U.S. in defense of perceived Israeli interests.
As part of the Obama Administration Hillary Clinton at first supported his attempts to pressure
Israel over its illegal settlements but has now backed off from that position, only rarely criticizing
them as a "problem" but never advocating any steps to persuade Netanyahu to reverse his policy. Notably,
she has repeatedly decried terroristic attacks on Israelis but has never acknowledged the brutality
of the Israeli occupation of much of the West Bank in spite of the fact that ten Palestinians are
killed for each Jewish victim of the ongoing violence.
Clinton supported Israel's actions in the 2014 Gaza War, which killed more than 500 children,
describing them as an appropriate response to a situation that was provoked by Hamas. On the campaign
trail recently husband Bill disingenuously
defended Hillary's position on Gaza, saying that "Hamas is really smart. When they decide to
rocket Israel they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools " placing all the blame
for the large number of civilian casualties on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis. When the media
began to report on the plight of the civilians trapped in Gaza Hillary dismissed the impending humanitarian
catastrophe, saying "They're trapped by their leadership, unfortunately."
Earlier, as a Senator from New York, Hillary supported Israel's building of the separation
barrier on Palestinian land and cheer-led a crowd at a pro-Israel rally that praised Israel's 2006
devastation of Lebanon and Gaza. She nonsensically
characterized and justified the bombing campaign as "efforts to send messages to Hamas, Hezbollah,
to the Syrians, to the Iranians – to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom "
More than nine hundred civilians died in the onslaught and when a vote came up subsequently in Congress
to stop the supply of cluster bombs to countries that use them on civilians Hillary voted against
the bill together with 69 other pro-Israel senators.
Hillary enjoys a particularly close relationship with Netanyahu,
writing in November, "I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my
first month in office." She has worked diligently to "reaffirm the unbreakable bond with Israel –
and Benjamin Netanyahu." She has boasted of her being one of the promoters of annual increases in
aid to Israel while she was in the Senate and Secretary of State and takes credit for repeatedly
using America's Security Council veto to defend it in the United Nations.
So I think it is pretty clear who is the presidential candidate promoting the interests of a foreign
country and it ain't Trump. Hillary would no doubt argue that Israel is a friend and Russia is not,
an interesting point of view as Israel is not in fact an ally and has spied on us and copied our
military technology
to re-export to countries like China. Indeed, the most damaging spy in U.S. history Jonathan
Pollard worked for Israel. In spite of all that Israel continues to tap our treasury for billions
of dollars a year while still ignoring Washington when requests are made to moderate policies that
damage American interests. Against that, what exactly has Moscow done to harm us since the Cold War
ended? And who is advocating even more pressure on Russia and increasing the rewards for Israel,
presumably in the completely illogical belief that to do so will somehow bring some benefit to the
American people? Hillary Clinton.
utu, August 23, 2016 at 4:29 am GMT • 100 Words
Find the true reason why G.H. Bush was not allowed to get the 2nd term. Do you remember his
attempt to reign in Yitzhak Shamir when GHB was riding high popularity wave after the Desert Storm?
Do you remember anti-Bush Safire and Friedman columns in NYT week after week? Why Ross Perrot
was called in? Don't you see similarity with Teddy Rosevelt's run to prevent Taft's reelection
and securing Wilson's win? Do you know how Prince Bandar was coaching G.W. Bush to circumvent
the enmity of neocons towards his father? Answer these questions and you will know for whom
Bill Clinton worked. One more thing, Clinton did not touch Palestinian issue until last several
months of his presidency. He did not make G.H. Bush's mistake.
Miro23, August 23, 2016 at 5:45 am GMT • 100 Words
This a straightforward factual article about the Clinton sellout to Israel. So the question
may come down to the effectiveness of MSM propaganda.
It looks very much like the US public is starting to mirror the Eastern European public
under Communism by automatically disregarding government media + there's the added feature of
the internet as a new kind of high-powered Samizdat, that clearly worries the Establishment.
If the script follows through, then there's a good likelihood that the Establishment and their
façade players (Clintons, Bush, Romney, McCain etc) are reaching the end of the line, since like
in E.Europe, there's a background problem of economic failure and extreme élite/public inequality
that can no longer be hidden.
Philip Giraldi, August 23, 2016 at 10:32 am GMT • 100 Words
@hbm
hbm – the FBI concluded that someone working in the White House was MEGA but they decided that
they did not necessarily have enough evidence to convince a jury. He is still around and appears
in the media. As I would prefer not to get sued I will not name him but he is not a Clinton (though
he worked for them as well as for the two Bushes).
I think to the extent Israel elite interests are congruent with interests of the US neocons Clinton
is pro-Israel. If they stray, she can change. The key here are interests of global corporations and
neoliberal globalization. As such Israel is just a pawn in a big game.
Notable quotes:
"... So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because there are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded and very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were, respectively, often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many more: Chuck Schumer, Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman, Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few in the Congress. All are major recipients of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States. ..."
"... And then there are the Clintons. One only has to go back to Bill's one-sided pro-Israeli diplomacy at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the widely condemned January 2001 last minute pardon of Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons, to realize that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved ..."
"... Trump's crime, per Morell, is that he is disloyal to the United States because he is not sufficiently hostile to the evil Vladimir Putin, which somehow means that he is being manipulated by the clever Russian. Trump has indeed called for a positive working relationship with Putin to accomplish, among other objectives, the crushing of ISIS. And he is otherwise in favor of leaving Bashar al-Assad of Syria alone while also being disinclined to get involved in any additional military interventions in the Middle East or elsewhere, which pretty much makes him the antithesis of the Clintonian foreign policy promoted by Morell. ..."
"... The leading individual foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014 was Ukrainian Viktor Pinchuk, who "directed between $10 and $25 million" to its Global Initiative, has let the Clintons use his private jet, attended Bill's Hollywood 65 th birthday celebration and hosted daughter Chelsea and her husband on a trip to Ukraine. Pinchuk is a Jewish oligarch married to the daughter of notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. He is very closely tied to Israel, a supporter of regime change in his country, who was simultaneously donating money and also lobbying in Washington while Hillary was Secretary of State and promoting a similar agenda as part of her $5 billion program to "democratize" Ukraine. Clinton arranged a dozen meetings with substantive State Department officers for Pinchuk. ..."
"... Clinton supported Israel's actions in the 2014 Gaza War, which killed more than 500 children, describing them as an appropriate response to a situation that was provoked by Hamas. On the campaign trail recently husband Bill disingenuously defended Hillary's position on Gaza, saying that "Hamas is really smart. When they decide to rocket Israel they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools " placing all the blame for the large number of civilian casualties on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis. When the media began to report on the plight of the civilians trapped in Gaza Hillary dismissed the impending humanitarian catastrophe, saying "They're trapped by their leadership, unfortunately." ..."
"... Earlier, as a Senator from New York, Hillary supported Israel's building of the separation barrier on Palestinian land and cheer-led a crowd at a pro-Israel rally that praised Israel's 2006 devastation of Lebanon and Gaza. She nonsensically characterized and justified the bombing campaign as "efforts to send messages to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iranians – to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom " More than nine hundred civilians died in the onslaught and when a vote came up subsequently in Congress to stop the supply of cluster bombs to countries that use them on civilians Hillary voted against the bill together with 69 other pro-Israel senators. ..."
"... Hillary enjoys a particularly close relationship with Netanyahu, writing in November , "I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my first month in office." She has worked diligently to "reaffirm the unbreakable bond with Israel – and Benjamin Netanyahu." She has boasted of her being one of the promoters of annual increases in aid to Israel while she was in the Senate and Secretary of State and takes credit for repeatedly using America's Security Council veto to defend it in the United Nations. ..."
"... o you know how Prince Bandar was coaching G.W. Bush to circumvent the enmity of neocons towards his father? ..."
"... It looks very much like the US public is starting to mirror the Eastern European public under Communism by automatically disregarding government media + there's the added feature of the internet as a new kind of high-powered Samizdat, that clearly worries the Establishment. ..."
On August 5th, Michael Morell, a former acting Director of the CIA, pilloried GOP presidential
candidate Donald Trump, concluding that he was an "unwitting agent of Russia." Morell, who entitled
his New York Times
op-ed "I Ran the CIA and now I'm endorsing Hillary Clinton," described the process whereby Trump
had been so corrupted. According to Morell, Putin, it seems, as a wily ex-career intelligence officer,
is "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what
he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence
business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian
Federation."
I have previously
observed
how incomprehensible the designation of "unwitting agent" used in a sentence together with "recruited"
is, but perhaps I should add something more about Morell that might not be clear to the casual reader.
Morell was an Agency analyst, not a spy, who spent nearly his entire career in and around Washington.
The high point of his CIA experience consisted of briefing George W. Bush on the President's Daily
Brief (PDB).
Morell was not trained in the arduous CIA operational tradecraft course which agent recruiters
and handlers go through. This means that his understanding of intelligence operations and agents
is, to put it politely, derivative. If he had gone through the course he would understand that when
you recruit an agent you control him and tell him what to do. The agent might not know whom exactly
he is really answering to as in a false flag operation, but he cannot be unwitting.
Morell appears to have a tendency to make promises that others will have to deliver on, but perhaps
that's what delegation by senior U.S. government officials is all about. He was also not trained
in CIA paramilitary operations, which perhaps should be considered when he drops comments about the
desirability of "covertly" killing Russians and Iranians to make a point that they should not oppose
U.S. policies in Syria, as he did in a
softball interview with Charlie Rose on August 6th.
Morell appears to be oblivious to the possibility that going around assassinating foreigners might
be regarded as state sponsored terrorism and could well ignite World War 3. And, as is characteristic
of chickenhawks, it is highly unlikely that he was intending that either he or his immediate family
should go out and cut the throats or blow the heads off of those foreign devils who seek to derail
the Pax Americana. Nor would he expect to be in the firing line when the relatives of those victims
seek revenge. Someone else with the proper training would be found to do all that messy stuff and
take the consequences.
Be that as it may, Morell was a very senior officer and perhaps we should accept that he might
know something that the rest of us have missed, so let's just assume that he kind of misspoke and
give him a pass on the "recruited unwitting agent" expression. Instead let's look for other American
political figures who just might be either deliberately or inadvertently serving the interests of
a foreign government, which is presumably actually what Michael Morell meant to convey regarding
Trump. To be sure a well-run McCarthy-esque ferreting out of individuals who just might be disloyal
provides an excellent opportunity to undertake a purge of those who either by thought, word or deed
might be guilty of unacceptable levels of coziness with foreign interests.
So who is guilty of putting the interests of a foreign government ahead of those of the United
States? I know there are advocates for any number of foreign states running around loose in Washington
but the friends of Israel in government and the media come immediately to mind largely because there
are so many of them, they are very much in-your-face and they are both extremely well-funded and
very successful. Now deceased former Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Frank Lautenberg were, respectively,
often referred to as the congressman and senator from Israel. And there are many more: Chuck Schumer,
Chuck Grassley, Ben Cardin, Bob Menendez, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch, Brad Sherman,
Ileana-Ros Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to name only a few in the Congress. All are
major recipients of Israel related PAC money and all are reliable defenders of Israel no matter
what Benjamin Netanyahu does and no matter how it effects the United States.
And then there are the Clintons. One only has to go back to Bill's
one-sided pro-Israeli
diplomacy at Camp David in 2000 to discern how the game was played. And then there was the widely
condemned January 2001 last minute
pardon of Mossad agent Marc Rich, whose wife Denise was a major contributor to the Clintons,
to realize that there was always a deference to Israeli interests particularly when money was involved.
The only problem is that the Clintons, relying on Morell's formulation, might more reasonably be
described as witting agents of Israel rather than unwitting as they have certainly known what they
have been doing and have been actively supporting Israeli policies even when damaging to U.S. interests
since they first emerged from the primordial political swamps in Arkansas. If one were completely
cynical it might be possible to suggest that they understood from the beginning that pandering to
Israel and gaining access to Jewish power and money would be a major component in their rise to political
prominence. It certainly has worked out that way.
Trump's crime, per Morell, is that he is disloyal to the United States because he is not sufficiently
hostile to the evil Vladimir Putin, which somehow means that he is being manipulated by the clever
Russian. Trump has indeed called for a positive working relationship with Putin to accomplish, among
other objectives, the crushing of ISIS. And he is otherwise in favor of leaving Bashar al-Assad of
Syria alone while also being disinclined to get involved in any additional military interventions
in the Middle East or elsewhere, which pretty much makes him the antithesis of the Clintonian foreign
policy promoted by Morell.
In comparison with the deeply and profoundly corrupt Clintons, Trump's alleged foreign policy
perfidy makes him appear to be pretty much a boy scout. To understand the Clintons one might consider
the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it from foreign sources, that have flowed into the Clinton
Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State. And there is the clear
email evidence that Hillary exploited her government position to favor both foreign and domestic
financial supporters.
The leading
individual foreign donor to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014 was Ukrainian Viktor
Pinchuk,
who "directed between $10 and $25 million" to its Global Initiative, has let the Clintons use
his private jet, attended Bill's Hollywood 65th birthday celebration and hosted daughter
Chelsea and her husband on a trip to Ukraine. Pinchuk is a Jewish oligarch married to the daughter
of notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma. He is very closely tied to Israel,
a supporter of regime change in his country, who was simultaneously
donating money and also lobbying in Washington while Hillary was Secretary of State and promoting
a similar agenda as part of her $5 billion program to "democratize" Ukraine. Clinton arranged a dozen
meetings with substantive State Department officers for Pinchuk.
Hillary and Bill's predilection for all things Israeli and her promise to do even more in the
future is a matter of public record. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz asserted
that of all the political candidates in the primaries "Clinton had the longest public record of engagement
with Israel, and has spent decades diligently defending the Jewish state." In a speech to AIPAC in
March
she promised to take the "U.S.-Israel alliance to the next level." Hillary's current principal
financial supporter in her presidential run is Haim Saban, an Israeli who has described himself as
a "one issue" guy and that issue is Israel.
Hillary Clinton boasts of having "stood with Israel my entire career." Her website
promises to maintain "Israel's qualitative military edge to ensure the IDF is equipped to deter
and defeat aggression from the full spectrum of threats," "stand up against the boycott, divestment
and sanctions movement (BDS)," and "cut off efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood
outside of the context of negotiations with Israel." In a letter to Haim Saban, Hillary
declared that "we need to make countering BDS a priority," which means she is prepared to support
laws limiting First Amendment rights in the U.S. in defense of perceived Israeli interests.
As part of the Obama Administration Hillary Clinton at first supported his attempts to pressure
Israel over its illegal settlements but has now backed off from that position, only rarely criticizing
them as a "problem" but never advocating any steps to persuade Netanyahu to reverse his policy. Notably,
she has repeatedly decried terroristic attacks on Israelis but has never acknowledged the brutality
of the Israeli occupation of much of the West Bank in spite of the fact that ten Palestinians are
killed for each Jewish victim of the ongoing violence.
Clinton supported Israel's actions in the 2014 Gaza War, which killed more than 500 children,
describing them as an appropriate response to a situation that was provoked by Hamas. On the campaign
trail recently husband Bill disingenuously
defended Hillary's position on Gaza, saying that "Hamas is really smart. When they decide to
rocket Israel they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools " placing all the blame
for the large number of civilian casualties on the Palestinians, not on the Israelis. When the media
began to report on the plight of the civilians trapped in Gaza Hillary dismissed the impending humanitarian
catastrophe, saying "They're trapped by their leadership, unfortunately."
Earlier, as a Senator from New York, Hillary supported Israel's building of the separation
barrier on Palestinian land and cheer-led a crowd at a pro-Israel rally that praised Israel's 2006
devastation of Lebanon and Gaza. She nonsensically
characterized and justified the bombing campaign as "efforts to send messages to Hamas, Hezbollah,
to the Syrians, to the Iranians – to all who seek death and domination instead of life and freedom "
More than nine hundred civilians died in the onslaught and when a vote came up subsequently in Congress
to stop the supply of cluster bombs to countries that use them on civilians Hillary voted against
the bill together with 69 other pro-Israel senators.
Hillary enjoys a particularly close relationship with Netanyahu,
writing in November, "I would also invite the Israeli prime minister to the White House in my
first month in office." She has worked diligently to "reaffirm the unbreakable bond with Israel –
and Benjamin Netanyahu." She has boasted of her being one of the promoters of annual increases in
aid to Israel while she was in the Senate and Secretary of State and takes credit for repeatedly
using America's Security Council veto to defend it in the United Nations.
So I think it is pretty clear who is the presidential candidate promoting the interests of a foreign
country and it ain't Trump. Hillary would no doubt argue that Israel is a friend and Russia is not,
an interesting point of view as Israel is not in fact an ally and has spied on us and copied our
military technology
to re-export to countries like China. Indeed, the most damaging spy in U.S. history Jonathan
Pollard worked for Israel. In spite of all that Israel continues to tap our treasury for billions
of dollars a year while still ignoring Washington when requests are made to moderate policies that
damage American interests. Against that, what exactly has Moscow done to harm us since the Cold War
ended? And who is advocating even more pressure on Russia and increasing the rewards for Israel,
presumably in the completely illogical belief that to do so will somehow bring some benefit to the
American people? Hillary Clinton.
utu, August 23, 2016 at 4:29 am GMT • 100 Words
Find the true reason why G.H. Bush was not allowed to get the 2nd term. Do you remember his
attempt to reign in Yitzhak Shamir when GHB was riding high popularity wave after the Desert Storm?
Do you remember anti-Bush Safire and Friedman columns in NYT week after week? Why Ross Perrot
was called in? Don't you see similarity with Teddy Rosevelt's run to prevent Taft's reelection
and securing Wilson's win? Do you know how Prince Bandar was coaching G.W. Bush to circumvent
the enmity of neocons towards his father? Answer these questions and you will know for whom
Bill Clinton worked. One more thing, Clinton did not touch Palestinian issue until last several
months of his presidency. He did not make G.H. Bush's mistake.
Miro23, August 23, 2016 at 5:45 am GMT • 100 Words
This a straightforward factual article about the Clinton sellout to Israel. So the question
may come down to the effectiveness of MSM propaganda.
It looks very much like the US public is starting to mirror the Eastern European public
under Communism by automatically disregarding government media + there's the added feature of
the internet as a new kind of high-powered Samizdat, that clearly worries the Establishment.
If the script follows through, then there's a good likelihood that the Establishment and their
façade players (Clintons, Bush, Romney, McCain etc) are reaching the end of the line, since like
in E.Europe, there's a background problem of economic failure and extreme élite/public inequality
that can no longer be hidden.
Philip Giraldi, August 23, 2016 at 10:32 am GMT • 100 Words
@hbm
hbm – the FBI concluded that someone working in the White House was MEGA but they decided that
they did not necessarily have enough evidence to convince a jury. He is still around and appears
in the media. As I would prefer not to get sued I will not name him but he is not a Clinton (though
he worked for them as well as for the two Bushes).
"... The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The
draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character
string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code
associated with the same program, SECONDDATE. ..."
On Monday, a hacking group calling itself the "ShadowBrokers" announced an auction for what it claimed
were "cyber weapons" made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower
Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software,
part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.
The provenance
of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it
remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered
with the NSA's virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency.
The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public.
The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific
16-character string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers
leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE plays a specialized role inside a complex global system built by the U.S. government
to infect and monitor what one document
estimated to be millions of computers around the world. Its release by ShadowBrokers, alongside
dozens of other malicious tools, marks the first time any full copies of the NSA's offensive software
have been available to the public, providing a glimpse at how an elaborate system outlined in the
Snowden documents looks when deployed in the real world, as well as concrete evidence that NSA hackers
don't always have the last word when it comes to computer exploitation.
But malicious software of this sophistication doesn't just pose a threat to foreign governments,
Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green told The Intercept:
The danger of these exploits is that they can be used to target anyone who is using a vulnerable
router. This is the equivalent of leaving lockpicking tools lying around a high school cafeteria.
It's worse, in fact, because many of these exploits are not available through any other means,
so they're just now coming to the attention of the firewall and router manufacturers that need
to fix them, as well as the customers that are vulnerable.
So the risk is twofold: first, that the person or persons who stole this information might
have used them against us. If this is indeed Russia, then one assumes that they probably have
their own exploits, but there's no need to give them any more. And now that the exploits have
been released, we run the risk that ordinary criminals will use them against corporate targets.
The NSA did not respond to questions concerning ShadowBrokers, the Snowden documents, or its malware.
A Memorable SECONDDATE
The offensive tools released by ShadowBrokers are organized under a litany of code names such
as POLARSNEEZE and ELIGIBLE BOMBSHELL, and their exact purpose is still being assessed. But we do
know more about one of the weapons: SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE is a tool designed to intercept web requests and redirect browsers on target computers
to an NSA web server. That server, in turn, is designed to infect them with malware. SECONDDATE's
existence was
first reported by The Intercept in 2014, as part of a look at a global computer exploitation
effort code-named TURBINE. The malware server, known as FOXACID, has also been
described in previously released Snowden documents.
Other documents released by The Intercept today not only tie SECONDDATE to the ShadowBrokers
leak but also provide new detail on how it fits into the NSA's broader surveillance and infection
network. They also show how SECONDDATE has been used, including to spy on Pakistan and a computer
system in Lebanon.
The top-secret manual that authenticates the SECONDDATE found in the wild as the same one used
within the NSA is a 31-page document titled "FOXACID
SOP for Operational Management" and marked as a draft. It dates to no earlier than 2010. A section
within the manual describes administrative tools for tracking how victims are funneled into FOXACID,
including a set of tags used to catalogue servers. When such a tag is created in relation to a SECONDDATE-related
infection, the document says, a certain distinctive identifier must be used:
The same SECONDDATE MSGID string appears in 14 different files throughout the ShadowBrokers leak,
including in a file titled SecondDate-3021.exe. Viewed through a code-editing program (screenshot
below), the NSA's secret number can be found hiding in plain sight:
All told, throughout many of the folders contained in the ShadowBrokers' package (screenshot below),
there are 47 files with SECONDDATE-related names, including different versions of the raw code required
to execute a SECONDDATE attack, instructions for how to use it, and other related files.
.
After viewing the code, Green told The Intercept the MSGID string's occurrence in both
an NSA training document and this week's leak is "unlikely to be a coincidence." Computer security
researcher Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based cybersecurity startup Comae Technologies, who has been
particularly vocal in his analysis of the ShadowBrokers this week, told The Intercept "there
is no way" the MSGID string's appearance in both places is a coincidence.
Where SECONDDATE Fits In
This overview jibes with previously unpublished classified files provided by Snowden that illustrate
how SECONDDATE is a component of BADDECISION, a broader NSA infiltration tool. SECONDDATE helps the
NSA pull off a "man in the middle" attack against users on a wireless network, tricking them into
thinking they're talking to a safe website when in reality they've been sent a malicious payload
from an NSA server.
According to one December 2010 PowerPoint presentation titled "Introduction
to BADDECISION," that tool is also designed to send users of a wireless network, sometimes referred
to as an 802.11 network, to FOXACID malware servers. Or, as the presentation puts it, BADDECISION
is an "802.11 CNE [computer network exploitation] tool that uses a true man-in-the-middle attack
and a frame injection technique to redirect a target client to a FOXACID server." As another
top-secret slide puts it, the attack homes in on "the greatest vulnerability to your computer:
your web browser."
One slide points out that the attack works on users with an encrypted wireless connection to the
internet.
That trick, it seems, often involves BADDECISION and SECONDDATE, with the latter described as
a "component" for the former. A series of diagrams in the "Introduction to BADDECISION" presentation
show how an NSA operator "uses SECONDDATE to inject a redirection payload at [a] Target Client,"
invisibly hijacking a user's web browser as the user attempts to visit a benign website (in the example
given, it's CNN.com). Executed correctly, the file explains, a "Target Client continues normal webpage
browsing, completely unaware," lands on a malware-filled NSA server, and becomes infected with as
much of that malware as possible - or as the presentation puts it, the user will be left "WHACKED!"
In the other top-secret presentations, it's put plainly: "How
do we redirect the target to the FOXACID server without being noticed"? Simple: "Use NIGHTSTAND
or BADDECISION."
The sheer number of interlocking tools available to crack a computer is dizzying. In the
FOXACID manual, government hackers are told an NSA hacker ought to be familiar with using SECONDDATE
along with similar man-in-the-middle wi-fi attacks code-named MAGIC SQUIRREL and MAGICBEAN. A top-secret
presentation on FOXACID lists further ways to redirect targets to the malware server system.
To position themselves within range of a vulnerable wireless network, NSA operators can use a
mobile antenna system running software code-named BLINDDATE, depicted in the field in what appears
to be Kabul. The software can even be attached to a drone. BLINDDATE in turn can run BADDECISION,
which allows for a SECONDDATE attack:
Elsewhere in these files, there are at least two documented cases of SECONDDATE being used to
successfully infect computers overseas: An April 2013
presentation boasts of successful attacks against computer systems in both Pakistan and Lebanon.
In the first, NSA hackers used SECONDDATE to breach "targets in Pakistan's National Telecommunications
Corporation's (NTC) VIP Division," which contained documents pertaining to "the backbone of Pakistan's
Green Line communications network" used by "civilian and military leadership."
In the latter, the NSA used SECONDDATE to pull off a man-in-the-middle attack in Lebanon "for
the first time ever," infecting a Lebanese ISP to extract "100+ MB of Hizballah Unit 1800 data,"
a special subset of the terrorist group dedicated to aiding Palestinian militants.
SECONDDATE is just one method that the NSA uses to get its target's browser pointed at a FOXACID
server. Other methods include sending spam that attempts to exploit bugs in popular web-based email
providers or entices targets to click on malicious links that lead to a FOXACID server. One
document, a newsletter for the NSA's Special Source Operations division, describes how NSA software
other than SECONDDATE was used to repeatedly direct targets in Pakistan to FOXACID malware web servers,
eventually infecting the targets' computers.
A Potentially Mundane Hack
Snowden, who worked for NSA contractors Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, has offered some context
and a relatively mundane possible explanation for the leak: that the NSA headquarters was not hacked,
but rather one of the computers the agency uses to plan and execute attacks was compromised. In a
series of tweets,
he pointed out that the NSA often lurks on systems that are supposed to be controlled by others,
and it's possible someone at the agency took control of a server and failed to clean up after themselves.
A regime, hacker group, or intelligence agency could have seized the files and the opportunity to
embarrass the agency.
"... The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The
draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character
string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code
associated with the same program, SECONDDATE. ..."
On Monday, a hacking group calling itself the "ShadowBrokers" announced an auction for what it claimed
were "cyber weapons" made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower
Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software,
part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.
The provenance
of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it
remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered
with the NSA's virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency.
The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting
malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public.
The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific
16-character string, "ace02468bdf13579." That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers
leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE plays a specialized role inside a complex global system built by the U.S. government
to infect and monitor what one document
estimated to be millions of computers around the world. Its release by ShadowBrokers, alongside
dozens of other malicious tools, marks the first time any full copies of the NSA's offensive software
have been available to the public, providing a glimpse at how an elaborate system outlined in the
Snowden documents looks when deployed in the real world, as well as concrete evidence that NSA hackers
don't always have the last word when it comes to computer exploitation.
But malicious software of this sophistication doesn't just pose a threat to foreign governments,
Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green told The Intercept:
The danger of these exploits is that they can be used to target anyone who is using a vulnerable
router. This is the equivalent of leaving lockpicking tools lying around a high school cafeteria.
It's worse, in fact, because many of these exploits are not available through any other means,
so they're just now coming to the attention of the firewall and router manufacturers that need
to fix them, as well as the customers that are vulnerable.
So the risk is twofold: first, that the person or persons who stole this information might
have used them against us. If this is indeed Russia, then one assumes that they probably have
their own exploits, but there's no need to give them any more. And now that the exploits have
been released, we run the risk that ordinary criminals will use them against corporate targets.
The NSA did not respond to questions concerning ShadowBrokers, the Snowden documents, or its malware.
A Memorable SECONDDATE
The offensive tools released by ShadowBrokers are organized under a litany of code names such
as POLARSNEEZE and ELIGIBLE BOMBSHELL, and their exact purpose is still being assessed. But we do
know more about one of the weapons: SECONDDATE.
SECONDDATE is a tool designed to intercept web requests and redirect browsers on target computers
to an NSA web server. That server, in turn, is designed to infect them with malware. SECONDDATE's
existence was
first reported by The Intercept in 2014, as part of a look at a global computer exploitation
effort code-named TURBINE. The malware server, known as FOXACID, has also been
described in previously released Snowden documents.
Other documents released by The Intercept today not only tie SECONDDATE to the ShadowBrokers
leak but also provide new detail on how it fits into the NSA's broader surveillance and infection
network. They also show how SECONDDATE has been used, including to spy on Pakistan and a computer
system in Lebanon.
The top-secret manual that authenticates the SECONDDATE found in the wild as the same one used
within the NSA is a 31-page document titled "FOXACID
SOP for Operational Management" and marked as a draft. It dates to no earlier than 2010. A section
within the manual describes administrative tools for tracking how victims are funneled into FOXACID,
including a set of tags used to catalogue servers. When such a tag is created in relation to a SECONDDATE-related
infection, the document says, a certain distinctive identifier must be used:
The same SECONDDATE MSGID string appears in 14 different files throughout the ShadowBrokers leak,
including in a file titled SecondDate-3021.exe. Viewed through a code-editing program (screenshot
below), the NSA's secret number can be found hiding in plain sight:
All told, throughout many of the folders contained in the ShadowBrokers' package (screenshot below),
there are 47 files with SECONDDATE-related names, including different versions of the raw code required
to execute a SECONDDATE attack, instructions for how to use it, and other related files.
.
After viewing the code, Green told The Intercept the MSGID string's occurrence in both
an NSA training document and this week's leak is "unlikely to be a coincidence." Computer security
researcher Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based cybersecurity startup Comae Technologies, who has been
particularly vocal in his analysis of the ShadowBrokers this week, told The Intercept "there
is no way" the MSGID string's appearance in both places is a coincidence.
Where SECONDDATE Fits In
This overview jibes with previously unpublished classified files provided by Snowden that illustrate
how SECONDDATE is a component of BADDECISION, a broader NSA infiltration tool. SECONDDATE helps the
NSA pull off a "man in the middle" attack against users on a wireless network, tricking them into
thinking they're talking to a safe website when in reality they've been sent a malicious payload
from an NSA server.
According to one December 2010 PowerPoint presentation titled "Introduction
to BADDECISION," that tool is also designed to send users of a wireless network, sometimes referred
to as an 802.11 network, to FOXACID malware servers. Or, as the presentation puts it, BADDECISION
is an "802.11 CNE [computer network exploitation] tool that uses a true man-in-the-middle attack
and a frame injection technique to redirect a target client to a FOXACID server." As another
top-secret slide puts it, the attack homes in on "the greatest vulnerability to your computer:
your web browser."
One slide points out that the attack works on users with an encrypted wireless connection to the
internet.
That trick, it seems, often involves BADDECISION and SECONDDATE, with the latter described as
a "component" for the former. A series of diagrams in the "Introduction to BADDECISION" presentation
show how an NSA operator "uses SECONDDATE to inject a redirection payload at [a] Target Client,"
invisibly hijacking a user's web browser as the user attempts to visit a benign website (in the example
given, it's CNN.com). Executed correctly, the file explains, a "Target Client continues normal webpage
browsing, completely unaware," lands on a malware-filled NSA server, and becomes infected with as
much of that malware as possible - or as the presentation puts it, the user will be left "WHACKED!"
In the other top-secret presentations, it's put plainly: "How
do we redirect the target to the FOXACID server without being noticed"? Simple: "Use NIGHTSTAND
or BADDECISION."
The sheer number of interlocking tools available to crack a computer is dizzying. In the
FOXACID manual, government hackers are told an NSA hacker ought to be familiar with using SECONDDATE
along with similar man-in-the-middle wi-fi attacks code-named MAGIC SQUIRREL and MAGICBEAN. A top-secret
presentation on FOXACID lists further ways to redirect targets to the malware server system.
To position themselves within range of a vulnerable wireless network, NSA operators can use a
mobile antenna system running software code-named BLINDDATE, depicted in the field in what appears
to be Kabul. The software can even be attached to a drone. BLINDDATE in turn can run BADDECISION,
which allows for a SECONDDATE attack:
Elsewhere in these files, there are at least two documented cases of SECONDDATE being used to
successfully infect computers overseas: An April 2013
presentation boasts of successful attacks against computer systems in both Pakistan and Lebanon.
In the first, NSA hackers used SECONDDATE to breach "targets in Pakistan's National Telecommunications
Corporation's (NTC) VIP Division," which contained documents pertaining to "the backbone of Pakistan's
Green Line communications network" used by "civilian and military leadership."
In the latter, the NSA used SECONDDATE to pull off a man-in-the-middle attack in Lebanon "for
the first time ever," infecting a Lebanese ISP to extract "100+ MB of Hizballah Unit 1800 data,"
a special subset of the terrorist group dedicated to aiding Palestinian militants.
SECONDDATE is just one method that the NSA uses to get its target's browser pointed at a FOXACID
server. Other methods include sending spam that attempts to exploit bugs in popular web-based email
providers or entices targets to click on malicious links that lead to a FOXACID server. One
document, a newsletter for the NSA's Special Source Operations division, describes how NSA software
other than SECONDDATE was used to repeatedly direct targets in Pakistan to FOXACID malware web servers,
eventually infecting the targets' computers.
A Potentially Mundane Hack
Snowden, who worked for NSA contractors Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, has offered some context
and a relatively mundane possible explanation for the leak: that the NSA headquarters was not hacked,
but rather one of the computers the agency uses to plan and execute attacks was compromised. In a
series of tweets,
he pointed out that the NSA often lurks on systems that are supposed to be controlled by others,
and it's possible someone at the agency took control of a server and failed to clean up after themselves.
A regime, hacker group, or intelligence agency could have seized the files and the opportunity to
embarrass the agency.
This is what "New
American Militarism" the term coined by Bacevich is about. And it reflect dominance of jingoism
among Washington bureaucrats -- war is a source of money and career advancement.
Notable quotes:
"... At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, ..."
"... he also reveals that Morell "coordinated the CIA review" of Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations – a dubious distinction if there ever was one. ..."
"... The Great War of Our Time ..."
"... It is sad to have to remind folks almost 14 years later that the "intelligence" was not "mistaken;" it was fraudulent from the get-go. Announcing on June 5, 2008, the bipartisan conclusions from a five-year study by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence conjured up to "justify" war on Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent." ..."
"... For services rendered, Tenet rescued Morell from the center of the storm, so to speak, sending him to a plum posting in London, leaving the hapless Stu Cohen holding the bag. Cohen had been acting director of the National Intelligence Council and nominal manager of the infamous Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate warning about Iraq's [nonexistent] WMD. ..."
"... The Great War of Our Time ..."
"... When the storm subsided, Morell came back from London to bigger and better things. He was appointed the CIA's first associate deputy director from 2006 to 2008, and then director for intelligence until moving up to become CIA's deputy director (and twice acting director) from 2010 until 2013. ..."
"... Reading his book and watching him respond to those softball pitches from Charlie Rose on Monday, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that glibness, vacuousness and ambition can get you to the very top of US intelligence in the Twenty-first Century – and can also make you a devoted fan of whoever is likely to be the next President. ..."
"... Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit an agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from a control officer. ..."
"... However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder" of ISIS. ..."
"... Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in an article titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article. ..."
Perhaps former CIA acting director Michael Morell's shamefully provocative rhetoric toward Russia
and Iran will prove too unhinged even for Hillary Clinton. It appears equally likely that it will
succeed in earning him a senior job in a possible Clinton administration, so it behooves us to have
a closer look at Morell's record.
My initial reaction of disbelief and anger was the same as that
of my VIPS colleague, Larry Johnson, and
the points Larry made about Morell's behavior in the Benghazi caper, Iran, Syria, needlessly
baiting nuclear-armed Russia, and how to put a "scare" into Bashar al-Assad give ample support to
Larry's characterization of Morell's comments as "reckless and vapid." What follows is an attempt
to round out the picture on the ambitious 57-year-old Morell.
I suppose we need to start with Morell telling PBS/CBS interviewer Charlie Rose on Aug. 8 that
he (Morell) wanted to "make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. … make the Russians pay a price in
Syria."
Rose: "We make them pay the price by killing Russians?"
Morell: "Yeah."
Rose: "And killing Iranians?"
Morell: "Yes … You don't tell the world about it. … But you make sure they know it in Moscow
and Tehran."
You might ask what excellent adventure earned Morell his latest appearance with Charlie Rose?
It was a highly unusual Aug. 5 New York Times
op-ed titled "I ran the CIA Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton."
Peabody award winner Rose – having made no secret of how much he admires the glib, smooth-talking
Morell – performed true to form. Indeed, he has interviewed him every other month, on average, over
the past two years, while Morell has been a national security analyst for CBS.
This interview,
though, is a must for those interested in gauging the caliber of bureaucrats who have bubbled to
the top of the CIA since the disastrous tenure of George Tenet (sorry, the interview goes on and
on for 46 minutes).
A Heavy Duty
Such interviews are a burden for unreconstructed, fact-based analysts of the old school. In a
word, they are required to watch them, just as they must plow through the turgid prose of "tell-it-all"
memoirs. But due diligence can sometimes harvest an occasional grain of wheat among the chaff.
For example, George W. Bush's memoir, Decision Points, included a passage the former
president seems to have written himself. Was Bush relieved to learn, just 15 months before he left
office, the "high-confidence," unanimous judgment of the U.S. intelligence community that Iran had
stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed work on such weapons? No way!
In his memoir, he complains bitterly that this judgment in that key 2007 National Intelligence
Estimate "tied my hands on the military side. … After the NIE, how could I possibly explain using
the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no
active nuclear weapons program?" No, I am not making this up. He wrote that.
In another sometimes inadvertently revealing memoir, At the Center of the Storm: My Years
at the CIA, CIA Director George Tenet described Michael Morell, whom he picked to be CIA's briefer
of President George W. Bush, in these terms: "Wiry, youthful looking, and extremely bright, Mike
speaks in staccato-like bursts that get to the bottom line very quickly. He and George Bush hit it
off almost immediately. Mike was the perfect guy for us to have by the commander-in-chief's side."
Wonder what Morell was telling Bush about those "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" and the
alleged ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Was Morell winking at Bush the same way Tenet winked
at the head of British intelligence on July 20, 2002, telling him that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq?
High on Morell
Not surprisingly, Tenet speaks well of his protégé and former executive assistant Morell. But
he also reveals that Morell "coordinated the CIA review" of Secretary of State Colin Powell's
infamous Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations – a dubious distinction if there ever was one.
So Morell reviewed the "intelligence" that went into Powell's thoroughly deceptive account of
the Iraqi threat! Powell later called that dramatic speech, which wowed Washington's media and foreign
policy elites and was used to browbeat the few remaining dissenters into silence, a "blot" on his
record.
In Morell's own memoir, The Great War of Our Time, Morell apologized to former Secretary
of State Powell for the bogus CIA intelligence that found its way into Powell's address. Morell
told CBS: "I thought it important to do so because … he went out there and made this case, and
we were wrong."
It is sad to have to remind folks almost 14 years later that the "intelligence" was not "mistaken;"
it was fraudulent from the get-go. Announcing on June 5, 2008, the bipartisan conclusions from a
five-year study by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence
conjured up to "justify" war on Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent."
It strains credulity beyond the breaking point to think that Michael Morell was unaware of the
fraudulent nature of the WMD propaganda campaign. Yet, like all too many others, he kept quiet and
got promoted.
Out of Harm's Way
For services rendered, Tenet rescued Morell from the center of the storm, so to speak, sending
him to a plum posting in London, leaving the hapless Stu Cohen holding the bag. Cohen had been acting
director of the National Intelligence Council and nominal manager of the infamous Oct. 1, 2002 National
Intelligence Estimate warning about Iraq's [nonexistent] WMD.
Cohen made a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible in late November 2003, and was still
holding out some hope that WMD would be found. He noted, however, "If we eventually are proved
wrong – that is, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the WMD programs were dormant
or abandoned – the American people will be told the truth …" And then Stu disappeared into the woodwork.
In October 2003, the 1,200-member "Iraq Survey Group" commissioned by Tenet to find those elusive
WMD in Iraq had already reported that six months of intensive work had turned up no chemical, biological
or nuclear weapons. By then, the U.S.-sponsored search for WMD had already cost $300 million, with
the final bill expected to top $1 billion.
In Morell's The Great War of Our Time, he writes, "In the summer of 2003 I became CIA's
senior focal point for liaison with the analytic community in the United Kingdom." He notes that
one of the "dominant" issues, until he left the U.K. in early 2006, was "Iraq, namely our failure
to find weapons of mass destruction." (It was a PR problem; Prime Minister Tony Blair and Morell's
opposite numbers in British intelligence were fully complicit in the "dodgy-dossier" type of intelligence.)
When the storm subsided, Morell came back from London to bigger and better things. He was
appointed the CIA's first associate deputy director from 2006 to 2008, and then director for intelligence
until moving up to become CIA's deputy director (and twice acting director) from 2010 until 2013.
Reading his book and watching him respond to those softball pitches from Charlie Rose on Monday,
it is hard to avoid the conclusion that glibness, vacuousness and ambition can get you to the very
top of US intelligence in the Twenty-first Century – and can also make you a devoted fan of whoever
is likely to be the next President.
... ... ...
As for Morell's claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow controlling Donald Trump,
well, even Charlie Rose had stomach problems with that and with Morell's "explanation." In the Times
op-ed, Morell wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr.
Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit
an agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from
a control officer.
However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make
the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such
an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder"
of ISIS.
Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher
and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in
an article
titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence
officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder
of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods
in all four of CIA's main directorates.
This week we also published
a terrific
piece
by John LaForge, which demolishes once and for one of America's most cherished lies: that
the US simply
had
to drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities to end the war and save hundreds
of thousands of US and Japanese lies. Even Curtis "Mad Bomber" LeMay knew this was bullshit. So did
Ike, who sent word to Truman that he thought the plan was insane. You can see why the myth took root.
What nation that sees itself a force of goodness and virtue and humanity could live with itself after
incinerating two cities and unleashing nuclear terror upon the world?
It seems like I've known Nicholas
Schou forever, though we just pressed flesh for the first time last year in the LBC. His ground-breaking
reporting on the Contra-Cocaine network in southern California was crucial source material for a
book that Cockburn and I wrote called Whiteout. Nick's own book on Gary Webb is excellent and it
was turned into a fine movie,
Kill the Messenger. Now Nick has published a new book, Spooked,
a terrific and timely history of how the CIA manipulates the media and Hollywood (both useful idiots
of the Agency). And, speaking of the devil, here Nick is telling us all about it in the latest installment
of CounterPunch
Radio with the indefatigable Eric Draitser.
It seems like I've known Nicholas
Schou forever, though we just pressed flesh for the first time last year in the LBC. His ground-breaking
reporting on the Contra-Cocaine network in southern California was crucial source material for a
book that Cockburn and I wrote called Whiteout. Nick's own book on Gary Webb is excellent and it
was turned into a fine movie,
Kill the Messenger. Now Nick has published a new book, Spooked,
a terrific and timely history of how the CIA manipulates the media and Hollywood (both useful idiots
of the Agency). And, speaking of the devil, here Nick is telling us all about it in the latest installment
of CounterPunch
Radio with the indefatigable Eric Draitser.
"In the past three decades, the share of U.S. citizens who think that it would be a 'good' or
'very good' thing for the 'army to rule'-a patently undemocratic stance-has steadily risen. In 1995,
just one in sixteen respondents agreed with that position; today, one in six agree. While those who
hold this view remain in the minority, they can no longer be dismissed as a small fringe, especially
since there have been similar increases in the number of those who favor a 'strong leader who doesn't
have to bother with parliament and elections' and those who want experts rather than the government
to 'take decisions' for the country.
Nor is the United States the only country to exhibit this trend. The proportion agreeing that
it would be better to have the army rule has risen in most mature democracies, including Germany,
Sweden, and the United Kingdom. … Lower support for democracy seems especially high among younger
adults." [
Conversable Economist ] (
original ).
I'm sure that for many Trump will spring to mind, but it's also noteworthy that the Democrat
nomenklatura just spent a solid year stamping out a movement that was struggling for
democratic norms through the electoral process . Not perhaps the best of tactics, if a healthy
democracy, as opposed to a well-funded Democrat Party, is your goal.
"... Who knows if he'll embrace better relations with Russia...? We don't. You cant know. He's all over the shop. We do know trigger-happy-hitlery's objectives though. That I would probably vote for him if I were a US citizen doesn't say anything about me, it speaks more about the state of decay the American political system is in - in dire need of a coup, a radical. ..."
"... The Don's security detail need to be very wary of any grassy knolls. ..."
...
As Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party's "motion to dismiss" was nearing to be heard by the US
Federal Court, this report notes, the main witness for JamPAC was attorney Lucas-but who, according
to the Washington D.C. police report, was mysteriously discovered dead on 2 August: "R-1 reports
she arrived home at 1913 hours and located her boyfriend Subject-1 laying unconscious on the bathroom
floor. R-1 immediately called 911.DCFD Engine 9 responded and found no signs consistent with life.
Subject-1 remained on scene".
With attorney Lucas now being the latest victim of Hillary Clinton's
"killing spree", this report says, the lawsuit against her Democratic Party will now be postponed
because he is unable to testify, and it may be dismissed entirely because his testimony was so
crucial as to if proper service was made or not-and that the Clinton cabal "obviously" knew about
beforehand when filing their motion a fortnight before his death.
As to how Hillary Clinton's cabal is able to accomplish their "Night of the Long Knives" murderous
acts, this report continues, is due to the "assassin network" established by what the SVR labels
as one of the most feared CIA operatives ever encountered by Russian intelligence-former CIA director,
and deputy director, Mike Morell.
Director Morell, this report explains, joined the CIA in 1980 and became an important operative
in "Operation Cyclone" that sought to destroy the government of Afghanistan that had been aligned
with the then Soviet Union.
Morell's main duties within the CIA during the early 1980's, this report details, was in establishing
a network whereby terrorists, assassins and weapons were able to flow freely between the United
States, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan-and was aided by one of his top Pakistani operatives Khizr
Khan-about whom the SVR previously reported on, and as we detailed in our report US Media Support
Of Khizr Khan Who Enabled 9/11, Boston Marathon And San Bernardino Terror Attacks Stuns Russia.
So entrenched was Morell in the CIA's "active terror network", this report continues, he was
not only present with President Bush during the 11 September 2001 (9/11) attacks, he was, also,
present when President Obama ordered the killing of CIA operation Tim Osman-otherwise known as
Osama bin Laden.
With Morell being a "diehard supporter" of Hillary Clinton, and responsible for the lies she
told about the Benghazi terror attack, this report continues, in 2013 he left the CIA a month
after Clinton resigned as Secretary of State and founded a mysterious private intelligence company
called Beacon Global Strategies LLC (BGS) where he is listed as a "Senior Consular".
Beacon Global Strategies, however, this report details, is far from a "normal" private intelligence
company as the SVR categorizes it as an "assassination/propaganda" organization created expressly
for the use and protection of top American elites and whose funding came from Claude Fontheim,
a former Clinton adviser who now serves as a lobbyist to the US-China Exchange Foundation, a nonprofit
reportedly used by Chinese government officials and Hong Kong tycoons to shape American policy
toward China-and whose clients, including Hillary Clinton, include Senators Ted Cruz and Marco
Rubio.
...
james @ 4. Digging a bit deeper we might want to characterize the fundamental nature
of the US Empire or err 'Pax Amerikana.' This is actually, for me, very difficult
to do, as compared, say to the British Empire. How to describe it fully?
Chatter about AFRICOM, a 1000 military bases, Wall Street, the destruction of Lybia,
etc. isn't explanatory enough.
Part of the problem is that much is hidden from sight (Deep State shadow dealings),
and the 'rule based' aspect is (post WW2 structure, UN, EU, etc.) very strong, with
the rules moot, applied selectively through arm-twisting, etc. Coupled with another
aspect, i.e. the prevalent US-W ideology, which is a kind of end-of-history dictate:
free-market capitalism of a kind, pro-"democracy", 'freedom' from despots, dictators,
God anointed/religious rule, very narrow personal 'freedom' (identity politics, sexual
mores, social rising thru competition, etc.) This system easily manipulates ppl into
an Orwellian space (more J. Huxley in fact.)
It also has many characteristics of Mafia-type arrangements, a criminal class dominating,
aspect not much discussed. The upshot: the system is opaque, secretive and highly
complex. In its multiple ramifications, intersections amongst them (military, Gvmt/politics,
security, finance, corporate, media, int'l relations..) Power of whatever kind (military,
media, whatever) is only effective when it can coordinate with others to effect control.
(Imagine a mess of a systemic diagram with 100s of boxes, nodes, heavy and light arrows.)
Not looking good for the US at present.
Trump is proposing (provided we read his confused comments, pronoucements, at face
value, and interpret) a simplification of the system, which is the only thing to do
with complex systems that get out of hand. (Turn off district 3, put all efforts into
fixing pipelines in 1..)
Others in their own ways are doing the same. Le Pen with 'New Nationalism', even
ISIS in way (long story, as supported by outsiders…) Sanders is a different case -
he tried once again to exploit the 'hopie changie' with a 'harking back to the past'
- a 'new' New Deal - while not adressing any vital issues in any way.
- not shilling for the Donald - attention should be put on non-est. candidates,
music of the future.
One coup deserves another. You're right about how the establishment is not able
to correct it's path without a radical shift, a guy like Sanders would have been absorbed
and subverted - he offered merely band aid solutions. Ron Pauls platform may well
have worked...his 'End The Fed' policy attacked a pillar, a thick root cause of how
the establishment is able to baffle with bullshit.
In some way, The Don's schizophrenic-stream-of-consciousness delivery is perfect
for much the subliminally mindf*cked US electorate. He gives all the sound bites a
host of large demographics need, let's just throw a tonne of shit out there now, see
what happens, and tighten up the message later on. Even if he contradicts what he
says the very next moment he opens his mouth it doesn't matter...his charisma can
counter that most of the time.
Who knows if he'll embrace better relations with Russia...? We don't. You cant
know. He's all over the shop. We do know trigger-happy-hitlery's objectives though.
That I would probably vote for him if I were a US citizen doesn't say anything about
me, it speaks more about the state of decay the American political system is in -
in dire need of a coup, a radical.
The Don's security detail need to be very wary of any grassy knolls.
@61 noirette/63 madmax/65 jfl - noirette- i like the way you process all the myriad
ways of considering the american empire... i do the same. it's impossible to come
up with a clear vision of how it works, which is one ongoing part of it - to remain
a mystery.. it will always be a part of a process of change too.
whether some force/s have hi-jacked the usa for their own narrower agenda - it
sure appears that way to me.. trump appears to offer a spontaneous response to ordinary
americans place in a country spiraling out of the realm it was thought to be (out
of control basically), not that any one view on a country remains static.. the idea
of the simplicity of his message with regard to foreign policy is appealing.. what
he would do in power is more of an unknown then what history tells us hillary clinton
will do... i would be voting for trump if i was in the usa, partly the msm witch hunt
on him which i think in my own way is more of those mysterious forces behind the scene
guiding the usa into an ever widening ditch of it's own making, leaving many more
people to suffer or worse.. thanks for everyone's comments..
"... The NSA identified Peña's cellphone and those of his associates using advanced software that can filter out specific phones from the swarm around the candidate. These lines were then targeted. The technology, one NSA analyst noted, "might find a needle in a haystack." The analyst described it as "a repeatable and efficient" process. ..."
"... Another NSA operation, begun in May 2010 and codenamed FLATLIQUID, targeted Pena's predecessor, President Felipe Calderon. The NSA, the documents revealed, was able "to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account." ..."
"... At the same time, members of a highly secret joint NSA/CIA organization, called the Special Collection Service, are based in the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and other U.S. embassies around the world. It targets local government communications, as well as foreign embassies nearby. For Mexico, additional eavesdropping, and much of the analysis, is conducted by NSA Texas, a large listening post in San Antonio that focuses on the Caribbean, Central America and South America. ..."
"... Unlike the Defense Department's Pentagon, the headquarters of the cyberspies fills an entire secret city. Located in Fort Meade, Maryland, halfway between Washington and Baltimore, Maryland, NSA's headquarters consists of scores of heavily guarded buildings. The site even boasts its own police force and post office. ..."
"... One top-secret operation, code-named TreasureMap, is designed to have a "capability for building a near real-time interactive map of the global Internet. … Any device, anywhere, all the time." Another operation, codenamed Turbine, involves secretly placing "millions of implants" - malware - in computer systems worldwide for either spying or cyberattacks. ..."
"... Yet there can never be a useful discussion on the topic if the Obama administration continues to point fingers at other countries without admitting that Washington is engaged heavily in cyberspying and cyberwarfare. ..."
"... The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America ..."
National attention is focused on Russian eavesdroppers' possible targeting of U.S. presidential candidates
and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Yet, leaked top-secret National Security Agency
documents show that the Obama administration has long been involved in major bugging operations against
the election campaigns -- and the presidents -- of even its closest allies.
The United States is,
by far, the world's
most aggressive
nation when it comes to cyberspying and cyberwarfare. The National Security Agency has been eavesdropping
on foreign cities, politicians, elections and entire countries since it first turned on its receivers
in 1952. Just as other countries, including Russia, attempt to do to the United States. What is new
is a country leaking the intercepts back to the public of the target nation through a middleperson.
There is a strange irony in this. Russia, if it is actually involved in the hacking of the computers
of the Democratic National Committee, could be attempting to influence a U.S. election by leaking
to the American public the falsehoods of its leaders. This is a tactic Washington used against the
Soviet Union and other countries during the Cold War.
In the 1950s, for example, President Harry S Truman created the Campaign of Truth to reveal to
the Russian people the "Big Lies" of their government. Washington had often discovered these lies
through eavesdropping and other espionage.
Today, the United States has morphed from a Cold War, and in some cases a hot war, into a cyberwar,
with computer coding replacing bullets and bombs. Yet the American public manages to be "shocked,
shocked" that a foreign country would attempt to conduct cyberespionage on the United States.
NSA operations have, for example, recently delved into elections in Mexico, targeting its
last presidential campaign. According to a top-secret PowerPoint presentation leaked by former NSA
contract employee Edward Snowden, the operation involved a "surge effort against one of Mexico's
leading presidential candidates, Enrique Peña Nieto, and nine of his close associates." Peña won
that election and is now Mexico's president.
The NSA identified Peña's cellphone and those of his associates using advanced software that can
filter out specific phones from the swarm around the candidate. These lines were then targeted. The
technology, one NSA analyst noted, "might find a needle in a haystack." The analyst described it
as "a repeatable and efficient" process.
Another NSA operation, begun in May 2010 and codenamed FLATLIQUID, targeted Pena's predecessor,
President Felipe Calderon. The NSA, the documents revealed, was able "to gain first-ever access to
President Felipe Calderon's public email account."
At the same time, members of a highly secret joint NSA/CIA organization, called the Special Collection
Service, are based in the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and other U.S. embassies around the world.
It targets local government communications, as well as foreign embassies nearby. For Mexico, additional
eavesdropping, and much of the analysis, is conducted by NSA Texas, a large listening post in San
Antonio that focuses on the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
Unlike the Defense Department's Pentagon, the headquarters of the cyberspies fills an entire secret
city. Located in Fort Meade, Maryland, halfway between Washington and Baltimore, Maryland, NSA's
headquarters consists of scores of heavily guarded buildings. The site even boasts its own police
force and post office.
And it is about to grow considerably bigger, now that the NSA cyberspies have merged with the
cyberwarriors of U.S. Cyber Command, which controls its own Cyber Army, Cyber Navy, Cyber Air Force
and Cyber Marine Corps, all armed with state-of-the-art cyberweapons. In charge of it all is a four-star
admiral, Michael S. Rogers.
Now under construction inside NSA's secret city, Cyber Command's new $3.2- billion headquarters
is to include 14 buildings, 11 parking garages and an enormous cyberbrain - a 600,000-square-foot,
$896.5-million supercomputer facility that will eat up an enormous amount of power, about 60 megawatts.
This is enough electricity to power a city of more than 40,000 homes.
In 2014, for a cover story in Wired and a PBS documentary, I spent three days in Moscow
with Snowden, whose last NSA job was as a contract cyberwarrior. I was also granted rare access to
his archive of documents. "Cyber Command itself has always been branded in a sort of misleading way
from its very inception," Snowden told me. "It's an attack agency. … It's all about computer-network
attack and computer-network exploitation at Cyber Command."
The idea is to turn the Internet from a worldwide web of information into a global battlefield
for war. "The next major conflict will start in cyberspace," says one of the secret NSA documents.
One key phrase within Cyber Command documents is "Information Dominance."
The Cyber Navy, for example, calls itself the Information Dominance Corps. The Cyber Army is providing
frontline troops with the option of requesting "cyberfire support" from Cyber Command, in much the
same way it requests air and artillery support. And the Cyber Air Force is pledged to "dominate cyberspace"
just as "today we dominate air and space."
Among the tools at their disposal is one called Passionatepolka, designed to "remotely brick network
cards." "Bricking" a computer means destroying it – turning it into a brick.
One such situation took place in war-torn Syria in 2012, according to Snowden, when the NSA attempted
to remotely and secretly install an "exploit," or bug, into the computer system of a major Internet
provider. This was expected to provide access to email and other Internet traffic across much of
Syria. But something went wrong. Instead, the computers were bricked. It
took down the Internet across the country for a period of time.
While Cyber Command executes attacks, the National Security Agency seems more interested in tracking
virtually everyone connected to the Internet, according to the documents.
One top-secret operation, code-named TreasureMap, is designed to have a "capability for building
a near real-time interactive map of the global Internet. … Any device, anywhere, all the time." Another
operation, codenamed Turbine, involves secretly placing "millions of implants" - malware - in computer
systems worldwide for either spying or cyberattacks.
Yet, even as the U.S. government continues building robust eavesdropping and attack systems, it
looks like there has been far less focus on security at home. One benefit of the cyber-theft of the
Democratic National Committee emails might be that it helps open a public dialogue about the dangerous
potential of cyberwarfare. This is long overdue. The
possible security problems for the U.S. presidential election in November are already being discussed.
Yet there can never be a useful discussion on the topic if the Obama administration continues
to point fingers at other countries without admitting that Washington is engaged heavily in cyberspying
and cyberwarfare.
In fact, the United States is the only country ever to launch an actual cyberwar -- when the Obama
administration used a cyberattack to destroy thousands of centrifuges, used for nuclear enrichment,
in Iran. This was an illegal act of war, according to the Defense Department's own definition.
Given the news reports that many more DNC emails are waiting to be leaked as the presidential
election draws closer, there will likely be many more reminders of the need for a public dialogue
on cybersecurity and cyberwarfare before November.
(James Bamford is the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the
Eavesdropping on America. He is a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine.)
After posting a 64 character hex code
that is believed to be an encryption key, the internet worries that the famed
whistleblower may have been killed or captured resulting in the triggering of a dead
man's switch and potentially the release of many more US national secrets.
A dead man's switch is a message set up to be automatically sent if the holder
of an account does not perform a regular check-in. The whistleblower has acknowledged
that he has distributed encrypted files to journalists and associates that have not
yet been released so in Snowden's case, the dead man's switch could be an encryption
key for those files.
As of this time, Edward Snowden's Twitter account has gone silent for over 24
hours which is far from unprecedented for the whistleblower but is curious at a time
when public concern has been raised over his well-being. The 64 hex characters in the
code do appear to rule out the initial theory that Edward Snowden, like so many
of us, simply butt dialed his phone, but instead is a clearly a secure hash algorithm
that can serve as a signature for a data file or as a password.
The timing shortly after the "It's Time" tweet also have caused concern for some
Reddit theorists
such as a user named stordoff who believes that the nascent
Twitter post "was intended to set something in motion." The user postulates that it
is an encrypted message, a signal, or a password.
Snowden's initial data release in 2013 exposed what many had feared about the NSA
for years, that the agency had gone rogue and undertaken a massive scheme of domestic
surveillance. However, it is also known that the information released was only part
of the document cache he had acquired from government servers.
It has been reported that additional government data was distributed in encrypted
files to trusted journalists who were told to not release the information unless they
received a signal urging them to – information that the whistleblower determined was
too sensitive for release at the time.
The possibility also exists that Snowden has decided that after three years
in hiding that additional information needed to be released to the public independent
of some physical harm to himself, but the whistleblower's fans and privacy advocates
across the world will continue to sit on the edge of their seats in worry until and
unless he tweets to confirm that he is safe.
"... Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear hegemony ..."
"... The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the systems are just as offensive as they are defensive: ..."
"... Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale wars and military conflicts. ..."
(ANTIMEDIA)
As the United States continues to
develop and upgrade their nuclear weapons capabilities at an alarming rate,
America's ruling class refuses to heed warnings from President Vladimir Putin
that Russia will respond as necessary.
In his most
recent
attempt to warn his Western counterparts about the impending danger of a
new nuclear arms race, Putin told the heads of large foreign companies and business
associations that Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear
hegemony. He was speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum.
"We know year by year what will happen, and they know that we know,"
he said.
Putin argued that the rationale the U.S. previously gave for maintaining
and developing its nuclear weapons system is directed at the so-called "Iranian
threat." But that threat has been drastically reduced since the U.S. proved
instrumental in reaching an
agreement with Iran that should
put to rest any possible Iranian nuclear potential.
The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United
States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the
systems are just as offensive as they are defensive:
"They say [the missile systems] are part of their defense capability,
and are not offensive, that these systems are aimed at protecting them from
aggression. It's not true the strategic ballistic missile defense is part
of an offensive strategic capability, [and] functions in conjunction with
an aggressive missile strike system."
This missile system has been launched throughout Europe, and despite
American promises at the end of the Cold War that NATO's expansion would
not move "as much as a thumb's width further to the East," the missile system
has been implemented in many of Russia's neighboring countries, most recently
in Romania.
Russia views this as a direct attack on their security.
"How do we know what's inside those launchers? All one needs to do
is reprogram [the system], which is an absolutely inconspicuous task,"
Putin stated.
Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's
implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile
defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an
upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without
this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout
the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic
balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale
wars and military conflicts.
Following
George W. Bush's 2001 decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the
1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia was, according to Putin, left with
no choice but to upgrade their capabilities in response.
Putin warned:
"Today Russia has reached significant achievements in this field.
We have modernized our missile systems and successfully developed new generations.
Not to mention missile defense systems We must provide security not only
for ourselves. It's important to provide strategic balance in the world,
which guarantees peace on the planet.
Neutralizing Russia's nuclear potential will undo, according to Putin,
"the mutual threat that has provided [mankind] with global security for decades."
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that NASA scientists want to
colonize the moon by 2022 - we may have to if we don't drastically alter
the path we are on. As Albert Einstein
famously stated:
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"... Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East." ..."
"... The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.) ..."
"... Finally, George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of "regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. ..."
"... Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades. ..."
"... "Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S. interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists, token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East. ..."
"... The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible. ..."
"... The final lesson of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect." ..."
Bacevich's latest book, America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,
is a bookend of sorts to American Empire. The earlier work was heavy on theory and institutional
development, the groundwork for the wars of the early 21st century. The new book covers the history
itself-and argues persuasively that the Afghanistan, Iraq, and other, smaller wars since 9/11 are
parts of a larger conflict that began much earlier, back in the Carter administration.
Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's
account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of
World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that
region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no
American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East."
Operation Eagle Claw, Carter's ill-fated mission to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran, was
the first combat engagement in the war. Iran would continue to tempt Washington to military action
throughout the next 36 years-though paradoxically, attempts to contain Iran more often brought the
U.S. into war with the Islamic Republic's hostile neighbor, Iraq.
The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it
weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq
War of 1980–88, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement
with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.)
Weakened and indebted by that war, and thinking the U.S. tolerant of his ambitions, Saddam then
invaded Kuwait, leading to full-scale U.S. military intervention against him: Operation Desert Storm
in 1991. (By Bacevich's count, the second Gulf War.) President George H.W. Bush stopped American
forces from pushing on to Baghdad after liberating Kuwait, however, because-among other things-toppling
Saddam would have created a dangerous vacuum that Iran might fill.
A decade of sanctions, no-fly zones, and intermittent bombing then ensued, as Washington, under
Bush and Clinton, would neither depose Saddam Hussein nor permit him to reassert himself. Finally,
George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of
"regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put
into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the
void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. This would set a
precedent for America to democratize every trouble-making state in the region, including Iran.
Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change
in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled
as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer
to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in
the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades.
Iran released its American hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president: January 20,
1981. So what accounts for another 35 years of conflict with Iran and Iraq? The answer begins with
oil.
Bacevich takes us back to the Carter years. "By June 1979, a just-completed study by a then-obscure
Defense Department official named Paul Wolfowitz was attracting notice throughout the national security
bureaucracy." This "Limited Contingency Study" described America's "vital and growing stake in the
Persian Gulf," arising from "our need for Persian-Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf
affect the Arab-Israeli conflict."
"Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which
in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in
the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S.
interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging
Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists,
token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East.
(Bacevich is fair to Wolfowitz, acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was indeed an expansionist,
as the Iraqi dictator would demonstrate by invading Iran in 1980 and seizing Kuwait a decade later.
Whether this meant that Iraq was ever a threat to U.S. interests is, of course, a different question-as
is whether the Soviet Union could really have cut America off from Gulf oil.)
Wolfowitz was not alone in calling for the U.S. to become the guarantor of Middle East security-and
Saudi Arabia's security in particular-and President Carter heeded the advice. In March 1980 he created
the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), predecessor to what we now know as the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), which has military oversight for the region. The RDJTF's second head, Lt. Gen.
Robert Kingston, described its mission, in admirably frank language, as simply "to ensure the unimpeded
flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."
Iraq and Iran both posed dangers to the flow of oil and its control by Saudi Arabia and other
Arab allies-to use the term loosely-of the United States. And just as the U.S. was drawn into wars
with Iran and Iraq when it tried to play one against the other, America's defense of Saudi Arabia
would have grave unintended consequences-such as the creation of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was outraged
when, in 1990, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd declined his offer to wage holy war against Saddam Hussein
and instead turned to American protection, even permitting the stationing of American military personnel
in Islam's sacred lands. "To liberate Kuwait," writes Bacevich, bin Laden had "offered to raise an
army of mujahedin. Rejecting his offer and his protest, Saudi authorities sought to silence the impertinent
bin Laden. Not long thereafter, he fled into exile, determined to lead a holy war that would overthrow
the corrupt Saudi royals." The instrument bin Laden forged to accomplish that task, al-Qaeda, would
target Americans as well, seeking to push the U.S. out of Muslim lands.
Bin Laden had reason to hope for success: in the 1980s he had helped mujahedin defeat another
superpower, the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan. That struggle, of course, was supported by the U.S.,
through the CIA's "Operation Cyclone," which funneled arms and money to the Soviets' Muslim opponents.
Bacevich offers a verdict on this program:
Operation Cyclone illustrates one of the central ironies of America's War for the Greater Middle
East-the unwitting tendency, while intently focusing on solving one problem, to exacerbate a second
and plant the seeds of a third. In Afghanistan, this meant fostering the rise of Islamic radicalism
and underwriting Pakistan's transformation into a nuclear-armed quasi-rogue state while attempting
to subvert the Soviet Union.
America's support for the mujahedin succeeded in inflicting defeat on the USSR-but left Afghanistan
a haven and magnet for Islamist radicals, including bin Laden.
Another irony of Bacevich's tale is the way in which the end of the Cold War made escalation of
the War for the Greater Middle East possible. The Carter and Reagan administrations never considered
the Middle East the centerpiece of their foreign policy: Western Europe and the Cold War took precedence.
Carter and Reagan were unsystematic about their engagement with the Middle East and, even as they
expanded America's military presence, remained wary of strategic overcommitment. Operation Eagle
Claw, Reagan's deployment of troops to Lebanon in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, and even the
meddling in Iran and Iraq were all small-scale projects compared to what would be unleashed after
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to
redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time
were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation
Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible.
The
Greater Middle East of Bacevich's title centers strategically, if not geographically, upon Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. But its strategic implications and cultural reach are wide, encompassing
Libya, Somalia, and other African states with significant Muslim populations; Afghanistan and Pakistan
(or "AfPak," in the Obama administration's parlance); and even, on the periphery, the Balkans, where
the U.S. intervened militarily in support of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. That Clinton-era
intervention is examined in detail by Bacevich: "Today, years after NATO came to their rescue," he
writes, "a steady stream of Bosnians and Kosovars leave their homeland and head off toward Syria
and Iraq, where they enlist as fighters in the ongoing anti-American, anti-Western jihad."
Much as George W. Bush believed that liberal democracy would spring up in Saddam Hussein's wake,
the humanitarian interventionists who demanded that Bill Clinton send peacekeepers to Bosnia and
bomb Serbia on behalf of the Kosovars thought that they were making the world safe for their own
liberal, multicultural values. But as Bacevich notes, the Balkan Muslims joining ISIS today are "waging
war on behalf of an entirely different set of universal values."
Bacevich's many books confront readers with painful but necessary truths. The final lesson
of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American
freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect."
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative.
"... Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear hegemony ..."
"... The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the systems are just as offensive as they are defensive: ..."
"... Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale wars and military conflicts. ..."
(ANTIMEDIA)
As the United States continues to
develop and upgrade their nuclear weapons capabilities at an alarming rate,
America's ruling class refuses to heed warnings from President Vladimir Putin
that Russia will respond as necessary.
In his most
recent
attempt to warn his Western counterparts about the impending danger of a
new nuclear arms race, Putin told the heads of large foreign companies and business
associations that Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear
hegemony. He was speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum.
"We know year by year what will happen, and they know that we know,"
he said.
Putin argued that the rationale the U.S. previously gave for maintaining
and developing its nuclear weapons system is directed at the so-called "Iranian
threat." But that threat has been drastically reduced since the U.S. proved
instrumental in reaching an
agreement with Iran that should
put to rest any possible Iranian nuclear potential.
The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United
States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the
systems are just as offensive as they are defensive:
"They say [the missile systems] are part of their defense capability,
and are not offensive, that these systems are aimed at protecting them from
aggression. It's not true the strategic ballistic missile defense is part
of an offensive strategic capability, [and] functions in conjunction with
an aggressive missile strike system."
This missile system has been launched throughout Europe, and despite
American promises at the end of the Cold War that NATO's expansion would
not move "as much as a thumb's width further to the East," the missile system
has been implemented in many of Russia's neighboring countries, most recently
in Romania.
Russia views this as a direct attack on their security.
"How do we know what's inside those launchers? All one needs to do
is reprogram [the system], which is an absolutely inconspicuous task,"
Putin stated.
Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's
implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile
defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an
upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without
this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout
the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic
balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale
wars and military conflicts.
Following
George W. Bush's 2001 decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the
1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia was, according to Putin, left with
no choice but to upgrade their capabilities in response.
Putin warned:
"Today Russia has reached significant achievements in this field.
We have modernized our missile systems and successfully developed new generations.
Not to mention missile defense systems We must provide security not only
for ourselves. It's important to provide strategic balance in the world,
which guarantees peace on the planet.
Neutralizing Russia's nuclear potential will undo, according to Putin,
"the mutual threat that has provided [mankind] with global security for decades."
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that NASA scientists want to
colonize the moon by 2022 - we may have to if we don't drastically alter
the path we are on. As Albert Einstein
famously stated:
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"... Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East." ..."
"... The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.) ..."
"... Finally, George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of "regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. ..."
"... Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades. ..."
"... "Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S. interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists, token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East. ..."
"... The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible. ..."
"... The final lesson of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect." ..."
Bacevich's latest book, America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,
is a bookend of sorts to American Empire. The earlier work was heavy on theory and institutional
development, the groundwork for the wars of the early 21st century. The new book covers the history
itself-and argues persuasively that the Afghanistan, Iraq, and other, smaller wars since 9/11 are
parts of a larger conflict that began much earlier, back in the Carter administration.
Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's
account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of
World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that
region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no
American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East."
Operation Eagle Claw, Carter's ill-fated mission to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran, was
the first combat engagement in the war. Iran would continue to tempt Washington to military action
throughout the next 36 years-though paradoxically, attempts to contain Iran more often brought the
U.S. into war with the Islamic Republic's hostile neighbor, Iraq.
The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it
weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq
War of 1980–88, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement
with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.)
Weakened and indebted by that war, and thinking the U.S. tolerant of his ambitions, Saddam then
invaded Kuwait, leading to full-scale U.S. military intervention against him: Operation Desert Storm
in 1991. (By Bacevich's count, the second Gulf War.) President George H.W. Bush stopped American
forces from pushing on to Baghdad after liberating Kuwait, however, because-among other things-toppling
Saddam would have created a dangerous vacuum that Iran might fill.
A decade of sanctions, no-fly zones, and intermittent bombing then ensued, as Washington, under
Bush and Clinton, would neither depose Saddam Hussein nor permit him to reassert himself. Finally,
George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of
"regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put
into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the
void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. This would set a
precedent for America to democratize every trouble-making state in the region, including Iran.
Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change
in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled
as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer
to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in
the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades.
Iran released its American hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president: January 20,
1981. So what accounts for another 35 years of conflict with Iran and Iraq? The answer begins with
oil.
Bacevich takes us back to the Carter years. "By June 1979, a just-completed study by a then-obscure
Defense Department official named Paul Wolfowitz was attracting notice throughout the national security
bureaucracy." This "Limited Contingency Study" described America's "vital and growing stake in the
Persian Gulf," arising from "our need for Persian-Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf
affect the Arab-Israeli conflict."
"Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which
in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in
the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S.
interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging
Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists,
token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East.
(Bacevich is fair to Wolfowitz, acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was indeed an expansionist,
as the Iraqi dictator would demonstrate by invading Iran in 1980 and seizing Kuwait a decade later.
Whether this meant that Iraq was ever a threat to U.S. interests is, of course, a different question-as
is whether the Soviet Union could really have cut America off from Gulf oil.)
Wolfowitz was not alone in calling for the U.S. to become the guarantor of Middle East security-and
Saudi Arabia's security in particular-and President Carter heeded the advice. In March 1980 he created
the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), predecessor to what we now know as the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), which has military oversight for the region. The RDJTF's second head, Lt. Gen.
Robert Kingston, described its mission, in admirably frank language, as simply "to ensure the unimpeded
flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."
Iraq and Iran both posed dangers to the flow of oil and its control by Saudi Arabia and other
Arab allies-to use the term loosely-of the United States. And just as the U.S. was drawn into wars
with Iran and Iraq when it tried to play one against the other, America's defense of Saudi Arabia
would have grave unintended consequences-such as the creation of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was outraged
when, in 1990, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd declined his offer to wage holy war against Saddam Hussein
and instead turned to American protection, even permitting the stationing of American military personnel
in Islam's sacred lands. "To liberate Kuwait," writes Bacevich, bin Laden had "offered to raise an
army of mujahedin. Rejecting his offer and his protest, Saudi authorities sought to silence the impertinent
bin Laden. Not long thereafter, he fled into exile, determined to lead a holy war that would overthrow
the corrupt Saudi royals." The instrument bin Laden forged to accomplish that task, al-Qaeda, would
target Americans as well, seeking to push the U.S. out of Muslim lands.
Bin Laden had reason to hope for success: in the 1980s he had helped mujahedin defeat another
superpower, the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan. That struggle, of course, was supported by the U.S.,
through the CIA's "Operation Cyclone," which funneled arms and money to the Soviets' Muslim opponents.
Bacevich offers a verdict on this program:
Operation Cyclone illustrates one of the central ironies of America's War for the Greater Middle
East-the unwitting tendency, while intently focusing on solving one problem, to exacerbate a second
and plant the seeds of a third. In Afghanistan, this meant fostering the rise of Islamic radicalism
and underwriting Pakistan's transformation into a nuclear-armed quasi-rogue state while attempting
to subvert the Soviet Union.
America's support for the mujahedin succeeded in inflicting defeat on the USSR-but left Afghanistan
a haven and magnet for Islamist radicals, including bin Laden.
Another irony of Bacevich's tale is the way in which the end of the Cold War made escalation of
the War for the Greater Middle East possible. The Carter and Reagan administrations never considered
the Middle East the centerpiece of their foreign policy: Western Europe and the Cold War took precedence.
Carter and Reagan were unsystematic about their engagement with the Middle East and, even as they
expanded America's military presence, remained wary of strategic overcommitment. Operation Eagle
Claw, Reagan's deployment of troops to Lebanon in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, and even the
meddling in Iran and Iraq were all small-scale projects compared to what would be unleashed after
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to
redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time
were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation
Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible.
The
Greater Middle East of Bacevich's title centers strategically, if not geographically, upon Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. But its strategic implications and cultural reach are wide, encompassing
Libya, Somalia, and other African states with significant Muslim populations; Afghanistan and Pakistan
(or "AfPak," in the Obama administration's parlance); and even, on the periphery, the Balkans, where
the U.S. intervened militarily in support of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. That Clinton-era
intervention is examined in detail by Bacevich: "Today, years after NATO came to their rescue," he
writes, "a steady stream of Bosnians and Kosovars leave their homeland and head off toward Syria
and Iraq, where they enlist as fighters in the ongoing anti-American, anti-Western jihad."
Much as George W. Bush believed that liberal democracy would spring up in Saddam Hussein's wake,
the humanitarian interventionists who demanded that Bill Clinton send peacekeepers to Bosnia and
bomb Serbia on behalf of the Kosovars thought that they were making the world safe for their own
liberal, multicultural values. But as Bacevich notes, the Balkan Muslims joining ISIS today are "waging
war on behalf of an entirely different set of universal values."
Bacevich's many books confront readers with painful but necessary truths. The final lesson
of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American
freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect."
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative.
"... I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region. ..."
"... Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. ..."
"... The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second part of her statement, forgetting "nuclear" and reverting to the 2008 declaration. Worse, she says that even if they don't have nukes quite yet, an attack on Holy Israel means it's "glow-in-the-dark" time in Iran. ..."
"... It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That's the way the Madeleine Albright ***** – the one who has declared that any woman who doesn't vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it when speaking of 500,000 dead Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done. ..."
"... Don't even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted to Israel. When she was in the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative Republicans. Nobody at all is talking about Hillary's religion. If she is one of the Rapture types, her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance to force God to get off the pot and start with the Second Coming. ..."
"... Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president. ..."
"... You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is "confused". Which means that she does not have "normal" level of situational awareness. ..."
"... After the dissolution of the USSR and the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism, the US elite by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation. ..."
"... Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation, no boundaries. ..."
Hillary 2008: "George Stephanopoulos: "Senator Clinton, would you [extend
our deterrent to Israel]?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, in fact I think that we should be looking
to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel.
Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel
would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the
same with other countries in the region."
Massive Retaliation has always had the meaning of a 'massive' nuclear
attack.
Hillary 2016: "MR. CUOMO: Iran: some language recently. You said if Iran
were to strike Israel, there would be a massive retaliation. Scary words.
Does massive retaliation mean you'd go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is
that what that's supposed to suggest?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, the question was if Iran were to launch a nuclear
attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to
know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to
understand that.
Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their
society, because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear
weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider
launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.
That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to
understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something
that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic."
The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second
part of her statement, forgetting "nuclear" and reverting to the 2008 declaration.
Worse, she says that even if they don't have nukes quite yet, an attack
on Holy Israel means it's "glow-in-the-dark" time in Iran.
It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That's the way the
Madeleine Albright ***** – the one who has declared that any woman who doesn't
vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it when speaking of 500,000 dead
Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done.
But move on – it's the insane Trump who can't be trusted with nukes.
Don't even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted
to Israel. When she was in the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast
with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative Republicans. Nobody
at all is talking about Hillary's religion. If she is one of the Rapture
types, her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance
to force God to get off the pot and start with the Second Coming.
Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
likbez , August 5, 2016 11:29 pm
Hi Zachary,
> Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health,
age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition,
she often is "confused". Which means that she does not have "normal" level
of situational awareness.
For some specialties like airplane pilots this is a death sentence. Unfortunately,
if elected, she can take the country with her.
While the USSR existed, as bad as it was for people within its borders,
it was a blessing for the people of the USA, as it kept the elite in check
and frightful to behave in "natural, greedy and delusional "Masters of the
Universe" way".
After the dissolution of the USSR and the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism,
the US elite by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation.
If you read what Hillary utters like "no fly zone" in Syria and other
similar staff, to me this looks like a sign of madness, plain and simple.
No reasonable politician should go of the cliff like that, if stakes are
not extremely high.
And MSM try to sell her as a more reasonable politician then Trump. In
reality she is like Kelvin absolute zero. You just can't go lower. The only
hope is that she is a puppet and it does not matter what she utters.
But if we take her statements about Syria and Russia at face value, she
is either dangerously ignorant or (more probably) is a female sociopath.
Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation,
no boundaries.
So her arrogant and reckless behavior as for "getting rich quick" and
with the private "bathroom" email server is a sign of more general and more
dangerous tendency.
Neocons are still way too powerful. They dominate MSM and essentially
dictate the agenda.
"... Politically, the Reagan/Thatcher period broke the socially-democratic post-WWII consensus in favour of economic neo-liberalism, which became the new consensus... and once the Cold War was over, there was no real 'peace dividend' and the agreements for global free-trade/globalisation were struck. ..."
"... We weren't robbed. We gave our country away. Republics that operate in a Democratic manner cannot be left to themselves any more than one should leave a three-year-old child alone...but we did. ..."
"... Is the middle class disappearing? Since the middle class is the majority, one has to ask why. Why is the majority population of the United States slipping into "Lower Class" status? Simple: the Majority allowed it to happen by not saying "No!" often enough. ..."
"... Our government here in the United States is a wonder, a thing of genius passed down from the Founders (most of whom would be on "Do not Fly" lists today). ..."
"... Politics: policies are never discussed in detail in ANY election. The WHAT, HOW, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and COST is never provided in detail by the politicians. Every thing in the politicians mind is open ended, and may or may not be adopted, considered, or maybe a totally different thing than what they were elected for. ..."
"... WWII's impact on media tended to paper over many of the differences and tensions that have been present in American life. Aside from the period during WWII and in the few decades after, vitriol has been the norm in U.S. media going back to the 1790s. The idea of a media culture that was objective and bipartisan is a newer idea. ..."
"... Noam Chomsky talked about this in "The Corporation." Our division and increased level of emotional isolation is a direct result of marketing attacks on the human psyche designed to get us to buy more products and services. ..."
"... While some may fantasize about a society run by women, what we know from experience is that women in power act and speak just like men, that is, they also act solely in their own parochial personal political interest and say whatever is necessary to win their next election. ..."
"... Civility and all the claims about it are largely the reason the abominable Reagan era free market economics have shattered the U.S. Economy. ..."
"... Much the better to forget civility in the face of bankster monsters who have worked to destroy the English speaking world and everyone else in it. Civilty is just plain crap in the face of the policies of neoliberalism. ..."
I suspect we're seeing the consequences of two events... one political, the other financial (heavily
determined by the political, which happened first).
Politically, the Reagan/Thatcher period broke the socially-democratic post-WWII consensus
in favour of economic neo-liberalism, which became the new consensus... and once the Cold War
was over, there was no real 'peace dividend' and the agreements for global free-trade/globalisation
were struck.
That lead to the banking crisis/collapse in 2008, and to the 'solution' whereby most governments
imposed 'austerity' and debt on ordinary people to keep most of the bankers 'functional' and 'solvent'
...and not only were the bankers not adequately regulated to curtail their activities, but they
carried on paying themselves mega-currency bonuses for using taxpayer guarantees to rescue their
dysfunctional businesses.
As the UK-EU Referendum result has proved, populist politicians spouting bullsh*t can succeed
in this environment; especially when 'decent politicians' abdicate their responsibilities.
Here in the U.S. we're learning that we've created a monster by essentially doing nothing. While
the Police turned themselves into "Occupying Forces" who "Enforced the laws on a resistant populace"
and created a poisonous "Us vs. Them" situation...we were watching game shows. As the Elites in
the government crafted laws to protect themselves from the civil laws that govern the rest of
us, we were obsessing over soap operas. As fellow citizens were targeted on account of race, nationality,
or language, we were busy with planning our vacations and where to spend them.
We weren't robbed. We gave our country away. Republics that operate in a Democratic manner
cannot be left to themselves any more than one should leave a three-year-old child alone...but
we did.
Now, the would-be powerful use Hate and Race and Nationality as a means of dividing us and
turning us against ourselves. This is done for the same reason the magician's "assistant" doesn't
wear enough clothing to flag down a passing car - the magician wants us to be distracted while
he sets up for the next trick.
It's easy to get the public to turn away from the basic rights that our nation was founded upon;
just frighten them and then promise that by simply surrendering those rights they will be made
"safe" from possible harms. Never mind that Ben Franklin said, "Those who would surrender their
basic liberties for the illusion of safety deserve neither." Schools don't teach that anymore.
They teach conformity to authority, any authority. Schools teach obedience, not critical thought;
and they punish those who question things very severely.
Is the middle class disappearing? Since the middle class is the majority, one has to ask
why. Why is the majority population of the United States slipping into "Lower Class" status? Simple:
the Majority allowed it to happen by not saying "No!" often enough. We chose to lose because
we didn't do what was necessary to win. The United States of Laziness, long may it watch the idiot
box and not do anything to change what's happening to it.
Our government here in the United States is a wonder, a thing of genius passed down from
the Founders (most of whom would be on "Do not Fly" lists today). Under our system we are
treated to the fairest form of government that has ever been devised: We get the Government and
the Society under that government... that we DESERVE. We don't get what we want, we get what we
deserve. Let the apologists claim that the country is "Changing". Let them say, "We're growing
into something new!" We aren't. We're simply living down to the historical model of failed societies.
Politics: policies are never discussed in detail in ANY election. The WHAT, HOW, WHERE, WHEN,
WHY and COST is never provided in detail by the politicians. Every thing in the politicians mind
is open ended, and may or may not be adopted, considered, or maybe a totally different thing than
what they were elected for.
That is the disaster that what current politicians totally fail. That needs to change. Will
such, I doubt it.
The current so called political platforms or manifestos, are basically useless and used only
for propaganda.
Many excellent points. I think the divisions are easier to exploit in part because the society
has become so greatly divided based of income inequality. People have completely different frames
of reference in terms of their experience, and anxieties, and so it becomes easier to dismiss
the concerns of others out-of-hand as illegitimate. You can also overlay racism as part of the
equation, which has always been present with varying degrees of intensity in the U.S.
WWII's impact on media tended to paper over many of the differences and tensions that have
been present in American life. Aside from the period during WWII and in the few decades after,
vitriol has been the norm in U.S. media going back to the 1790s. The idea of a media culture that
was objective and bipartisan is a newer idea.
It was codified by things like the Fairness Doctrine as well, which tended to moderate, and
censor, public discussion through broadcast media. When the Fairness Doctrine fell apart you had
people like Limbaugh go national with a highly partisan infotainment model.
The media became more fragmented as well. Broadcast media also used to be seen as a public
service. But in the 1970s the major networks started to understand that it could also be a profit
center -- and you had another shift in values, where the public function took a back-seat to profit
maximization. The market also has become more cut-throat as the media environment has become more
fragmented.
Noam Chomsky talked about this in "The Corporation." Our division and increased level of emotional
isolation is a direct result of marketing attacks on the human psyche designed to get us to buy
more products and services. I'm not sure how much of it is Machiavellian and how much is
just pure greed reaping it's inevitable harvest.
Vitriolic and polemical speech has been a ubiquitous ritual since the earliest democracies. When
candidates wish to distinguish themselves or appeal to various segments of the electorate, there
is nothing like a lot of demagoguery and fear mongering to bring attention to a candidate and
his issues. In the end, self-interest motivates voters, and fear is the biggest self-interest
of all.
Using the specter of the opposition to scare small children and those who think like them is
a time honored tradition and well alive today. Further, as groups begin to prosper and start being
assimilated into the broader society, the individual self-interests diverge and it becomes harder
to hold them together as a cohesive group whose votes can be counted on. It then becomes all the
more necessary to drive hysteria and to rely on fear and the hyped common threat to maintain solidarity.
While some may fantasize about a society run by women, what we know from experience is
that women in power act and speak just like men, that is, they also act solely in their own parochial
personal political interest and say whatever is necessary to win their next election.
Civility and all the claims about it are largely the reason the abominable Reagan era free
market economics have shattered the U.S. Economy. The phony claim that civility is politically
useful belies that all manner of suffering like homelessness is not now or ever heard by the deliberately
unhearing administrators of this economy. All civility got anyone is a thin veneer repectabilty
covering up a society in which the rich have robbed the rest of us.
Much the better to forget
civility in the face of bankster monsters who have worked to destroy the English speaking world
and everyone else in it. Civilty is just plain crap in the face of the policies of neoliberalism.
"... I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region. ..."
"... Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. ..."
"... The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second part of her statement, forgetting "nuclear" and reverting to the 2008 declaration. Worse, she says that even if they don't have nukes quite yet, an attack on Holy Israel means it's "glow-in-the-dark" time in Iran. ..."
"... It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That's the way the Madeleine Albright ***** – the one who has declared that any woman who doesn't vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it when speaking of 500,000 dead Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done. ..."
"... Don't even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted to Israel. When she was in the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative Republicans. Nobody at all is talking about Hillary's religion. If she is one of the Rapture types, her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance to force God to get off the pot and start with the Second Coming. ..."
"... Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president. ..."
"... You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health, age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition, she often is "confused". Which means that she does not have "normal" level of situational awareness. ..."
"... After the dissolution of the USSR and the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism, the US elite by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation. ..."
"... Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation, no boundaries. ..."
Hillary 2008: "George Stephanopoulos: "Senator Clinton, would you [extend
our deterrent to Israel]?"
Hillary Clinton: "Well, in fact I think that we should be looking
to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel.
Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel
would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the
same with other countries in the region."
Massive Retaliation has always had the meaning of a 'massive' nuclear
attack.
Hillary 2016: "MR. CUOMO: Iran: some language recently. You said if Iran
were to strike Israel, there would be a massive retaliation. Scary words.
Does massive retaliation mean you'd go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is
that what that's supposed to suggest?
SEN. CLINTON: Well, the question was if Iran were to launch a nuclear
attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to
know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to
understand that.
Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their
society, because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear
weapons program in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider
launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.
That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to
understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something
that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic."
The warmongering neocon woman gets a little careless in the second
part of her statement, forgetting "nuclear" and reverting to the 2008 declaration.
Worse, she says that even if they don't have nukes quite yet, an attack
on Holy Israel means it's "glow-in-the-dark" time in Iran.
It really is a tragic thing to be talking about. That's the way the
Madeleine Albright ***** – the one who has declared that any woman who doesn't
vote for Hillary will go to hell – put it when speaking of 500,000 dead
Iraqi kids. Darned shame, but it had to be done.
But move on – it's the insane Trump who can't be trusted with nukes.
Don't even think about a possibility why Hillary might be so devoted
to Israel. When she was in the Senate the woman went to a prayer breakfast
with some of the most repulsive of the Conservative Republicans. Nobody
at all is talking about Hillary's religion. If she is one of the Rapture
types, her access to nukes would mean an End-Timer finally has a chance
to force God to get off the pot and start with the Second Coming.
Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
likbez , August 5, 2016 11:29 pm
Hi Zachary,
> Just think of it – the First and the Last woman president.
You are right. She is a huge danger. Not only due to her frail health,
age and history of blood clots. As Huma Abedin noted in her deposition,
she often is "confused". Which means that she does not have "normal" level
of situational awareness.
For some specialties like airplane pilots this is a death sentence. Unfortunately,
if elected, she can take the country with her.
While the USSR existed, as bad as it was for people within its borders,
it was a blessing for the people of the USA, as it kept the elite in check
and frightful to behave in "natural, greedy and delusional "Masters of the
Universe" way".
After the dissolution of the USSR and the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism,
the US elite by-and-large lost the sense of self-preservation.
If you read what Hillary utters like "no fly zone" in Syria and other
similar staff, to me this looks like a sign of madness, plain and simple.
No reasonable politician should go of the cliff like that, if stakes are
not extremely high.
And MSM try to sell her as a more reasonable politician then Trump. In
reality she is like Kelvin absolute zero. You just can't go lower. The only
hope is that she is a puppet and it does not matter what she utters.
But if we take her statements about Syria and Russia at face value, she
is either dangerously ignorant or (more probably) is a female sociopath.
Like sociopaths she has no self-control, no sense of self-preservation,
no boundaries.
So her arrogant and reckless behavior as for "getting rich quick" and
with the private "bathroom" email server is a sign of more general and more
dangerous tendency.
Neocons are still way too powerful. They dominate MSM and essentially
dictate the agenda.
"... Politically, the Reagan/Thatcher period broke the socially-democratic post-WWII consensus in favour of economic neo-liberalism, which became the new consensus... and once the Cold War was over, there was no real 'peace dividend' and the agreements for global free-trade/globalisation were struck. ..."
"... We weren't robbed. We gave our country away. Republics that operate in a Democratic manner cannot be left to themselves any more than one should leave a three-year-old child alone...but we did. ..."
"... Is the middle class disappearing? Since the middle class is the majority, one has to ask why. Why is the majority population of the United States slipping into "Lower Class" status? Simple: the Majority allowed it to happen by not saying "No!" often enough. ..."
"... Our government here in the United States is a wonder, a thing of genius passed down from the Founders (most of whom would be on "Do not Fly" lists today). ..."
"... Politics: policies are never discussed in detail in ANY election. The WHAT, HOW, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and COST is never provided in detail by the politicians. Every thing in the politicians mind is open ended, and may or may not be adopted, considered, or maybe a totally different thing than what they were elected for. ..."
"... WWII's impact on media tended to paper over many of the differences and tensions that have been present in American life. Aside from the period during WWII and in the few decades after, vitriol has been the norm in U.S. media going back to the 1790s. The idea of a media culture that was objective and bipartisan is a newer idea. ..."
"... Noam Chomsky talked about this in "The Corporation." Our division and increased level of emotional isolation is a direct result of marketing attacks on the human psyche designed to get us to buy more products and services. ..."
"... While some may fantasize about a society run by women, what we know from experience is that women in power act and speak just like men, that is, they also act solely in their own parochial personal political interest and say whatever is necessary to win their next election. ..."
"... Civility and all the claims about it are largely the reason the abominable Reagan era free market economics have shattered the U.S. Economy. ..."
"... Much the better to forget civility in the face of bankster monsters who have worked to destroy the English speaking world and everyone else in it. Civilty is just plain crap in the face of the policies of neoliberalism. ..."
I suspect we're seeing the consequences of two events... one political, the other financial (heavily
determined by the political, which happened first).
Politically, the Reagan/Thatcher period broke the socially-democratic post-WWII consensus
in favour of economic neo-liberalism, which became the new consensus... and once the Cold War
was over, there was no real 'peace dividend' and the agreements for global free-trade/globalisation
were struck.
That lead to the banking crisis/collapse in 2008, and to the 'solution' whereby most governments
imposed 'austerity' and debt on ordinary people to keep most of the bankers 'functional' and 'solvent'
...and not only were the bankers not adequately regulated to curtail their activities, but they
carried on paying themselves mega-currency bonuses for using taxpayer guarantees to rescue their
dysfunctional businesses.
As the UK-EU Referendum result has proved, populist politicians spouting bullsh*t can succeed
in this environment; especially when 'decent politicians' abdicate their responsibilities.
Here in the U.S. we're learning that we've created a monster by essentially doing nothing. While
the Police turned themselves into "Occupying Forces" who "Enforced the laws on a resistant populace"
and created a poisonous "Us vs. Them" situation...we were watching game shows. As the Elites in
the government crafted laws to protect themselves from the civil laws that govern the rest of
us, we were obsessing over soap operas. As fellow citizens were targeted on account of race, nationality,
or language, we were busy with planning our vacations and where to spend them.
We weren't robbed. We gave our country away. Republics that operate in a Democratic manner
cannot be left to themselves any more than one should leave a three-year-old child alone...but
we did.
Now, the would-be powerful use Hate and Race and Nationality as a means of dividing us and
turning us against ourselves. This is done for the same reason the magician's "assistant" doesn't
wear enough clothing to flag down a passing car - the magician wants us to be distracted while
he sets up for the next trick.
It's easy to get the public to turn away from the basic rights that our nation was founded upon;
just frighten them and then promise that by simply surrendering those rights they will be made
"safe" from possible harms. Never mind that Ben Franklin said, "Those who would surrender their
basic liberties for the illusion of safety deserve neither." Schools don't teach that anymore.
They teach conformity to authority, any authority. Schools teach obedience, not critical thought;
and they punish those who question things very severely.
Is the middle class disappearing? Since the middle class is the majority, one has to ask
why. Why is the majority population of the United States slipping into "Lower Class" status? Simple:
the Majority allowed it to happen by not saying "No!" often enough. We chose to lose because
we didn't do what was necessary to win. The United States of Laziness, long may it watch the idiot
box and not do anything to change what's happening to it.
Our government here in the United States is a wonder, a thing of genius passed down from
the Founders (most of whom would be on "Do not Fly" lists today). Under our system we are
treated to the fairest form of government that has ever been devised: We get the Government and
the Society under that government... that we DESERVE. We don't get what we want, we get what we
deserve. Let the apologists claim that the country is "Changing". Let them say, "We're growing
into something new!" We aren't. We're simply living down to the historical model of failed societies.
Politics: policies are never discussed in detail in ANY election. The WHAT, HOW, WHERE, WHEN,
WHY and COST is never provided in detail by the politicians. Every thing in the politicians mind
is open ended, and may or may not be adopted, considered, or maybe a totally different thing than
what they were elected for.
That is the disaster that what current politicians totally fail. That needs to change. Will
such, I doubt it.
The current so called political platforms or manifestos, are basically useless and used only
for propaganda.
Many excellent points. I think the divisions are easier to exploit in part because the society
has become so greatly divided based of income inequality. People have completely different frames
of reference in terms of their experience, and anxieties, and so it becomes easier to dismiss
the concerns of others out-of-hand as illegitimate. You can also overlay racism as part of the
equation, which has always been present with varying degrees of intensity in the U.S.
WWII's impact on media tended to paper over many of the differences and tensions that have
been present in American life. Aside from the period during WWII and in the few decades after,
vitriol has been the norm in U.S. media going back to the 1790s. The idea of a media culture that
was objective and bipartisan is a newer idea.
It was codified by things like the Fairness Doctrine as well, which tended to moderate, and
censor, public discussion through broadcast media. When the Fairness Doctrine fell apart you had
people like Limbaugh go national with a highly partisan infotainment model.
The media became more fragmented as well. Broadcast media also used to be seen as a public
service. But in the 1970s the major networks started to understand that it could also be a profit
center -- and you had another shift in values, where the public function took a back-seat to profit
maximization. The market also has become more cut-throat as the media environment has become more
fragmented.
Noam Chomsky talked about this in "The Corporation." Our division and increased level of emotional
isolation is a direct result of marketing attacks on the human psyche designed to get us to buy
more products and services. I'm not sure how much of it is Machiavellian and how much is
just pure greed reaping it's inevitable harvest.
Vitriolic and polemical speech has been a ubiquitous ritual since the earliest democracies. When
candidates wish to distinguish themselves or appeal to various segments of the electorate, there
is nothing like a lot of demagoguery and fear mongering to bring attention to a candidate and
his issues. In the end, self-interest motivates voters, and fear is the biggest self-interest
of all.
Using the specter of the opposition to scare small children and those who think like them is
a time honored tradition and well alive today. Further, as groups begin to prosper and start being
assimilated into the broader society, the individual self-interests diverge and it becomes harder
to hold them together as a cohesive group whose votes can be counted on. It then becomes all the
more necessary to drive hysteria and to rely on fear and the hyped common threat to maintain solidarity.
While some may fantasize about a society run by women, what we know from experience is
that women in power act and speak just like men, that is, they also act solely in their own parochial
personal political interest and say whatever is necessary to win their next election.
Civility and all the claims about it are largely the reason the abominable Reagan era free
market economics have shattered the U.S. Economy. The phony claim that civility is politically
useful belies that all manner of suffering like homelessness is not now or ever heard by the deliberately
unhearing administrators of this economy. All civility got anyone is a thin veneer repectabilty
covering up a society in which the rich have robbed the rest of us.
Much the better to forget
civility in the face of bankster monsters who have worked to destroy the English speaking world
and everyone else in it. Civilty is just plain crap in the face of the policies of neoliberalism.
"... The EU has been jerking Turkey around forever about joining the EU. They clearly intend not to let a Muslim country join but keep pretending they might as a key NATO ally. ..."
"... Merely assuming an official posture of neutrality, as Nasser famously did, would be a big setback for the US and a big gain for Russia ..."
"... The fact that the heads of NATO and the US government, along with their "brain trusts" get so panicky about a possible warming of relations between Russia and Turkey is ridiculous. These asshats have been behaving all along as if the Soviet Union never fell and that Russia is the same thing it was while the heart of the USSR. ..."
"... NATO gets aggressive and spreads itself all over Eastern Europe with the intention of kicking the Bear and then gets its panties in a twist when the Bear, quite reasonably, reacts to their aggressive actions. ..."
"... I literally cannot think of a single thing that Russia has done since the end of the Soviet Union that in any way, shape, or form alarms me or makes me think, "These guys are planning to invade or start a war!" ..."
"... US aggression in Syria HAD to be responded to by Russia. Russia has LONG time major military bases in Syria. How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order to try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there? The initiating of chaos would be the aggressive act, NOT the US response to the chaos. The generating of massive chaos in Syria (by the US and its allies) was the aggressive act, NOT Russia's quite reasonable and understandable reaction. Same goes for Ukraine. ..."
"... The US is bound and determined to FORCE Russia to be a major foe for Cold War 2.0 whether Russia wants to be or not. The US cannot see any other way to drive its shitty economic system than to fire up the defense industries to full throttle again, ala Cold War 1.0. Instead of dumping the military economic basis to the US and Western economies to focus on truly beneficial development, they are going with the boogieman…both for the economic shot it will provide, but also in an attempt to quell unrest due to income inequality and the rape/pillage economic system of the West. Make the people afraid of being invaded or nuked into oblivion and they wont complain about no more retirement, inability to buy a decent home, or send their kids to college. ..."
"... If the first Presidents Bush and Clinton had attempted conversion and used some crumbs to mitigate the Soviet collapse, instead of unleashing the worst pack of intellectual sophists, strategists, and black market dregs, then Russia today would probably be neatly colonized into an international system, but after the violent class conflict of decolonization during the Cold War a new world order that appeared like Gore Vidal's semi-sarcastic paradigm-shattering essay in the Nation would prematurely speed up de-colonization with "white privilege" too uncamouflaged: ..."
"... Thank you. I have been wondering about the relationship between the Gulen movement and the CIA that relationship might shed light about whether the US was involved in or pushed or green lighted the coup. Of course, CIA assets have been known to go rogue as well. ..."
"... While exploring this subject, there's a good article and talk given by a career CIA case officer (undercover) who now works for a think tank of some sort. (So I assume she's still with the CIA, even if supposedly she's not.) Her book describes the extent of the Gulen network, including the criminal investigations underway for Gulen's charter schools network. (Did you know Gulen has the largest network of charter schools in the USA?!) This presentation implicitly acknowledged the dangerous / illegal aspects to the Gulen movement. ..."
"... But at a higher, strategic level, CIA seems to be obviously harboring and supporting Gulen, as Edmonds says. ..."
"... Edmonds has also done some amazing work regarding Hastert's pedophile connections–reported this formally to US law agencies in multiple years, and was interviewed for a triple-fact-checked Vanity Fair article. The FBI agents who were doing the investigating (knowing about Hastert's pedophilia 10-20 years ago) thought they were preparing for a criminal investigation. They became disillusioned when they realized after a couple of years that their FBI higher-ups had no intention of prosecuting. Apparently the issue is so widespread, and everyone knows–Edmonds describes a certain palace in Turkey where US Congress members get taken on VIP trips, where the VIP suites were being monitored / videotapes simultaneously by FBI, DIA, DoJ, criminal gangs, and foreign governments. Yet when most recently Hastert comes to public attention, all the known pedophile activities are not mentioned, just the financial money-laundering aspects. Because so many of our officials & media & prominent people have been compromised by pedophilia that no one is willing to speak out about it. ..."
"... Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a number of insightful video interviews and papers about Turkey. She predicted the coup about 18 months ago–pointing out that the CIA was preparing to replace Erdogan, and showing the pattern with other regime changes with USA involvement. Both the recent and past interviews give a lot of insight–e.g., into Gulen's CIA-backed financial, cultural and political empire spanning Turkey, Turkik-friendly caucasus countries and deeply embedded within the USA and Congress. ..."
"... For background on Sibel Edmonds, a short 2006 documentary "Kill the Messenger" about her whistleblowing while an FBI translator is a good starting point. ..."
"... Ever wondered why Russia hasn't attempted to internally overthrow any of the Gulf States or Saudi Arabia since the Iraqi invasion? They are definitely fragile, internally vulnerable states and closely aligned with the west. Two can definitely play these color revolution games. I suspect it is due to the vulnerability of their own, Russian, populations and increased Middle east instability could produce blowback in Russia proper. However the US and allies have been playing hard this game of disrupting Middle East stability for the last 13 years. At what point, would the Russians decide, well, Middle East stability is already gone and it is time to strike back at US allies using our own tactics? Personally, I think Putin is too smart for that but what about after Putin? ..."
"... Russia's historical ties were with the Byzantine Empire, with which it shared – after the 9th century A.D. – a crucial common feature, viz. Orthodoxy. The center of Orthodoxy was of course Constantinople, with which the Russian Archbishopric and later, Patriarchate, experienced complicated relations. Upon the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and the loss of Constantinople to Orthodoxy, Russia envisioned its own capital, Moscow, as taking up the mantle and succeeding Constantinople (the "Second Rome") as Christendom's "Third Rome". The title conflates the relationship between the two countries/empires in the Byzantine period with that during the Ottoman period (i.e., the [Sublime] "Porte"). ..."
"... But for non-U.S. citizens and U.S. citizens who live near the world's hottest geopolitical hotspot, the prospect of Victoria Nuland (of Ukraine regime change fame) as SoS is not at all a happy one. ..."
It's rather improbable to see a Russo-Turkish alliance against US and NATO. The US and the
Russians have probably already agreed on the new Middle East map which includes Kurdish state.
This explains to a great extent why Erdogan is so nervous, making sloppy and dangerous moves.
Um, given reports that the Turks
briefly closed the airbase that the US uses to conduct operations in Syria over the weekend,
Erdogan seems plenty pissed with the US for not turning over Gulen, as he has repeatedly requested.
Europe has agreed to give him only 3 billion euros to halt the refugee flow into Europe, which
is hardly adequate, and a vague promise that maybe the EU will give Turks the freedom of movement
too. The EU has been jerking Turkey around forever about joining the EU. They clearly intend
not to let a Muslim country join but keep pretending they might as a key NATO ally.
Merely assuming an official posture of neutrality, as Nasser famously did, would be a big
setback for the US and a big gain for Russia
Thanks for mentioning the Real News Network fundraiser, Yves. They have a dollar-for-dollar
matching grant going on as well, doubling the impact of every donation.
The fact that the heads of NATO and the US government, along with their "brain trusts"
get so panicky about a possible warming of relations between Russia and Turkey is ridiculous.
These asshats have been behaving all along as if the Soviet Union never fell and that Russia is
the same thing it was while the heart of the USSR.
They take it on faith that the US/West and Russia MUST be at odds, no matter what, to the point
that they create out of whole cloth conflicts where none existed before. NATO gets aggressive
and spreads itself all over Eastern Europe with the intention of kicking the Bear and then gets
its panties in a twist when the Bear, quite reasonably, reacts to their aggressive actions.
Personally, I couldn't care less if Turkey and Russia get kissy-faced with each other. Big
wup. Russia is NOT preparing to invade Western Europe (as much as NATO WISHES it were). Russia
is NOT invading countries and overthrowing their governments to install puppet regimes, that's
the USA and NATO ONLY. The West transgresses, grossly, again and again and when Russia coughs
or clears its throat in opposition, it is "RUSSIAN AGGRESSION! Yaaaa! The Russians are coming!
The Russians are coming!!!!"
I literally cannot think of a single thing that Russia has done since the end of the Soviet
Union that in any way, shape, or form alarms me or makes me think, "These guys are planning to
invade or start a war!" On the other hand, I've seen nothing BUT war starting by the West.
First NATO takes something that wasn't, in all actuality, THAT bad a situation (the breakup of
Yugoslavia) and turns it into a complete hell in Europe.
US aggression in Syria HAD to be responded to by Russia. Russia has LONG time major military
bases in Syria. How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order
to try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there? The initiating of chaos would be
the aggressive act, NOT the US response to the chaos. The generating of massive chaos in Syria
(by the US and its allies) was the aggressive act, NOT Russia's quite reasonable and understandable
reaction. Same goes for Ukraine.
The US is bound and determined to FORCE Russia to be a major foe for Cold War 2.0 whether
Russia wants to be or not. The US cannot see any other way to drive its shitty economic system
than to fire up the defense industries to full throttle again, ala Cold War 1.0. Instead of dumping
the military economic basis to the US and Western economies to focus on truly beneficial development,
they are going with the boogieman…both for the economic shot it will provide, but also in an attempt
to quell unrest due to income inequality and the rape/pillage economic system of the West. Make
the people afraid of being invaded or nuked into oblivion and they wont complain about no more
retirement, inability to buy a decent home, or send their kids to college.
If the first Presidents Bush and Clinton had attempted conversion and used some crumbs
to mitigate the Soviet collapse, instead of unleashing the worst pack of intellectual sophists,
strategists, and black market dregs, then Russia today would probably be neatly colonized into
an international system, but after the violent class conflict of decolonization during the Cold
War a new world order that appeared like Gore Vidal's semi-sarcastic paradigm-shattering essay
in the Nation would prematurely speed up de-colonization with "white privilege" too uncamouflaged:
There is now only one way out. The time has come for the United States to make
common cause with the Soviet Union. The bringing together of the Soviet landmass (with all
its natural resources) and our island empire (with all its technological resources) would be
of great benefit to each society, not to mention the world. Also, to recall the wisdom of the
Four Horsemen who gave us our empire, the Soviet Union and our section of North America combined
would be a match, industrially and technologically, for the Sino-Japanese axis that will dominate
the future just as Japan dominates world trade today. But where the horsemen thought of war
as the supreme solvent, we now know that war is worse than useless. Therefore, the alliance
of the two great powers of the Northern Hemisphere will double the strength of each and give
us, working together, an opportunity to survive, economically, in a highly centralized Asiatic
world.
Rereading this it sacrifices coherence to venting. The premise is that historical contiguity
with the racial residues of empire could be confronted or not if they were more simply transparent.
The bigger point I wanted to make is the current demographic disaster may be intentional if
one looks at the recent Russian experience as an experiment. Broken Force? Then social pressure
through thwarting the traditional modes of reproduction of labor leading to a reinvigorated military
economy in 15 years.
Yeah the whole "soviet threat" issue vanished the day Stalin passed. But i fear that the US,
and thus NATO, needed it to maintain compliance within their own nations.
And thus the threat was stoked until the 90s, then it was eased back as they thought they had
the old bear chained down while Yeltsin was in office, only for their antics to cause a blowback
that is still ongoing once Putin took over.
Last week I got curious to have a better understanding of the Turkey situation than what I
was getting from MSM. I decided to see if Sibel Edmonds had spoken up–and discovered that she
predicted this coup 18 months ago.
The "BellingTheCat" website with WhatsApp translated messages of Turkish military during the
coup, which Helmers also mentions,
are here . Helmers says this website is a NATO-sponsored website and that it is not always
trustworthy, but isn't sure in this case. Edmonds doesn't mention this website being linked to
NATO.
For background on Edmonds see "
Kill the Messenger ",
a 2006 documentary about her whistleblowing within the FBI.
Thank you. I have been wondering about the relationship between the Gulen movement and
the CIA that relationship might shed light about whether the US was involved in or pushed or
green lighted the coup. Of course, CIA assets have been known to go rogue as well.
While exploring this subject, there's a good article and talk given by a career CIA case
officer (undercover) who now works for a think tank of some sort. (So I assume she's still with
the CIA, even if supposedly she's not.) Her book describes the extent of the Gulen network, including
the criminal investigations underway for Gulen's charter schools network. (Did you know Gulen
has the largest network of charter schools in the USA?!) This presentation implicitly acknowledged
the dangerous / illegal aspects to the Gulen movement.
But at a higher, strategic level, CIA seems to be obviously harboring and supporting Gulen,
as Edmonds says.
Within the CIA there are therefore different angles / understandings / strategies. The upper
echelon strategy seems to be about supporting Gulen (including helping clandestinely Gulen–or
his puppet-master(s)–to effect regime change). LIHOP is too weak an argument, given the kind of
support Gulen receives from his USA base. Probably he's just a figurehead and the real power is
out of view. (USA? Off-world?)
Edmonds has also done some amazing work regarding Hastert's pedophile connections–reported
this formally to US law agencies in multiple years, and was interviewed for a triple-fact-checked
Vanity Fair article. The FBI agents who were doing the investigating (knowing about Hastert's
pedophilia 10-20 years ago) thought they were preparing for a criminal investigation. They became
disillusioned when they realized after a couple of years that their FBI higher-ups had no intention
of prosecuting. Apparently the issue is so widespread, and everyone knows–Edmonds describes a
certain palace in Turkey where US Congress members get taken on VIP trips, where the VIP suites
were being monitored / videotapes simultaneously by FBI, DIA, DoJ, criminal gangs, and foreign
governments. Yet when most recently Hastert comes to public attention, all the known pedophile
activities are not mentioned, just the financial money-laundering aspects. Because so many of
our officials & media & prominent people have been compromised by pedophilia that no one is willing
to speak out about it.
Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a number of insightful video interviews and papers about
Turkey. She predicted the coup about 18 months ago–pointing out that the CIA was preparing to
replace Erdogan, and showing the pattern with other regime changes with USA involvement. Both
the recent and past interviews give a lot of insight–e.g., into Gulen's CIA-backed financial,
cultural and political empire spanning Turkey, Turkik-friendly caucasus countries and deeply embedded
within the USA and Congress.
A longer post with a number of links has been sidetracked to moderation. In case it disappears
I'm posting this short comment.
For background on Sibel Edmonds, a short 2006 documentary "Kill the Messenger" about her
whistleblowing while an FBI translator is a good starting point.
How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order to
try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there?
Ever wondered why Russia hasn't attempted to internally overthrow any of the Gulf States
or Saudi Arabia since the Iraqi invasion? They are definitely fragile, internally vulnerable states
and closely aligned with the west. Two can definitely play these color revolution games. I suspect
it is due to the vulnerability of their own, Russian, populations and increased Middle east instability
could produce blowback in Russia proper. However the US and allies have been playing hard this
game of disrupting Middle East stability for the last 13 years. At what point, would the Russians
decide, well, Middle East stability is already gone and it is time to strike back at US allies
using our own tactics? Personally, I think Putin is too smart for that but what about after Putin?
This thread seems to have petered out rather early on, not sure how much to add.
For those (if anyone is still out there) interested, Pat Lang's site SST has been posting regularly
on Turkey, and he has commenters from the region and who are knowledgeable about ME/NE military
and political affairs.
I had read the John Helmer piece on his blog when it was first posted, and forwarded it to
a friend who's similar in many respects to Lang (career military officer, now retired; author
of historical studies and books; keen student of the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Cyprus, the
Balkans) except that he's Greek.
In return he sent me a link to his own latest two pieces on a Greek blog. One discusses the
"coup" in considerable detail. Some random factoids I picked up on, in no particular order or
hierarchy:
-Russia is not interested in regime change in Turkey at the moment;
-Russia is very interested in maintaining its buffer zone (called "The Rimland" by the
late Nicholas Spykman, a geopolitics theoretician), of which Turkey forms perhaps the key part
(historically, and now);
-Russia turned the shooting down of that SU 24 into an opportunity to install S400s or
possibly, S500s, in Syria;
-The current situation in Syria is more or less a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia;
-Russia has recently become very active in the so-called "Northern Corridor" (aka, the
Arctic Circle), something most analysts forget;
-By 2020, Russia will be 100% self-sufficient in food production;
-It is likely that Russian surveillance technology picked up the news of the impending
coup and informed Erdogan of it;
-The presence of nuclear weapons at Incirlik is in violation of Article 2 of the 1975 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
-Russia wants/needs a "southern corridor" to move LNG to the Med. Turkey is in the right
geographic location to serve this purpose.
The historical relationship between Turkey and Russia comes out a bit garbled in Helmer's (original
post) title, i.e. "The New Byzantine Alliance: The Kremlin and the Porte," etc.
Russia's historical ties were with the Byzantine Empire, with which it shared – after the
9th century A.D. – a crucial common feature, viz. Orthodoxy. The center of Orthodoxy was of course
Constantinople, with which the Russian Archbishopric and later, Patriarchate, experienced complicated
relations. Upon the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and the loss of Constantinople
to Orthodoxy, Russia envisioned its own capital, Moscow, as taking up the mantle and succeeding
Constantinople (the "Second Rome") as Christendom's "Third Rome". The title conflates the relationship
between the two countries/empires in the Byzantine period with that during the Ottoman period
(i.e., the [Sublime] "Porte").
Short version: when you start messing around in somebody else's backyard, trouble ensues.
The 2016 election offers voters two rather stark choices. Another blog I read, LGM, recently
had a comment on a thread about Trump-Clinton (there are so many, one loses count) that laid out
why voters are choosing one or the other candidate very neatly. If one is in the U.S. and is relatively
or very well-off, the Democrats' championing (qualified, I would say) of identity politics looks
pretty good, or at least, not as bad as the Republicans' (I'm still aghast at how black voters
are so staunchly supportive of someone whose husband shoved TANF through in place of AFDC, but
hey). But for non-U.S. citizens and U.S. citizens who live near the world's hottest geopolitical
hotspot, the prospect of Victoria Nuland (of Ukraine regime change fame) as SoS is not at all
a happy one.
A very weak article, but some ideas are worth quoting. I think "Make America Great" again is
a slogan of paleoconservatives, who are organically opposed neoconservatives -- the groups most closely
related to neofascism (despite the fact that it consists mainly of Jewish intellectuals and policymakers).
So
Henry A. Giroux is wrong on this particular slogan: neofascism is first of all the wars of
[neoliberal] conquest and Noninterventionalism is not compatible with neofascism. In this sense
Hillary Clinton is truly neofascist candidate in the current race.
Notable quotes:
"... State-manufactured fear offers up new forms of domestic terrorism embodied in the rise of a surveillance state while providing a powerful platform for militarizing many aspects of society. ..."
"... Under such circumstance, the bonds of trust dissolve, while hating the other becomes normalized and lawlessness is elevated to a matter of commonsense. ..."
Across the globe, fascism and white supremacy in their diverse forms are on the rise. In Greece,
France, Poland, Austria and Germany, among other nations, right-wing extremists have used the hateful
discourse of racism, xenophobia and white nationalism to demonize immigrants and undermine democratic
modes of rule and policies. As
Chris Hedges observes, much of the right-wing, racist rhetoric coming out of these countries
mimics what Trump and his followers are saying in the United States.
One consequence is that the
public spheres that produce a critically engaged citizenry and make a democracy possible are under
siege and in rapid retreat. Economic stagnation, massive inequality, the rise of religious fundamentalism
and growing forms of ultra-nationalism now aim to put democratic nations to rest. Echoes of the right-wing
movements in Europe have come home with a vengeance.
Demagogues wrapped in xenophobia, white supremacy and the false appeal to a lost past echo a brutally
familiar fascism, with slogans similar to Donald Trump's call to "Make America Great Again" and "Make
America Safe Again." These are barely coded messages that call for forms of racial and social cleansing.
They are on the march, spewing hatred, embracing forms of anti-semitism and white supremacy, and
showing a deep-seated disdain for any form of justice on the side of democracy. As
Peter Foster points out in The Telegraph, "The toxic combination of the most prolonged period
of economic stagnation and the worst refugee crisis since the end of the Second World War has seen
the far-Right surging across the continent, from Athens to Amsterdam and many points in between."
State-manufactured lawlessness has become normalized and extends from the ongoing and often brutalizing
and murderous police violence against Black people and other vulnerable groups to a criminogenic
market-based system run by a financial elite that strips everyone but the upper 1% of a future, not
only by stealing their possessions but also by condemning them to a life in which the only available
option is to fall back on one's individual resources in order to barely survive. In addition, as
Kathy Kelly points out, at the national level, lawlessness now drives a militarized foreign policy
intent on assassinating alleged enemies rather than using traditional forms of interrogation, arrest
and conviction. The killing of people abroad based on race is paralleled by (and connected with)
the killing of Black people at home. Kelly correctly notes that the whole world has become a battlefield
driven by racial profiling, where lethal violence replaces the protocols of serve and protect.
Fear is the reigning ideology and war its operative mode of action, pitting different groups against
each other, shutting down the possibilities of shared responsibilities, and legitimating the growth
of a paramilitary police force that kills Black people with impunity. State-manufactured fear
offers up new forms of domestic terrorism embodied in the rise of a surveillance state while providing
a powerful platform for militarizing many aspects of society. One consequence is that, as Charles
Derber argues, America has become a warrior society whose "culture and institutions... program civilians
for violence at home as well as abroad." And, as Zygmunt Bauman argues in his book Liquid Fear, in
a society saturated in violence and hate, "human relations are a source of anxiety" and everyone
is viewed with mistrust. Compassion gives way to suspicion and a celebration of fear and revulsion
accorded to those others who allegedly have the potential to become monsters, criminals, or even
worse, murderous terrorists. Under such circumstance, the bonds of trust dissolve, while hating
the other becomes normalized and lawlessness is elevated to a matter of commonsense.
Politics is now a form of warfare creating and producing an expanding geography of combat zones
that hold entire cities, such as Ferguson, Missouri, hostage to forms of extortion, violence lock
downs and domestic terrorism -- something I have demonstrated in detail in my book America at War
with Itself. These are cities where most of those targeted are Black. Within these zones of racial
violence, Black people are often terrified by the presence of the police and subject to endless forms
of domestic terrorism. Hannah Arendt once wrote that terror was the essence of totalitarianism. She
was right and we are witnessing the dystopian visions of the new authoritarians who now trade in
terror, fear, hatred, demonization, violence and racism. Trump and his neo-Nazi bulldogs are no longer
on the fringe of political life and they have no interests in instilling values that will make America
great. On the contrary, they are deeply concerned with creating expanding constellations of force
and fear, while inculcating convictions that will destroy the ability to form critical capacities
and modes of civic courage that offer a glimmer of resistance and justice.
... ... ...
In short, this emerging American neo-fascism in its various forms is largely about social and
racial cleansing and its end point is the construction of prisons, detention centers, enclosures,
walls, and all the other varieties of murderous apparatus that accompany the discourse of national
greatness and racial purity. Americans have lived through 40 years of the dismantling of the welfare
state, the elimination of democratic public spheres, such as schools and libraries, and the attack
on public goods and social provisions. In their place, we have the rise of the punishing state with
its support for a range of criminogenic institutions, extending from banks and hedge funds to state
governments and militarized police departments that depend on extortion to meet their budgets.
"... Clinton would want to widen the gulf between AIPAC and Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee. "We need steady hands, not a president who says he's neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who knows what on Wednesday, because everything is negotiable," she said to applause, out-hawking the man who is running on a platform of Middle Eastern war crimes. ..."
"... In doing so, she offered a bridge to #NeverTrump neoconservatives like Max Boot and Robert Kagan, who has already written that, should Trump be the nominee, "the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... It is a strange, strange spectacle, this yearly AIPAC conference, where U.S. politicians from across the political spectrum are compelled to stand in front of a bunch of Israeli flags and proclaim unquestioning fealty to a foreign ethno-state. ..."
"... This year of all years, Clinton could have afforded to show a bit of courage before AIPAC. Jews will vote Democratic no matter what. Sixty-nine percent of them voted for Obama in 2012, despite the well-known tension between him and Netanyahu. ..."
"... Her correspondence with adviser Sid Blumenthal-a man loathed by the Israel lobby for not disavowing his anti-Zionist son, Max-suggests that she's aware of the damage Netanyahu is doing to the cause of peace in the Middle East. But if she is, she doesn't care about it enough to take even a tiny political risk, to tell a crowd something other than exactly what it wants to hear. Either Clinton's AIPAC speech was driven by belief, or it was driven by cynicism. It's hard to say which is worse. ..."
ny presidential candidate speaking to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, during
an election year is going to bow to the hawkish elements of the Israel lobby. Hillary Clinton's keynote
speech at AIPAC's annual meeting Monday, however, was more debased than it needed to be, promising
that under her administration, Israel will be spared even the mild rebukes it has suffered under
President Obama. A symphony of pandering, it attempted to outflank Donald Trump on the right and
will end up outraging a large chunk of the left.
As Joe Biden acknowledged in his AIPAC
speech on Sunday, Israel's
"steady and systematic process of expanding settlements, legalizing outposts, seizing land" is making
a two-state solution impossible. The settlements are pushing Israel toward a one-state reality, in
which Jews rule over the Arabs with whom they are geographically intermingled. Clinton's speech,
however, barely nodded toward this reality, and when it did, it was with a promise to protect Israel
from the consequences of flouting international law. Advertisement
Here is the entirety of Clinton's remarks about settlements:
"Everyone has to do their part by avoiding damaging actions, including with respect to
settlements. Now, America has an important role to play in supporting peace efforts. And as president,
I would continue the pursuit of direct negotiations. And let me be clear-I would vigorously oppose
any attempt by outside parties to impose a solution, including by the U.N. Security Council."
She spent significantly more time railing against the "alarming"
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
, which is gaining traction on college campuses nationwide. Pledging to "take our alliance to the
next level," Clinton said that one of the first things she'd do in office is invite the Israeli prime
minister to the White House. That was a barely veiled rebuke to Obama, who never treated Benjamin
Netanyahu with the
deference the prime minister felt entitled to. Before the speech, some had
hoped that Clinton
might offer a word of solidarity or encouragement to beleaguered progressives in Israel. She gave
them nothing. It's understandable that Clinton would want to widen the gulf between AIPAC and
Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee. "We need steady hands, not a president who says he's
neutral on Monday, pro-Israel on Tuesday, and who knows what on Wednesday, because everything is
negotiable," she said to applause, out-hawking the man who is running on a platform of Middle Eastern
war crimes.
In doing so, she offered a bridge to #NeverTrump neoconservatives like Max Boot and
Robert Kagan, who has already
written that, should Trump be the nominee, "the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be." Anti-Trump neoconservatives, however, are
a minuscule group of people. And in seeking their approval, Clinton has further alienated left-wing
voters, particularly young ones. Polls show that Americans under 30 are far more
critical of Israel than are older voters. Liberal Democrats
sympathize more with the Palestinians than they do with Israel. There is already deep suspicion
of Clinton's foreign-policy instincts among Bernie Sanders' supporters; Clinton doesn't need to give
them new reasons to distrust her.
It is a strange, strange spectacle, this yearly AIPAC conference, where U.S. politicians from
across the political spectrum are compelled to stand in front of a bunch of Israeli flags and proclaim
unquestioning fealty to a foreign ethno-state.
This year of all years, Clinton could have afforded to show a bit of courage before AIPAC. Jews
will vote Democratic no matter what. Sixty-nine percent of them voted for Obama in 2012, despite
the well-known tension between him and Netanyahu. Unlike Obama, Clinton is going to be running against
a demagogue with German roots who plays footsie with white supremacists and reportedly kept a
volume of Hitler's speeches beside his bed. She'll have all the Jewish support she needs without
sucking up to the Likud. So why is she doing it?
Her
correspondence with adviser Sid Blumenthal-a man loathed by the Israel lobby for not disavowing
his anti-Zionist son, Max-suggests that she's aware of the damage Netanyahu is doing to the cause
of peace in the Middle East. But if she is, she doesn't care about it enough to take even a tiny
political risk, to tell a crowd something other than exactly what it wants to hear. Either Clinton's
AIPAC speech was driven by belief, or it was driven by cynicism. It's hard to say which is worse.
"... ...if you are a hard-core promoter of wars like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Jamie Weinstein, Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, George Shultz, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and many others, you have either endorsed or said very positive things about Hillary Clinton. How to explain this? ..."
"... But if you believe that the U.S. military is a force for good that hardly ever kills anyone worthy of redemption, that the chief role of the military is to rescue poor innocents from evil by overthrowing tyrants and spreading democracy by drone missile, if you believe air wars are more humane because in air wars nobody gets hurt, if you think presidents checking off kill lists on Tuesdays is ideal as long as it's the right presidents doing it, if you cheer for diversity in the U.S. military and want the Selective Service expanded to force every 18-year-old woman to register for the draft, if you believe Honduras and Ukraine and Libya had it coming or you have no idea what I'm referring to, if you think suggesting the abolition of NATO or a halt to overthrowing governments is crazy talk, and if you believe a good heavy bombing campaign of Syria would be the perfect way to demonstrate that we care about Syrians and value them as human beings, you just might be a Democrat. ..."
"... I've studied the marketing of wars , and the most successful war marketing campaigns in the United States include, in order from most to least necessary: ..."
"... The demonization of an entire foreign population. ..."
"... The demonization of a particular foreign person. ..."
"... The pretense of urgency, inevitability, and ideally of the state of being already underway. ..."
"... The pretense of upholding the rule of law. ..."
"... The pretense of humanitarianism. ..."
"... Point #7 will pick up a section of the population's support, even among people opposed to some of the other justifications. But alone it won't work. Points #1 and #2 can do well without #7. Any of these points can be strengthened or undone by partisanship if the war is labeled the possession of one political party or the other. And once the war is really up and rolling, a new justification slides into the #1 spot, namely the need to "support the troops" by killing more of them. ..."
...if you are a hard-core promoter of wars like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney,
Henry Kissinger, Jamie Weinstein, Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, George
Shultz, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and many others, you have either
endorsed or said very
positive things about Hillary Clinton. How to explain this? Are the
most rabid war supporters on one side and the most dependable war makers getting
nominated by the other? Well, maybe.
But if you believe that the U.S. military is a force for good that hardly
ever kills anyone worthy of redemption, that the chief role of the military
is to rescue poor innocents from evil by overthrowing tyrants and spreading
democracy by drone missile, if you believe air wars are more humane because
in air wars nobody gets hurt, if you think presidents checking off kill lists
on Tuesdays is ideal as long as it's the right presidents doing it, if you cheer
for diversity in the U.S. military and want the Selective Service expanded to
force every 18-year-old woman to register for the draft, if you believe Honduras
and Ukraine and Libya had it coming or you have no idea what I'm referring to,
if you think suggesting the abolition of NATO or a halt to overthrowing governments
is crazy talk, and if you believe a good heavy bombing campaign of Syria would
be the perfect way to demonstrate that we care about Syrians and value them
as human beings, you just might be a Democrat.
Yes, Hillary Clinton is the most dependable war monger nominated by a major
party in the United States in many years. She has the most
consistent and lengthy
record of doing what she's paid to do, of marketing U.S. weaponry abroad,
of manufacturing justifications for wars, of lobbying branches of the U.S. government
and foreign governments to support wars. And she'll do so while keeping up a
pretense of abiding by some selection of laws.
... ... ...
I've studied the marketing
of wars , and the most successful war marketing campaigns in the United
States include, in order from most to least necessary:
The pretense of a threat to anyone in the United States, most powerfully
if it is a threat of torture or rape or death by hand or knife. It need
not be the least bit realistic.
The demonization of an entire foreign population.
The demonization of a particular foreign person.
Revenge.
The pretense of urgency, inevitability, and ideally of the state
of being already underway.
The pretense of upholding the rule of law.
The pretense of humanitarianism.
Point #7 will pick up a section of the population's support, even among
people opposed to some of the other justifications. But alone it won't work.
Points #1 and #2 can do well without #7. Any of these points can be strengthened
or undone by partisanship if the war is labeled the possession of one political
party or the other. And once the war is really up and rolling, a new justification
slides into the #1 spot, namely the need to "support the troops" by killing
more of them.
Trump may not know or care to know that Barack Obama has spent eight years pounding on al Qaeda,
not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also through the use of drones and other covert campaigns in
Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. In his two terms, George W. Bush ordered 49 drone strikes against al Qaeda
and Taliban-associated targets in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Obama, during his first two years
of office, ordered 174. These are facts, but to Trump and Giuliani, they may not matter. After all,
what good does killing radical Islamic terrorists do if Obama refuses to call the enemy by its name?
1). You uncritically express the establishment line that "Obama is killing radical terrorists,"
when the most accurate description is "Obama is killing people suspected of something, and also killing
those near them."
2). 90% of drone strike victims are not the intended target.
3). Obama's militarism is founded on Full Spectrum Dominance for corporate America and allied
interests, not "fighting terrorism."
4). Chest-pounding to boast Obama is a violent bastard like the Republicans is – while true –
obscene.
W0X0F July 23 2016, 9:57 p.m.
Giuliani is one of the bad guys. He has helped cover up the 9/11 deception. Bldg 7 contained his
emergency HQ. We all know it was "pulled"!
Orville, July 23 2016, 9:05 p.m.
Alas, Guliani is still around. I remember how the media announced him as the winner of a
presidential debate, solely for going against Ron Paul's factual statement that we are hated
for our overseas meddling. (Never mind that various intelligence figures backed Paul-
including Michael Scheuer, who endorsed Paul the next day, or that the voters themselves
backed Paul in the polls and primaries.
George C, July 23 2016, 8:40 p.m.
"Man has an intense need for certainty; he wants to believe that there is no need to doubt
that the method by which he makes his decisions is right. In fact, he would rather make the
"wrong" decision and be sure about it than the "right" decision and be tormented with doubt
about its validity. This is one of the psychological reasons for man's belief in idols and
political leaders. They all take out doubt and risk from his decision making; this does not
mean that there is not a risk for his life, freedom, etc., after the decision has been made,
but that there is no risk that the method of his decision making was wrong. For many centuries
certainty
Fromm, Erich. The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology
photosymbiosis -> rrheard, July 23 2016, 8:45 p.m.
I don't know, I appreciate the focus on Giuliani who is an utter slimeball in the same mold
as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the Clintons.
However, a more careful analysis of Giuliani's background in the second section ('Altar Boys')
would have had a more devastating impact. Giuliani is the perfect example of a corrupt
prosecutor; his claim to fame was prosecuting a Italian mafia drug ring – and then he went to
work for the Purdue Pharma oxycontin drug ring. He's also a close long-time associate of FBI
Director Louis Freeh, who notably went to work for the Wall Street credit giant MBNA (#2 Bush
donor after Enron) after his FBI term ended. MBNA was later bought by Bank of America, who
wrote off $60 billion in shady MBNA credit loans from 2008-2010, probably got a taxpayer
bailout for that too. Who are the crooks, again?
See David Vise's "The Bureau and the Mole" about FBI agent / Soviet mole (and Opus Dei member)
Robert Hannsen, about the Giuliani-Freeh connection.
http://blogcritics.org/spy-vs-spy-the-bureau-and/
Really, all of Giuliani's talk about "law and order" is utter BS; the guy is a crook as his
lobbying the DEA to get Purdue Pharma off criminal charges for illegal oxycontin distribution
shows. This was all done through a shady firm he set up after leaving office called "Giuliani
Partners" c.2002
Crooked Rudy Giuliani, Lyin' Rudy Giuliani – basically a con artist in the same mold as the
Clintons, cashing in with the corporate crooks every chance they can get. (Giuliani pulled in
$11 million in speaking fees in 2006 alone, outdoing Clinton I think).
Fellow Citizen, July 23 2016, 7:29 p.m.
How are Republicans going to make America great again when the problem is Democrats
becoming Republicans by destroying the American middle class, and placeing our poor in what
now has become a state of abject poverty?
Trump may not know or care to know that Barack Obama has spent eight years pounding on al Qaeda,
not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also through the use of drones and other covert campaigns in
Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. In his two terms, George W. Bush ordered 49 drone strikes against al Qaeda
and Taliban-associated targets in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Obama, during his first two years
of office, ordered 174. These are facts, but to Trump and Giuliani, they may not matter. After all,
what good does killing radical Islamic terrorists do if Obama refuses to call the enemy by its name?
1). You uncritically express the establishment line that "Obama is killing radical terrorists,"
when the most accurate description is "Obama is killing people suspected of something, and also killing
those near them."
2). 90% of drone strike victims are not the intended target.
3). Obama's militarism is founded on Full Spectrum Dominance for corporate America and allied
interests, not "fighting terrorism."
4). Chest-pounding to boast Obama is a violent bastard like the Republicans is – while true –
obscene.
W0X0F July 23 2016, 9:57 p.m.
Giuliani is one of the bad guys. He has helped cover up the 9/11 deception. Bldg 7 contained his
emergency HQ. We all know it was "pulled"!
Orville, July 23 2016, 9:05 p.m.
Alas, Guliani is still around. I remember how the media announced him as the winner of a
presidential debate, solely for going against Ron Paul's factual statement that we are hated
for our overseas meddling. (Never mind that various intelligence figures backed Paul-
including Michael Scheuer, who endorsed Paul the next day, or that the voters themselves
backed Paul in the polls and primaries.
George C, July 23 2016, 8:40 p.m.
"Man has an intense need for certainty; he wants to believe that there is no need to doubt
that the method by which he makes his decisions is right. In fact, he would rather make the
"wrong" decision and be sure about it than the "right" decision and be tormented with doubt
about its validity. This is one of the psychological reasons for man's belief in idols and
political leaders. They all take out doubt and risk from his decision making; this does not
mean that there is not a risk for his life, freedom, etc., after the decision has been made,
but that there is no risk that the method of his decision making was wrong. For many centuries
certainty
Fromm, Erich. The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology
photosymbiosis -> rrheard, July 23 2016, 8:45 p.m.
I don't know, I appreciate the focus on Giuliani who is an utter slimeball in the same mold
as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the Clintons.
However, a more careful analysis of Giuliani's background in the second section ('Altar Boys')
would have had a more devastating impact. Giuliani is the perfect example of a corrupt
prosecutor; his claim to fame was prosecuting a Italian mafia drug ring – and then he went to
work for the Purdue Pharma oxycontin drug ring. He's also a close long-time associate of FBI
Director Louis Freeh, who notably went to work for the Wall Street credit giant MBNA (#2 Bush
donor after Enron) after his FBI term ended. MBNA was later bought by Bank of America, who
wrote off $60 billion in shady MBNA credit loans from 2008-2010, probably got a taxpayer
bailout for that too. Who are the crooks, again?
See David Vise's "The Bureau and the Mole" about FBI agent / Soviet mole (and Opus Dei member)
Robert Hannsen, about the Giuliani-Freeh connection.
http://blogcritics.org/spy-vs-spy-the-bureau-and/
Really, all of Giuliani's talk about "law and order" is utter BS; the guy is a crook as his
lobbying the DEA to get Purdue Pharma off criminal charges for illegal oxycontin distribution
shows. This was all done through a shady firm he set up after leaving office called "Giuliani
Partners" c.2002
Crooked Rudy Giuliani, Lyin' Rudy Giuliani – basically a con artist in the same mold as the
Clintons, cashing in with the corporate crooks every chance they can get. (Giuliani pulled in
$11 million in speaking fees in 2006 alone, outdoing Clinton I think).
Fellow Citizen, July 23 2016, 7:29 p.m.
How are Republicans going to make America great again when the problem is Democrats
becoming Republicans by destroying the American middle class, and placeing our poor in what
now has become a state of abject poverty?
Three days after the mysterious Turkish coup that was put down almost instantly, Turkish
president Erdogan has conducted massive purges of the judiciary and the military. He even
referred to the coup as a "godsend" that would allow him to rid the government of those who are
disloyal. The purges have focused attention in Washington and Brussels, where he is being warned
that talks for EU membership - and even existing NATO membership - may be at risk if the
government crackdown gets more serious. Is the US and EU bluffing? After all, Erdogan currently
has nearly three million Syrian refugees on Turkish soil that he could send to Europe at any
time. And closing the US base at Incirlik would create havoc for US "power projection" in the
region. We examine these and more in today's Ron Paul Liberty Report:
News reports about the recently released 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks
are typically dismissive: this is nothing new, it's just circumstantial evidence, and there's no
"smoking gun." Yet given what the report actually says – and these news accounts are remarkably
sparse when it comes to verbatim quotes – it's hard to fathom what would constitute a smoking
gun.
To begin with, let's start with what's not in these pages: there are numerous redactions. And
they are rather odd. When one expects to read the words "CIA" or "FBI," instead we get a
blacked-out word. Entire paragraphs are redacted – often at crucial points. So it's reasonable to
assume that, if there is a smoking gun, it's contained in the portions we're not allowed to see.
Presumably the members of Congress with access to the document prior to its release who have been
telling us that it changes their entire conception of the 9/11 attacks – and our relationship
with the Saudis – read the unredacted version. Which points to the conclusion that the omissions
left out crucial information – perhaps including the vaunted smoking gun.
In any case, what we have access to makes more than just a substantial case: it shows that the
Saudi government – including top officials, such as then Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, and other members of the royal family – financed and actively aided the
hijackers prior to September 11, 2001.
Three days after the mysterious Turkish coup that was put down almost instantly, Turkish
president Erdogan has conducted massive purges of the judiciary and the military. He even
referred to the coup as a "godsend" that would allow him to rid the government of those who are
disloyal. The purges have focused attention in Washington and Brussels, where he is being warned
that talks for EU membership - and even existing NATO membership - may be at risk if the
government crackdown gets more serious. Is the US and EU bluffing? After all, Erdogan currently
has nearly three million Syrian refugees on Turkish soil that he could send to Europe at any
time. And closing the US base at Incirlik would create havoc for US "power projection" in the
region. We examine these and more in today's Ron Paul Liberty Report:
News reports about the recently released 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks
are typically dismissive: this is nothing new, it's just circumstantial evidence, and there's no
"smoking gun." Yet given what the report actually says – and these news accounts are remarkably
sparse when it comes to verbatim quotes – it's hard to fathom what would constitute a smoking
gun.
To begin with, let's start with what's not in these pages: there are numerous redactions. And
they are rather odd. When one expects to read the words "CIA" or "FBI," instead we get a
blacked-out word. Entire paragraphs are redacted – often at crucial points. So it's reasonable to
assume that, if there is a smoking gun, it's contained in the portions we're not allowed to see.
Presumably the members of Congress with access to the document prior to its release who have been
telling us that it changes their entire conception of the 9/11 attacks – and our relationship
with the Saudis – read the unredacted version. Which points to the conclusion that the omissions
left out crucial information – perhaps including the vaunted smoking gun.
In any case, what we have access to makes more than just a substantial case: it shows that the
Saudi government – including top officials, such as then Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, and other members of the royal family – financed and actively aided the
hijackers prior to September 11, 2001.
"... The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, maintained this secrecy for several reasons. First, it was concerned that the documents would jeopardize its relations with Saudi Arabia, which, after Israel, is Washington's closest ally in the Middle East, a partner in bloody operations from Afghanistan to Syria to Yemen, and the world's biggest buyer of American arms. ..."
"... Even more importantly, it was concerned that the 28 pages would further expose the abject criminality of the US government's role in facilitating the attacks of 9/11 and then lying about their source and exploiting them to justify savage wars of aggression, first against Afghanistan and then against Iraq. These wars have claimed over a million lives. The false narrative created around the September 11 attacks remains the ideological pillar of the US campaign of global militarism conducted in the name of a "war on terror." ..."
"... The report focuses in part on the role of one Omar al-Bayoumi, who was described to the FBI as a Saudi intelligence officer, and, according to FBI files, "provided substantial assistance to hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000." ..."
"... According to the report, al-Bayoumi had previously worked for the Saudi Civil Aviation Association and, in the period leading up to 9/11, was "in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Defense Ministry responsible for air traffic control." Phone records showed him calling Saudi government agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000. ..."
"... Bassnan's wife also received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa, the Saudi ambassador's wife, to the tune of $2,000 a month. As well, the FBI found one $15,000 check written by Bandar himself in 1998 to Bassnan. The report states that FBI information indicated that Bassnan was "an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin," who spoke of the Al Qaeda leader "as if he were god." ..."
"... The obvious anomalies in the Pentagon incident and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash merely add to the mountain of evidence that exists pointing to some cabal that ran a MIHOP operation that day. This is not new information and has been made available by the many independent investigators who have been diligently digging into this signal event for nearly 15 years now. ..."
"... Much more likely suspects would be those Americans named by Kevin Ryan in his book "Another Nineteen", and/or the Israeli Mossad and military agents (5 of whom were arrested in New Jersey while making a video record of "the event" and who were noticed by an outraged citizen who called local police who arrested them and the spent 2 months in U.S. jails, finally released by dual Israeli / U.S. citizen Michael Chertoff, 3 of them appeared later on Israeli TV and bragged about the operation in plain Hebrew). ..."
"... My father was a structural design engineer who designed heavy steel structures like the WTC and also nuclear power plants and wind tunnels for NASA. He was an expert on types of steel, how it was made and what its properties were. The moment he saw the first tower collapse into it own footprint, he said 'That's a controlled demolition." He knew that fire alone would not have been enough to even dent the steel in the WTC, let alone pulverize it. Everything in the building could have burned and the steel would have remained standing, slightly scorched, but largely intact. To believe otherwise is not to believe in the laws of physics or the science of metallurgy. ..."
"... 9/11 was/is a criminally managed event involving some of America's highest officials. ..."
"... Ahhhh yes, and no less a group of people than members of the NYFD who charged up into those buildings were not concerned about them collapsing. In fact one team of firefighters who made it up to the impact zone in one of the towers reported the fire there as "no big deal" and "easily controlled". Other firefighters and various police did, however, report many explosions, most of them deep in the buildings far below the impact zones. ..."
"... Dutch controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko, upon seeing a video of the collapse of Tower 7 immediately said (I think this comment was made in 2007) "This is controlled demolition"; of course he died in a suspicious one car accident, in which his car hit a tree head on on July 16th, 2011 (similar to how some of the JFK assassination witnesses were eliminated). A couple of videos of his comments can be seen in a "Veteran's Today" article found at < http://www.veteranstoday.com/2... >. ..."
"... One should ask why the Mossad and the extremely powerful Israel lobby have seen fit to participate in the cover-up for so long. They certainly would have ignored the U.S. government's desire for secrecy and gotten this information out (which they surely knew from their own sources) if they didn't have something to hide. But that cover-up continues. ..."
"... The true "smoking gun" of the 9/11 atrocities is the eight-second symmetrical free-fall collapse of WTC #7. The claim that this occurred because of office fires is ludicrous, entirely impossible. It was a conventional implosion, carried off in one of the most secure buildings in NYC, sheltering the CIA, FBI and the mayor's emergency bunker and would have taken weeks to prepare. ..."
"... I saw the video on TV and was surprised that it went unquestioned on why it collapsed. Even the clean symmetrical fall of the second tower to collapse, was neat and symmetric. ..."
"... In my educated opinion, supported by facts of the case conveniently omitted, the release of the small section of the Congressional report kept secret for 13 years is what they call in the CIA a "limited hangout", which is contains a mix of both truth and omissions or outright lies, and exposes the audience to a falsity more dangerous and misleading than an outright lie. ..."
"... The best evidence if this were ever taken to court, would be the stand down by the military that morning in the intercepting of these "hijackers" as they made their way to their targets. And Cheneys barking orders to a subordinate in the crisis control room beneath the white house that yes the orders still stand, as flight 175? made its way toward the Pentagon ..."
"... Excuse me, but the towers of the WTC WERE very heavy structurally. Particularly the central cores, which contained heavily redundant layers of steel, and special steel at that. ..."
The Obama White House, the CIA, the Saudi monarchy and the corporate media have all tried to portray
the documents-released on a Friday afternoon to assure minimal exposure-as somehow exonerating the
Saudi regime of any culpability in the 9/11 attacks.
"This information does not change the assessment
of the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals
funded al-Qaeda," Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary said Friday, boasting that the main
significance of their release was its proof of the Obama administration's commitment to "transparency."
In reality, the 28 pages have been kept under lock and key since 2002, with only members of Congress
allowed to read them, in a Capitol Hill basement vault, while prohibited from taking notes, bringing
members of their staff or breathing a word of their content.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, maintained this secrecy
for several reasons. First, it was concerned that the documents would jeopardize its relations with
Saudi Arabia, which, after Israel, is Washington's closest ally in the Middle East, a partner in
bloody operations from Afghanistan to Syria to Yemen, and the world's biggest buyer of American arms.
Even more importantly, it was concerned that the 28 pages would further expose the abject
criminality of the US government's role in facilitating the attacks of 9/11 and then lying about
their source and exploiting them to justify savage wars of aggression, first against Afghanistan
and then against Iraq. These wars have claimed over a million lives. The false narrative created
around the September 11 attacks remains the ideological pillar of the US campaign of global militarism
conducted in the name of a "war on terror."
Media reports on the 28 pages invariably refer to the absence of a "smoking gun," which presumably
would be tantamount to an order signed by the Saudi king to attack New York and Washington. The evidence
is described as "inconclusive." One can only imagine what would have been the response if, in place
of the word "Saudi," the documents referred to Iraqi, Syrian or Iranian actions. The same evidence
would have been proclaimed an airtight case for war.
Among those who were involved in preparing the report, John Lehman, the former secretary of the
navy, directly contradicted the official response to the release of the previously censored section.
"There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some
of those people worked in the Saudi government," he said. "Our report should never have been read
as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia."
... ... ...
The report focuses in part on the role of one Omar al-Bayoumi, who was described to the FBI
as a Saudi intelligence officer, and, according to FBI files, "provided substantial assistance to
hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000."
The inquiry report deals with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar only from after they arrived in California,
and says nothing about the circumstances under which they were allowed to enter the country in the
first place. Both were under CIA surveillance while attending an Al Qaeda planning meeting in 2000
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and placed on a "watch list" for FBI monitoring if they came to the United
States. Nonetheless, the two men were allowed to enter the United States on January 15, 2000, landing
at Los Angeles International Airport, eventually going to San Diego. From then on, they were permitted
to operate freely, attending flight training school in preparation for their role as pilots of hijacked
planes on September 11, 2001.
Al-Bayoumi, the report establishes, "received support from a Saudi company affiliated with the
Saudi Ministry of Defense," drawing a paycheck for a no-show job. The report states that the company
also had ties to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
According to the report, al-Bayoumi had previously worked for the Saudi Civil Aviation Association
and, in the period leading up to 9/11, was "in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Defense
Ministry responsible for air traffic control." Phone records showed him calling Saudi government
agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000.
FBI documents also established that the $465 in "allowances" that al-Bayoumi received through
the Saudi military contractor, jumped to over $3,700 shortly after the arrival of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
During this period, al-Bayoumi initially allowed the two future hijackers to stay in his apartment
before finding them their own place-with an informant of the San Diego FBI-cosigning their lease
and advancing them a deposit and the first month's rent.
The report states that FBI investigations following 9/11 indicated that al-Bayoumi had "some ties
to terrorist elements." His wife, meanwhile, was receiving a $1,200 a month stipend from Princess
Haifa Bint Sultan, the wife of Prince Bandar, then the Saudi ambassador to the US and later head
of Saudi intelligence.
Also named in the document as a likely Saudi intelligence agent is one Osama Bassnan, who lived
across the street from the two hijackers in San Diego and was in telephone contact with al-Bayoumi
several times a day during this period. He apparently placed the two in contact with a Saudi commercial
airline pilot for discussions on "learning to fly Boeing jet aircraft," according to an FBI report.
Bassnan's wife also received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa, the Saudi ambassador's wife,
to the tune of $2,000 a month. As well, the FBI found one $15,000 check written by Bandar himself
in 1998 to Bassnan. The report states that FBI information indicated that Bassnan was "an extremist
and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin," who spoke of the Al Qaeda leader "as if he were god."
Appearing before the Congressional inquiry in October 2002, FBI Executive Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism Pasquale D'Amuro reacted with undisguised cynicism and contempt when asked about
the payments from the Saudi ambassador's wife to the wives of the two reputed intelligence agents
involved with the 9/11 hijackers.
"She gives money to a lot of different groups and people from around the world," he said. "We've
been able to uncover a number of these… but maybe if we can discover that she gives to 20 different
radical groups, well, gee, maybe there's a pattern here." Spoken like a man who believes he is above
the law in defense of a figure that he clearly sees as untouchable.
Mr Van Auken presents a Let It Happen on Purpose (LIHOP) position in this article. Clearly it
is better to have arrived at that level of awareness than to just swallow the absurd "official
story" that is, unfortunately, the position of much of the so-called Left in the U.S., e.g. Noam
Chomsky and his ilk. The LIHOP position suffers from a fatal flaw, the 3 towers that collapsed
in Lower Manhattan that could not conceivably have done so due to just the plane impacts (on Towers
1 & 2, which were specifically designed to withstand impacts by one or more Boeing 707s full of
fuel, a plane similar in size to the 767s that did hit the towers) and/or the fairly insignificant
office fires the occurred in all three towers (this includes Tower 7 that collapsed after some
minor office fires and was never hit by a plane). Tower 7 was an absolutely classic example of
a controlled demolition / implosion, while Towers 1 & 2 are modified controlled demolitions meant
to make it look like the planes had caused the collapses. The implications of controlled demolitions
are that only a Make it Happen on Purpose (MIHOP) process can actually explain what happened in
New York on that day.
The obvious anomalies in the Pentagon incident and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash
merely add to the mountain of evidence that exists pointing to some cabal that ran a MIHOP operation
that day. This is not new information and has been made available by the many independent investigators
who have been diligently digging into this signal event for nearly 15 years now.
Certainly Bin Laden (dying from kidney failure and reportedly in his cave in Afghanistan) and
his team of largely dim-witted plotters (some of whom spent a lot of time at titty bars snorting
cocaine and drinking whisky) did not have the wherewithal to 1). place the explosives in the 3
towers and the Pentagon, 2). run the 45 or more related drills, over 15 of which were in operation
on that very day, including such actions as sending the bulk of the fighter aircraft to northern
Canada or the Caribbean, placing fake radar images on military and FAA radar sets, 3). order the
flight in Pennsylvania to be shot down and leave an 8 mile long debris field with absolutely no
debris where it supposedly crashed, 4). supposedly make the impossible approach to the Pentagon,
hitting the area where various accountants and Naval investigators were working on some issues,
including the trillions of dollars missing from Pentagon accounts, rather than make the easy crash
into the roof in the area where the high command offices were located, 5). ensure that the FBI
immediately confiscated all 85+ video recordings that had some view of the Pentagon crash site,
and so on and so on.
Much more likely suspects would be those Americans named by Kevin Ryan in his book "Another
Nineteen", and/or the Israeli Mossad and military agents (5 of whom were arrested in New Jersey
while making a video record of "the event" and who were noticed by an outraged citizen who called
local police who arrested them and the spent 2 months in U.S. jails, finally released by dual
Israeli / U.S. citizen Michael Chertoff, 3 of them appeared later on Israeli TV and bragged about
the operation in plain Hebrew).
The Left Forum, held at John Jay College, had several worthwhile sessions about the Deep State
and 9-11, the sessions are archived at NoLiesRadio <
http://noliesradio.org/archive... > and are well worth a watch. The evidence for MIHOP orchestrated
by the U.S. Deep State and its Zionist faction/allies is overwhelming, no doubt the Saudis played
a role in all this, but a secondary one.
My father was a structural design engineer who designed heavy steel structures like the WTC
and also nuclear power plants and wind tunnels for NASA. He was an expert on types of steel, how
it was made and what its properties were. The moment he saw the first tower collapse into it own
footprint, he said 'That's a controlled demolition." He knew that fire alone would not have been
enough to even dent the steel in the WTC, let alone pulverize it. Everything in the building could
have burned and the steel would have remained standing, slightly scorched, but largely intact.
To believe otherwise is not to believe in the laws of physics or the science of metallurgy.
To brutally manipulate public opinion, 9/11 was/is a criminally managed event involving some
of America's highest officials.
Too many characters in the 9/11 truth movement, and their
observations have often engrossed me -- until I got weary of discovering the inevitable snake
oils always up for sale.
That said, some people might find this contribution of my own interesting/amusing/puerile:
Ahhhh yes, and no less a group of people than members of the NYFD who charged up into those
buildings were not concerned about them collapsing. In fact one team of firefighters who made
it up to the impact zone in one of the towers reported the fire there as "no big deal" and "easily
controlled". Other firefighters and various police did, however, report many explosions, most
of them deep in the buildings far below the impact zones.
Dutch controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko, upon seeing a video of the collapse of
Tower 7 immediately said (I think this comment was made in 2007) "This is controlled demolition";
of course he died in a suspicious one car accident, in which his car hit a tree head on on July
16th, 2011 (similar to how some of the JFK assassination witnesses were eliminated). A couple
of videos of his comments can be seen in a "Veteran's Today" article found at <
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2... >.
This does not change my extremely high opinion of WSWS and Bill Van Auken in particular, it
was just a bit disappointing to see them still hewing to a fairly standard line on this critical
issue. The whole bottom falls out of the Global War on Terror argument if the average person realizes
who really attacked the U.S. on that day.
One should ask why the Mossad and the extremely powerful Israel lobby have seen fit to participate
in the cover-up for so long. They certainly would have ignored the U.S. government's desire for
secrecy and gotten this information out (which they surely knew from their own sources) if they
didn't have something to hide. But that cover-up continues.
We might ask the several Israeli Mossad agents (they were later interviewed on Israeli TV as such)
who were filming the atrocity from across the river in New Jersey, dancing about and high-fiving
in celebration as the towers came down. They were arrested, held for a few weeks and released
without comment.
The true "smoking gun" of the 9/11 atrocities is the eight-second symmetrical free-fall collapse
of WTC #7. The claim that this occurred because of office fires is ludicrous, entirely impossible.
It was a conventional implosion, carried off in one of the most secure buildings in NYC, sheltering
the CIA, FBI and the mayor's emergency bunker and would have taken weeks to prepare.
See my comment above regarding my father, an engineer and an expert on steel. He recognized instantly
that the building was "blown" -- i.e., controlled demolition.
I saw the video on TV and was surprised that it went unquestioned on why it collapsed. Even
the clean symmetrical fall of the second tower to collapse, was neat and symmetric.
In my educated opinion, supported by facts of the case conveniently omitted, the release of
the small section of the Congressional report kept secret for 13 years is what they call in the
CIA a "limited hangout", which is contains a mix of both truth and omissions or outright lies,
and exposes the audience to a falsity more dangerous and misleading than an outright lie.
Of course the Saudis were involved, but if you research exactly what they did, it
was simply to escort a handful of patsies around the country on behalf of the CIA and give them
money to spend, creating a story to be later used as a diversion. The fact is, half the supposed
hijackers within a week of the buildings exploding made their presence known to authorities, saying
yoo-hoo, here we are, what's all this news regarding our deaths aboard airplanes?
Second point is that airplanes loaded with fuel don't cause buildings like the Trade Towers
to collapse from heat, this is an engineering impossibility and has been proven dozens of times.
In addition, a plane constructed of a thin aluminum skin stretched on an aluminum frame with a
hollow nose can't penetrate a steel curtain wall like the ones the towers were built with. But
the YouTube videos show the planes being absorbed into the buildings as though the craft were
made of liquid.
To assume that the release of this is significant, is to be fooled by the tricks of the intelligence
agencies who were responsible for the massacres in the first place.
My friend, you are mistaken, 120 ton airliners at a speed of 500 miles an hour can and have penetrated
building facades before (Empire State Bldg). This theory by some that these planes were holograms
or some sort of visual trickery is absurd and of course a distraction.
The world trade centers towers 1 and 2 were a combination of steel curtain and precast spandrels
at spans between several floors of approx. 30'. They are not that strong. The edges of the concrete
floors consist of angle iron between the floor joists which span from 4' to 6' on centers. If
buildings were constructed strong enough to stop or substantially slow a commercial airliner,
they would 1. be too heavy structurally and 2. thus be prohibitively costly.
The best evidence if this were ever taken to court, would be the stand down by the military
that morning in the intercepting of these "hijackers" as they made their way to their targets.
And Cheneys barking orders to a subordinate in the crisis control room beneath the white house
that yes the orders still stand, as flight 175? made its way toward the Pentagon
Excuse me, but the towers of the WTC WERE very heavy structurally. Particularly the central
cores, which contained heavily redundant layers of steel, and special steel at that.
It is pre-emptive coup :-) (fake coupe in order to clear the military deck)
It looks to me that this time Turkish political elite pulled pre-emptive coup on Turkish military
so it can purge her from the elements that are influenced by remote control from outside the country.
In one word this is Turkish version of Brexit. Basically financial, political, and military international
structures that were established after II world war are crumbling because the interests of individual
countries are so diametrical.
In one word this is Turkish version of Brexit. Basically financial, political, and military
international structures that were established after II world war are crumbling because the interests
of individual countries are so diametrical.
Oh Shit! Get ready for a new, old style caliphate and the ushering in of another couple hundred
years of dark ages… The Ottomans are coming!
Fred, Ottomans are not coming.. Chinese are coming with trade deals on Orient express train from
Beijing…via Istanbul…you guys are so misinformed about what's going in the world that you will
be in state of shock when IMF, EU, NATO close the shop all in one day.
"... The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, maintained this secrecy for several reasons. First, it was concerned that the documents would jeopardize its relations with Saudi Arabia, which, after Israel, is Washington's closest ally in the Middle East, a partner in bloody operations from Afghanistan to Syria to Yemen, and the world's biggest buyer of American arms. ..."
"... Even more importantly, it was concerned that the 28 pages would further expose the abject criminality of the US government's role in facilitating the attacks of 9/11 and then lying about their source and exploiting them to justify savage wars of aggression, first against Afghanistan and then against Iraq. These wars have claimed over a million lives. The false narrative created around the September 11 attacks remains the ideological pillar of the US campaign of global militarism conducted in the name of a "war on terror." ..."
"... The report focuses in part on the role of one Omar al-Bayoumi, who was described to the FBI as a Saudi intelligence officer, and, according to FBI files, "provided substantial assistance to hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000." ..."
"... According to the report, al-Bayoumi had previously worked for the Saudi Civil Aviation Association and, in the period leading up to 9/11, was "in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Defense Ministry responsible for air traffic control." Phone records showed him calling Saudi government agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000. ..."
"... Bassnan's wife also received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa, the Saudi ambassador's wife, to the tune of $2,000 a month. As well, the FBI found one $15,000 check written by Bandar himself in 1998 to Bassnan. The report states that FBI information indicated that Bassnan was "an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin," who spoke of the Al Qaeda leader "as if he were god." ..."
"... The obvious anomalies in the Pentagon incident and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash merely add to the mountain of evidence that exists pointing to some cabal that ran a MIHOP operation that day. This is not new information and has been made available by the many independent investigators who have been diligently digging into this signal event for nearly 15 years now. ..."
"... Much more likely suspects would be those Americans named by Kevin Ryan in his book "Another Nineteen", and/or the Israeli Mossad and military agents (5 of whom were arrested in New Jersey while making a video record of "the event" and who were noticed by an outraged citizen who called local police who arrested them and the spent 2 months in U.S. jails, finally released by dual Israeli / U.S. citizen Michael Chertoff, 3 of them appeared later on Israeli TV and bragged about the operation in plain Hebrew). ..."
"... My father was a structural design engineer who designed heavy steel structures like the WTC and also nuclear power plants and wind tunnels for NASA. He was an expert on types of steel, how it was made and what its properties were. The moment he saw the first tower collapse into it own footprint, he said 'That's a controlled demolition." He knew that fire alone would not have been enough to even dent the steel in the WTC, let alone pulverize it. Everything in the building could have burned and the steel would have remained standing, slightly scorched, but largely intact. To believe otherwise is not to believe in the laws of physics or the science of metallurgy. ..."
"... 9/11 was/is a criminally managed event involving some of America's highest officials. ..."
"... Ahhhh yes, and no less a group of people than members of the NYFD who charged up into those buildings were not concerned about them collapsing. In fact one team of firefighters who made it up to the impact zone in one of the towers reported the fire there as "no big deal" and "easily controlled". Other firefighters and various police did, however, report many explosions, most of them deep in the buildings far below the impact zones. ..."
"... Dutch controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko, upon seeing a video of the collapse of Tower 7 immediately said (I think this comment was made in 2007) "This is controlled demolition"; of course he died in a suspicious one car accident, in which his car hit a tree head on on July 16th, 2011 (similar to how some of the JFK assassination witnesses were eliminated). A couple of videos of his comments can be seen in a "Veteran's Today" article found at < http://www.veteranstoday.com/2... >. ..."
"... One should ask why the Mossad and the extremely powerful Israel lobby have seen fit to participate in the cover-up for so long. They certainly would have ignored the U.S. government's desire for secrecy and gotten this information out (which they surely knew from their own sources) if they didn't have something to hide. But that cover-up continues. ..."
"... The true "smoking gun" of the 9/11 atrocities is the eight-second symmetrical free-fall collapse of WTC #7. The claim that this occurred because of office fires is ludicrous, entirely impossible. It was a conventional implosion, carried off in one of the most secure buildings in NYC, sheltering the CIA, FBI and the mayor's emergency bunker and would have taken weeks to prepare. ..."
"... I saw the video on TV and was surprised that it went unquestioned on why it collapsed. Even the clean symmetrical fall of the second tower to collapse, was neat and symmetric. ..."
"... In my educated opinion, supported by facts of the case conveniently omitted, the release of the small section of the Congressional report kept secret for 13 years is what they call in the CIA a "limited hangout", which is contains a mix of both truth and omissions or outright lies, and exposes the audience to a falsity more dangerous and misleading than an outright lie. ..."
"... The best evidence if this were ever taken to court, would be the stand down by the military that morning in the intercepting of these "hijackers" as they made their way to their targets. And Cheneys barking orders to a subordinate in the crisis control room beneath the white house that yes the orders still stand, as flight 175? made its way toward the Pentagon ..."
"... Excuse me, but the towers of the WTC WERE very heavy structurally. Particularly the central cores, which contained heavily redundant layers of steel, and special steel at that. ..."
The Obama White House, the CIA, the Saudi monarchy and the corporate media have all tried to portray
the documents-released on a Friday afternoon to assure minimal exposure-as somehow exonerating the
Saudi regime of any culpability in the 9/11 attacks.
"This information does not change the assessment
of the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi individuals
funded al-Qaeda," Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary said Friday, boasting that the main
significance of their release was its proof of the Obama administration's commitment to "transparency."
In reality, the 28 pages have been kept under lock and key since 2002, with only members of Congress
allowed to read them, in a Capitol Hill basement vault, while prohibited from taking notes, bringing
members of their staff or breathing a word of their content.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, maintained this secrecy
for several reasons. First, it was concerned that the documents would jeopardize its relations with
Saudi Arabia, which, after Israel, is Washington's closest ally in the Middle East, a partner in
bloody operations from Afghanistan to Syria to Yemen, and the world's biggest buyer of American arms.
Even more importantly, it was concerned that the 28 pages would further expose the abject
criminality of the US government's role in facilitating the attacks of 9/11 and then lying about
their source and exploiting them to justify savage wars of aggression, first against Afghanistan
and then against Iraq. These wars have claimed over a million lives. The false narrative created
around the September 11 attacks remains the ideological pillar of the US campaign of global militarism
conducted in the name of a "war on terror."
Media reports on the 28 pages invariably refer to the absence of a "smoking gun," which presumably
would be tantamount to an order signed by the Saudi king to attack New York and Washington. The evidence
is described as "inconclusive." One can only imagine what would have been the response if, in place
of the word "Saudi," the documents referred to Iraqi, Syrian or Iranian actions. The same evidence
would have been proclaimed an airtight case for war.
Among those who were involved in preparing the report, John Lehman, the former secretary of the
navy, directly contradicted the official response to the release of the previously censored section.
"There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some
of those people worked in the Saudi government," he said. "Our report should never have been read
as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia."
... ... ...
The report focuses in part on the role of one Omar al-Bayoumi, who was described to the FBI
as a Saudi intelligence officer, and, according to FBI files, "provided substantial assistance to
hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000."
The inquiry report deals with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar only from after they arrived in California,
and says nothing about the circumstances under which they were allowed to enter the country in the
first place. Both were under CIA surveillance while attending an Al Qaeda planning meeting in 2000
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and placed on a "watch list" for FBI monitoring if they came to the United
States. Nonetheless, the two men were allowed to enter the United States on January 15, 2000, landing
at Los Angeles International Airport, eventually going to San Diego. From then on, they were permitted
to operate freely, attending flight training school in preparation for their role as pilots of hijacked
planes on September 11, 2001.
Al-Bayoumi, the report establishes, "received support from a Saudi company affiliated with the
Saudi Ministry of Defense," drawing a paycheck for a no-show job. The report states that the company
also had ties to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
According to the report, al-Bayoumi had previously worked for the Saudi Civil Aviation Association
and, in the period leading up to 9/11, was "in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Defense
Ministry responsible for air traffic control." Phone records showed him calling Saudi government
agencies 100 times between January and May of 2000.
FBI documents also established that the $465 in "allowances" that al-Bayoumi received through
the Saudi military contractor, jumped to over $3,700 shortly after the arrival of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
During this period, al-Bayoumi initially allowed the two future hijackers to stay in his apartment
before finding them their own place-with an informant of the San Diego FBI-cosigning their lease
and advancing them a deposit and the first month's rent.
The report states that FBI investigations following 9/11 indicated that al-Bayoumi had "some ties
to terrorist elements." His wife, meanwhile, was receiving a $1,200 a month stipend from Princess
Haifa Bint Sultan, the wife of Prince Bandar, then the Saudi ambassador to the US and later head
of Saudi intelligence.
Also named in the document as a likely Saudi intelligence agent is one Osama Bassnan, who lived
across the street from the two hijackers in San Diego and was in telephone contact with al-Bayoumi
several times a day during this period. He apparently placed the two in contact with a Saudi commercial
airline pilot for discussions on "learning to fly Boeing jet aircraft," according to an FBI report.
Bassnan's wife also received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa, the Saudi ambassador's wife,
to the tune of $2,000 a month. As well, the FBI found one $15,000 check written by Bandar himself
in 1998 to Bassnan. The report states that FBI information indicated that Bassnan was "an extremist
and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin," who spoke of the Al Qaeda leader "as if he were god."
Appearing before the Congressional inquiry in October 2002, FBI Executive Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism Pasquale D'Amuro reacted with undisguised cynicism and contempt when asked about
the payments from the Saudi ambassador's wife to the wives of the two reputed intelligence agents
involved with the 9/11 hijackers.
"She gives money to a lot of different groups and people from around the world," he said. "We've
been able to uncover a number of these… but maybe if we can discover that she gives to 20 different
radical groups, well, gee, maybe there's a pattern here." Spoken like a man who believes he is above
the law in defense of a figure that he clearly sees as untouchable.
Mr Van Auken presents a Let It Happen on Purpose (LIHOP) position in this article. Clearly it
is better to have arrived at that level of awareness than to just swallow the absurd "official
story" that is, unfortunately, the position of much of the so-called Left in the U.S., e.g. Noam
Chomsky and his ilk. The LIHOP position suffers from a fatal flaw, the 3 towers that collapsed
in Lower Manhattan that could not conceivably have done so due to just the plane impacts (on Towers
1 & 2, which were specifically designed to withstand impacts by one or more Boeing 707s full of
fuel, a plane similar in size to the 767s that did hit the towers) and/or the fairly insignificant
office fires the occurred in all three towers (this includes Tower 7 that collapsed after some
minor office fires and was never hit by a plane). Tower 7 was an absolutely classic example of
a controlled demolition / implosion, while Towers 1 & 2 are modified controlled demolitions meant
to make it look like the planes had caused the collapses. The implications of controlled demolitions
are that only a Make it Happen on Purpose (MIHOP) process can actually explain what happened in
New York on that day.
The obvious anomalies in the Pentagon incident and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash
merely add to the mountain of evidence that exists pointing to some cabal that ran a MIHOP operation
that day. This is not new information and has been made available by the many independent investigators
who have been diligently digging into this signal event for nearly 15 years now.
Certainly Bin Laden (dying from kidney failure and reportedly in his cave in Afghanistan) and
his team of largely dim-witted plotters (some of whom spent a lot of time at titty bars snorting
cocaine and drinking whisky) did not have the wherewithal to 1). place the explosives in the 3
towers and the Pentagon, 2). run the 45 or more related drills, over 15 of which were in operation
on that very day, including such actions as sending the bulk of the fighter aircraft to northern
Canada or the Caribbean, placing fake radar images on military and FAA radar sets, 3). order the
flight in Pennsylvania to be shot down and leave an 8 mile long debris field with absolutely no
debris where it supposedly crashed, 4). supposedly make the impossible approach to the Pentagon,
hitting the area where various accountants and Naval investigators were working on some issues,
including the trillions of dollars missing from Pentagon accounts, rather than make the easy crash
into the roof in the area where the high command offices were located, 5). ensure that the FBI
immediately confiscated all 85+ video recordings that had some view of the Pentagon crash site,
and so on and so on.
Much more likely suspects would be those Americans named by Kevin Ryan in his book "Another
Nineteen", and/or the Israeli Mossad and military agents (5 of whom were arrested in New Jersey
while making a video record of "the event" and who were noticed by an outraged citizen who called
local police who arrested them and the spent 2 months in U.S. jails, finally released by dual
Israeli / U.S. citizen Michael Chertoff, 3 of them appeared later on Israeli TV and bragged about
the operation in plain Hebrew).
The Left Forum, held at John Jay College, had several worthwhile sessions about the Deep State
and 9-11, the sessions are archived at NoLiesRadio <
http://noliesradio.org/archive... > and are well worth a watch. The evidence for MIHOP orchestrated
by the U.S. Deep State and its Zionist faction/allies is overwhelming, no doubt the Saudis played
a role in all this, but a secondary one.
My father was a structural design engineer who designed heavy steel structures like the WTC
and also nuclear power plants and wind tunnels for NASA. He was an expert on types of steel, how
it was made and what its properties were. The moment he saw the first tower collapse into it own
footprint, he said 'That's a controlled demolition." He knew that fire alone would not have been
enough to even dent the steel in the WTC, let alone pulverize it. Everything in the building could
have burned and the steel would have remained standing, slightly scorched, but largely intact.
To believe otherwise is not to believe in the laws of physics or the science of metallurgy.
To brutally manipulate public opinion, 9/11 was/is a criminally managed event involving some
of America's highest officials.
Too many characters in the 9/11 truth movement, and their
observations have often engrossed me -- until I got weary of discovering the inevitable snake
oils always up for sale.
That said, some people might find this contribution of my own interesting/amusing/puerile:
Ahhhh yes, and no less a group of people than members of the NYFD who charged up into those
buildings were not concerned about them collapsing. In fact one team of firefighters who made
it up to the impact zone in one of the towers reported the fire there as "no big deal" and "easily
controlled". Other firefighters and various police did, however, report many explosions, most
of them deep in the buildings far below the impact zones.
Dutch controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko, upon seeing a video of the collapse of
Tower 7 immediately said (I think this comment was made in 2007) "This is controlled demolition";
of course he died in a suspicious one car accident, in which his car hit a tree head on on July
16th, 2011 (similar to how some of the JFK assassination witnesses were eliminated). A couple
of videos of his comments can be seen in a "Veteran's Today" article found at <
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2... >.
This does not change my extremely high opinion of WSWS and Bill Van Auken in particular, it
was just a bit disappointing to see them still hewing to a fairly standard line on this critical
issue. The whole bottom falls out of the Global War on Terror argument if the average person realizes
who really attacked the U.S. on that day.
One should ask why the Mossad and the extremely powerful Israel lobby have seen fit to participate
in the cover-up for so long. They certainly would have ignored the U.S. government's desire for
secrecy and gotten this information out (which they surely knew from their own sources) if they
didn't have something to hide. But that cover-up continues.
We might ask the several Israeli Mossad agents (they were later interviewed on Israeli TV as such)
who were filming the atrocity from across the river in New Jersey, dancing about and high-fiving
in celebration as the towers came down. They were arrested, held for a few weeks and released
without comment.
The true "smoking gun" of the 9/11 atrocities is the eight-second symmetrical free-fall collapse
of WTC #7. The claim that this occurred because of office fires is ludicrous, entirely impossible.
It was a conventional implosion, carried off in one of the most secure buildings in NYC, sheltering
the CIA, FBI and the mayor's emergency bunker and would have taken weeks to prepare.
See my comment above regarding my father, an engineer and an expert on steel. He recognized instantly
that the building was "blown" -- i.e., controlled demolition.
I saw the video on TV and was surprised that it went unquestioned on why it collapsed. Even
the clean symmetrical fall of the second tower to collapse, was neat and symmetric.
In my educated opinion, supported by facts of the case conveniently omitted, the release of
the small section of the Congressional report kept secret for 13 years is what they call in the
CIA a "limited hangout", which is contains a mix of both truth and omissions or outright lies,
and exposes the audience to a falsity more dangerous and misleading than an outright lie.
Of course the Saudis were involved, but if you research exactly what they did, it
was simply to escort a handful of patsies around the country on behalf of the CIA and give them
money to spend, creating a story to be later used as a diversion. The fact is, half the supposed
hijackers within a week of the buildings exploding made their presence known to authorities, saying
yoo-hoo, here we are, what's all this news regarding our deaths aboard airplanes?
Second point is that airplanes loaded with fuel don't cause buildings like the Trade Towers
to collapse from heat, this is an engineering impossibility and has been proven dozens of times.
In addition, a plane constructed of a thin aluminum skin stretched on an aluminum frame with a
hollow nose can't penetrate a steel curtain wall like the ones the towers were built with. But
the YouTube videos show the planes being absorbed into the buildings as though the craft were
made of liquid.
To assume that the release of this is significant, is to be fooled by the tricks of the intelligence
agencies who were responsible for the massacres in the first place.
My friend, you are mistaken, 120 ton airliners at a speed of 500 miles an hour can and have penetrated
building facades before (Empire State Bldg). This theory by some that these planes were holograms
or some sort of visual trickery is absurd and of course a distraction.
The world trade centers towers 1 and 2 were a combination of steel curtain and precast spandrels
at spans between several floors of approx. 30'. They are not that strong. The edges of the concrete
floors consist of angle iron between the floor joists which span from 4' to 6' on centers. If
buildings were constructed strong enough to stop or substantially slow a commercial airliner,
they would 1. be too heavy structurally and 2. thus be prohibitively costly.
The best evidence if this were ever taken to court, would be the stand down by the military
that morning in the intercepting of these "hijackers" as they made their way to their targets.
And Cheneys barking orders to a subordinate in the crisis control room beneath the white house
that yes the orders still stand, as flight 175? made its way toward the Pentagon
Excuse me, but the towers of the WTC WERE very heavy structurally. Particularly the central
cores, which contained heavily redundant layers of steel, and special steel at that.
It is pre-emptive coup :-) (fake coupe in order to clear the military deck)
It looks to me that this time Turkish political elite pulled pre-emptive coup on Turkish military
so it can purge her from the elements that are influenced by remote control from outside the country.
In one word this is Turkish version of Brexit. Basically financial, political, and military international
structures that were established after II world war are crumbling because the interests of individual
countries are so diametrical.
In one word this is Turkish version of Brexit. Basically financial, political, and military
international structures that were established after II world war are crumbling because the interests
of individual countries are so diametrical.
Oh Shit! Get ready for a new, old style caliphate and the ushering in of another couple hundred
years of dark ages… The Ottomans are coming!
Fred, Ottomans are not coming.. Chinese are coming with trade deals on Orient express train from
Beijing…via Istanbul…you guys are so misinformed about what's going in the world that you will
be in state of shock when IMF, EU, NATO close the shop all in one day.
"... It appears the Army has the MIT Headquarters under siege right now with scattered reports that Army helicopters are firing on it. Too soon to tell but we might be looking at a Turkish civil war. ..."
"... The Turkish military is quite good at fulfilling it's role as the protector of the country and arbiter of the Constitution. Which usually means overthrowing Islamist governments that brazenly cross over legal lines. ..."
From a friend in Ankara minutes ago, "Oh shit, this has all the hallmarks of a fight between
two fractions within the state. It's said that Fethullah Gulen and his supporters in the military
tried this because of the imminent purge. There was a armed clash in Ankara between the military
forces (Gulen movement) and tgr police/intelligence agency (Tayyip). It's been going for a while,
this feud. Now it seems like it's grown a full blown war. Airports are also closed. "
Good observation by your friend. Broadly speaking I'd say the fight is between Islamists and
secular elements of the state. The Islamists have purged the police and MIT (intelligence) of
any secular influence under Erdogan. With the secular crowd maintaining it's traditional hold
over the military.
It appears the Army has the MIT Headquarters under siege right now with scattered reports that
Army helicopters are firing on it. Too soon to tell but we might be looking at a Turkish civil
war.
I'll just be the first with the conspiracy theory about the usual suspects: US, regime change,
Obama, and the Clinton Foundation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement
They would like a much more compliant government in place than Erdogan.
Also interesting that Germany refused Erdogan asylum after his plane was turned away in Istanbul.
Very bad move for Erdogan to head out of town at a time like this as lots of Roman emperors could
attest.
I'm skeptical that the Gulen movement is behind this. The Turkish military is quite good at
fulfilling it's role as the protector of the country and arbiter of the Constitution. Which usually
means overthrowing Islamist governments that brazenly cross over legal lines. Furthermore Colonel Muharrem Kose ( wiki
) might've been purged for being associated with Gulen but it doesn't make the allegations true.
As a matter of principle I'm not in favor of military coups but for Erdogan I can make an exception.
Turkish Prime Minister Yildirim broadcast a statement that the situation is being dealt with
by "security forces" from an apparently privately owned TV channel, while soldiers have been reported
at the state broadcaster TRT in Ankara.
I'm wondering if the Turkish military wants more or less war than Erdogan, could be like the
generals at the Pentagon, telling the White House they didn't think a Libya war was a wise idea
while Hilary was shrieking for more blood.
(We came…we saw…he died).
Or maybe the military wants more secularism than Erdogan?
If the military still has enough left-over Kemalists inside it to be bitter at the Erdogist
degradation of secular republican Turkey into an Islamic Emirate in-the-making; those Kemalists
may indeed be making one last try to purge and erase Erdogism from all positions of power and
re-Kemalize the State.
The politics are different. This isn't the Cold War. Any coup government done without street
support (outside Istanbul, this might be tough and even then…a military coup isn't good precedence)
is going to have problems.
The issue isn't the Kemalists, but the Kemalists are too far removed from Attaturk. An Attaturk
aide will simply have more legitimacy than some, random preening general. Well, the aides are
dead by now. The successors of the aides have no legitimacy without an election.
I don't think the coup will fly without serious repercussions.
The Kemalists traditionally tend to lavish attention on Istanbul and the coastal elites while
dealing with the Kurds and their role in NATO.
The heartland (Anatolia. What's that about Constantinople?) has traditionally been ignored
by the Kemalists. The Kemalists would say they took important small steps and not to throw the
baby out with the bathwater. In the mean time, the religious nuts took power and used private
charity to do poorly what the government wasn't doing and found sympathy with the majority. I
know it sounds familiar.
External pressure especially from the EU forced electoral reforms which gave power to the majority
of the country in the heartland instead of being controlled by coastal elites.
Erdogan's policies have provoked anger, but his actions against the old guard have never seemed
to irritate even the coastal population, partially because the old guard wasn't that great. They
just received good press. Better dead than Red.
My sense is young coastal Turks are more or less like their counterparts in other European
cities, so I imagine the army making decisions won't go over too well.
Erdogan is popular in the heartland, largely because he delivered on promises to improve infrastructure,
jobs, and so forth even though he skims. For rural Turkey, everything of nothing is still nothing,
so who cares if Erdogan skims?
Erdogan. ..more like Erdo well he's not going to be there anymore.
Let's see:
-Merkels refugee plan
-NATO dealing with a coup after the fall of the USSR
-Syria
-ISIS
-Kurds
-collapse of Turkish tourism
-Erdogan was popular in the Anatolian heartland
Words of caution to everyone. There are at least four [4] armed sides participating in tonight's
chaos:
1) Military (obviously)
2) Armed National Police (pro-Erdogan)
3) Criminals (who are exploiting the situation as cover to settle scores) - Cannot prove this,
but it is consistent with prior civil unrest history in other nations.
4) Terrorists - IS / Daesh. Probably not organized, but shooting unarmed civilians on camera would
exacerbate the situation as both major sides blame each other.
______________
The RUSSIAN Reaction?
Not advocating a conspiracy theory, but ex-KGB Putin has a jet downed by Erdogan's government.
There may be Russian involvement.
Even if the Russians were surprised, the Russian Black Sea Fleet needs to be able to transit
the Bosphorus to support Syrian operations. Expect Putin to quickly make favorable offers to the
new military leadership if Erdogan falls.
You forgot Kurds as a potential player. I have no clue what PKK or TAK will do under these
circumstances but I imagine it wouldn't necessarily involve doing nothing.
I don't think Gulen is primarily behind the coup. I mean I know that's what Erdogan said but
when the military released it's first letter to the public it had Kemalist written all over it.
don't 'we' win either way?
Uhh, it's complicated. Secretary of State Kerry is in Moscow today negotiating an anti-jihadi
pact/alliance in Syria. While a few days ago Kerry publicly labeled the Saudi-back Jaish al-Islam
as no different from Al Qaeda and the neocon crowd had a hissyfit over it. The gap between how
the US and Russian governments perceive the rebel-jihadi alliance is closer than it's ever been.
Meanwhile it just so happens that the 28 pages from the 9/11 report implicating Saudi involvement
and a military coup in Turkey is overthrowing the Islamist government of Erdogan. Both governments
have supported the rebel-jihad alliance in Syria so this could just be a huge coincidence… except
I don't believe in coincidences that strain my gullibility.
Any speculation beyond that point is tin foil hat territory.
German fingerprints on turkish coup…not foily…ribbi gulan is in a very historic german german
bund part of Pennsylvania…not by my laptop to scrape reports but there have been continued reports
of sultan erdo asking for and receiving asylum from Germany…
of all the places to go hang out…
schaeubleland is not one of them…
my other thought was the sah-oodz since that little 28 page thingee was distributed on a friday,
just a few hours before the parade in istanbul…
I call it a parade as the new coup position information is there was a grand total of less
than 150 gulanis involved…
which made sense since the same photos of hardly 50 soldiers kept getting played over and over…
the saud argument is technically more foily…
but my money would be on field marshall schaeuble…
would put money down that he "resigns/retires" for health reasons in 90 dayz if sultan erdo
"holds" as he now appears to have landed his plane at the airport in istanbul…
On a technical side, two weeks from now there is the annual kiss the sultans ring moment in
the military and it has been suggested erdo was going to ax in a very publicly some gulanis…
and some colonel that has been named as a top coup boy had recently been bounced due to his
ties to the gulanis….
Thanks. A quick visual inspection suggests that they "only" blacked
out about 10% of the document. Some pages almost everything is visible,
and on a few, almost half of the text is obscured.
A couple of days ago there was a discussion of infantilization by
politicians via the use of emojis. I think that preventing people from
reading the full report is a far more serious form of infantilization.
Only the elite philosopher kings are allowed access to information. The
rest of us children might be traumatized if we could read the full
report.
The information about the dry-run of 1999 on America West flight from
Phx to DC Saudi Embassy party was especially interesting to me. I suspect
that Saudi Arabia played both sides (al-quaeda and the US) in order to
bring about the Sunni alliance we are currently being worked out in Libya
and Syria. Iraq was on this analysis definitely an expected casualty of
the events of 9/11, which suggests that the Saudis had good reason to
believe that US officials were already waiting for any excuse to take
over that country.
There's this sort of hole prior to 9-11-2001 where it sounds like no
one knows anything but actually, the Joint Forces intelligence group knew
quite a bit. The Joint Inquiry never interviewed anyone from DO-5.
So strange! Why it seems just yesterday Chancellor Merkel and
other wise EU leaders were trying to get Turkey admitted to the
European Union, enabling Turks to move freely about the Continent,
and they were pressing that nice Mr. Erdogan to accept billions of
Euros to handle Muslim refugees for them. How could a stable
European society like Turkey still be experiencing things like
military coups? There must be a more polite explanation for what's
really going on over there.
This thread is interesting by presence of complete lunatics like
Brett Dunbar , who claims tha capitalism leads to peace.
Notable quotes:
"... Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively [^1] to defend or promote national interests ..."
"... Bringing Bush, Blair, and Aznar to justice would be the greatest deterrent for further war. I like the part about economic crimes. Justice brings peace. ..."
"... War is a tool of competition for resources. Think Iraq. ..."
"... the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal hanged Nazis for doing exactly what Bush 2 and company did ..."
"... The Labour leader said last year Blair could face trial if the report found he was guilty of launching an illegal war. ..."
"... John Quiggin, I think your definition of militarism is flawed. I think that cultural attitudes and the social status of the military are very important as well. To paraphrase Andrew Bacevich, Militarism is the idea that military solutions to a country's problems are more effective than they really are. Militarism assumes that the military's way of running things is inherently correct. A militaristic society glorifies violence and the people who carry it out in the name of the state. ..."
"... They chose force first and dealt with the consequences later. So militarism can exist and flourish on a tight budget. Its all about mentality. ..."
"... The notion that capitalism is peaceful is preposterous, even if you accept the bizarre notion that only wars between the capitalist Great Powers really count as wars. It's true that it's tacitly presumed by many, perhaps most, learned authorities. But that is an indictment of the authorities, not a justification for the claim. The closely related claim that capitalism is responsible for technological advancement on inspection suggests that the real story is that technological progress enabled the European states to begin empires that funded capitalist development. ..."
"... Russia and China had achieved success in Central Asia, unlike the United States, by pursuing a respectful [sic] foreign policy based on mutual interest. ..."
"... Although the term 'global policeman' (or 'cops of the world') is mostly used ironically (in my experience), 'policeman' does have a straight meaning, denoting a person who operates under the authority of law, whereas the supreme Mafia capo is a law and authority unto himself, at least until someone assassinates him. I think this second metaphor more closely approximates the position and behavior of the present United States. ..."
100 years after the Battle of the Somme, it's hard to see that much has been learned from the
catastrophe of the Great War and the decades of slaughter that followed it. Rather than get bogged
down (yet again) in specifics that invariably decline into arguments about who know more of the historical
detail, I'm going to try a different approach, looking at the militarist ideology that gave us the
War, and trying to articulate an anti-militarist alternative.
Wikipedia offers a definition
of militarism which, with the deletion of a single weasel word, seems to be entirely satisfactory
and also seems to describe the dominant view of the political class, and much of the population in
nearly every country in the world.
Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain
a strong military capability and be prepared to use it
aggressively[^1] to defend or promote national
interests
Wikipedia isn't as satisfactory (to me) on
anti-militarism, so I'll
essentially reverse the definition above, and offer the following provisional definition
Anti-militarism is the belief or desire that a military expenditure should held to the minimum
required to protect a country against armed attack and that, with the exception of self-defense,
military power should not be used to promote national interests
I'd want to qualify this a bit, but it seems like a good starting point.
... ... ...
My case for anti-militarism has two main elements.
First, the consequentialist case against the discretionary use of military force is overwhelming.
Wars cause huge damage and destruction and preparation for war is immensely costly. Yet it is
just about impossible to find examples where a discretionary decision to go to war has produced
a clear benefit for the country concerned, or even for its ruling class. Even in cases where war
is initially defensive, attempts to secure war aims beyond the status quo ante have commonly led
to disaster.
Second, war is (almost) inevitably criminal since it involves killing and maiming people who
have done nothing personally to justify this; not only civilians, but soldiers (commonly including
conscripts) obeying the lawful orders of their governments.
Having made the strong case, I'll admit a couple of exceptions. First, although most of the above
has been posed in terms of national military power, there's nothing special in the argument that
requires this. Collective self-defense by a group of nations is justified (or not) on the same grounds
as national self-defense.
... ... ...
[^1]: The deleted word "aggressive" is doing a lot of work here. Almost no government ever admits
to being aggressive. Territorial expansion is invariable represented as the restoration of historically
justified borders while the overthrow of a rival government is the liberation of its oppressed people.
So, no one ever has to admit to being a militarist.
Is it obvious that limiting use of military force to self-defense entails a minimal capability
for force projection?
If the cost of entirely securing a nation's territory (Prof Q, you will
recognise the phrase "Fortress Australia") is very high relative to the cost of being able to
threaten an adversary's territorial interests in a way that is credible and meaningful – would
it not then be unavoidably tempting to appeal to an expanded notion of self-defence and buy a
force-projection capability, even if your intent is genuinely peaceful?
To speculate a little further – I would worry that so many people would need to be committed
to "national defence" on a purely defensive model that it would have the unintended side effect
of promoting a martial culture that normalises the use of armed force.
Of course, none of this applies if everyone abandons their force-projection capability – but
is that a stable equilibrium, even if it could be achieved?
Well, you'll be pleased to know that they're working hard on WWI's perception [1]. Many of us
working against militarism. Not easy. And the linked NYtimes piece is worth reading.
I think it'd make sense to talk about imperialism, rather than militarism. Military is just a
tool. One could, for example, bribe another country's military leaders, or finance a paramilitary
force in the targeted state, or just organize a violence-inciting mass-media campaign to produce
the same result.
We'd need an alternative history of the Cold War to work through the ramifications of a less aggressive
Western military. Russia would have developed nuclear weapons even if there hadn't been an army
at its borders, and the borders of the Eastern bloc were arguably more the result of opportunity
than necessity. The colonial wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan and everywhere else could be similarly
described.
After World War I, the chastened combatants sheepishly disarmed, cognizant of their
insanity. World War II taught a different lesson, perhaps because, in contrast to the previous
kerfuffle, both the Russian and American behemoths became fully engaged and unleashed their full
industrial and demographic might, sweeping their common foes from the field, and found themselves
confronting each other in dubious peace.
Both sides armed for the apocalypse with as many ways to bring about the end of civilization
as they could devise, all the while mindlessly meddling with each other around the globe. Eventually
the Russians gave up; their system really was as bad as we thought, and Moore's law is pitiless:
the gap expands exponentially. They've shrunk, and so has their military.
So why is America such a pre-eminent bully, able to defeat the rest of the world combined in
combat? Habit, pride, domestic politics, sure; but blame our allies as well. Britain and France
asked us to to kick ass in Libya, and Syria is not that different. We've got this huge death-dealing
machine and everyone tells us how to use it.
Ridiculous as it is, it's not nearly as bad as it was a hundred years ago, or seventy, or forty.
We may still be on course to extinguish human civilization, but warfare no longer looks like its
likely cause.
david 07.04.16 at 8:14 am
As you point out in fn1, nobody seems to ever fight "aggressive" wars. By the same token, there's
no agreed status quo ante. For France in 1913, the status quo ante bellum has Lorraine restored
to France. Also, Germany fractures into Prussia and everyone else, and the Germans should go back
to putting out local regionalist fires (as Austria-Hungary is busy doing) rather than challenging
French supremacy in Europe and Africa please.
The position advanced in the essay is one for
an era where ships do not hop from coaling station to coaling station, where the supremacy of
the Most Favoured Nation system means that powerful countries do not find their domestic politics
held hostage for access to raw materials controlled by other countries, where shipping lanes are
neutral as a matter of course, and where the Green Revolution has let rival countries be content
to bid, not kill, for limited resources. We can argue over whether this state of affairs is contingent
on the tiger-repelling rock or actual, angry tigers, but I don't think we disagree that this is
the state of affairs, at least for the countries powerful enough to matter.
But, you know, that's not advice that 1913 would find appealing, which is a little odd given
the conceit that this is about the Somme. The Concert of Europe bounced from war to war to war.
Every flag that permits war in this 'anti-militarist' position is met and then some. It was unending
crisis after crisis that miraculously never escalated to total war, but no country today would
regard crises of those nature as acceptable today – hundreds of thousands of Germans were besieging
Paris in 1870! Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen were dead! If Napoleon III had the Bomb he would
have used it. But he did not. There was no three score years of postwar consumer economy under
the peaceful shadow of nuclear armageddon.
Anderson 07.04.16 at 9:07 am
3: "After World War I, the chastened combatants sheepishly disarmed, cognizant of their insanity."
One could only wish this were true. Germany was disarmed by force and promptly schemed for the
day it would rearm; Russia's civil war continued for some years; France and Britain disarmed because
they were broke, not because they'd recognized any folly.
… Quiggin, I don't know if you read Daniel Larison at The American Conservative; his domestic
politics would likely horrify us both, but happily
jake the antisoshul sohulist 07.04.16 at 1:32 pm
Other than the reference to "the redempive power of war", the mythification of the military
is not mentioned in the definition of militarism. I don't think a definition of militarism can
focus only on the political/policy aspects and ignore the cultural aspects.
Militarism is as much cultural as it is political, and likely even more so.
Theophylact 07.04.16 at 2:17 pm
Tacitus:
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt,
pacem appellant (To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a
desolation and they call it peace).
LFC 07.04.16 at 4:55 pm
from the OP:
100 years after the Battle of the Somme, it's hard to see that much has been learned from
the catastrophe of the Great War
The counterargument to this statement is that the world's 'great powers' did indeed learn
something from the Great War: namely, they learned that great-power war is a pointless
endeavor. Hitler of course didn't learn that, which is, basically, why WW2 happened. But there
hasn't been a great-power war - i.e., a sustained conflict directly between two or more
'great' or major powers - since WW2 (or some wd say the Korean War qualifies as a great-power
war, in which case 1953 wd be the date of the end of the last great-power war).
The next step is to extend the learned lesson about great-power war to other kinds of war.
That extension has proven difficult, but there's no reason to assume it's forever impossible.
-–
p.s. There are various extant definitions of 'great power', some of which emphasize factors
other than military power. For purposes of this comment, though, one can go with Mearsheimer's
definition: "To qualify as a great power, a state [i.e., country] must have sufficient
military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most
[militarily] powerful state in the world" (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), p.5).
Using this definition of 'great power', the last war in which two or more great powers
directly fought each other in any kind of sustained fashion (i.e. more than a short conflict
of roughly a week or two [or less]) was, as stated above, either WW2 or Korea (depending on
one's view of whether China qualified as a great power at the time of the Korean War).
Lupita 07.04.16 at 7:06 pm
ZM @ 7 quoting Mary Kaldor:
An emphasis on justice and accountability for war crimes, human rights violations and economic
crimes, is something that is demanded by civil society in all these conflicts. Justice is
probably the most significant policy that makes a human security approach different from
current stabilisation approaches.
Bringing Bush, Blair, and Aznar to justice would be the greatest deterrent for further
war. I like the part about economic crimes. Justice brings peace.
Kevin Cox 07.04.16 at 9:19 pm
The place to start is with the Efficient Market Hypothesis as the mechanism to allocate
resources. This hypothesis says that entities compete for markets. War is a tool of
competition for resources. Think Iraq.
Instead of allocating resources via markets let us allocate resources cooperatively via the
ideas of the Commons. Start with "Think like a Commoner: A short introduction to the Life of
the Commons" by David Bollier.
A country that uses this approach to the allocation of resources will not want to go to war
and will try to persuade other countries to use the same approach.
The place to start is with renewable energy. Find a way to "distribute renewable energy" based
on the commons and anti militarism will likely follow.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 12:31 am
Lupita 07.04.16 at 10:22 pm @ 46 -
While the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal hanged Nazis for doing exactly what Bush 2 and
company did, I doubt if starting a war of aggression is against U.S. law in an
enforceable way. However, since the war was completely unjustified, I suppose Bush could be
charged with murder (and many other crimes). This sort of question is now rising in the UK
with regard to Blair because of the Chilcot inquiry.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 1:29 pm
Not in internal national politics, but in international law. There's something called
'crimes againt peace', for example. Obviously it's not there to prosecute leaders of
boss-countries, but theoretically it could. And, in fact, the fact that it's accepted that the
leaders of powerful countries are not to be procesuted is exactly a case of perversion of
justice you are talking about… no?
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 1:56 pm
Watson Ladd 07.05.16 at 3:57 am @ 56 -
According to what I read at the time the US, or at least some of its leadership, encouraged
the Georgian leadership to believe that if they tried to knock off a few pieces of Russia, the
US would somehow back them up if the project didn't turn out as well as hoped. Now, I get this
from the same media that called the Georgian invasion of Russia 'Russian aggression' so it may
not be very reliable, but that's what was said, and the invasion of a state the size of Russia
by a state the size of Georgia doesn't make much sense unless the latter thought they were
going to get some kind of help if things turned out badly. I guess the model was supposed to
be the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, but bombing the hell out of Serbia is one thing and
bombing the hell out of Russia quite another.
It is interesting in regard to Georgia 2008 to trace the related career of Mr. Saakashvili,
who was then the president of Georgia, having replaced Mr. Shevardnadze in one of those color
revolutions, and was reported to have said that he wanted Georgia to become America's Israel
in central Asia. The Georgians apparently did not relish this proposed role once they found
out what it entailed and kicked him out. He subsequently popped up in Ukraine, where according
to Wikipedia he is the governor of the Odessa Oblast, whatever that means. Again, I get this
from our media, so it may all be lies; but it does seem to make a kind of sense which I
probably don't need to spell out.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:10 pm
No, south Ossetia was a part of Georgia. They were fighting for autonomy (Georgia is a bit
of an empire itself), and Russian peacekeeping troops were placed there to prevent farther
infighting. One day, Georgian military, encouraged by US neocons, started shelling South
Ossetian capital, killing, among other people, some of the Russian peacekeeprs, and this is
how the 2008 war started.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:31 pm
…a lot of these ethnic issues in Georgia are really the legacy of stalinism, when in many
places (Abkhazia, for sure) local populations suffered mass-repressions with ethnic Georgians
migrating there and becaming majorities (not to mention, bosses). Fasil Iskander, great Abkhaz
writer, described that. Once the USSR collapsed, it all started to unwind, and Georgia got
screwed. Oh well.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 4:34 pm
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:38 pm @ 80 -
The Russian ruling class experimented with being the US ruling class's buddy in the 1990s,
sort of. It didn't work well for them. The destruction of Yugoslavia, the business in Abkhazia
and Ossetia, the coup in Ukraine, the American intervention in Syria which must seem (heh) as
if aimed at the Russian naval base at Tartus, the extensions of NATO, the ABMs, and so on,
these cannot have been reassuring. Reassurance then had to come from taking up bordering
territory, building weapons, and the like. Let us hope the Russian leadership do not also come
to the conclusion that the best defense is a good offense.
Lupita 07.05.16 at 5:52 pm
We're a nation of killers.
Justice can ameliorate that problem. For example, Pinochet being indicted, charged, and
placed under house arrest until his death (though never convicted) for crimes against
humanity, murder, torture, embezzlement, arms trafficking, drugs trafficking, tax fraud, and
passport forgery and, in Argentina, Videla getting a life sentence plus another 500 being
convicted with many cases still in progress, at the very least may give pause to those who
would kill and torture as a career enhancement move in these countries and, hopefully,
throughout Latin America. Maybe one of these countries can at least indict Kissinger for
Operación Cóndor and give American presidents something extra to plan for when planning their
covert operations.
For heads of state to stop behaving as if they were untouchable and people believing that they
are, we need more convictions, more accountability, more laws, more justice.
Asteele 07.05.16 at 7:42 pm
In a capitalist system if you can make money by impoverishing others you do it. There are
individual capitalists and firms that make money off of war, the fact that the public at large
sees no aggregate benefit in not a problem for them.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 8:35 pm
LFC 07.05.16 at 5:28 pm @ 85 -
I think that, on the evidence, one must doubt (to put it mildly) that either the Russian or
the American leadership care whether Mr. Assad is a nice person or not. They have not worried
much about a lot of other not-nice people over recent decades as long as the not-nice people
seemed to serve their purposes. Hence I can only conclude that the business in Syria, which
goes back well before the appearance of the Islamic State, is dependent on some other
variable, like maybe the existence of a Russian naval base in mare nostrum. I'm just guessing,
of course; more advanced conspiratists see Israeli, Iranian, Saudi, and Turkish connections.
Note as well that the business in Ukraine involved a big Russian naval base. And I used to
heard it said that navies were obsolete!
ZM 07.06.16 at 7:06 am
There has been coverage in The Guardian about the Chilcot report into the UK military
interventions in Iraq.
"The former civil servant promised that the report would answer some of the questions raised
by families of the dead British soldiers. "The conversations we've had with the families were
invaluable in shaping some of the report," Chilcot said.
Some of the families will be at the launch of the report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, at
Westminster. Others will join anti-war protesters outside who are calling for Blair to be
prosecuted for alleged war crimes at the international criminal court in The Hague.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday, Karen Thornton, whose son Lee was
killed in Iraq in 2006, said she was convinced that Blair had exaggerated intelligence about
Iraq's capabilities.
"If it is proved that he lied then obviously he should be held accountable for it," she said,
adding that meant a trial for war crimes. "He shouldn't be allowed to just get away with it,"
she said. But she did not express confidence that Chilcot's report would provide the
accountability that she was hoping for. "Nobody's going to be held to account and that's so
wrong," she said. "We just want the truth."
Chilcot insisted that any criticism would be supported by careful examination of the evidence.
"We are not a court – not a judge or jury at work – but we've tried to apply the highest
possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism."
…
Jeremy Corbyn, who will respond to the report in parliament on Wednesday, is understood to
have concluded that international laws are neither strong nor clear enough to make any war
crimes prosecution a reality. The Labour leader said last year Blair could face trial if
the report found he was guilty of launching an illegal war.
Corbyn is expected to fulfil a promise he made during his leadership campaign to apologise on
behalf of Labour for the war. He will speak in the House of Commons after David Cameron, who
is scheduled to make a statement shortly after 12.30pm. "
Only Tony Blair could read the Chilcot report and claim it vindicates his conduct.
LFC 07.06.16 at 5:48 pm
B. Dunbar @123
Interstate wars have declined, and the 'logic' you identify might be one of various reasons
for that.
The wars dominating the headlines today - e.g. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Ukraine/Donetsk/Russia - are not, however, classic interstate wars. They are either civil wars
or 'internationalized' civil wars or have a civil-war aspect. Thus the 'logic' of
business-wants-peace-and-trade doesn't really apply there. Apple doesn't want war w China but
Apple doesn't care that much whether there is a prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan,
etc.
So even if one accepted the argument that 'capitalism' leads to peace, we'd be left w a set of
wars to which the argument doesn't apply. I don't have, obvs., the answer to the current
conflicts. I think (as already mentioned) that there are some steps that might prove helpful
in general if not nec. w.r.t. specific conflict x or y.
The Kaldor remark about reversing the predatory economy - by which I take it she means, inter
alia, black-market-driven, underground, in some cases criminal commerce connected to war - is
suggestive. Easier said than done, I'm sure. Plus strengthening peacekeeping. And one cd come
up w other things, no doubt.
Ze K 07.06.16 at 6:35 pm
@120, 121, yes, Georgians living in minority areas did suffer. But ethnic
cleansing/genocides that would've most likely taken place should the Georgian government have
had its way were prevented. Same as Crimea and Eastern Ukraine two years ago. This is not too
difficult to understand – if you try – is it? Similarly (to Georgians in Abkhasia) millions of
ethnic Russians suffered in the new central Asian republics, in Chechnya (all 100% were
cleansed, many killed), and, in a slightly softer manner, in the Baltic republics… But that's
okay with you, right? Well deserved? It's only when Abkhazs attack Georgians, then it's the
outrage, and only because Russia was defending the Abkhazs, correct?
Lupita 07.07.16 at 3:23 pm
My impression since yesterday is that, while Brits are making a very big deal out of the
Chilcot report, with much commentary about how momentous it is and the huge impact it will
have, coverage of this event by the US media is notoriously subdued, particularly compared
with the hysterical coverage Brexit got just some days ago. This leads me to believe that it
is indeed justice that is feared the most by western imperialists such as Bush, Blair, Howard,
Aznar, and Kwaśniewski and the elites that supported them and continue to cover up for them. I
take this cowardly and creepy silence in the US media as an indicator that Pax Americana is so
weakened that it cannot withstand the light of justice being shined upon it and that the end
is near.
Anarcissie 07.07.16 at 3:46 pm
Lupita 07.07.16 at 3:23 pm @ 147 - For the kind of people in the US who pay attention to
such things, the Chilcot Report is not really news. And the majority don't care, as witness
the fortunes of the Clintons.
Anarcissie 07.08.16 at 12:25 am
Brett Dunbar 07.07.16 at 11:47 pm @ 160 -
If capitalist types are so totally against war, it's hard to understand why the grand
poster child of capitalism, the plutocratic United States, is so addicted to war. It is hard
to consider it an aberration when the US has attacked dozens of countries not threatening it
over the last fifty or sixty years, killed or injured or beggared or terrorized millions of
noncombatants, and maintains hundreds of overseas bases and a world-destroying nuclear
stockpile. What could the explanation possibly be?
As human powers of production increase, at least in potential, existing scarcities of basic
goods such as food, medicine, and housing are overcome. If people now become satisfied with
their standard of living - not totally satisfied, but satisfied enough not to sweat and strain
all the time for more - sales, profits, and employment will fall, and capitalists will become
less important. In order to retain their ruling-class role, there needs to be a constant
crisis of production-consumption which only the capitalist masters of industry can solve.
Hence new scarcities must be produced. The major traditional methods of doing this have been
imperialism, war, waste, and consumerism (including advertising). Conceded, major processes of
environmental destruction such as climate change and the vitiating of antibiotics may lead to
powerful new self-reinforcing scarcities which will take their place next to their traditional
relatives, so that producing new scarcities would be less of a problem.
Anarcissie 07.08.16 at 2:30 am
LFC 07.08.16 at 1:30 am @ 163:
'OTOH, I don't think capitalism esp. needs war to create this kind of scarcity….'
But then one must explain why the major capitalist powers have engaged in so much of it, since
it is so dirty and risky. I suppose one possible explanation is that whoever has the power to
do so engages in it, capitalist or not; it is hardly a recent invention. However, I am mindful
of the position of the US at the end of World War 2, with 50% of the worlds total productive
capacity. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive! So war turned out to be pretty handy for some
people. And now we have lots of them.
Matt_L 07.08.16 at 3:32 am
John Quiggin, I think your definition of militarism is flawed. I think that cultural
attitudes and the social status of the military are very important as well. To paraphrase
Andrew Bacevich, Militarism is the idea that military solutions to a country's problems are
more effective than they really are. Militarism assumes that the military's way of running
things is inherently correct. A militaristic society glorifies violence and the people who
carry it out in the name of the state.
I also think that just reducing military spending or the capacity for military action is
not enough to counter serious militarism. Austria-Hungary was a very militaristic society, but
it spent the less on armaments than the other European Powers in the years leading up to 1914.
The leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy caused World War One by invading Serbia for
a crime committed by a Bosnian Serb subject of the Monarchy. They had some good guesses that
the Serbian military intelligence was involved, but not a lot of proof.
Franz Joseph and the other leaders chose to solve a foreign policy problem by placing armed
force before diplomacy and a complete criminal investigation. Their capacity to wage war
relative to the other great powers of Europe did not enter into their calculations. They
chose force first and dealt with the consequences later. So militarism can exist and flourish
on a tight budget. Its all about mentality.
stevenjohnson 07.08.16 at 9:29 pm
"Great Power warfare became a lot less common after 1815, at the same point that the most
advanced of the great powers developed capitalism."
In Europe, locus of the alleged Long Peace, there were the Greek Rebellion; the First and
Second Italian Wars of Independence; the First and Second Schleswig Wars; the Seven Weeks War;
the Crimean War; the Franco-Prussian War; the First and Second Balkan Wars. Wars between a
major capitalist state and another well established modern state included the Opium Wars; the
Mexican War; the French invasion of Mexico; the War of the Triple Alliance; the War of the
Pacific; the Spanish-American War; the Russo-Japanese War. Assaults by the allegedly peaceful
capitalist nations against non-state societies or weak traditional states are too numerous to
remember, but the death toll was enormous, on a scale matching the slaughter of the World
Wars.
Further the tensions between the Great Powers threatened war on numerous occasions, such as
conflict over the Oregon territory; the Aroostook "war;" the Trent Affair; two Moroccan
crises; the Fashoda Incident…again, these are too numerous to remember.
The notion that capitalism is peaceful is preposterous, even if you accept the bizarre
notion that only wars between the capitalist Great Powers really count as wars. It's true that
it's tacitly presumed by many, perhaps most, learned authorities. But that is an indictment of
the authorities, not a justification for the claim. The closely related claim that capitalism
is responsible for technological advancement on inspection suggests that the real story is
that technological progress enabled the European states to begin empires that funded
capitalist development.
Hidari 07.09.16 at 11:13 am
' Capitalist states tend to avoid war with their trading partners.'
This has an element of truth in it, but it can be parsed in a number of ways. For example,
'Rich, powerful countries tend to avoid war with other rich, powerful countries'. After all,
in the 2nd half of the 20th century, the US avoided going to war with Russia, despite having
clear economic interests in doing so (access to natural resources, markets) mainly because
Russia was strong (not least militarily) and the cost-benefit matrix never made sense (i.e.
from the Americans' point of view).
A much stronger case can be made that self-proclaimed Socialist states tend not to go to war
with each other. After all, there were big fallings out between the socialist (or 'socialist',
depending on your point of view) countries in the 20th century but they rarely turned to war,
and when they did (Vietnam-Cambodia, Vietnam-China) they were short term and relatively
limited in scope. The Sino-Soviet split was a split, not a war.
But again this is probably not the best way to look at it. A much stronger case can be made
that the basic reason for the non-appearance of a Chinese-Russian war was simply the size and
population of those countries. The risks outweighed any potential benefits.
Of course, between 1914 and 1945, lots of capitalist states went to war with each other.
Anarcissie 07.09.16 at 3:22 pm
Layman 07.09.16 at 2:59 pm @ 188 -
One explanation, I think already given, is that the capitalist powers were too busy with
imperial seizures in what we now call the Third World to fight one another. In the New World,
the United States and some South American states were busy annihilating the natives, speaking
of ethnic cleansing. If capitalism is a pacific influence, the behavior of the British and
American ruling classes since 1815 seems incomprehensible, right down to the present: the
plutocrat Clinton ought to be the peace candidate, not the scary war freak.
Hidari 07.09.16 at 5:44 pm
Surely (assuming that it's real) the decline in wars in some parts of the world since 1945
is because of the Pax Americana?
Most countries are too frightened to attack (at least directly) the United States. There is a
sense in which the US really is the 'Global Policeman'.
…WaPo continues that Trump is "broadly noninterventionist, questioning the need for the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and calling for Europe to play a larger role in ensuring its
security." Page, too, "has regularly criticized U.S. intervention":
In one article for Global Policy Journal, he wrote, "From U.S. policies toward Russia to Iran
to China, sanctimonious expressions of moral superiority stand at the root of many problems
seen worldwide today."
Page wrote that the war in eastern Ukraine was "precipitated by U.S. meddling in the Maidan
revolution…
And so, here we are: Trump is the lesser evil in this cycle. Vote Trump, save the world.
LFC 07.10.16 at 2:40 pm
Hidari @192
Surely (assuming that it's real) the decline in wars in some parts of the world since 1945
is because of the Pax Americana?
Started to write a long reply but decided no point. Shorter version: reasons for no
WW2-style-war in Europe from '45 to '90 are multiple; 'pax Americana' only one factor of many.
End of CW was destabilizing in various ways (e.g., wars in ex-Yugoslavia) but so far not
enough to reverse the overall trend in Europe. Decline in destructiveness of conflict in some
(not all) other parts of the world has to do in large part w change in nature/type of conflict
(sustained interstate wars have traditionally been the most destructive and they don't happen
much or at all anymore, for reasons that are somewhat debatable, but, again, pax Americana wd
be only one of multiple reasons, if that).
LFC 07.10.16 at 2:54 pm
Re Carter Page (see Ze K @194)
Page refused [speaking in Moscow] refused to comment specifically on the U.S. presidential
election, his relationship with Trump or U.S. sanctions against Russia, saying he was in
Russia as a "private citizen." He gave a lecture, titled "The Evolution of the World Economy:
Trends and Potential," in which he noted that Russia and China had achieved success in
Central Asia, unlike the United States, by pursuing a respectful [sic] foreign policy based on
mutual interest.
He generally avoided questions on U.S. foreign policy, but when one attendee asked him
whether he really believed the United States was a "liberal, democratic society," Page told
him to "read between the lines."
"If I'm understanding the direction you're coming from, I tend to agree with you that it's
not always as liberal as it may seem," he said. "I'm with you."
In a meeting with The Washington Post editorial board in March, Trump named Page, a former
Merrill Lynch executive in Moscow who later advised the Russian state energy giant Gazprom on
major oil and gas deals, as one of his foreign policy advisers. Page refused to say whether
his Moscow trip included a meeting with Russian officials. He is scheduled to deliver a
graduation address Friday at the New Economic School, a speech that some officials are
expected to attend.
Above quote is from the Stars & Stripes piece, evidently republished from WaPo, linked at the
'Washington's Blog' that Ze K linked to.
If you want to put for. policy in the hands of the likes of Carter Page (former Merrill Lynch
exec., Gazprom adviser), vote Trump all right.
HRC's for. policy advisers may not be great, but I don't think this guy Page is better. He
does have connections to the Russian govt as a past consultant, apparently, which is no doubt
why Ze K is so high on him.
Ze K 07.10.16 at 3:16 pm
You bet this guy Page is better. Anyone is better.
And why would I care at all (let alone "no doubt") if he was a Gazprom consultant? What the
fuck was that supposed to mean? Asshole much?
LFC 07.10.16 at 5:25 pm
And why would I care at all (let alone "no doubt") if he was a Gazprom consultant?
B.c Gazprom is a Russian state-owned company and a fair inference from your many comments on
this blog (not just this thread but others) is that you are, in general, favorably disposed to
the present Russian govt. and its activities. Not Gazprom in particular necessarily, but the
govt in general. You make all these comments and then get upset when they are read to say what
they say.
You consistently attack HRC as a war-monger, as corrupt etc. You consistently say anyone wd
be better. "Vote Trump save the world." You said there was no Poland in existence in '39 when
the USSR invaded it. Your comments and exchanges in this thread are here for anyone to read,
so I don't have to continue.
Ze K 07.10.16 at 5:44 pm
"You make all these comments and then get upset when they are read to say what they
say. "
You're right; come to think of it, you've been into slimeball-style slur for a while now,
and I should've gotten used to it already, and just ignored you. Fine, carry on.
Anarcissie 07.11.16 at 2:19 am
@Hidari 07.10.16 at 2:57 pm @ 197 -
Although the term 'global policeman' (or 'cops of the world') is mostly used ironically
(in my experience), 'policeman' does have a straight meaning, denoting a person who operates
under the authority of law, whereas the supreme Mafia capo is a law and authority unto
himself, at least until someone assassinates him. I think this second metaphor more closely
approximates the position and behavior of the present United States.
This thread is interesting by presence of complete lunatics like
Brett Dunbar , who claims tha capitalism leads to peace.
Notable quotes:
"... Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively [^1] to defend or promote national interests ..."
"... Bringing Bush, Blair, and Aznar to justice would be the greatest deterrent for further war. I like the part about economic crimes. Justice brings peace. ..."
"... War is a tool of competition for resources. Think Iraq. ..."
"... the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal hanged Nazis for doing exactly what Bush 2 and company did ..."
"... The Labour leader said last year Blair could face trial if the report found he was guilty of launching an illegal war. ..."
"... John Quiggin, I think your definition of militarism is flawed. I think that cultural attitudes and the social status of the military are very important as well. To paraphrase Andrew Bacevich, Militarism is the idea that military solutions to a country's problems are more effective than they really are. Militarism assumes that the military's way of running things is inherently correct. A militaristic society glorifies violence and the people who carry it out in the name of the state. ..."
"... They chose force first and dealt with the consequences later. So militarism can exist and flourish on a tight budget. Its all about mentality. ..."
"... The notion that capitalism is peaceful is preposterous, even if you accept the bizarre notion that only wars between the capitalist Great Powers really count as wars. It's true that it's tacitly presumed by many, perhaps most, learned authorities. But that is an indictment of the authorities, not a justification for the claim. The closely related claim that capitalism is responsible for technological advancement on inspection suggests that the real story is that technological progress enabled the European states to begin empires that funded capitalist development. ..."
"... Russia and China had achieved success in Central Asia, unlike the United States, by pursuing a respectful [sic] foreign policy based on mutual interest. ..."
"... Although the term 'global policeman' (or 'cops of the world') is mostly used ironically (in my experience), 'policeman' does have a straight meaning, denoting a person who operates under the authority of law, whereas the supreme Mafia capo is a law and authority unto himself, at least until someone assassinates him. I think this second metaphor more closely approximates the position and behavior of the present United States. ..."
100 years after the Battle of the Somme, it's hard to see that much has been learned from the
catastrophe of the Great War and the decades of slaughter that followed it. Rather than get bogged
down (yet again) in specifics that invariably decline into arguments about who know more of the historical
detail, I'm going to try a different approach, looking at the militarist ideology that gave us the
War, and trying to articulate an anti-militarist alternative.
Wikipedia offers a definition
of militarism which, with the deletion of a single weasel word, seems to be entirely satisfactory
and also seems to describe the dominant view of the political class, and much of the population in
nearly every country in the world.
Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain
a strong military capability and be prepared to use it
aggressively[^1] to defend or promote national
interests
Wikipedia isn't as satisfactory (to me) on
anti-militarism, so I'll
essentially reverse the definition above, and offer the following provisional definition
Anti-militarism is the belief or desire that a military expenditure should held to the minimum
required to protect a country against armed attack and that, with the exception of self-defense,
military power should not be used to promote national interests
I'd want to qualify this a bit, but it seems like a good starting point.
... ... ...
My case for anti-militarism has two main elements.
First, the consequentialist case against the discretionary use of military force is overwhelming.
Wars cause huge damage and destruction and preparation for war is immensely costly. Yet it is
just about impossible to find examples where a discretionary decision to go to war has produced
a clear benefit for the country concerned, or even for its ruling class. Even in cases where war
is initially defensive, attempts to secure war aims beyond the status quo ante have commonly led
to disaster.
Second, war is (almost) inevitably criminal since it involves killing and maiming people who
have done nothing personally to justify this; not only civilians, but soldiers (commonly including
conscripts) obeying the lawful orders of their governments.
Having made the strong case, I'll admit a couple of exceptions. First, although most of the above
has been posed in terms of national military power, there's nothing special in the argument that
requires this. Collective self-defense by a group of nations is justified (or not) on the same grounds
as national self-defense.
... ... ...
[^1]: The deleted word "aggressive" is doing a lot of work here. Almost no government ever admits
to being aggressive. Territorial expansion is invariable represented as the restoration of historically
justified borders while the overthrow of a rival government is the liberation of its oppressed people.
So, no one ever has to admit to being a militarist.
Is it obvious that limiting use of military force to self-defense entails a minimal capability
for force projection?
If the cost of entirely securing a nation's territory (Prof Q, you will
recognise the phrase "Fortress Australia") is very high relative to the cost of being able to
threaten an adversary's territorial interests in a way that is credible and meaningful – would
it not then be unavoidably tempting to appeal to an expanded notion of self-defence and buy a
force-projection capability, even if your intent is genuinely peaceful?
To speculate a little further – I would worry that so many people would need to be committed
to "national defence" on a purely defensive model that it would have the unintended side effect
of promoting a martial culture that normalises the use of armed force.
Of course, none of this applies if everyone abandons their force-projection capability – but
is that a stable equilibrium, even if it could be achieved?
Well, you'll be pleased to know that they're working hard on WWI's perception [1]. Many of us
working against militarism. Not easy. And the linked NYtimes piece is worth reading.
I think it'd make sense to talk about imperialism, rather than militarism. Military is just a
tool. One could, for example, bribe another country's military leaders, or finance a paramilitary
force in the targeted state, or just organize a violence-inciting mass-media campaign to produce
the same result.
We'd need an alternative history of the Cold War to work through the ramifications of a less aggressive
Western military. Russia would have developed nuclear weapons even if there hadn't been an army
at its borders, and the borders of the Eastern bloc were arguably more the result of opportunity
than necessity. The colonial wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan and everywhere else could be similarly
described.
After World War I, the chastened combatants sheepishly disarmed, cognizant of their
insanity. World War II taught a different lesson, perhaps because, in contrast to the previous
kerfuffle, both the Russian and American behemoths became fully engaged and unleashed their full
industrial and demographic might, sweeping their common foes from the field, and found themselves
confronting each other in dubious peace.
Both sides armed for the apocalypse with as many ways to bring about the end of civilization
as they could devise, all the while mindlessly meddling with each other around the globe. Eventually
the Russians gave up; their system really was as bad as we thought, and Moore's law is pitiless:
the gap expands exponentially. They've shrunk, and so has their military.
So why is America such a pre-eminent bully, able to defeat the rest of the world combined in
combat? Habit, pride, domestic politics, sure; but blame our allies as well. Britain and France
asked us to to kick ass in Libya, and Syria is not that different. We've got this huge death-dealing
machine and everyone tells us how to use it.
Ridiculous as it is, it's not nearly as bad as it was a hundred years ago, or seventy, or forty.
We may still be on course to extinguish human civilization, but warfare no longer looks like its
likely cause.
david 07.04.16 at 8:14 am
As you point out in fn1, nobody seems to ever fight "aggressive" wars. By the same token, there's
no agreed status quo ante. For France in 1913, the status quo ante bellum has Lorraine restored
to France. Also, Germany fractures into Prussia and everyone else, and the Germans should go back
to putting out local regionalist fires (as Austria-Hungary is busy doing) rather than challenging
French supremacy in Europe and Africa please.
The position advanced in the essay is one for
an era where ships do not hop from coaling station to coaling station, where the supremacy of
the Most Favoured Nation system means that powerful countries do not find their domestic politics
held hostage for access to raw materials controlled by other countries, where shipping lanes are
neutral as a matter of course, and where the Green Revolution has let rival countries be content
to bid, not kill, for limited resources. We can argue over whether this state of affairs is contingent
on the tiger-repelling rock or actual, angry tigers, but I don't think we disagree that this is
the state of affairs, at least for the countries powerful enough to matter.
But, you know, that's not advice that 1913 would find appealing, which is a little odd given
the conceit that this is about the Somme. The Concert of Europe bounced from war to war to war.
Every flag that permits war in this 'anti-militarist' position is met and then some. It was unending
crisis after crisis that miraculously never escalated to total war, but no country today would
regard crises of those nature as acceptable today – hundreds of thousands of Germans were besieging
Paris in 1870! Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen were dead! If Napoleon III had the Bomb he would
have used it. But he did not. There was no three score years of postwar consumer economy under
the peaceful shadow of nuclear armageddon.
Anderson 07.04.16 at 9:07 am
3: "After World War I, the chastened combatants sheepishly disarmed, cognizant of their insanity."
One could only wish this were true. Germany was disarmed by force and promptly schemed for the
day it would rearm; Russia's civil war continued for some years; France and Britain disarmed because
they were broke, not because they'd recognized any folly.
… Quiggin, I don't know if you read Daniel Larison at The American Conservative; his domestic
politics would likely horrify us both, but happily
jake the antisoshul sohulist 07.04.16 at 1:32 pm
Other than the reference to "the redempive power of war", the mythification of the military
is not mentioned in the definition of militarism. I don't think a definition of militarism can
focus only on the political/policy aspects and ignore the cultural aspects.
Militarism is as much cultural as it is political, and likely even more so.
Theophylact 07.04.16 at 2:17 pm
Tacitus:
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt,
pacem appellant (To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a
desolation and they call it peace).
LFC 07.04.16 at 4:55 pm
from the OP:
100 years after the Battle of the Somme, it's hard to see that much has been learned from
the catastrophe of the Great War
The counterargument to this statement is that the world's 'great powers' did indeed learn
something from the Great War: namely, they learned that great-power war is a pointless
endeavor. Hitler of course didn't learn that, which is, basically, why WW2 happened. But there
hasn't been a great-power war - i.e., a sustained conflict directly between two or more
'great' or major powers - since WW2 (or some wd say the Korean War qualifies as a great-power
war, in which case 1953 wd be the date of the end of the last great-power war).
The next step is to extend the learned lesson about great-power war to other kinds of war.
That extension has proven difficult, but there's no reason to assume it's forever impossible.
-–
p.s. There are various extant definitions of 'great power', some of which emphasize factors
other than military power. For purposes of this comment, though, one can go with Mearsheimer's
definition: "To qualify as a great power, a state [i.e., country] must have sufficient
military assets to put up a serious fight in an all-out conventional war against the most
[militarily] powerful state in the world" (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), p.5).
Using this definition of 'great power', the last war in which two or more great powers
directly fought each other in any kind of sustained fashion (i.e. more than a short conflict
of roughly a week or two [or less]) was, as stated above, either WW2 or Korea (depending on
one's view of whether China qualified as a great power at the time of the Korean War).
Lupita 07.04.16 at 7:06 pm
ZM @ 7 quoting Mary Kaldor:
An emphasis on justice and accountability for war crimes, human rights violations and economic
crimes, is something that is demanded by civil society in all these conflicts. Justice is
probably the most significant policy that makes a human security approach different from
current stabilisation approaches.
Bringing Bush, Blair, and Aznar to justice would be the greatest deterrent for further
war. I like the part about economic crimes. Justice brings peace.
Kevin Cox 07.04.16 at 9:19 pm
The place to start is with the Efficient Market Hypothesis as the mechanism to allocate
resources. This hypothesis says that entities compete for markets. War is a tool of
competition for resources. Think Iraq.
Instead of allocating resources via markets let us allocate resources cooperatively via the
ideas of the Commons. Start with "Think like a Commoner: A short introduction to the Life of
the Commons" by David Bollier.
A country that uses this approach to the allocation of resources will not want to go to war
and will try to persuade other countries to use the same approach.
The place to start is with renewable energy. Find a way to "distribute renewable energy" based
on the commons and anti militarism will likely follow.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 12:31 am
Lupita 07.04.16 at 10:22 pm @ 46 -
While the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal hanged Nazis for doing exactly what Bush 2 and
company did, I doubt if starting a war of aggression is against U.S. law in an
enforceable way. However, since the war was completely unjustified, I suppose Bush could be
charged with murder (and many other crimes). This sort of question is now rising in the UK
with regard to Blair because of the Chilcot inquiry.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 1:29 pm
Not in internal national politics, but in international law. There's something called
'crimes againt peace', for example. Obviously it's not there to prosecute leaders of
boss-countries, but theoretically it could. And, in fact, the fact that it's accepted that the
leaders of powerful countries are not to be procesuted is exactly a case of perversion of
justice you are talking about… no?
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 1:56 pm
Watson Ladd 07.05.16 at 3:57 am @ 56 -
According to what I read at the time the US, or at least some of its leadership, encouraged
the Georgian leadership to believe that if they tried to knock off a few pieces of Russia, the
US would somehow back them up if the project didn't turn out as well as hoped. Now, I get this
from the same media that called the Georgian invasion of Russia 'Russian aggression' so it may
not be very reliable, but that's what was said, and the invasion of a state the size of Russia
by a state the size of Georgia doesn't make much sense unless the latter thought they were
going to get some kind of help if things turned out badly. I guess the model was supposed to
be the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, but bombing the hell out of Serbia is one thing and
bombing the hell out of Russia quite another.
It is interesting in regard to Georgia 2008 to trace the related career of Mr. Saakashvili,
who was then the president of Georgia, having replaced Mr. Shevardnadze in one of those color
revolutions, and was reported to have said that he wanted Georgia to become America's Israel
in central Asia. The Georgians apparently did not relish this proposed role once they found
out what it entailed and kicked him out. He subsequently popped up in Ukraine, where according
to Wikipedia he is the governor of the Odessa Oblast, whatever that means. Again, I get this
from our media, so it may all be lies; but it does seem to make a kind of sense which I
probably don't need to spell out.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:10 pm
No, south Ossetia was a part of Georgia. They were fighting for autonomy (Georgia is a bit
of an empire itself), and Russian peacekeeping troops were placed there to prevent farther
infighting. One day, Georgian military, encouraged by US neocons, started shelling South
Ossetian capital, killing, among other people, some of the Russian peacekeeprs, and this is
how the 2008 war started.
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:31 pm
…a lot of these ethnic issues in Georgia are really the legacy of stalinism, when in many
places (Abkhazia, for sure) local populations suffered mass-repressions with ethnic Georgians
migrating there and becaming majorities (not to mention, bosses). Fasil Iskander, great Abkhaz
writer, described that. Once the USSR collapsed, it all started to unwind, and Georgia got
screwed. Oh well.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 4:34 pm
Ze K 07.05.16 at 2:38 pm @ 80 -
The Russian ruling class experimented with being the US ruling class's buddy in the 1990s,
sort of. It didn't work well for them. The destruction of Yugoslavia, the business in Abkhazia
and Ossetia, the coup in Ukraine, the American intervention in Syria which must seem (heh) as
if aimed at the Russian naval base at Tartus, the extensions of NATO, the ABMs, and so on,
these cannot have been reassuring. Reassurance then had to come from taking up bordering
territory, building weapons, and the like. Let us hope the Russian leadership do not also come
to the conclusion that the best defense is a good offense.
Lupita 07.05.16 at 5:52 pm
We're a nation of killers.
Justice can ameliorate that problem. For example, Pinochet being indicted, charged, and
placed under house arrest until his death (though never convicted) for crimes against
humanity, murder, torture, embezzlement, arms trafficking, drugs trafficking, tax fraud, and
passport forgery and, in Argentina, Videla getting a life sentence plus another 500 being
convicted with many cases still in progress, at the very least may give pause to those who
would kill and torture as a career enhancement move in these countries and, hopefully,
throughout Latin America. Maybe one of these countries can at least indict Kissinger for
Operación Cóndor and give American presidents something extra to plan for when planning their
covert operations.
For heads of state to stop behaving as if they were untouchable and people believing that they
are, we need more convictions, more accountability, more laws, more justice.
Asteele 07.05.16 at 7:42 pm
In a capitalist system if you can make money by impoverishing others you do it. There are
individual capitalists and firms that make money off of war, the fact that the public at large
sees no aggregate benefit in not a problem for them.
Anarcissie 07.05.16 at 8:35 pm
LFC 07.05.16 at 5:28 pm @ 85 -
I think that, on the evidence, one must doubt (to put it mildly) that either the Russian or
the American leadership care whether Mr. Assad is a nice person or not. They have not worried
much about a lot of other not-nice people over recent decades as long as the not-nice people
seemed to serve their purposes. Hence I can only conclude that the business in Syria, which
goes back well before the appearance of the Islamic State, is dependent on some other
variable, like maybe the existence of a Russian naval base in mare nostrum. I'm just guessing,
of course; more advanced conspiratists see Israeli, Iranian, Saudi, and Turkish connections.
Note as well that the business in Ukraine involved a big Russian naval base. And I used to
heard it said that navies were obsolete!
ZM 07.06.16 at 7:06 am
There has been coverage in The Guardian about the Chilcot report into the UK military
interventions in Iraq.
"The former civil servant promised that the report would answer some of the questions raised
by families of the dead British soldiers. "The conversations we've had with the families were
invaluable in shaping some of the report," Chilcot said.
Some of the families will be at the launch of the report at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, at
Westminster. Others will join anti-war protesters outside who are calling for Blair to be
prosecuted for alleged war crimes at the international criminal court in The Hague.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday, Karen Thornton, whose son Lee was
killed in Iraq in 2006, said she was convinced that Blair had exaggerated intelligence about
Iraq's capabilities.
"If it is proved that he lied then obviously he should be held accountable for it," she said,
adding that meant a trial for war crimes. "He shouldn't be allowed to just get away with it,"
she said. But she did not express confidence that Chilcot's report would provide the
accountability that she was hoping for. "Nobody's going to be held to account and that's so
wrong," she said. "We just want the truth."
Chilcot insisted that any criticism would be supported by careful examination of the evidence.
"We are not a court – not a judge or jury at work – but we've tried to apply the highest
possible standards of rigorous analysis to the evidence where we make a criticism."
…
Jeremy Corbyn, who will respond to the report in parliament on Wednesday, is understood to
have concluded that international laws are neither strong nor clear enough to make any war
crimes prosecution a reality. The Labour leader said last year Blair could face trial if
the report found he was guilty of launching an illegal war.
Corbyn is expected to fulfil a promise he made during his leadership campaign to apologise on
behalf of Labour for the war. He will speak in the House of Commons after David Cameron, who
is scheduled to make a statement shortly after 12.30pm. "
Only Tony Blair could read the Chilcot report and claim it vindicates his conduct.
LFC 07.06.16 at 5:48 pm
B. Dunbar @123
Interstate wars have declined, and the 'logic' you identify might be one of various reasons
for that.
The wars dominating the headlines today - e.g. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Ukraine/Donetsk/Russia - are not, however, classic interstate wars. They are either civil wars
or 'internationalized' civil wars or have a civil-war aspect. Thus the 'logic' of
business-wants-peace-and-trade doesn't really apply there. Apple doesn't want war w China but
Apple doesn't care that much whether there is a prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan,
etc.
So even if one accepted the argument that 'capitalism' leads to peace, we'd be left w a set of
wars to which the argument doesn't apply. I don't have, obvs., the answer to the current
conflicts. I think (as already mentioned) that there are some steps that might prove helpful
in general if not nec. w.r.t. specific conflict x or y.
The Kaldor remark about reversing the predatory economy - by which I take it she means, inter
alia, black-market-driven, underground, in some cases criminal commerce connected to war - is
suggestive. Easier said than done, I'm sure. Plus strengthening peacekeeping. And one cd come
up w other things, no doubt.
Ze K 07.06.16 at 6:35 pm
@120, 121, yes, Georgians living in minority areas did suffer. But ethnic
cleansing/genocides that would've most likely taken place should the Georgian government have
had its way were prevented. Same as Crimea and Eastern Ukraine two years ago. This is not too
difficult to understand – if you try – is it? Similarly (to Georgians in Abkhasia) millions of
ethnic Russians suffered in the new central Asian republics, in Chechnya (all 100% were
cleansed, many killed), and, in a slightly softer manner, in the Baltic republics… But that's
okay with you, right? Well deserved? It's only when Abkhazs attack Georgians, then it's the
outrage, and only because Russia was defending the Abkhazs, correct?
Lupita 07.07.16 at 3:23 pm
My impression since yesterday is that, while Brits are making a very big deal out of the
Chilcot report, with much commentary about how momentous it is and the huge impact it will
have, coverage of this event by the US media is notoriously subdued, particularly compared
with the hysterical coverage Brexit got just some days ago. This leads me to believe that it
is indeed justice that is feared the most by western imperialists such as Bush, Blair, Howard,
Aznar, and Kwaśniewski and the elites that supported them and continue to cover up for them. I
take this cowardly and creepy silence in the US media as an indicator that Pax Americana is so
weakened that it cannot withstand the light of justice being shined upon it and that the end
is near.
Anarcissie 07.07.16 at 3:46 pm
Lupita 07.07.16 at 3:23 pm @ 147 - For the kind of people in the US who pay attention to
such things, the Chilcot Report is not really news. And the majority don't care, as witness
the fortunes of the Clintons.
Anarcissie 07.08.16 at 12:25 am
Brett Dunbar 07.07.16 at 11:47 pm @ 160 -
If capitalist types are so totally against war, it's hard to understand why the grand
poster child of capitalism, the plutocratic United States, is so addicted to war. It is hard
to consider it an aberration when the US has attacked dozens of countries not threatening it
over the last fifty or sixty years, killed or injured or beggared or terrorized millions of
noncombatants, and maintains hundreds of overseas bases and a world-destroying nuclear
stockpile. What could the explanation possibly be?
As human powers of production increase, at least in potential, existing scarcities of basic
goods such as food, medicine, and housing are overcome. If people now become satisfied with
their standard of living - not totally satisfied, but satisfied enough not to sweat and strain
all the time for more - sales, profits, and employment will fall, and capitalists will become
less important. In order to retain their ruling-class role, there needs to be a constant
crisis of production-consumption which only the capitalist masters of industry can solve.
Hence new scarcities must be produced. The major traditional methods of doing this have been
imperialism, war, waste, and consumerism (including advertising). Conceded, major processes of
environmental destruction such as climate change and the vitiating of antibiotics may lead to
powerful new self-reinforcing scarcities which will take their place next to their traditional
relatives, so that producing new scarcities would be less of a problem.
Anarcissie 07.08.16 at 2:30 am
LFC 07.08.16 at 1:30 am @ 163:
'OTOH, I don't think capitalism esp. needs war to create this kind of scarcity….'
But then one must explain why the major capitalist powers have engaged in so much of it, since
it is so dirty and risky. I suppose one possible explanation is that whoever has the power to
do so engages in it, capitalist or not; it is hardly a recent invention. However, I am mindful
of the position of the US at the end of World War 2, with 50% of the worlds total productive
capacity. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive! So war turned out to be pretty handy for some
people. And now we have lots of them.
Matt_L 07.08.16 at 3:32 am
John Quiggin, I think your definition of militarism is flawed. I think that cultural
attitudes and the social status of the military are very important as well. To paraphrase
Andrew Bacevich, Militarism is the idea that military solutions to a country's problems are
more effective than they really are. Militarism assumes that the military's way of running
things is inherently correct. A militaristic society glorifies violence and the people who
carry it out in the name of the state.
I also think that just reducing military spending or the capacity for military action is
not enough to counter serious militarism. Austria-Hungary was a very militaristic society, but
it spent the less on armaments than the other European Powers in the years leading up to 1914.
The leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy caused World War One by invading Serbia for
a crime committed by a Bosnian Serb subject of the Monarchy. They had some good guesses that
the Serbian military intelligence was involved, but not a lot of proof.
Franz Joseph and the other leaders chose to solve a foreign policy problem by placing armed
force before diplomacy and a complete criminal investigation. Their capacity to wage war
relative to the other great powers of Europe did not enter into their calculations. They
chose force first and dealt with the consequences later. So militarism can exist and flourish
on a tight budget. Its all about mentality.
stevenjohnson 07.08.16 at 9:29 pm
"Great Power warfare became a lot less common after 1815, at the same point that the most
advanced of the great powers developed capitalism."
In Europe, locus of the alleged Long Peace, there were the Greek Rebellion; the First and
Second Italian Wars of Independence; the First and Second Schleswig Wars; the Seven Weeks War;
the Crimean War; the Franco-Prussian War; the First and Second Balkan Wars. Wars between a
major capitalist state and another well established modern state included the Opium Wars; the
Mexican War; the French invasion of Mexico; the War of the Triple Alliance; the War of the
Pacific; the Spanish-American War; the Russo-Japanese War. Assaults by the allegedly peaceful
capitalist nations against non-state societies or weak traditional states are too numerous to
remember, but the death toll was enormous, on a scale matching the slaughter of the World
Wars.
Further the tensions between the Great Powers threatened war on numerous occasions, such as
conflict over the Oregon territory; the Aroostook "war;" the Trent Affair; two Moroccan
crises; the Fashoda Incident…again, these are too numerous to remember.
The notion that capitalism is peaceful is preposterous, even if you accept the bizarre
notion that only wars between the capitalist Great Powers really count as wars. It's true that
it's tacitly presumed by many, perhaps most, learned authorities. But that is an indictment of
the authorities, not a justification for the claim. The closely related claim that capitalism
is responsible for technological advancement on inspection suggests that the real story is
that technological progress enabled the European states to begin empires that funded
capitalist development.
Hidari 07.09.16 at 11:13 am
' Capitalist states tend to avoid war with their trading partners.'
This has an element of truth in it, but it can be parsed in a number of ways. For example,
'Rich, powerful countries tend to avoid war with other rich, powerful countries'. After all,
in the 2nd half of the 20th century, the US avoided going to war with Russia, despite having
clear economic interests in doing so (access to natural resources, markets) mainly because
Russia was strong (not least militarily) and the cost-benefit matrix never made sense (i.e.
from the Americans' point of view).
A much stronger case can be made that self-proclaimed Socialist states tend not to go to war
with each other. After all, there were big fallings out between the socialist (or 'socialist',
depending on your point of view) countries in the 20th century but they rarely turned to war,
and when they did (Vietnam-Cambodia, Vietnam-China) they were short term and relatively
limited in scope. The Sino-Soviet split was a split, not a war.
But again this is probably not the best way to look at it. A much stronger case can be made
that the basic reason for the non-appearance of a Chinese-Russian war was simply the size and
population of those countries. The risks outweighed any potential benefits.
Of course, between 1914 and 1945, lots of capitalist states went to war with each other.
Anarcissie 07.09.16 at 3:22 pm
Layman 07.09.16 at 2:59 pm @ 188 -
One explanation, I think already given, is that the capitalist powers were too busy with
imperial seizures in what we now call the Third World to fight one another. In the New World,
the United States and some South American states were busy annihilating the natives, speaking
of ethnic cleansing. If capitalism is a pacific influence, the behavior of the British and
American ruling classes since 1815 seems incomprehensible, right down to the present: the
plutocrat Clinton ought to be the peace candidate, not the scary war freak.
Hidari 07.09.16 at 5:44 pm
Surely (assuming that it's real) the decline in wars in some parts of the world since 1945
is because of the Pax Americana?
Most countries are too frightened to attack (at least directly) the United States. There is a
sense in which the US really is the 'Global Policeman'.
…WaPo continues that Trump is "broadly noninterventionist, questioning the need for the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and calling for Europe to play a larger role in ensuring its
security." Page, too, "has regularly criticized U.S. intervention":
In one article for Global Policy Journal, he wrote, "From U.S. policies toward Russia to Iran
to China, sanctimonious expressions of moral superiority stand at the root of many problems
seen worldwide today."
Page wrote that the war in eastern Ukraine was "precipitated by U.S. meddling in the Maidan
revolution…
And so, here we are: Trump is the lesser evil in this cycle. Vote Trump, save the world.
LFC 07.10.16 at 2:40 pm
Hidari @192
Surely (assuming that it's real) the decline in wars in some parts of the world since 1945
is because of the Pax Americana?
Started to write a long reply but decided no point. Shorter version: reasons for no
WW2-style-war in Europe from '45 to '90 are multiple; 'pax Americana' only one factor of many.
End of CW was destabilizing in various ways (e.g., wars in ex-Yugoslavia) but so far not
enough to reverse the overall trend in Europe. Decline in destructiveness of conflict in some
(not all) other parts of the world has to do in large part w change in nature/type of conflict
(sustained interstate wars have traditionally been the most destructive and they don't happen
much or at all anymore, for reasons that are somewhat debatable, but, again, pax Americana wd
be only one of multiple reasons, if that).
LFC 07.10.16 at 2:54 pm
Re Carter Page (see Ze K @194)
Page refused [speaking in Moscow] refused to comment specifically on the U.S. presidential
election, his relationship with Trump or U.S. sanctions against Russia, saying he was in
Russia as a "private citizen." He gave a lecture, titled "The Evolution of the World Economy:
Trends and Potential," in which he noted that Russia and China had achieved success in
Central Asia, unlike the United States, by pursuing a respectful [sic] foreign policy based on
mutual interest.
He generally avoided questions on U.S. foreign policy, but when one attendee asked him
whether he really believed the United States was a "liberal, democratic society," Page told
him to "read between the lines."
"If I'm understanding the direction you're coming from, I tend to agree with you that it's
not always as liberal as it may seem," he said. "I'm with you."
In a meeting with The Washington Post editorial board in March, Trump named Page, a former
Merrill Lynch executive in Moscow who later advised the Russian state energy giant Gazprom on
major oil and gas deals, as one of his foreign policy advisers. Page refused to say whether
his Moscow trip included a meeting with Russian officials. He is scheduled to deliver a
graduation address Friday at the New Economic School, a speech that some officials are
expected to attend.
Above quote is from the Stars & Stripes piece, evidently republished from WaPo, linked at the
'Washington's Blog' that Ze K linked to.
If you want to put for. policy in the hands of the likes of Carter Page (former Merrill Lynch
exec., Gazprom adviser), vote Trump all right.
HRC's for. policy advisers may not be great, but I don't think this guy Page is better. He
does have connections to the Russian govt as a past consultant, apparently, which is no doubt
why Ze K is so high on him.
Ze K 07.10.16 at 3:16 pm
You bet this guy Page is better. Anyone is better.
And why would I care at all (let alone "no doubt") if he was a Gazprom consultant? What the
fuck was that supposed to mean? Asshole much?
LFC 07.10.16 at 5:25 pm
And why would I care at all (let alone "no doubt") if he was a Gazprom consultant?
B.c Gazprom is a Russian state-owned company and a fair inference from your many comments on
this blog (not just this thread but others) is that you are, in general, favorably disposed to
the present Russian govt. and its activities. Not Gazprom in particular necessarily, but the
govt in general. You make all these comments and then get upset when they are read to say what
they say.
You consistently attack HRC as a war-monger, as corrupt etc. You consistently say anyone wd
be better. "Vote Trump save the world." You said there was no Poland in existence in '39 when
the USSR invaded it. Your comments and exchanges in this thread are here for anyone to read,
so I don't have to continue.
Ze K 07.10.16 at 5:44 pm
"You make all these comments and then get upset when they are read to say what they
say. "
You're right; come to think of it, you've been into slimeball-style slur for a while now,
and I should've gotten used to it already, and just ignored you. Fine, carry on.
Anarcissie 07.11.16 at 2:19 am
@Hidari 07.10.16 at 2:57 pm @ 197 -
Although the term 'global policeman' (or 'cops of the world') is mostly used ironically
(in my experience), 'policeman' does have a straight meaning, denoting a person who operates
under the authority of law, whereas the supreme Mafia capo is a law and authority unto
himself, at least until someone assassinates him. I think this second metaphor more closely
approximates the position and behavior of the present United States.
"... The truth is that the pretext for military intervention was almost as thin in Yugoslavia as it was in Libya. ..."
"... SANCTIONS HAVE been the favorite smart weapon of both Clintons. Iraq was the target country for Bill in the 1990s, as Iran would be for Hillary starting in 2009. The point of sanctions is to inflict pain, in response to which (it is hoped) the people will blame their government. The point is therefore also to create the conditions for regime change. Neither of the Clintons seems to have absorbed a central lesson of the Amnesty International Report on Cuba in 1975–76: that the "persistence of fear, real or imagined, of counterrevolutionary conspiracies" bore the primary responsibility for "the early [Cuban] excesses in the treatment of political prisoners"; and that "the removal of that fear has been largely responsible for the improvements in conditions." Both Clintons have felt pressed to perform supererogatory works to show that liberals can be tough. For Mrs. Clinton, there is the additional need-from self-demand as much as external pressure-to prove that a female leader can be tougher than her male counterpart. ..."
"... Those sentences are notable for a historical omission and a non sequitur. The NATO expansion that began under George H. W. Bush, was enhanced in the presidency of Bill Clinton and continued under George W. Bush and Obama, was not a widely appreciated moderate policy, as Mrs. Clinton implies. The policy was subject to skeptical challenge from the first, and one of its sharpest critics was George F. Kennan. (He described it, coincidentally, as "a tragic mistake.") Leaving aside the abridgment of history, there is a disturbing logical jump in Clinton's dismissal of the challenge regarding NATO. The gratitude expressed by newly admitted member states does nothing at all to "refute" the fact that Vladimir Putin, along with many Western diplomats, thought the post–Cold War expansion of a Cold War entity was a hostile policy directed provocatively against Russia in its own backyard. ..."
"... Her sentences about NATO could have been written by Tony Blair; and this explains why at least three neoconservatives-Eliot A. Cohen, Max Boot and Robert Kagan, in ascending order of enthusiasm-have indicated that a Clinton presidency would be agreeable to them. She is a reliable option for them. ..."
"... Her comparison of Putin to Hitler in March 2014 and her likening of Crimean Russians to Sudeten Germans were reminiscent, too, of the specter of Munich evoked by an earlier secretary of state, Dean Rusk, to defend the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965-the kind of tragic mistake that Hillary Clinton seems prepared to repeat for the most laudable of humanitarian reasons. ..."
An incorrigible belief in the purity of one's motives is among the most dangerous endowments a
politician can possess.
... ... ...
Clinton gave two pages to the war in her memoir Living History. She sympathized there with the burden of responsibility borne by
President Johnson for "a war he'd inherited," which turned out to be "a tragic mistake." Johnson
is her focus: the man of power who rode a tiger he could not dismount. On a second reading, "mistake"
may seem too light a word to characterize a war that destroyed an agrarian culture forever and killed
between one and three million Vietnamese. "Mistake" is also the word that Hillary Clinton has favored
in answering questions about her vote for the Iraq War.
Like every Democrat who has run for
president since 1960, Clinton sometimes talks as if she wished foreign policy would go away. A president's
most important responsibility, she agrees, is to strengthen the bonds of neighborhood and community
at home, to assure a decent livelihood for working Americans and an efficient system of benefits
for all. Yet her four years as secretary of state-chronicled in a second volume of memoirs,
Hard Choices-have licensed her
to speak with the authority of a veteran in the world of nations. War and diplomacy, as that book
aimed to show, have become an invaluable adjunct to her skill set. Clinton would want us to count
as well a third tool besides war and diplomacy. She calls it (after a coinage by Joseph Nye) "smart
power." Smart power, for her, denotes a kind of pressure that may augment the force of arms and the
persuasive work of diplomacy. It draws on the network of civil society, NGOs, projects for democracy
promotion and managed operations of social media, by which the United States over the past quarter
of a century has sought to weaken the authority of designated enemies and to increase leverage on
presumptive or potential friends. Smart power is supposed to widen the prospects of liberal society
and assist the spread of human rights. Yet the term itself creates a puzzle. Hillary Clinton's
successful advocacy of violent regime change in Libya and her continuing call to support armed insurgents
against the Assad government in Syria have been arguments for war, but arguments that claim a special
exemption. For these wars-both the one we led and the one we should have led-were "humanitarian wars."
This last phrase Clinton has avoided using, just as she has avoided explaining her commitment to
the internationalist program known as "Responsibility to Protect," with its broad definition of genocide
and multiple triggers for legitimate intervention. Instead, in a Democratic primary debate in October
2015, she chose to characterize the Libya war as "smart power at its best."
The NATO action to overthrow Muammar el-Qaddafi, in which Clinton played so decisive a role,
has turned out to be a catastrophe with strong resemblances to Iraq-a catastrophe smaller in degree
but hardly less consequential in its ramifications, from North Africa to the Middle East to southern
Europe. The casus belli was the hyperbolic threat by Qaddafi to annihilate a rebel force in Benghazi.
His vow to hunt down the rebels "like rats" door to door could be taken to mean a collective punishment
of inhabitants of the city, but Qaddafi had marched from the west to the east of Libya, in command
of an overwhelming force, without the occurrence of any such massacre, and the Pentagon and U.S.
intelligence assigned low credibility to the threat. Clinton took more seriously an alarmist reading
of Qaddafi by Bernard-Henri Lévy, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Susan Rice and Samantha Power,
and chose to interpret his threat as a harbinger of "genocide."
Landler, in his book Alter Egos on the Clinton-Obama relationship, joins the consensus
that has lately emerged from the reporting of Patrick Cockburn, Anne Barnard and other journalists
on the ground. "Libya," Landler writes, "has descended into a state of Mad Max–like anarchy";
the country is now "a seedbed for militancy that has spread west and south across Africa"; it "has
become the most important Islamic State stronghold outside Syria and Iraq"; "it sends waves of desperate
migrants across the Mediterranean, where they drown in capsized vessels within sight of Europe."
Clinton's most recent comments, however, leave no doubt that she continues to believe in the healing
virtue of smart power. The belief appears to be genuine and not tactical.
FOLLOW HER definition a little further and a host of perplexities arise. Cyber war could presumably
be justified as a use of smart power, on the Clinton model, since it damages the offensive capabilities
of a hostile power in an apparently bloodless way. Shall we therefore conclude that the deployment
of the Stuxnet worm against Iran's nuclear program was an achievement of smart power? Or consider
a related use that would disrupt the flow of water or electricity in a city of three million persons
controlled by a government hostile to the United States-an action aimed at stirring discontents to
spur an insurrection. Could that be called smart power? We approach a region in which terminological
ingenuity may skirt the edge of sophistry; yet this is the rhetorical limbo in which a good deal
of U.S. policy is conceived and executed.
Clinton also plainly has in view the civil associations that we subsidize abroad, and the democracy-promotion
groups, funded indirectly through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and
other organizations. The nonviolent protests that turned bloody in Tahrir Square in Cairo, and in
the Maidan in Kiev, received indications of American support by means both avowed and unavowed-a
fact acknowledged by Victoria Nuland (assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs)
when in December 2013 she said that more than $5 billion had been spent on democracy promotion in
Ukraine since 1992. If the story of the Syrian Civil War is ever fully told, we are likely to discover
that the early "liberal" or "moderate" rebels were encouraged in their misreading of U.S. intentions
through social-media messaging approved by forces within the U.S. government.
In Ideal Illusions-a study
of the history of NGOs, the international culture of rights and U.S. foreign policy-James Peck noticed
how the responsibilities of the caretakers of human rights had expanded after the 1970s "from prisoners
of conscience to the rights of noncombatants to democratization to humanitarian intervention." It
is the last of these elements that completes the R2P package; and Hillary Clinton is among its warmest
partisans. The Western powers have a moral obligation to intervene, she believes, especially when
that means guarding the rights of women and assuring the welfare of the neediest children. Her mistakes
in the cause have been not tragic like President Johnson's in Vietnam but, as she sees them, small,
incidental and already too harshly judged. One ought to err on the side of action, of intervention.
And military intervention in this regard bears a likeness to the "community intervention" that may
save the life of a child in an abusive family.
The bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 were, among other things, an experiment to
prove the neoconservative strategy of "force projection." The experiment did not work out as planned.
By contrast, the test for liberal interventionists was Kosovo, and popular memory has abetted the
legend that Kosovo was a success. Thus Anne-Marie Slaughter was able to
write in a tweet
regarding the Munich Security Conference of February 2014: "Contrast b/w Serb-Kosovo panel this morning
& ME panel now at #msc50 so striking; in Balkans US was willing to ACT w/ diplomacy AND force." Recall
that, in order to create the nation of Kosovo, NATO acted against the nation of Yugoslavia with smart
power whose leading articulation was seventy-seven days of bombing. The satisfied pronouncements
on Kosovo and Libya that emanate from liberal interventionists show a striking continuity. As a director
of policy planning in Clinton's State Department, Slaughter had written to her boss three days after
the start of the NATO bombing of Libya: "I have NEVER been prouder of having worked for you."
The truth is that the pretext for military intervention was almost as thin in Yugoslavia as
it was in Libya. There, too, genocide was said to be in progress-the slaughter of tens of thousands
of ethnic Albanians-but the reports were chimerical. In
First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and
the Destruction of Yugoslavia, David Gibbs concluded that approximately two thousand
had been killed before the NATO bombing; whereas, during the bombing itself and in retaliation for
it, Serbian security forces killed approximately ten thousand. Given the status of the episode in
liberal mythology, the treatment of Kosovo in Living History is oddly minimal: less than a
paragraph, all told, scattered over several chapters. Living History was published in 2003;
and it seems possible that Clinton had an inkling of the mob violence that would break out in March
2004 in the nationwide pogrom against the Serbs of Kosovo-violence that would lead in early 2016
to the construction of tent cities in the capital, Pristina, and the firing of tear gas canisters
in parliament to protest the abridgment of the political rights of the remaining ethnic minority.
The aftermath of the Kosovo intervention has recently entered a new chapter. "How
Kosovo Was Turned Into Fertile Ground for ISIS" was the astute headline of a New York Times
story by Carlotta Gall, on May 21, 2016. Gall's opening sentence offers a symptomatic tableau:
"Every Friday, just yards from a statue of Bill Clinton with arm aloft in a cheery wave, hundreds
of young bearded men make a show of kneeling to pray on the sidewalk outside an impoverished mosque
in a former furniture store."
SANCTIONS HAVE been the favorite smart weapon of both Clintons. Iraq was the target country
for Bill in the 1990s, as Iran would be for Hillary starting in 2009. The point of sanctions is to
inflict pain, in response to which (it is hoped) the people will blame their government. The point
is therefore also to create the conditions for regime change. Neither of the Clintons seems to have
absorbed a central lesson of the Amnesty International Report on Cuba in 1975–76: that the "persistence
of fear, real or imagined, of counterrevolutionary conspiracies" bore the primary responsibility
for "the early [Cuban] excesses in the treatment of political prisoners"; and that "the removal of
that fear has been largely responsible for the improvements in conditions." Both Clintons have felt
pressed to perform supererogatory works to show that liberals can be tough. For Mrs. Clinton, there
is the additional need-from self-demand as much as external pressure-to prove that a female leader
can be tougher than her male counterpart.
Landler's account suggests that neither the Iran nuclear deal nor the restoration of diplomatic
relations with Cuba would have been likely to occur in a Hillary Clinton presidency. When President
Obama
announced the thaw with Cuba in December 2014, he said that the United States "wants to be a
partner in making the lives of ordinary Cubans a little bit easier, more free, more prosperous."
Clinton, by contrast, warned that the Cuban regime should not mistake the gesture for a relaxation
of hostility; and
on a visit to Miami in July 2015, she threw in a characteristic warning and proviso: "Engagement
is not a gift to the Castros. It's a threat to the Castros." She thereby subverted the meaning of
Obama's policy while ostensibly supporting the measure itself.
"Superpowers
Don't Get to Retire" was the title and message of a New Republic essay by Robert Kagan,
published in May 2014, about the time it became clear that President Obama would not be confronting
Russia over its annexation of Crimea and would disappoint the neoconservative appetite for regime
change in Syria. Writing in Hard Choices of the eastward expansion of NATO, Clinton concurred:
"In the wake of Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in early 2014, some have argued that
NATO expansion either caused or exacerbated Russia's aggression. I disagree with that argument,
but the most convincing voices refuting it are those European leaders and people who express their
gratitude for NATO membership."
Those sentences are notable for a historical omission and a non sequitur. The NATO expansion
that began under George H. W. Bush, was enhanced in the presidency of Bill Clinton and continued
under George W. Bush and Obama, was not a widely appreciated moderate policy, as Mrs. Clinton implies.
The policy was subject to skeptical challenge from the first, and one of its sharpest critics was
George F. Kennan. (He described it, coincidentally, as "a tragic mistake.") Leaving aside the abridgment
of history, there is a disturbing logical jump in Clinton's dismissal of the challenge regarding
NATO. The gratitude expressed by newly admitted member states does nothing at all to "refute" the
fact that Vladimir Putin, along with many Western diplomats, thought the post–Cold War expansion
of a Cold War entity was a hostile policy directed provocatively against Russia in its own backyard.
It would do no harm to her persuasiveness if Clinton admitted a degree of truth in the case made
by her opponents, whether on the Libya war, the advisability of repeating that experiment in Syria,
or the innocent design of propagating democracy that drove the expansion of NATO. An incorrigible
belief in the purity of one's motives is among the most dangerous endowments a politician can possess.
Her sentences about NATO could have been written by Tony Blair; and this explains why at least
three neoconservatives-Eliot A. Cohen, Max Boot and Robert Kagan, in ascending order of enthusiasm-have
indicated that a Clinton presidency would be agreeable to them. She is a reliable option for them.
Her comparison of Putin to Hitler in March 2014 and her likening of Crimean Russians to Sudeten
Germans were reminiscent, too, of the specter of Munich evoked by an earlier secretary of state,
Dean Rusk, to defend the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965-the kind of tragic mistake that Hillary
Clinton seems prepared to repeat for the most laudable of humanitarian reasons.
"... The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life. As the old joke goes, the answer to the question, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is, "Anywhere he likes." As long as the organs of "national security" continue to retain the extraordinary power to appropriate budgetary resources and to involve the United States in foreign conflicts without real accountability, US politics will be grotesquely distorted to the profound disadvantage of the movement for fundamental change. The Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Agency will continue to control most of the $1.1 trillion federal discretionary spending budget, crowding out programs that would benefit people. And beyond wielding that obvious financial power, by maintaining the premise that the United States must continue to make war indefinitely, they will also wield an ideological weapon that helps the economic elite maintain the status quo. ..."
"... For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016." ..."
"... But that fundamental obstacle to change was not even mentioned by any of the speakers who introduced the main themes of the conference on the first night. On the second day, US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) strongly denounced moves by powerful interests for a new war for regime change in Syria, but she did not address the underlying system of institutional interests and power that keeps the United States at permanent war. There was one breakout session entitled "Healthcare Not Warfare," which highlighted what people already know -- that spending for war and preparation for war robs the people of resources needed to build a more prosperous and equitable society. But it was evidently an afterthought for conference organizers, and did not interest many of the attendees, drawing perhaps 30 people. ..."
"... The Sanders campaign never explicitly raised the issue of the permanent war state during the primary election contest, either. He did present a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton when they debated foreign policy, effectively demolishing her position urging a more militarily aggressive policy in Syria. He called for a policy that "destroys ISIS" but "does not get us involved in perpetual warfare in the quagmire of the Middle East."But he never talked about ending the unprecedented power that national security institutions have seized over the resources and security of the American people. ..."
"... The power of the military-industrial-congressional complex that has morphed into a permanent war state has long been the real "third rail" in US politics, which anyone aspiring to national office touches only at the risk of being branded "anti-American." News media coverage constantly reinforces the idea that US global military presence and aggressiveness are legitimate responses to foreign threats. So, for politicians, explaining why the power of that combination of institutions is a danger not only to people's economic interests, but also to their physical security is seen as extremely difficult and fraught with political risk. Sanders, who had no problem opposing specific wars, undoubtedly feared that an effort to deal with the interests and power behind the wars that most Americans oppose would force him to respond to attacks from the Clinton camp and the corporate media, and thus interfere with his populist message. ..."
"... Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare ..."
The People's Summit in Chicago June 17-19 dramatically displayed both the strengths and the vulnerabilities
of what has emerged in 2016 as one of the most potentially powerful movements for fundamental change
in the United States in many decades. The event, which brought together 3,000 committed movement
activists to rally in support of the "political revolution" given impetus by Bernie Sanders' campaign,
was an opportunity to ensure that the movement will not dissipate in the wake of Hillary Clinton's
clinching the Democratic nomination.
The leaders of the movement sought to use the summit to reconcile conflicting activist views on
the relationship between movement organizations and electoral politics. The summit may have succeeded
in keeping the coalition of those who privilege electoral politics and those who see it as a distraction
from their local struggles from splitting up. But despite the political sophistication and pragmatism
of the organizers, the gathering failed to deal seriously with the problem of the "permanent war
state" -- the central power bloc in the US government that looms menacingly over everything the movement
hopes to accomplish.
The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life. As the
old joke goes, the answer to the question, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is, "Anywhere he
likes." As long as the organs of "national security" continue to retain the extraordinary power to
appropriate budgetary resources and to involve the United States in foreign conflicts without real
accountability, US politics will be grotesquely distorted to the profound disadvantage of the movement
for fundamental change. The Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Agency will continue to control
most of the $1.1 trillion federal discretionary spending budget, crowding out programs that would
benefit people. And beyond wielding that obvious financial power, by maintaining the premise that
the United States must continue to make war indefinitely, they will also wield an ideological weapon
that helps the economic elite maintain the status quo.
But that fundamental obstacle to change was not even mentioned by any of the speakers who
introduced the main themes of the conference on the first night. On the second day, US Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard (D-Hawaii) strongly denounced moves by powerful interests for a new war for regime change
in Syria, but she did not address the underlying system of institutional interests and power that
keeps the United States at permanent war. There was one breakout session entitled "Healthcare Not
Warfare," which highlighted what people already know -- that spending for war and preparation for
war robs the people of resources needed to build a more prosperous and equitable society. But it
was evidently an afterthought for conference organizers, and did not interest many of the attendees,
drawing perhaps 30 people.
The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life.
The Sanders campaign never explicitly raised the issue of the permanent war state during the
primary election contest, either. He did present a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton when they debated
foreign policy, effectively demolishing her position urging a more militarily aggressive policy in
Syria. He called for a policy that "destroys ISIS" but "does not get us involved in perpetual warfare
in the quagmire of the Middle East."But he never talked about ending the unprecedented power that
national security institutions have seized over the resources and security of the American people.
It is not difficult to see why Sanders did not take on that larger issue. The power of the
military-industrial-congressional complex that has morphed into a permanent war state has long been
the real "third rail" in US politics, which anyone aspiring to national office touches only at the
risk of being branded "anti-American." News media coverage constantly reinforces the idea that US
global military presence and aggressiveness are legitimate responses to foreign threats. So, for
politicians, explaining why the power of that combination of institutions is a danger not only to
people's economic interests, but also to their physical security is seen as extremely difficult and
fraught with political risk. Sanders, who had no problem opposing specific wars, undoubtedly feared
that an effort to deal with the interests and power behind the wars that most Americans oppose would
force him to respond to attacks from the Clinton camp and the corporate media, and thus interfere
with his populist message.
The permanent war state also appears to be outside the political comfort zone of National Nurses
United, the single most influential organization in planning and funding the People's Summit. As
a senior official of National Nurses United explained, the organization is able to talk about corporate
control of the health care system because nurses constantly see the consequences in their own work,
but most have no such personal experiences enabling them to talk about the war system.
But despite these understandable reasons for taking a pass on the issue, the leadership of the
movement inspired by the Sanders campaign is making a big mistake by failing to take on the problem
of the permanent war state. The popular organizations represented in Chicago understand this, but
they have hesitated to go up against the most powerful combination bureaucratic interests the world
has ever known, in part because they have not had any clear idea about how those interests could
be defeated. What has been not been tried, however, is a strategy that attacks the war system where
it is most vulnerable -- the fact that the war system bureaucrats have systematically pursued their
own personal and institutional interests at the expense of the American people.
The publicly available records of US intervention and war, especially since the beginning of the
Cold War, reveal an endless succession of policies and programs that were utterly useless and provoked
reactions from states and from non-state actors that threatened the safety of the American people.
But the policy makers preferred those policies, because they gave them and their organizations more
power, more budgetary resources, more people under their command, more new technology, more foreign
bases and perquisites, and more lucrative jobs and contracts when they leave the government for private
companies.
All the services were looking for a boost in military appropriations when they pushed Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to intervene militarily in Vietnam. The US Air Force sold its
"shock and awe" strategy for regime change in Iraq to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in
order to capture a larger share of the military budget. The CIA got control over a major new mission
when it convinced President George W. Bush to launch a drone war in Pakistan.
But the American people suffered the direct and indirect consequences of these wars in each case.
The fundamental conflict between the national interest and the personal and bureaucratic interests
of the policy makers of the permanent war state explains why the system has continued to produce
uniformly disastrous policies decade after decade.
So the strategy of the movement that the Sanders campaign has mobilized must include a broadly
concerted campaign that explains to young people, disaffected working-class people and others how
the permanent war state produces winners and losers. The winners are the national security organs
themselves, as well as those who make careers and fortunes from the permanent state of war. The losers
are those who must suffer the socioeconomic and other consequences of such reckless policies. Such
a campaign should aim at nothing less than taking away the flow of money and the legal authority
that the permanent war state has seized on the pretext of "threats" that are largely of its own making.
Even though the permanent war state seems to be at the peak of its power, like all essentially
hollow institutions, it has a serious political vulnerability. Millions of Americans know that the
wars the war-state agencies have wrought over the past half century -- from the Vietnam War to the
war in Afghanistan -- were worse than useless. So the legitimacy of the permanent war state is extremely
tenuous. A determined campaign to challenge that legitimacy, carried out with sufficient resources
over a few years with the participation of a broad coalition, could shake it to its roots. Such a
campaign must be included in the work to open up new political spaces and propel the movement for
change. Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission
.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian writing on US national
security policy. His latest book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear
Scare , was published in February of 2014. Follow him on Twitter:
@GarethPorter .
"... The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life. As the old joke goes, the answer to the question, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is, "Anywhere he likes." As long as the organs of "national security" continue to retain the extraordinary power to appropriate budgetary resources and to involve the United States in foreign conflicts without real accountability, US politics will be grotesquely distorted to the profound disadvantage of the movement for fundamental change. The Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Agency will continue to control most of the $1.1 trillion federal discretionary spending budget, crowding out programs that would benefit people. And beyond wielding that obvious financial power, by maintaining the premise that the United States must continue to make war indefinitely, they will also wield an ideological weapon that helps the economic elite maintain the status quo. ..."
"... For more original Truthout election coverage, check out our election section, "Beyond the Sound Bites: Election 2016." ..."
"... But that fundamental obstacle to change was not even mentioned by any of the speakers who introduced the main themes of the conference on the first night. On the second day, US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) strongly denounced moves by powerful interests for a new war for regime change in Syria, but she did not address the underlying system of institutional interests and power that keeps the United States at permanent war. There was one breakout session entitled "Healthcare Not Warfare," which highlighted what people already know -- that spending for war and preparation for war robs the people of resources needed to build a more prosperous and equitable society. But it was evidently an afterthought for conference organizers, and did not interest many of the attendees, drawing perhaps 30 people. ..."
"... The Sanders campaign never explicitly raised the issue of the permanent war state during the primary election contest, either. He did present a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton when they debated foreign policy, effectively demolishing her position urging a more militarily aggressive policy in Syria. He called for a policy that "destroys ISIS" but "does not get us involved in perpetual warfare in the quagmire of the Middle East."But he never talked about ending the unprecedented power that national security institutions have seized over the resources and security of the American people. ..."
"... The power of the military-industrial-congressional complex that has morphed into a permanent war state has long been the real "third rail" in US politics, which anyone aspiring to national office touches only at the risk of being branded "anti-American." News media coverage constantly reinforces the idea that US global military presence and aggressiveness are legitimate responses to foreign threats. So, for politicians, explaining why the power of that combination of institutions is a danger not only to people's economic interests, but also to their physical security is seen as extremely difficult and fraught with political risk. Sanders, who had no problem opposing specific wars, undoubtedly feared that an effort to deal with the interests and power behind the wars that most Americans oppose would force him to respond to attacks from the Clinton camp and the corporate media, and thus interfere with his populist message. ..."
"... Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare ..."
The People's Summit in Chicago June 17-19 dramatically displayed both the strengths and the vulnerabilities
of what has emerged in 2016 as one of the most potentially powerful movements for fundamental change
in the United States in many decades. The event, which brought together 3,000 committed movement
activists to rally in support of the "political revolution" given impetus by Bernie Sanders' campaign,
was an opportunity to ensure that the movement will not dissipate in the wake of Hillary Clinton's
clinching the Democratic nomination.
The leaders of the movement sought to use the summit to reconcile conflicting activist views on
the relationship between movement organizations and electoral politics. The summit may have succeeded
in keeping the coalition of those who privilege electoral politics and those who see it as a distraction
from their local struggles from splitting up. But despite the political sophistication and pragmatism
of the organizers, the gathering failed to deal seriously with the problem of the "permanent war
state" -- the central power bloc in the US government that looms menacingly over everything the movement
hopes to accomplish.
The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life. As the
old joke goes, the answer to the question, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is, "Anywhere he
likes." As long as the organs of "national security" continue to retain the extraordinary power to
appropriate budgetary resources and to involve the United States in foreign conflicts without real
accountability, US politics will be grotesquely distorted to the profound disadvantage of the movement
for fundamental change. The Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Agency will continue to control
most of the $1.1 trillion federal discretionary spending budget, crowding out programs that would
benefit people. And beyond wielding that obvious financial power, by maintaining the premise that
the United States must continue to make war indefinitely, they will also wield an ideological weapon
that helps the economic elite maintain the status quo.
But that fundamental obstacle to change was not even mentioned by any of the speakers who
introduced the main themes of the conference on the first night. On the second day, US Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard (D-Hawaii) strongly denounced moves by powerful interests for a new war for regime change
in Syria, but she did not address the underlying system of institutional interests and power that
keeps the United States at permanent war. There was one breakout session entitled "Healthcare Not
Warfare," which highlighted what people already know -- that spending for war and preparation for
war robs the people of resources needed to build a more prosperous and equitable society. But it
was evidently an afterthought for conference organizers, and did not interest many of the attendees,
drawing perhaps 30 people.
The permanent war state is the 800-pound gorilla in US society and political life.
The Sanders campaign never explicitly raised the issue of the permanent war state during the
primary election contest, either. He did present a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton when they debated
foreign policy, effectively demolishing her position urging a more militarily aggressive policy in
Syria. He called for a policy that "destroys ISIS" but "does not get us involved in perpetual warfare
in the quagmire of the Middle East."But he never talked about ending the unprecedented power that
national security institutions have seized over the resources and security of the American people.
It is not difficult to see why Sanders did not take on that larger issue. The power of the
military-industrial-congressional complex that has morphed into a permanent war state has long been
the real "third rail" in US politics, which anyone aspiring to national office touches only at the
risk of being branded "anti-American." News media coverage constantly reinforces the idea that US
global military presence and aggressiveness are legitimate responses to foreign threats. So, for
politicians, explaining why the power of that combination of institutions is a danger not only to
people's economic interests, but also to their physical security is seen as extremely difficult and
fraught with political risk. Sanders, who had no problem opposing specific wars, undoubtedly feared
that an effort to deal with the interests and power behind the wars that most Americans oppose would
force him to respond to attacks from the Clinton camp and the corporate media, and thus interfere
with his populist message.
The permanent war state also appears to be outside the political comfort zone of National Nurses
United, the single most influential organization in planning and funding the People's Summit. As
a senior official of National Nurses United explained, the organization is able to talk about corporate
control of the health care system because nurses constantly see the consequences in their own work,
but most have no such personal experiences enabling them to talk about the war system.
But despite these understandable reasons for taking a pass on the issue, the leadership of the
movement inspired by the Sanders campaign is making a big mistake by failing to take on the problem
of the permanent war state. The popular organizations represented in Chicago understand this, but
they have hesitated to go up against the most powerful combination bureaucratic interests the world
has ever known, in part because they have not had any clear idea about how those interests could
be defeated. What has been not been tried, however, is a strategy that attacks the war system where
it is most vulnerable -- the fact that the war system bureaucrats have systematically pursued their
own personal and institutional interests at the expense of the American people.
The publicly available records of US intervention and war, especially since the beginning of the
Cold War, reveal an endless succession of policies and programs that were utterly useless and provoked
reactions from states and from non-state actors that threatened the safety of the American people.
But the policy makers preferred those policies, because they gave them and their organizations more
power, more budgetary resources, more people under their command, more new technology, more foreign
bases and perquisites, and more lucrative jobs and contracts when they leave the government for private
companies.
All the services were looking for a boost in military appropriations when they pushed Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to intervene militarily in Vietnam. The US Air Force sold its
"shock and awe" strategy for regime change in Iraq to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in
order to capture a larger share of the military budget. The CIA got control over a major new mission
when it convinced President George W. Bush to launch a drone war in Pakistan.
But the American people suffered the direct and indirect consequences of these wars in each case.
The fundamental conflict between the national interest and the personal and bureaucratic interests
of the policy makers of the permanent war state explains why the system has continued to produce
uniformly disastrous policies decade after decade.
So the strategy of the movement that the Sanders campaign has mobilized must include a broadly
concerted campaign that explains to young people, disaffected working-class people and others how
the permanent war state produces winners and losers. The winners are the national security organs
themselves, as well as those who make careers and fortunes from the permanent state of war. The losers
are those who must suffer the socioeconomic and other consequences of such reckless policies. Such
a campaign should aim at nothing less than taking away the flow of money and the legal authority
that the permanent war state has seized on the pretext of "threats" that are largely of its own making.
Even though the permanent war state seems to be at the peak of its power, like all essentially
hollow institutions, it has a serious political vulnerability. Millions of Americans know that the
wars the war-state agencies have wrought over the past half century -- from the Vietnam War to the
war in Afghanistan -- were worse than useless. So the legitimacy of the permanent war state is extremely
tenuous. A determined campaign to challenge that legitimacy, carried out with sufficient resources
over a few years with the participation of a broad coalition, could shake it to its roots. Such a
campaign must be included in the work to open up new political spaces and propel the movement for
change. Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission
.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian writing on US national
security policy. His latest book, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear
Scare , was published in February of 2014. Follow him on Twitter:
@GarethPorter .
You know the American Revolution was not in any way I can see equivalent to machinations
with the EU. Plenty is written belowon the history, and the fourth with all the fireworks
is approaching.
The idea that the colonies revolted to avoid immigration is nothing short of absurd. To
this day one of the largest ethnic groups are Germans descended from mercenary solders who
stayed and farmed on what they saw as widely available farmland.
The Brexit motivations have quite a lot in common with those that drove US independence.
The most important thing for Americans to realize, when trying to understand the EU/UK
relationship is that the citizens of the UK never gave the functionaries permission to make
the citizens subject to law made overseas. The entire EU is built on a very shaky platform
that has no democratic underpinnings.
Another lesson to take from the UK-US relationship supports the view that the UK-EU
economic relationship has a future.
American independence did not sever economic ties
between the two countries, at least after 1815, when the second US-UK war (the war of 1812)
was concluded.
For example, the Louisiana Purchase, which added more than half of what is now the
contiguous US west of the Mississippi, was financed by London banks. The US bought the land
from Napoleon, who was trying to finance his wars against Britain and others, and British
bankers must have concluded that the US was going to get the money someone (it was the
property deal of the century), so it might as well be them.
Throughout the 19th century, much of the investment that turned the US into the world's
largest economy came from London financial markets. The cowboy period of the Old West was
about rounding up herds of feral cattle that roamed the Western plains. Great Britain was a
primary market for that cattle (canned meat), and British financing was key. So when you
see Hollywood cowboy movies, remember that those roundups were often financed by British
firms. Britain was a dominant source of finance in the US throughout the 19th century. Wall
Street didn't catch up to the City of London as a financial center until World War I.
Just as the American revolution did not end the economic relationship between the US and
the UK, there is no reason to believe Brexit will end the economic relationship between the
UK and Europe. Economic ties rarely stay broken.
At the time of the US revolution Britain was a great colonial/pirate power controlling
India where they took great wealth off the backs of the locals. Same for what became
America where the British took wealth away from the natives and taxed the colonies to pay
for their wars of choice. Now manufacturing has been off-shored to "Third World" cheap
labor/slave places. In the empty areas of both the UK and US there is little ability to
live beyond a backyard garden and small amounts of money for old people. Youth are ignored.
Brexit was a beginning of the end for the West. The rest of the world will try to rise in
what may be a dark time in history. The West needs to return to some respect for humanity
and not giving total power to the 1%.
What arrant nonsense. The Declaration of Independence specifically enumerates the
reasons for leaving the empire and none of those reasons is xenophobia. For the
benefit of the great Guardian uneducated, i share the exact text with you here:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny
over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Part II
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public
good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of
people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the
Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and
distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing
them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness
of his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the
People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all
the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of
Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and
the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to
harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of
pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they
should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to
render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule
into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging
War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the
lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the
works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty &
Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of
a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms
against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to
fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on
the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of
warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble
terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
of a free people.
The EU has lost respect by failing to address high unemployment and has only itself to
blame for continual losses when real people vote. Germany's unilateral decision to allow
for unfettered immigration made things worse. The British exit has nothing to do with the
American Revolutionary War. Likewise, Donald Trump has nothing to do with it as well.
Trump's negative poll numbers reflect that he is not going to be the next President of the
United States despite running against a relatively weak Hillary Clinton.
I think Cameron
has been lame as the British PM. He should have insisted on all four regions having to vote
yes to the British exit. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted no. So this vote has created
divisions that may lead to the breakup of the UK.
"Those in the UK who voted to leave the EU may think they've won a small victory in
tightening Britain's borders, but if America's history is a model, there's little that can
actually be done to slow immigration."
That is absolutely not true! But the will to stem
the tide of unlimited immigration has to be accepted by politicians of both parties. The
borders can be enforced if there is the political will to do so.
Americans have shown repeatedly that they accept immigrants who come here lawfully. We
are a nation of LAWS, not of lawbreakers! Granted, there are issues with the new comers in
every generation (see the treatment of the Irish in the early 1900's), but after those
waves of immigration, they gradually assimilated into American culture.
The biggest issue of the current wave of immigration is there has been no pause since
1965. Wave after wave of immigrants from all over the world without a pause for
assimilation is a recipe for disaster, as shown by the rise in strong Anti-American
sentiments within the borders of the US, from not only majority Hispanic communities, but
also Syrian, Somali, Iraqi, and other countries around the world.
Once upon a time, immigrants came to the US to be part of a greater nation. Today,
immigrants come to the US, but want to recreate the country they left behind within the
borders of the US.
The term Great Britain originated as a means of differentiating it from Brittany, La Petite
Bretagne v La Grande Bretagne. Both Britain and Brittany are "Bretagne", in French. The
term has nothing to do with greatness per se.
The political spiel at the end of the article only highlights the rhetorical mendacity
permeating the article.
Couching the American Revolution in terms of racism or religion is dishonest. While
there may have been elements of religious bias from person to person, the fact remains that
the Constitution created a secular government which protects religious liberty, and in fact
prohibits any "religious test" for holding office.
Indeed, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention even attended a Mass en mass, one
Sunday.
While attitudes may change in response to immediate dangers, the millions of people who
have been welcomed to this country since the Founding put the lie to the rhetorical deceit
that ethnic or religious bias have played a significant role in our national agenda.
51 neocons warmongers, who need to be send to Afghanistan for some on site learning. Nuland's birds
of feather try to get worm places in Hillary new administration, playing on her war hawk tendencies...
Those "diplomats" forgot about the existence of Saudis and other theocracies which are much more brutal
and less democratic, viewing woman as domestic animals. These are dark times for American foreign
policy. the easy part is to depose Assad. But what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You
know, the hard part, what follows?
Notable quotes:
"... These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation, destruction and disaster? ..."
"... Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian civil war? ..."
"... This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. ..."
"... You are pushing the world closer to war. ..."
"... what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees. ..."
"... Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily. ..."
"... It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries. The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's. ..."
"... This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their 2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk. ..."
"... Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency) pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs. ..."
"... My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan. ..."
"... These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed. A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor is it in the United States' interest for there to be one. ..."
"... That's the same class of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. ..."
"... Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring order to the world. ..."
"... Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era. ..."
"... Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. ..."
"... If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip. ..."
"... Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria? Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to 1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq. ..."
"... The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006, yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now, you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20, ..."
"... In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead. ..."
"... The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at risk. ..."
"... We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually, their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive war without any cause - for the USA! ..."
"... This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees. ..."
"... Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad state of affair. ..."
"... Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years, we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows? ..."
"... Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize president; who wasn't). ..."
"... The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk). More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War. ..."
"... The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself "what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft memo does not address." ..."
"... I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers. ..."
"... Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right. ..."
"... Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME. ..."
"... Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS! ..."
"... As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department. ..."
"... My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve the mess in the ME. ..."
"... It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried. If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors. ..."
"... US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30 years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power of Sunni supremacists after each act. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed 400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this astounding stupidity. ..."
"... This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3. ..."
"... Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins, she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help us! ..."
"... First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists. Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one. ..."
"... The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. ..."
"... I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos, death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will be killed. ..."
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC 16 hours ago
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian
civil war?
Here's a helpful hint:
If they have beards down to their belt buckles and seem to be hollering something about Allah,
those are the guys the neocons support.
If they're recently shaved and wearing Western attire, in other words, if they look like anyone
you might bump into on a US city street, those are the people the neocons call the enemy.
Retroatavist, DC 10 hours ago
This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic
war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons
have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. It's
as if we hadn't forgotten the endless horrible mess they got us and the rest of the world into
by breaking Iraq and destroying all its institutions with the insane de-baathification policy.
And it all started with a similar steady drumbeat for war throughout the mid and late '90s and
up to the 2003 disastrous invasion. Did we not learn anything? Really: Whose interest would
an open US war against Assad really serve, and what predictable outcome would be in the US's strategic
favor?
Robert Sawyer, New York, New York 14 hours ago
How many among the 51 are members of "Hillary's Legions, " the same geniuses responsible for
the unqualified success we achieved in Libya?
Gennady, Rhinebeck 16 hours ago
Stop this irresponsible reporting. You are pushing the world closer to war. Humanitarian
support is all we should bring to the Syrian people, regardless of which side they are on.
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Alyoshak, Durant, OK
Isn't Congress supposed to declare war, and the President command our armed forces when such
declarations occur? But what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the
memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing
the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led
to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees.
But no, these casualties have nothing to do with our attempts at regime change, No!, the blame
for them lies squarely upon Assad for not scooting out of town immediately and submissively when
the U.S. decided it was time for him to go. So now we're supposed to double-down on a deeply immoral
and flawed strategy? How many more Syrians' lives must be ruined to "save" them from Assad?
Everyman, USA 16 hours ago
Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being
better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm
sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these
guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily.
Dan, Alexandria 16 hours ago
It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's
foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton.
I am grateful to President Obama for resisting this foolishness, but make no mistake, no matter
who gets into office in January, the kind of farcical, counterproductive, unrealistic "limited
engagement" advocated by these so-called diplomats will be our future. Clinton is champing at
the bit for it, and Trump is too weak to do anything but go along with it.
Clark M. Shanahan, Oak Park, Illinois 16 hours ago
Sadly, they'll most likely have a more accommodating commander and chief with HRC.
The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries.
The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with
Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's.
This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their
2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk.
Paul Cohen, is a trusted commenter Hartford CT 15 hours ago
Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert
and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed
the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy
objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground
forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency)
pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated
peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the
policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs.
Nixon carried on this bombing for peace strategy to insane war crime level. This heavy reliance
on military force over a diplomatic solution has never worked. It didn't work for our knee-jerk
response to 9/11 by immediately resorting to military force without first thinking through the
consequences. We are now into our 15th year of aggression against the Muslim World. The time is
long past due to question our failed policy and seek an alternative solution.
Bud, McKinney, Texas 16 hours ago
My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let
these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll
bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan.
Abu Charlie, Toronto, Ontario 14 hours ago
These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly
unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally
and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they
have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed.
A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding
the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture
of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn
series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case
here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control
of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is
perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor
is it in the United States' interest for there to be one.
AR, is a trusted commenter Virginia 15 hours ago
How undiplomatic. I don't care that these people are diplomats and that many of them probably
have impeccable academic pedigrees with degrees from the usual suspects such as the Ivy League
schools, SAIS, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Kennedy. That's the same class
of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. Obama is correct
to ignore these people, who more often than not are possessed by the notion of American Exceptionalism.
Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white
Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring
order to the world.
Let this be made clear: Any escalation of American involvement in Syria will be interpreted
as 1) an attempt to enhance the national security of Israel, 2) a means of benefiting the revenue
stream of the American military industrial complex, or 3) both. Only the most naive and foolish
people, since the absolutely disastrous events of 2003, would be inclined to believe that American
military intervention in Syria is motivated mainly by humanitarian impulses.
Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest
arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era.
Robert Roth, NYC 14 hours ago
Everyone closes their eyes and imagines all the bloodshed they will prevent by all the bloodshed
they will cause.
Samsara, The West 16 hours ago
Have Iraq and Libya taught these State Department officials NOTHING??
Simon, Tampa 15 hours ago
The neo-cons who love regime change that never works. Let us examine their track record:
Iraq - a mess and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Libya - now an anarchist state infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Yemen - bombing and murdering thousands of innocents and Al Qaeda.
Syria, the only secular Arab state, destroyed and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda. The only
reason Syria hasn't completely fallen apart is thanks to Assad and his Sunni dominated army, Iran,
and the Russians. So of course, these neo-cons want to complete the job at the behest of the money
they will be getting from the Saudis and the other Gulf States.
Don't worry you warmongering greedy neocon, Hillary Clinton is one of you and will be president
soon enough.
Title Holder, Fl 15 hours ago
Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya
back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just
go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex.
Andrea, New Jersey 15 hours ago
This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with
the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. Syrians
and Russians can not split hairs on the battlefield.
If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut
will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip.
Jett Rink, lafayette, la 15 hours ago
Here's the thing most people don't get about ISIS. They thrive on us being involved in the
Middle East. They are willing to kill other Muslims in order to keep us involved. As long as we
are there, terrorism will persist, over there and here too. They are playing us like chumps. They
use our tendency to knee-jerk reactions against us. They're out smarting us at every juncture.
Of course it's human nature to want to help people in such dire straights. But that's exactly
what ISIS wants, and correctly predict, that we'll do. So as long as they out-think us, they'll
continue to win.
If you want to help the innocent people caught in the cross-hairs of ISIS, the best thing we
could possibly do is pack up and leave. There'll be some more carnage, but eventually the backlash
from within will force them to stop the wrecking and killing. Many people will die, but in the
end, the tally would be far fewer.
Their goal is to keep us engaged. Ours should be to get out! As long as we stay, they win.
And that's how they're able to convince long-wolf's to strike us here, even when here is home
to them too.
Joane Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio 15 hours ago
Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and
unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria?
Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join
up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it
all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have
you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to
1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq.
The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks
on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006,
yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's
treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed
up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now,
you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20,
In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and
Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead.
Bev, New York 16 hours ago
Yes the war machine wants more wars. Who will take the place of the evil Assad? We have removed
a number of evil dictators in that area of the world and all it has done is sap our resources,
killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, made millions hate us, and created vacuums of power
which are then filled with Saudi-assisted ISIS - AND profited our war machine (that's the important
part!) We need less involvement in the Mideast, not more. Bring them all home and start transitioning
from a war economy to an economy that serves the American citizens here.
ME, Toronto 13 hours ago
Thank goodness Obama kept his head and didn't (and hopefully won't) listen to such crazy advice.
To call the signers "diplomats" is a real stretch. It seems that somewhere back in time various
U.S. "diplomats" decided that they have the right to decide who and what the government should
be in various jurisdictions throughout the world. Of course this is motivated by purely humanitarian
concerns and love of democracy and not the self-interest of the U.S., as in having a friendly
government in place. As despicable as some governments are, the lessons over many years now should
be that military strikes are just as (maybe more) likely to produce something bad as anything
good. Better to talk and try to influence the development of nations through positive reinforcement
(as Obama has done in Iran). Undoubtedly this is a slow and somewhat frustrating process but that
is something real "diplomats" should be good at. If this process had been pursued in Syria we
would all be better off today and especially the Syrian people.
Mitchell, New York 16 hours ago
I assume these people at State also believe in the Tooth Fairy. The fantasy of "moderate" rebels
who will be grateful to us after they depose a tyrant and put in a fair democratic government
that takes into account all of our Western ideals and freedoms is so unrealistic that these people
at State need to find a job where their last words are, "Can I supersize that for you?" Our involvement
in the Middle East displacing despots and replacing them with chaos has been the biggest disaster
in foreign policy in many decades. Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria (remember the line in the
sand?). We should join with Russia in destroying ISIS and use our leverage to push Assad to make
some level of concessions.
Dan, Sandy, UT 15 hours ago
Here we go again. The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those
drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at
risk.
Second thought, as stated by a political comedian/satirist, let the Middle East take its own
trash out.
I couldn't agree more.
blackmamba, IL 16 hours ago
Since 9/11/01 only 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to put on the military of any American
armed force. They have been ground to emotional, mental and physical dust by repeated deployments.
Getting rid of Arab dictators has unleashed foreign ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political educational
civil wars that cannot be resolved by American military power.
Assad is an Arab civil secular dictator. Just like many of Americas Arab allies and unlike
those American Arab allies who are Islamic royal fossil fuel tyrants. But Assad is an Alawite
Shia Muslim allied with Russia. The alternatives to Assad are al Qaeda, ISIL and al Nusra. Diplomats
need to stick to diplomacy.
Jo Boost, Midlands 16 hours ago
This situation is not that simple.
There is not -as people in Washington who know better have told for years now- one big bad
wolf called Assad preying and devouring all poor little peaceful lambs (who, accidentally, have
been armed to their teeth by a certain Ms. Clinton and her Saudi friends - even with poison gas
which was, then, blamed on the said Assad).
We have here a follow-up civil war to the (also US started) one in Libya.
Let us just look at International Law, as understood since the Nuremberg Trials:
We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a
War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually,
their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive
war without any cause - for the USA!
But a great cause for Saudi "Royals" whose cousins had been thrown out of Iraq, which is good
enough cause, in Arab customs, for a bloody feud and revenge.
The same applies to Syria, and could one, therefore, still wonder why ISIL was so well equipped
for the follow-up (envisaged) invasion?
Libya was a danger for Saudi Autocrates, because a secular Arab country with such a living
standard from fair distribution of oil wealth would be a dangerous advertisement for a Mother
of All Arab Springs in the desert.
So, we have one side with interest - and one without any - but the latter does the dirty work.
Is there more than one tail that wags the US dog?
Bonnie Rothman, NYC 13 hours ago
How brilliant---not! And what do these 50 people expect to happen if and when Assad falls,
chaos prevails and ISIS rushes in? Not to mention the immediate nasty confrontation with Putin.
This isn't 1941 and big Armies and big bombs are useless, USELESS against ISIS which operates
like cancer cells in the human body. And the last time we toppled a tyrant we midwived the ISIS
group which is funded by the Saudis which is funded by our own use of oil. Don't you dopes ever
read history and see the "whole" problem? Sheesh.
Prof. Jai Prakash Sharma, is a trusted commenter Jaipur, India. 16 hours ago
Given the complexity of the Syrian crisis and the multipower stakes involved in Syria, it would
be foolish for the US to direct its unilateral military fury at toppling the Assad regime ignoring
its fall out and the military financial cost to the US itself, specially when except for meeting
the common challenge and threat of the ISIS no direct national interests are at stake for the
US in Syria. The state department's dissenting memo to the President seems an attempt by the vested
interests to further complicate President Obama's Middle East policy that's on the right track
following the Iran deal.
Dennis Sullivan, NYC 16 hours ago
This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats
think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon
view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees.
Rudolf, New York 7 hours ago
Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was
shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries
of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single
day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that
country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned
about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent
trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad
state of affair.
pat knapp, milwaukee 16 hours ago
Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years,
we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might
happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows?
Mike Edwards, Providence, RI 16 hours ago
In what way do the views of the State Department officials in ISIS differ from those in the
US State Department who signed this memo?
Recent terrorist attacks in France and the US have been inspired by ISIS, not Mr. Assad. ISIS
is our enemy right now. Let Mr. Assad do what he can to eliminate them.
And haven't we learnt that the removal of a head of State, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya
does not lead to an improvement; it actually causes an outright deterioration.
Finally, please let's also do away with this twaddle about "moderate" forces being present
in the Middle East, ready to enact our fantasy of what a peaceful Middle East should be like.
They don't exist in the Middle East. Ask the Israelis. Those moderates that do exist seem to serve
one purpose, which is to hand over the weapons supplied to them by the West to the terrorists.
I wish the signatories would have had the guts to spell it out. The Middle East is home to
a number of weal nations, a situation the stronger ones don't wish to correct. The only solution
would be for the West to take over the running of those countries and provide for their policing
and defense, as once the West leaves, a vacuum is created allowing terrorist groups to proliferate.
I doubt there is any appetite in the West for such a cause.
Donald, Yonkers 16 hours ago
Interesting how these " moderate" Syrian rebels so often fight alongside al Nusra.
The death toll in Syria is as high as it is because the rebels have outside help, Somehow no
one in the American mainstream, including the NYT, ever points this out. Incidently, note how
the NYT always uses the largest estimates for the death toll-- quite different from what they
did in Iraq.
Nick Metrowsky, is a trusted commenter Longmont, Colorado 17 hours ago
Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to
effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex
is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result
in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS
came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace
Prize president; who wasn't).
So, guess what? The US starts bombing Syria, Assad will use human shields. ISIS is already
using human shields. So, the US will have more innocent blood on their hands. Of course, the US
follows through with these diplomats idea, ISIS, and their allies, will increase the risk of terrorism
attacks in the US. More mass shootings and bombings.
Of course, in an election year, the political rhetoric will be pushed up a notch between the
two wonderful people now running for president. Both who are more than willing to love the diplomat's
idea to show they are "strong". Mr. Obama may or may not follow through, but he hand may be forced.
Clinton or Trump will go after him, as both would pull the trigger first and ask questions later.
But, rest assured,. if you feel that a terrorist is lurking around each corner now, just wait
until the US decides that getting in the middle of the Syrian civil war is some warped good idea.
Diplomacy can be messy, as can politics.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk).
More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and
destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for
deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were
solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War.
For five years the US has been promoting Muslim extremists in Syria that move with fluidity
between the ranks of ISIL, al Nusra, al Qeada, etc. There are no reliable "moderates" in Syria.
The best hope for a stable Syria lies only with Bashar Assad, the secular Western-trained optometrist
(and his J.P. Morgan investment banker wife, Asma), who has kept Syria stable and free of terrorists
for decades.
To end the killing in Syria, and to defeat ISIL, the US should immediately stop arming and
funding the Islamic jihadists trying to overthrow the Assad government and join with Russia to
support Assad's military in regaining control over all Syrian territory and borders.
CT View, CT 17 hours ago
The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself
"what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft
memo does not address."
Why on earth would we support deposing a secular dictator who has multi-ethnic multi-religious
support in favor of a non-secular/ie religious leadership that has no moderates...remember we
tried to train vetted moderates, we found about 2 dozen and gave up on the program after half
were killed and the rest defected to the radicals WITH THE WEAPONS WE SUPPLIED. Perhaps, since
the military is anti-intervention and these diplomats are pro-intervention, the diplomats can
take the front line...would that change their opinion?
Gimme Shelter, 123 Happy Street 17 hours ago
I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers.
Do they think the National Security Council hasn't considered all options with respect to the
use of air power to affect the political situation in Syria? Do they think the President is unaware
of the what is required to stem the humanitarian crisis? How certain are they that their recommendations
will lead to their desired outcome? Do they not realize their actions undermine the commander
in chief in effectively addressing these issues?
Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right.
Wayne, Lake Conroe, Tx 7 hours ago
Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel
does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and
ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain
of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be
resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME.
Chagrined, La Jolla, CA 10 hours ago
Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS!
Real Americans don't want any more squandered blood and treasure in wars in the Middle East!
It is sad that our tax dollars pay the salaries for these insidious State Department war mongering
fools. How many neocons are among them?
The war in Syria is tragic as was the war in Iraq. Even more tragic would be more squandered
American blood and treasure.
Fifteen hundred American Jews joined the IDF terrorists to commit the "Gaza Genocide." Perhaps
they will volunteer to go to Syria.??
President Obama has the intellect, sophistication and morals not to repeat the mistakes of
the Bush administration. These State Department rank and file are obviously attempting to undermine
him just as many members of congress attempted to undermine him by supporting Netanyahu and Israel
during the Iran Diplomacy debate. Betraying America has become sport for so many insidious ingrates.
America deserves better!
xtian, Tallahassee 11 hours ago
As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is
going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department.
So these 51 mid-level diplomates want to bomb a bit more, and that is going to do what?????
And how will that bring peace to that region of the world? Oh, and by the way, the Department
of Defense is not in agreement with that course of action. How wonderful.
My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition
and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve
the mess in the ME.
David Henry, Concord 17 hours ago
War is easy to do. Ask "W."
Lives matter! These "diplomats" should be fired.
Yinka Martins, New York, NY 17 hours ago
It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted
regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried.
If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors.
PKJharkhand, Australia 7 hours ago
US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control
of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people
led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30
years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power
of Sunni supremacists after each act.
Jai Goodman, SF Bay Area 7 hours ago
These "diplomats" should instead be urging US to pressure Turkey and Saudi to stop supporting
terrorists in the region. Both Al Nusra and ISIS. That'll be the right step.
Thank you.
cml, pittsburgh, pa 10 hours ago
How many of these are the same (or same sort) of "wise" men that advised ignoring our weapon's
inspectors and invading Iraq? They're living inside an echo chamber. In a world of imperfect choices
I would prefer Assad to the Nusra Front or ISIL, as apparently our president does as well.
Lawrence, Washington D.C. 15 hours ago
How many of those 51 diplomats haves served in front line units and seen combat? How many have
their children in uniform? They wouldn't allow it.
Each bombing mission costs more than a million dollars, and we live in a nation of Chiraq and
Orlando.
We have more pressing needs at home, and you can't fix stupid mixed with superstition, topped
with hatred.
These diplomats want to continue to strap suicide vests on the rest of us, while they sip champagne.
Out now, no more of our children wasted for corporate profits.
John, San Francisco 15 hours ago
50 employees? There are approximately 24,000 employees in the state department. That's 0.002833%.
Not really a significant voice. Don't listen.
Vanessa Hall, is a trusted commenter Millersburg MO 13 hours ago
Reminds me of those 47 idiots in the House who signed on to the warmonger Tom Cotton's treasonous
letter.
John Townsend, Mexico 15 hours ago
Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of
Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the
entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed
400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate
back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's
marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this
astounding stupidity.
Hobart, Los Angeles, CA 7 hours ago
This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian
interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3.
rice pritchard, nashville, tennessee 12 hours ago
Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge
mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United
States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government
in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. Apparently no regime that does not knuckle
under to the U.S. war machine is "fair game". This turmoil is sending millions of refugees fleeing
their homeland, many trying to swamp Europe, but the arm chair warriors in the diplomatic corps,
Congress, Wall Street, and the military contractors still cry for more intervention, more bombing,
more blockades, more invasions, etc.! Sheer madness! The more America meddle in the Middle East
the worse things become and unrest and fighting spread. Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins,
she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help
us!
xmas, Delaware 13 hours ago
HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST????? When people demand an invasion of a foreign country, can they
please add the total cost of the bill to their request? Instead of saying "we need to invade,"
can they say, "I want your support to spend $1.7 trillion for invading this other country for
humanitarian reasons. Oh, by the way, sorry, about all the cuts to domestic spending. We just
don't have the money." We spent $1.7 TRILLION on Iraq. $1.7 TRILLION. I can think of several things
I would have preferred to spend a fraction of that on. I'm sure you can too.
Robert G. McKee, Lindenhurst, NY 12 hours ago
This is a very interesting development within the walls of the State Department. There seems
to be much enthusiasm for escalating war in the Middle East. My only question is does this enthusiasm
extend to the deaths and maiming of these same State Department officials' children and grandchildren?
Or do they propose that other people's children should die pursuing their high ideals in this
endless and fruitless religious civil war in Syria?
Kathy, Flemington, NJ 13 hours ago
First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about
policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems
the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists.
Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past
mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one.
Rebecca Rabinowitz, . 13 hours ago
The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the
Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic
results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended
the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. We have "been there, done
that" countless times, at the cost of our precious military blood and treasure, and incurring
the enmity of hundreds of millions of people. I empathize with the frustration of these State
Department employees - but apparently, they do not recall our overthrow of the Shah of Iran when
it suited our "cause du jour," or our fraudulent "domino theory" in Vietnam, or the hard reality
that no one has ever successfully invaded or "governed" Afghanistan, not to mention being able
to battle ideology with weapons. The President has already presided over significant mission creep
in the Iraq cesspool left by the Cheney-Bush neo-con crowd. His judicious caution is to be lauded
when it comes to Syria. Are these mid-level State Department employees advocating a war against
Vladimir Putin?
Yngve Frey, Sweden 12 hours ago
I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing
from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by
supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos,
death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will
be killed.
The only way will probably be to work with Russia and force other opposition groups to sign
a peace agreement. Then we should arrange an intensive training course for US diplomats as well
as Syrian leaders: "There is no final truth: we have to learn the art of tolerance and accept
to live in a society where people you don't agree with also can live."
51 neocons warmongers, who need to be send to Afghanistan for some on site learning. Nuland's birds
of feather try to get worm places in Hillary new administration, playing on her war hawk tendencies...
Those "diplomats" forgot about the existence of Saudis and other theocracies which are much more brutal
and less democratic, viewing woman as domestic animals. These are dark times for American foreign
policy. the easy part is to depose Assad. But what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You
know, the hard part, what follows?
Notable quotes:
"... These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation, destruction and disaster? ..."
"... Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian civil war? ..."
"... This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. ..."
"... You are pushing the world closer to war. ..."
"... what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees. ..."
"... Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily. ..."
"... It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries. The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's. ..."
"... This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their 2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk. ..."
"... Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency) pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs. ..."
"... My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan. ..."
"... These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed. A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor is it in the United States' interest for there to be one. ..."
"... That's the same class of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. ..."
"... Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring order to the world. ..."
"... Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era. ..."
"... Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. ..."
"... If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip. ..."
"... Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria? Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to 1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq. ..."
"... The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006, yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now, you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20, ..."
"... In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead. ..."
"... The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at risk. ..."
"... We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually, their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive war without any cause - for the USA! ..."
"... This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees. ..."
"... Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad state of affair. ..."
"... Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years, we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows? ..."
"... Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize president; who wasn't). ..."
"... The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk). More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War. ..."
"... The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself "what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft memo does not address." ..."
"... I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers. ..."
"... Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right. ..."
"... Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME. ..."
"... Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS! ..."
"... As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department. ..."
"... My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve the mess in the ME. ..."
"... It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried. If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors. ..."
"... US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30 years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power of Sunni supremacists after each act. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed 400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this astounding stupidity. ..."
"... This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3. ..."
"... Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins, she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help us! ..."
"... First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists. Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one. ..."
"... The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. ..."
"... I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos, death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will be killed. ..."
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC 16 hours ago
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian
civil war?
Here's a helpful hint:
If they have beards down to their belt buckles and seem to be hollering something about Allah,
those are the guys the neocons support.
If they're recently shaved and wearing Western attire, in other words, if they look like anyone
you might bump into on a US city street, those are the people the neocons call the enemy.
Retroatavist, DC 10 hours ago
This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic
war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons
have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. It's
as if we hadn't forgotten the endless horrible mess they got us and the rest of the world into
by breaking Iraq and destroying all its institutions with the insane de-baathification policy.
And it all started with a similar steady drumbeat for war throughout the mid and late '90s and
up to the 2003 disastrous invasion. Did we not learn anything? Really: Whose interest would
an open US war against Assad really serve, and what predictable outcome would be in the US's strategic
favor?
Robert Sawyer, New York, New York 14 hours ago
How many among the 51 are members of "Hillary's Legions, " the same geniuses responsible for
the unqualified success we achieved in Libya?
Gennady, Rhinebeck 16 hours ago
Stop this irresponsible reporting. You are pushing the world closer to war. Humanitarian
support is all we should bring to the Syrian people, regardless of which side they are on.
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Alyoshak, Durant, OK
Isn't Congress supposed to declare war, and the President command our armed forces when such
declarations occur? But what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the
memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing
the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led
to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees.
But no, these casualties have nothing to do with our attempts at regime change, No!, the blame
for them lies squarely upon Assad for not scooting out of town immediately and submissively when
the U.S. decided it was time for him to go. So now we're supposed to double-down on a deeply immoral
and flawed strategy? How many more Syrians' lives must be ruined to "save" them from Assad?
Everyman, USA 16 hours ago
Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being
better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm
sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these
guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily.
Dan, Alexandria 16 hours ago
It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's
foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton.
I am grateful to President Obama for resisting this foolishness, but make no mistake, no matter
who gets into office in January, the kind of farcical, counterproductive, unrealistic "limited
engagement" advocated by these so-called diplomats will be our future. Clinton is champing at
the bit for it, and Trump is too weak to do anything but go along with it.
Clark M. Shanahan, Oak Park, Illinois 16 hours ago
Sadly, they'll most likely have a more accommodating commander and chief with HRC.
The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries.
The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with
Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's.
This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their
2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk.
Paul Cohen, is a trusted commenter Hartford CT 15 hours ago
Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert
and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed
the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy
objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground
forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency)
pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated
peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the
policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs.
Nixon carried on this bombing for peace strategy to insane war crime level. This heavy reliance
on military force over a diplomatic solution has never worked. It didn't work for our knee-jerk
response to 9/11 by immediately resorting to military force without first thinking through the
consequences. We are now into our 15th year of aggression against the Muslim World. The time is
long past due to question our failed policy and seek an alternative solution.
Bud, McKinney, Texas 16 hours ago
My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let
these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll
bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan.
Abu Charlie, Toronto, Ontario 14 hours ago
These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly
unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally
and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they
have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed.
A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding
the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture
of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn
series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case
here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control
of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is
perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor
is it in the United States' interest for there to be one.
AR, is a trusted commenter Virginia 15 hours ago
How undiplomatic. I don't care that these people are diplomats and that many of them probably
have impeccable academic pedigrees with degrees from the usual suspects such as the Ivy League
schools, SAIS, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Kennedy. That's the same class
of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. Obama is correct
to ignore these people, who more often than not are possessed by the notion of American Exceptionalism.
Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white
Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring
order to the world.
Let this be made clear: Any escalation of American involvement in Syria will be interpreted
as 1) an attempt to enhance the national security of Israel, 2) a means of benefiting the revenue
stream of the American military industrial complex, or 3) both. Only the most naive and foolish
people, since the absolutely disastrous events of 2003, would be inclined to believe that American
military intervention in Syria is motivated mainly by humanitarian impulses.
Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest
arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era.
Robert Roth, NYC 14 hours ago
Everyone closes their eyes and imagines all the bloodshed they will prevent by all the bloodshed
they will cause.
Samsara, The West 16 hours ago
Have Iraq and Libya taught these State Department officials NOTHING??
Simon, Tampa 15 hours ago
The neo-cons who love regime change that never works. Let us examine their track record:
Iraq - a mess and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Libya - now an anarchist state infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Yemen - bombing and murdering thousands of innocents and Al Qaeda.
Syria, the only secular Arab state, destroyed and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda. The only
reason Syria hasn't completely fallen apart is thanks to Assad and his Sunni dominated army, Iran,
and the Russians. So of course, these neo-cons want to complete the job at the behest of the money
they will be getting from the Saudis and the other Gulf States.
Don't worry you warmongering greedy neocon, Hillary Clinton is one of you and will be president
soon enough.
Title Holder, Fl 15 hours ago
Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya
back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just
go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex.
Andrea, New Jersey 15 hours ago
This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with
the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. Syrians
and Russians can not split hairs on the battlefield.
If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut
will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip.
Jett Rink, lafayette, la 15 hours ago
Here's the thing most people don't get about ISIS. They thrive on us being involved in the
Middle East. They are willing to kill other Muslims in order to keep us involved. As long as we
are there, terrorism will persist, over there and here too. They are playing us like chumps. They
use our tendency to knee-jerk reactions against us. They're out smarting us at every juncture.
Of course it's human nature to want to help people in such dire straights. But that's exactly
what ISIS wants, and correctly predict, that we'll do. So as long as they out-think us, they'll
continue to win.
If you want to help the innocent people caught in the cross-hairs of ISIS, the best thing we
could possibly do is pack up and leave. There'll be some more carnage, but eventually the backlash
from within will force them to stop the wrecking and killing. Many people will die, but in the
end, the tally would be far fewer.
Their goal is to keep us engaged. Ours should be to get out! As long as we stay, they win.
And that's how they're able to convince long-wolf's to strike us here, even when here is home
to them too.
Joane Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio 15 hours ago
Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and
unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria?
Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join
up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it
all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have
you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to
1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq.
The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks
on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006,
yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's
treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed
up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now,
you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20,
In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and
Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead.
Bev, New York 16 hours ago
Yes the war machine wants more wars. Who will take the place of the evil Assad? We have removed
a number of evil dictators in that area of the world and all it has done is sap our resources,
killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, made millions hate us, and created vacuums of power
which are then filled with Saudi-assisted ISIS - AND profited our war machine (that's the important
part!) We need less involvement in the Mideast, not more. Bring them all home and start transitioning
from a war economy to an economy that serves the American citizens here.
ME, Toronto 13 hours ago
Thank goodness Obama kept his head and didn't (and hopefully won't) listen to such crazy advice.
To call the signers "diplomats" is a real stretch. It seems that somewhere back in time various
U.S. "diplomats" decided that they have the right to decide who and what the government should
be in various jurisdictions throughout the world. Of course this is motivated by purely humanitarian
concerns and love of democracy and not the self-interest of the U.S., as in having a friendly
government in place. As despicable as some governments are, the lessons over many years now should
be that military strikes are just as (maybe more) likely to produce something bad as anything
good. Better to talk and try to influence the development of nations through positive reinforcement
(as Obama has done in Iran). Undoubtedly this is a slow and somewhat frustrating process but that
is something real "diplomats" should be good at. If this process had been pursued in Syria we
would all be better off today and especially the Syrian people.
Mitchell, New York 16 hours ago
I assume these people at State also believe in the Tooth Fairy. The fantasy of "moderate" rebels
who will be grateful to us after they depose a tyrant and put in a fair democratic government
that takes into account all of our Western ideals and freedoms is so unrealistic that these people
at State need to find a job where their last words are, "Can I supersize that for you?" Our involvement
in the Middle East displacing despots and replacing them with chaos has been the biggest disaster
in foreign policy in many decades. Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria (remember the line in the
sand?). We should join with Russia in destroying ISIS and use our leverage to push Assad to make
some level of concessions.
Dan, Sandy, UT 15 hours ago
Here we go again. The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those
drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at
risk.
Second thought, as stated by a political comedian/satirist, let the Middle East take its own
trash out.
I couldn't agree more.
blackmamba, IL 16 hours ago
Since 9/11/01 only 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to put on the military of any American
armed force. They have been ground to emotional, mental and physical dust by repeated deployments.
Getting rid of Arab dictators has unleashed foreign ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political educational
civil wars that cannot be resolved by American military power.
Assad is an Arab civil secular dictator. Just like many of Americas Arab allies and unlike
those American Arab allies who are Islamic royal fossil fuel tyrants. But Assad is an Alawite
Shia Muslim allied with Russia. The alternatives to Assad are al Qaeda, ISIL and al Nusra. Diplomats
need to stick to diplomacy.
Jo Boost, Midlands 16 hours ago
This situation is not that simple.
There is not -as people in Washington who know better have told for years now- one big bad
wolf called Assad preying and devouring all poor little peaceful lambs (who, accidentally, have
been armed to their teeth by a certain Ms. Clinton and her Saudi friends - even with poison gas
which was, then, blamed on the said Assad).
We have here a follow-up civil war to the (also US started) one in Libya.
Let us just look at International Law, as understood since the Nuremberg Trials:
We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a
War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually,
their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive
war without any cause - for the USA!
But a great cause for Saudi "Royals" whose cousins had been thrown out of Iraq, which is good
enough cause, in Arab customs, for a bloody feud and revenge.
The same applies to Syria, and could one, therefore, still wonder why ISIL was so well equipped
for the follow-up (envisaged) invasion?
Libya was a danger for Saudi Autocrates, because a secular Arab country with such a living
standard from fair distribution of oil wealth would be a dangerous advertisement for a Mother
of All Arab Springs in the desert.
So, we have one side with interest - and one without any - but the latter does the dirty work.
Is there more than one tail that wags the US dog?
Bonnie Rothman, NYC 13 hours ago
How brilliant---not! And what do these 50 people expect to happen if and when Assad falls,
chaos prevails and ISIS rushes in? Not to mention the immediate nasty confrontation with Putin.
This isn't 1941 and big Armies and big bombs are useless, USELESS against ISIS which operates
like cancer cells in the human body. And the last time we toppled a tyrant we midwived the ISIS
group which is funded by the Saudis which is funded by our own use of oil. Don't you dopes ever
read history and see the "whole" problem? Sheesh.
Prof. Jai Prakash Sharma, is a trusted commenter Jaipur, India. 16 hours ago
Given the complexity of the Syrian crisis and the multipower stakes involved in Syria, it would
be foolish for the US to direct its unilateral military fury at toppling the Assad regime ignoring
its fall out and the military financial cost to the US itself, specially when except for meeting
the common challenge and threat of the ISIS no direct national interests are at stake for the
US in Syria. The state department's dissenting memo to the President seems an attempt by the vested
interests to further complicate President Obama's Middle East policy that's on the right track
following the Iran deal.
Dennis Sullivan, NYC 16 hours ago
This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats
think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon
view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees.
Rudolf, New York 7 hours ago
Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was
shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries
of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single
day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that
country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned
about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent
trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad
state of affair.
pat knapp, milwaukee 16 hours ago
Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years,
we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might
happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows?
Mike Edwards, Providence, RI 16 hours ago
In what way do the views of the State Department officials in ISIS differ from those in the
US State Department who signed this memo?
Recent terrorist attacks in France and the US have been inspired by ISIS, not Mr. Assad. ISIS
is our enemy right now. Let Mr. Assad do what he can to eliminate them.
And haven't we learnt that the removal of a head of State, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya
does not lead to an improvement; it actually causes an outright deterioration.
Finally, please let's also do away with this twaddle about "moderate" forces being present
in the Middle East, ready to enact our fantasy of what a peaceful Middle East should be like.
They don't exist in the Middle East. Ask the Israelis. Those moderates that do exist seem to serve
one purpose, which is to hand over the weapons supplied to them by the West to the terrorists.
I wish the signatories would have had the guts to spell it out. The Middle East is home to
a number of weal nations, a situation the stronger ones don't wish to correct. The only solution
would be for the West to take over the running of those countries and provide for their policing
and defense, as once the West leaves, a vacuum is created allowing terrorist groups to proliferate.
I doubt there is any appetite in the West for such a cause.
Donald, Yonkers 16 hours ago
Interesting how these " moderate" Syrian rebels so often fight alongside al Nusra.
The death toll in Syria is as high as it is because the rebels have outside help, Somehow no
one in the American mainstream, including the NYT, ever points this out. Incidently, note how
the NYT always uses the largest estimates for the death toll-- quite different from what they
did in Iraq.
Nick Metrowsky, is a trusted commenter Longmont, Colorado 17 hours ago
Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to
effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex
is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result
in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS
came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace
Prize president; who wasn't).
So, guess what? The US starts bombing Syria, Assad will use human shields. ISIS is already
using human shields. So, the US will have more innocent blood on their hands. Of course, the US
follows through with these diplomats idea, ISIS, and their allies, will increase the risk of terrorism
attacks in the US. More mass shootings and bombings.
Of course, in an election year, the political rhetoric will be pushed up a notch between the
two wonderful people now running for president. Both who are more than willing to love the diplomat's
idea to show they are "strong". Mr. Obama may or may not follow through, but he hand may be forced.
Clinton or Trump will go after him, as both would pull the trigger first and ask questions later.
But, rest assured,. if you feel that a terrorist is lurking around each corner now, just wait
until the US decides that getting in the middle of the Syrian civil war is some warped good idea.
Diplomacy can be messy, as can politics.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk).
More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and
destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for
deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were
solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War.
For five years the US has been promoting Muslim extremists in Syria that move with fluidity
between the ranks of ISIL, al Nusra, al Qeada, etc. There are no reliable "moderates" in Syria.
The best hope for a stable Syria lies only with Bashar Assad, the secular Western-trained optometrist
(and his J.P. Morgan investment banker wife, Asma), who has kept Syria stable and free of terrorists
for decades.
To end the killing in Syria, and to defeat ISIL, the US should immediately stop arming and
funding the Islamic jihadists trying to overthrow the Assad government and join with Russia to
support Assad's military in regaining control over all Syrian territory and borders.
CT View, CT 17 hours ago
The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself
"what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft
memo does not address."
Why on earth would we support deposing a secular dictator who has multi-ethnic multi-religious
support in favor of a non-secular/ie religious leadership that has no moderates...remember we
tried to train vetted moderates, we found about 2 dozen and gave up on the program after half
were killed and the rest defected to the radicals WITH THE WEAPONS WE SUPPLIED. Perhaps, since
the military is anti-intervention and these diplomats are pro-intervention, the diplomats can
take the front line...would that change their opinion?
Gimme Shelter, 123 Happy Street 17 hours ago
I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers.
Do they think the National Security Council hasn't considered all options with respect to the
use of air power to affect the political situation in Syria? Do they think the President is unaware
of the what is required to stem the humanitarian crisis? How certain are they that their recommendations
will lead to their desired outcome? Do they not realize their actions undermine the commander
in chief in effectively addressing these issues?
Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right.
Wayne, Lake Conroe, Tx 7 hours ago
Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel
does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and
ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain
of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be
resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME.
Chagrined, La Jolla, CA 10 hours ago
Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS!
Real Americans don't want any more squandered blood and treasure in wars in the Middle East!
It is sad that our tax dollars pay the salaries for these insidious State Department war mongering
fools. How many neocons are among them?
The war in Syria is tragic as was the war in Iraq. Even more tragic would be more squandered
American blood and treasure.
Fifteen hundred American Jews joined the IDF terrorists to commit the "Gaza Genocide." Perhaps
they will volunteer to go to Syria.??
President Obama has the intellect, sophistication and morals not to repeat the mistakes of
the Bush administration. These State Department rank and file are obviously attempting to undermine
him just as many members of congress attempted to undermine him by supporting Netanyahu and Israel
during the Iran Diplomacy debate. Betraying America has become sport for so many insidious ingrates.
America deserves better!
xtian, Tallahassee 11 hours ago
As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is
going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department.
So these 51 mid-level diplomates want to bomb a bit more, and that is going to do what?????
And how will that bring peace to that region of the world? Oh, and by the way, the Department
of Defense is not in agreement with that course of action. How wonderful.
My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition
and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve
the mess in the ME.
David Henry, Concord 17 hours ago
War is easy to do. Ask "W."
Lives matter! These "diplomats" should be fired.
Yinka Martins, New York, NY 17 hours ago
It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted
regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried.
If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors.
PKJharkhand, Australia 7 hours ago
US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control
of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people
led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30
years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power
of Sunni supremacists after each act.
Jai Goodman, SF Bay Area 7 hours ago
These "diplomats" should instead be urging US to pressure Turkey and Saudi to stop supporting
terrorists in the region. Both Al Nusra and ISIS. That'll be the right step.
Thank you.
cml, pittsburgh, pa 10 hours ago
How many of these are the same (or same sort) of "wise" men that advised ignoring our weapon's
inspectors and invading Iraq? They're living inside an echo chamber. In a world of imperfect choices
I would prefer Assad to the Nusra Front or ISIL, as apparently our president does as well.
Lawrence, Washington D.C. 15 hours ago
How many of those 51 diplomats haves served in front line units and seen combat? How many have
their children in uniform? They wouldn't allow it.
Each bombing mission costs more than a million dollars, and we live in a nation of Chiraq and
Orlando.
We have more pressing needs at home, and you can't fix stupid mixed with superstition, topped
with hatred.
These diplomats want to continue to strap suicide vests on the rest of us, while they sip champagne.
Out now, no more of our children wasted for corporate profits.
John, San Francisco 15 hours ago
50 employees? There are approximately 24,000 employees in the state department. That's 0.002833%.
Not really a significant voice. Don't listen.
Vanessa Hall, is a trusted commenter Millersburg MO 13 hours ago
Reminds me of those 47 idiots in the House who signed on to the warmonger Tom Cotton's treasonous
letter.
John Townsend, Mexico 15 hours ago
Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of
Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the
entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed
400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate
back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's
marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this
astounding stupidity.
Hobart, Los Angeles, CA 7 hours ago
This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian
interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3.
rice pritchard, nashville, tennessee 12 hours ago
Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge
mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United
States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government
in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. Apparently no regime that does not knuckle
under to the U.S. war machine is "fair game". This turmoil is sending millions of refugees fleeing
their homeland, many trying to swamp Europe, but the arm chair warriors in the diplomatic corps,
Congress, Wall Street, and the military contractors still cry for more intervention, more bombing,
more blockades, more invasions, etc.! Sheer madness! The more America meddle in the Middle East
the worse things become and unrest and fighting spread. Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins,
she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help
us!
xmas, Delaware 13 hours ago
HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST????? When people demand an invasion of a foreign country, can they
please add the total cost of the bill to their request? Instead of saying "we need to invade,"
can they say, "I want your support to spend $1.7 trillion for invading this other country for
humanitarian reasons. Oh, by the way, sorry, about all the cuts to domestic spending. We just
don't have the money." We spent $1.7 TRILLION on Iraq. $1.7 TRILLION. I can think of several things
I would have preferred to spend a fraction of that on. I'm sure you can too.
Robert G. McKee, Lindenhurst, NY 12 hours ago
This is a very interesting development within the walls of the State Department. There seems
to be much enthusiasm for escalating war in the Middle East. My only question is does this enthusiasm
extend to the deaths and maiming of these same State Department officials' children and grandchildren?
Or do they propose that other people's children should die pursuing their high ideals in this
endless and fruitless religious civil war in Syria?
Kathy, Flemington, NJ 13 hours ago
First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about
policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems
the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists.
Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past
mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one.
Rebecca Rabinowitz, . 13 hours ago
The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the
Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic
results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended
the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. We have "been there, done
that" countless times, at the cost of our precious military blood and treasure, and incurring
the enmity of hundreds of millions of people. I empathize with the frustration of these State
Department employees - but apparently, they do not recall our overthrow of the Shah of Iran when
it suited our "cause du jour," or our fraudulent "domino theory" in Vietnam, or the hard reality
that no one has ever successfully invaded or "governed" Afghanistan, not to mention being able
to battle ideology with weapons. The President has already presided over significant mission creep
in the Iraq cesspool left by the Cheney-Bush neo-con crowd. His judicious caution is to be lauded
when it comes to Syria. Are these mid-level State Department employees advocating a war against
Vladimir Putin?
Yngve Frey, Sweden 12 hours ago
I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing
from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by
supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos,
death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will
be killed.
The only way will probably be to work with Russia and force other opposition groups to sign
a peace agreement. Then we should arrange an intensive training course for US diplomats as well
as Syrian leaders: "There is no final truth: we have to learn the art of tolerance and accept
to live in a society where people you don't agree with also can live."
Looks like State Department became a paradise for neocons. Protest of diplomats is typical trick
used by State Departement during color revolution. That actually means this "color revolution" trick
came to the USA. Our presidents come and go, Republican or Democrat, but our Strangeloves remain permanent
employees of State Department. .
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent Syrian Kurdistan. ..."
"... A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons. I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal memo by mid-level bureaucrats. ..."
"... The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys ..."
"... The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth - it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue. ..."
"... For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by Kurdish media reports , he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate Kurdish state. ..."
"... The whole Syria nightmare was planned from the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006 because Assad was so broadly popular in the country and "the region." Can't have that so a strategy was drummed up: http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596 ..."
"... I'm sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets. ..."
"... http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the "moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already. ..."
"... So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever. ..."
"... A preview on America's future strategies? http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-EAP-FINAL.pdf ..."
"... The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything, promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end. ..."
"... As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's getting ready to cash in his chips. ..."
"... I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin, Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con plan. ..."
"... Israeli bombed military base in Homs province with impunity from S400 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.723701 ..."
"... There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel: STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around. https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/ ..."
"... On the bright side, maybe the 50 signatures are just trying to get noticed by the Clinton transition crew. ..."
"... The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role. ..."
"... i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement is retarded. ..."
"... How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of real situation in American politics, economy and military. ..."
"... I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of the world. ..."
"... Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships. ..."
"... At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we have... ..."
"... This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo? It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist. The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy corporate mouthpiece. ..."
"... We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia rejoining Turkey: http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950326000441 ..."
"... These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers, etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington, DC. ..."
"... Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus. ..."
"... How many of these diplomats were bribed by Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees. ..."
"... Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs. ..."
"... There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie). ..."
"... might the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some version of R2P ..."
"... State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan. The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" ..."
"... So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion page on their site. ..."
"... Counterpunch had a great article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/the-case-for-not-voting-in-defense-of-the-lazy-ungrateful-and-uniformed/ ..."
"... And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground." ..."
"... No respect for R2P warriors at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. ..."
"... For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia, supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has been made... ..."
"... Saudi Arabia desperately needs battlefield success, or there will be a prince, I mean price, to pay http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-officials-fear-saudi-collapse-if-new-prince-fails-n593996 ..."
"... "Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear, and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected to terror groups like Al Qaeda. ..."
"... What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef? ..."
"... Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust? ..."
"... Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups that were funding terrorism? ..."
"... the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article on the top of the front page . ..."
"... One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria." ..."
"... It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous it's bullshit. ..."
"... Wonder how many of these 51 war mongers were appointed by Hillary. ..."
"... The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid. There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises, rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable. ..."
"... kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening fast enough. ..."
"... The difference between Hillary and ISIS: the latter "takes" the head of enemies, Hillary "gives" head to donors. Forgive the graphic. ..."
"... 50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? ..."
"... Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully behind much of the world. ..."
"... So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists, at war all against all. ..."
"... The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light as has been portrayed. ..."
"... Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats. ..."
"... I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or whatever their boilerplate. ..."
"... No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony. Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits of challenge/ response in a military confrontation. ..."
WASHINGTON - More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical
of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military
strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations
of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.
Note that it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9
broke the ceasefire in Syria by attacking government troops south of Aleppo. They have since
continuously bombarded the government held parts of Aleppo which house over 1.5 million civilians
with improvised artillery.
Back to the piece:
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official
, says American policy has been "overwhelmed" by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It
calls for "a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird
and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."
...
The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials - many of them career diplomats - who
have been involved in the administration's Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad.
They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy
to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known
to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action
against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad.
...
The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not "advocating for a
slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia," but rather a credible threat
of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.
These State Department loons have their ass covered by Secretary of State Kerry. Otherwise they
would (and should) be fired for obvious ignorance. What "judicious" military threat against Russian
S-400 air defense in Syria is credible? Nukes on Moscow (and New York)?
In the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action against Mr. Assad would
help the fight against the Islamic State because it would bolster moderate Sunnis
, who are necessary allies against the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Would these "diplomats" be able to name even one group of "moderate Sunnis" in Syria that is not
on the side of the Syrian government? Are Ahrar al-Sahm and the other U.S. supported groups, who
recently killed
50 civilians out of purely sectarian motives when they stormed the town of Zara, such "moderate
Sunnis"?
These 50 State Department non-diplomats, and the stinking fish head above them, have obviously
failed in their duty:
"Diplomats" urging military action do nothing but confirm that they do not know their job
which is diplomacy, not bombing. They failed.
These "diplomats" do not know or do not want to follow international law. On what legal basis
would the U.S. bomb the Syrian government and its people? They do not name any. There is none.
To what purpose would the Syrian government and the millions of its followers be bombed? Who
but al-Qaeda would follow if the Assad-led government falls? The "diplomats" ignore that obvious
question.
The NYT writer of the piece on the memo demonstrates that he is just as stupid or dishonest as
the State Department dupes by adding this paragraph:
[T]he memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department's rank and
file have chafed at the White House's refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria
.
How is spending
over $1 billion a year to hire, train, arm and support "moderate rebels" against the Syrian government
consistent with the claim of a U.S. "refusal to be drawn into the conflict"?
It is obvious and widely documented that the U.S. has been fueling the conflict from the very
beginning throughout five years and continues up to today to
deliver thousands of tons of weapons to the "moderate rebels".
All the above, the "diplomats" letter and the NYT writer lying, is in preparation of an open U.S.
war on Syria under a possible president Hillary Clinton. (Jo Cox, the "humanitarian" British MP who
was murdered yesterday by some neo-nazi, spoke
in support of such a crime.)
The U.S. military
continues to reject an escalation against the Syrian government. Its reasonable question "what
follows after Assad" has never been seriously answered by the war supporters in the CIA and the State
Department.
Unexpected support of the U.S. military's position now
seems to come from the Turkish side. The Erdogan regime finally acknowledges that a Syria under
Assad is more convenient to it than a Kurdish state in north-Syria which the U.S. is currently helping
to establish:
"Assad is, at the end of the day, a killer. He is torturing his own people. We're not going to
change our stance on that," a senior official from the ruling AK Party told Reuters, requesting
anonymity so as to speak more freely.
"But he does not support Kurdish autonomy. We may not like each other, but on that
we're backing the same policy ," he said.
Ankara fears that territorial gains by Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria will fuel an
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle in Turkey's
southeast for three decades.
The Turks have suddenly removed their support for their "Turkmen" proxies fighting the Syrian
government in Latakia in north west Syria. Over the last few days the "Turkmen" retreated and the
Syrian army
advanced . It may soon reach the Turkish border. Should the Latakia front calm down the Syrian
army will be able to move several thousand troops from Latakia towards other critical sectors. The
Turkish government, under the new Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, is now also
sending peace signals towards Russia.
The situation in Syria could rapidly change in favor of the Syrian government should Turkey
change its bifurcating policies and continue these moves. Without their Turkish bases and support
the "moderate rebels" would soon be out of supplies and would lack the ability to continue their
fighting. The Russians and their allies should further emphasize the "Kurdish threat" to advance
this Turkish change of mind.
The race to preempt a Hillary administration war on Syria, which the "diplomats" memo prepares
for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side win.
This is the Yankees trying to pretend that they're still exceptionally invincible, in order to
conceal the fact that they never were. One only need look at all the tentative tiptoeing around
China & Russia to see that they're trying to convince themselves that Russia and China are run
by people as loony and disconnected as the self-seducers in charge of AmeriKKKan Foreign Policy.
SmoothieX got it 100% right in the previous thread..
"The names on the memo are almost all medeival offiCIAls ..."
There, fixed it for you. Enjoying the calm before the Goldman Sturm, the takeover of the US
Executive in 2017 for the Final Solution on liberating the Fifth Quintile's Last Free Life Savings,
and plunging the globe into a New Dark Ages: Trump or Clinton, allatime same-same.
The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent
Syrian Kurdistan.
The FSA Sunnistan plan has been going down the tubes for months. With the imminent fall of
the last few FSA strongholds, the State Department has gone berserk with their latest standoff
bombing memo 'leak' nonsense. A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and
completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons.
I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal
memo by mid-level bureaucrats.
The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the
Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning
up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any
REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs
and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys.
This almost works, but not completely. For what it's worth, I don't think the Pentagram cares
at all about an independent Syrian Kurdistan, unifying the cantons or who gets what land/resources,
as long as it's taken from ISIS. When ISIS is wiped out, the SDF will cease to exist and
the SF guys will leave. The SDF and especially the YPG/YPJ will NOT ever be incented to provoke
or go to war with Assad after ISIS is gone. That's a problem for the State Department and CIA
The neocon State Department and CIA - normally at odds with the Pentagon's increasing reluctance
to get involved at all - are taking this opportunity to agitate for an independent Kurdistan.
This is done by funding the Kurdish PYD political party which purports to speak for all Kurds.
The State Department and CIA also fund the PYD's growing Asayish thug secret police 'enforcers'.
The PYD took control of Rojava by throwing out all the other political parties last year and crowning
itself the King of all Syrian Kurds. But most Kurds don't trust the PYD, figuring that either
Assad or the U.S. is really pulling the strings. The Kurds agree with the original PYD ideology,
but not its current land/resource-grabbing frenzy NOR the kind of independent Kurdistan the PYD
is suggesting. They want more rights and control of their affairs, but they do not want an actual
or de facto independent Syrian Kurdistan.
The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the
independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth -
it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped
PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the
CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny
Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to
the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue.
For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by
Kurdish media reports
, he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not
object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate
Kurdish state. The U.S. State Department does NOT want Rojava to be part of Syria or the
Syrian State and spins the Assad/Kurd relation as antagonistic in the MSM. This is the 'Plan C'
Syrian partition scheme. Hopefully, the average Kurd can see through their scheming and will not
follow the dictates of a usurped PYD to go to war with Syria for their independence. They would
be better off dumping and outlawing the PYD completely and working with the new Syrian government
on the future AFTER ISIS (and hopefully without any U.S. State Department and CIA).
Your assessment above is a supremely eloquent assessment and a scream for sanity to return.
Thank you so very much for your always illuminating writings.
I think you're quite right. That corresponds with what I've thought for some time. I'm
sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm
sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The
use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to
stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under
the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed
terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the
"moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like
the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already.
"Yet, even as Syria's military clashes with the West's proxies, the United States, Britain,
and France have begun moving in Special Forces soldiers to assist in the mission of destroying
the Syrian government, a mission that Israeli, Jordanian, and Turkish officers have joined in
as well. That is, of course, despite the fact that Russian Special Forces are on the ground fighting
on the side of the Syrian military.
"Likewise, both the United States and Russia are busy building military bases in the northern
regions of Syria to use as staging grounds for new operations."
So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look
like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the
US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever.
Since B is not mentioning it, he might as well not mention that the French terrorist invaders
along with the already US terrorists, and possibly German invaders will be occupying parts of
Syria.
Oh, but that's alright because Putin invited the evil minions of the Us empire into Syria,
you know, because the bad PR opportunity is a much better outcome then world War three.
The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor
the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must
know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything,
promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end.
As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is
a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the
American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about
zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all
mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's
getting ready to cash in his chips.
It looks to be more of the same, until they really do go after Russia, when it will be all
over for all of us. I can't imagine that they really believe they can get away with this, but
this bunch is all 'mid-level', 'just following orders', it won't be 'their fault' and that's the
level they're working at. The people calling the tune think they can play the real world as they
do their fake financial world, making up new rules as they go along, as they redefine success
after each of their serial failures.
Talk about boiled frogs. How in the hell have we let it get this far?
I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC
destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin,
Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or
the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at
the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con
plan. This letter may be, as b says, a measure of theneo-cons' fear that it will all be over
for 'their guys' in Syria by 21 January. If that were to come to pass, Vladimir Putin will have
had a big hand in it.
Nicola @10 from your link 'Extending American power' I had to laugh at this... 4. "All of which
provides the basis for our strong belief
that the United States still has the military, economic,
and political power to play the leading role in pro
-tecting a stable rules-based international order". 'Rules based',ha, the US is the leading regime
change state, acting always contrary to International law to benefit its hegemonic ambitions.
All five veto wielding powers and their friends are above International law for all time. Thankfully,
Russia and China cannot be threatened militarily and will confront the monstrous US designs in
Syria, once the head choppers are defeated the victors should move against the real source of
terrorism in the region, Saudi Arabia and the various GCC satraps. b's article above is excellent
and is echoed in this piece in Antiwar.com
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/06/16/something-going-worse-thought/
There are other worrying development in Syroi a namely changing of Riusssian attitude to Assaad.
First Lavrov said that Russia is not Syrian government ally, they just fight terrorists together.
An obvious nonsense.
And now this.
Israel, following several similar air raids in previous months just bombed SAA installation
in Homs province, in the middle of Syria just 45 second flight of S400 rockets located in latakia,
while Netanyahu was smiling with Putin in Moscow.
Can you explain WTF? All of that while IDF artillery provides cover for ANF commanded by formed
ISIL commander in Golan Heights foothills,
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around.
https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/
This is not preview nor is it a strategy, since strategies are based on more or less professional
and realistic, I may add, assessments of the outside world. I do not have any recollection of
any serious US doctrinal (policy or military wise) document in the last 20 years written from
the position of comprehensive situational awareness--this is a non existent condition among most
of US current "power elites". The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly
incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be
allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role.
They simply have no qualifications for that and are nothing more than a bunch of ideologues and
propagandists from Ivy League humanities degree mill. Back to "preview"--it is a dominant ideology
of "exceptionalism" which afflicted US "elites" today, this document is just another iteration
of this ideology.
i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that
shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement
is retarded. Of course, many of those speak from ignorance of what's really going on, but
the knee-jerk suspicion of US Syria policy & these FSO dickheads seems a good sign.
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
It is exactly the other way around. How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful
category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to
largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed
than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's
pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia
being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of
real situation in American politics, economy and military. In other words -- they know how
to count and see who pulls the strings. And then there is another "little tiny" factor--Israelis
know damn well who won WW II in Europe. It matters, a great deal.
I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected
is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of
the world. I say this not because I am psychic, but because that is her unambiguous record.
Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track
record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships.
This November I'm going for the wild-card who at least sounds rational (if you listen to what
he actually proposes, and not his style) and has a track record of actually being pragmatic, over
certain doom.
At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we
have...
This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo?
It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist.
The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy
corporate mouthpiece.
If an article does not link to an original source OR quotes only 'anon sources' be skeptical.
Journalism, especially alt news journalists, site original sources AND try like hell to get sources
to go on the record.
My apologies in advance if I'm being offensive to our generous host. That is not my intent.
Rather, it's venting a long held frustration I've had with the division within corporate newsrooms
who are there solely to sell the readers the news, even if it's made up out of thin air.
Yeah . . .agree 90%. Here are some minor details that need to be tidied up, and a couple thoughts.
1.
b: it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9 broke the ceasefire in Syria.
This is not quite accurate. Resolution 2254 exempted al Nusra from the cease-fire, not sure
about al Sham and whatever others you are referring to. If they were excluded from the cease-fire,
then they couldn't break it.
2.
The NYT writer is Mark Landler, not Lander. If you're going to accuse him of being stupid or dishonest,
you want to get the name right. Mark Lander, whoever he is, might have a pack of bulldog lawyers.
3.
I don't see in Landler's article a link to the memo or a list of the people who signed it. Someone
needs to publish that list of signatories to preserve the record of who the DOS idiots are.
4. We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied
up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in
behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other
what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans
are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando.
Thanks for sharing your outrage, b. I completely agree. I have been ranting about this all morning
and it's good to see someone else stating the case so the rest of us don't feel isolated in our
anger at this vicious and dangerous stupidity. These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning
for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers,
etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing
them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all
times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire
viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington,
DC.
CIA .... YPG .... ALNUSRA.... FSL , all these acronyms are so confusing , how about considering
the level of sanity and intelligence of these groups ( which is probably below that of a wounded
flea .... ) why not call them Scoobidoos vs the Syrian Army
so the article would go something like this :
In the memo, the Scoobidoos State Department officials argued that military action against
Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Scoobidoos because it would bolster moderate Scoobidoos,
who are necessary allies against the group, also known as Scoobidoos .
I thought it was a "cessation of hostilities" not a case fire. The difference is not trivial,
and State Department employees should know the difference. The signers are either incompetent
or evil (not mutually exclusive, of course).
dont think landler is stupid. dishonest and deceiving would be my say. he is a nyt's jew writing,
maybe lying, regarding syria. NYT: only news acceptable to jews. sometimes, many times we have
to make up stories and facts to (maybe) fit.
cant find any of the dissenting names.
like to know how many are jew if story not total fake
then there is the political hatchet job on the russian track/field olym team.
I think the key takeaway is b's last two sentences: "The race to preempt a Hillary administration
war on Syria, which the 'diplomats' memo prepares for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side
win."
Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a
Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus.
Whether during or shortly after Hillary's first 100 days in office, U.S. military engagement
with Libya and Syria will likely be significantly greater than it is now.
This is the exact reason the Ministers of Defense of Syria, Russia and Iran held meeting in Teheran
just recently. My assumption is they are planning on rolling up the acres, so to speak in Syria.
All before the new POTUS comes to office. Also, Hezbollah just announced it's sending in reinforcements
to the battlefield. All this while the Chinese continue to sleep. Sigh.
The Kurds are the last great hope for the oil and especially natural gas pipelines dream from
the GCC to Europe, but still, Israel is not happy. They wanted a branch-off pipeline for themselves.
Also Jordan was to get a small branch-off too. Israel is no more than a parasite, look up the
definition. It's exact. Turkey would benefit economically due to transit fees. That's why the
Turks are so heavily involved. Turkey, who's economy is done for due to Chinese cheap products
swamping the M.E; is crashed. Jordan is broke (hence they allow the head choppers to be trained
on their territory). The U.S is the overlord who wants this project to be implemented so as to
deny Russia the European market (see Saudia too).
Netanyahu has visited Russia 3-4 times (not sure)to dissuade Putin on his support for Bashar
( who said yes to the Friendship pipeline- Running from Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria..to the Mediterranean
thru to Greece, Europe). No other World leader makes that many visits is such a short time to
another capital. Netanyahu obviously failed in his endeavor, as the Russians are familiar with
these Zionist snakes very well. All they have to look at is the genocide perpetrated by said Zionists
in their very own 20th Century history. I even read that Putin irked Netanyahu when Putin offered
him back the Pale of Settlement if they wanted to make the smart choice. Beautiful if true. Probably
wishful thinking tho.
Anyways, Israel runs the U.S State Department(see, the Crazies in the Basement). They don't
call it Foggy Bottom for nothing. Must be foggy now due to too many employess smoking bongs in
the downstairs cafeteria, hence the ridiculous memo. Also the writer of the memo is most certainly
another member of the chosen tribe.
Yes, a 'Night of the Broken Glass' or 'Night of the Long Knives' is much needed to save Humanity
essentially. But don't hope for it. Congress, Capital Hill leaders , MSM heads and head anchors,
most everybody in the Whit house(except the kitchen staff) would have to be rounded up.
The only hope would have been the U.S Military Officer Corp. before the great purges post 9-11.
Now it's I'm possible. God help the American people and the World.
This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying
all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being
hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees.
Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs.
There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming
that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention
in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but
I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie).
Seven months. If Russia lends more of its strength, is it possible to gain the territory and
hold it to the point that, oh, the West's illegal bases will have to close down? Or might
the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some
version of
R2P
State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were
Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan.
The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake.
"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"
So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department
is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion
page on their site. They seem to feel that working for them immerses you in a 'Culture of
Leadership'. I guess the 'Culture of Chaos and Death' theme, although more neocon-appropriate,
was shot down in favor of tempting potential employees with the possibility of more power and
control.
There are times the depressing mood on MoA is mitigated by some of the rather classic spelling
errors. I sometimes wonder if they might be intentional in order to lighten the mood?
In the inner halls of Pentagramagon nothing succeeds financially like serial designed failure
...
KABUL, Afghanistan - "The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month
assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it's going to take to defeat the
Taliban, a U.S. military official has told The Associated Press.
And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S.
strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to
expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military
wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground."
No respect for
R2P warriors
at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Jo Cox as former
Oxfam executive was moved by the same massacres of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur.
Unwittingly (?) the R2P argument was used by the Obama White House to intervene in Libya and
Syria. The US took R2P a step further to force regime change which is illegal by International
law. See George Bush and
Tony Blair
to white-wash the cruelty of torture, rendition, Abu Ghraib, extrajudicial assassinations,
etc, etc.
Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford was an apprentice of John Negroponte in Baghdad,
Iraq.
If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams. Russia has
clearly allied itself closely to Israel and Nato in Syria. Some kind of sanctions relief deal
must be in the works. Syria will be split up soon. Assad is a dead man.
For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia,
supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has
been made...
"Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism
on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear
factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear,
and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom
insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is
the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected
to terror groups like Al Qaeda. If that sounds like a serious accusation, you're damn right
it is."
"The three questions are very simple, very straightforward, and, frankly, anybody can research
the answers themselves. They are:
1) What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef?
2) Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust?
3) Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups
that were funding terrorism?"
"If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams."
Interesting opinion? If you made a list of democratically elected Presidents and National Leaders
the US/GB/ISR axis have terminated you will fill a book. From Patrice Lumumba to Hugo Chavez the
list goes on and on. Could you supply me with a list of National Leaders that Russia under Putin
has terminated?
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Department of State has no plans to make public an internal memo
calling for the United States to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad's
government, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing on Friday. "There's
no plans to make it public," Kirby stated when asked when the State Department would release
the dissent letter.
Furthermore, Kirby said there will be no investigation as to how the letter ended up in
the public domain.
By 'public domain', Kirby means on some writer's desk at the NYT, never to be seen by the unwashed
masses. To be fair, the State Department's "Dissent Memo" program is supposed to be confidential
even within the State Department itself to encourage its use. Mark Landler said in his article
that a draft of it was leaked by 'a State Department official' to the NYT. So some skepticism
of the existence or eventual submission of the actual memo is warranted. Not that Landry is lying
or hasn't verified it, but the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing
it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article
on
the top of the front page .
Nyt participating in these pressures is coordinated with medecins sans frontiere announcing
today that they ll refuse eu money to protest on the treatment of refugees and with recent surge
in french and uk msm of so called white helmets exclusive pictured
Obama, despite dissent on Syria, not shifting toward strikes on Assad
The U.S. administration sought on Friday to contain fallout from a leaked internal memo critical
of its Syria policy, but showed no sign it was willing to consider military strikes against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's forces called for in the letter signed by dozens of U.S. diplomats.
Several U.S. officials said that while the White House is prepared to hear the diplomats' dissenting
viewpoint, it is not expected to spur any changes in President Barack Obama's approach to Syria
in his final seven months in office.
One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive
action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention
that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria."
It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots
down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous
it's bullshit.
The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid.
There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million
Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises,
rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable.
Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic
across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
These deals would impose trade and development aid sanctions on countries that do not stem
migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential
partners are
Somalia ,
Eritrea , Sudan and Afghanistan – four of the top ten* refugee generating countries.
kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening
fast enough. How many others are in the works? I'm running-out-of-patience waiting for the
regime change anyone with 1/2 a brain wants, right here in the U.S. Regime Change US. It's our
turn. I just read Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg Int'l Forum. He must have used the word
"cooperation" at least 20 times. We need such a great leader. Terroristic turds like kerry and
co. belong in jail.
50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? Isn't it enough
that this "peaceful" nation arms the world and places economic "pressure" on those nations that
displease her to the point of causing millions to die - do we really have to "kill the village
to save it?" Yes, I agree, each and every one of those "career diplomats" should be looking for
other work. They have not merely lost their way, they have lost their minds. My contempt for them
is manifest, as is my contempt for the entire MIC. That those trained in diplomacy should send
such a despicable petition illuminates the deep corrupting influence of American Exceptionalism
- a force for the kind of nationalism Germany endured 1933-45. Idiots.
Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact
that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully
behind much of the world. My objection is that belief in exceptionalism leads to moral decay.
It is the functional equivalent of the 19th Century preachers who endorsed slavery, who preached
that negroes carried the mark of Cain, etc. Whites were God's chosen. The pseudo-righteousness
that preaching created in believers was largely responsible for America's Civil War. Americans
will be better people, with a better society, if we dispel this myth immediately. We're OK, you're
OK. Then we could have peace. Wouldn't that be nice?
So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria
smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists,
at war all against all. The Queen of Chaos, indeed, loves these scenarios. Especially because
her quick attack as first thing should she win the White House would shut the mouths of her critics
wanting her prosecuted for her crooked political and business corruption. But she and her State
Department surrogates would be in for a surprise: Russian and Syrian defences would not remain
silent. And afterwards, what would be left? How would the Exceptionalist who "gets things done"
proceed?
The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's
part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over
the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light
as has been portrayed.
Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what
they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats.
I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or
whatever their boilerplate.
Releasing their names might give us the means to track the 5th column as it winds its way through
'our' government, and that must be prevented at all costs. Think it might lead through Hillary?
Seems no doubt here.
No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by
visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony.
Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits
of challenge/ response in a military confrontation.
Looks like State Department became a paradise for neocons. Protest of diplomats is typical trick
used by State Departement during color revolution. That actually means this "color revolution" trick
came to the USA. Our presidents come and go, Republican or Democrat, but our Strangeloves remain permanent
employees of State Department. .
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent Syrian Kurdistan. ..."
"... A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons. I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal memo by mid-level bureaucrats. ..."
"... The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys ..."
"... The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth - it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue. ..."
"... For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by Kurdish media reports , he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate Kurdish state. ..."
"... The whole Syria nightmare was planned from the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006 because Assad was so broadly popular in the country and "the region." Can't have that so a strategy was drummed up: http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596 ..."
"... I'm sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets. ..."
"... http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the "moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already. ..."
"... So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever. ..."
"... A preview on America's future strategies? http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-EAP-FINAL.pdf ..."
"... The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything, promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end. ..."
"... As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's getting ready to cash in his chips. ..."
"... I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin, Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con plan. ..."
"... Israeli bombed military base in Homs province with impunity from S400 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.723701 ..."
"... There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel: STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around. https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/ ..."
"... On the bright side, maybe the 50 signatures are just trying to get noticed by the Clinton transition crew. ..."
"... The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role. ..."
"... i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement is retarded. ..."
"... How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of real situation in American politics, economy and military. ..."
"... I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of the world. ..."
"... Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships. ..."
"... At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we have... ..."
"... This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo? It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist. The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy corporate mouthpiece. ..."
"... We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia rejoining Turkey: http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950326000441 ..."
"... These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers, etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington, DC. ..."
"... Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus. ..."
"... How many of these diplomats were bribed by Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees. ..."
"... Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs. ..."
"... There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie). ..."
"... might the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some version of R2P ..."
"... State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan. The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" ..."
"... So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion page on their site. ..."
"... Counterpunch had a great article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/the-case-for-not-voting-in-defense-of-the-lazy-ungrateful-and-uniformed/ ..."
"... And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground." ..."
"... No respect for R2P warriors at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. ..."
"... For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia, supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has been made... ..."
"... Saudi Arabia desperately needs battlefield success, or there will be a prince, I mean price, to pay http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-officials-fear-saudi-collapse-if-new-prince-fails-n593996 ..."
"... "Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear, and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected to terror groups like Al Qaeda. ..."
"... What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef? ..."
"... Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust? ..."
"... Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups that were funding terrorism? ..."
"... the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article on the top of the front page . ..."
"... One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria." ..."
"... It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous it's bullshit. ..."
"... Wonder how many of these 51 war mongers were appointed by Hillary. ..."
"... The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid. There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises, rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable. ..."
"... kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening fast enough. ..."
"... The difference between Hillary and ISIS: the latter "takes" the head of enemies, Hillary "gives" head to donors. Forgive the graphic. ..."
"... 50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? ..."
"... Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully behind much of the world. ..."
"... So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists, at war all against all. ..."
"... The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light as has been portrayed. ..."
"... Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats. ..."
"... I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or whatever their boilerplate. ..."
"... No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony. Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits of challenge/ response in a military confrontation. ..."
WASHINGTON - More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical
of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military
strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations
of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.
Note that it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9
broke the ceasefire in Syria by attacking government troops south of Aleppo. They have since
continuously bombarded the government held parts of Aleppo which house over 1.5 million civilians
with improvised artillery.
Back to the piece:
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official
, says American policy has been "overwhelmed" by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It
calls for "a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird
and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."
...
The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials - many of them career diplomats - who
have been involved in the administration's Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad.
They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy
to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known
to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action
against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad.
...
The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not "advocating for a
slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia," but rather a credible threat
of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.
These State Department loons have their ass covered by Secretary of State Kerry. Otherwise they
would (and should) be fired for obvious ignorance. What "judicious" military threat against Russian
S-400 air defense in Syria is credible? Nukes on Moscow (and New York)?
In the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action against Mr. Assad would
help the fight against the Islamic State because it would bolster moderate Sunnis
, who are necessary allies against the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Would these "diplomats" be able to name even one group of "moderate Sunnis" in Syria that is not
on the side of the Syrian government? Are Ahrar al-Sahm and the other U.S. supported groups, who
recently killed
50 civilians out of purely sectarian motives when they stormed the town of Zara, such "moderate
Sunnis"?
These 50 State Department non-diplomats, and the stinking fish head above them, have obviously
failed in their duty:
"Diplomats" urging military action do nothing but confirm that they do not know their job
which is diplomacy, not bombing. They failed.
These "diplomats" do not know or do not want to follow international law. On what legal basis
would the U.S. bomb the Syrian government and its people? They do not name any. There is none.
To what purpose would the Syrian government and the millions of its followers be bombed? Who
but al-Qaeda would follow if the Assad-led government falls? The "diplomats" ignore that obvious
question.
The NYT writer of the piece on the memo demonstrates that he is just as stupid or dishonest as
the State Department dupes by adding this paragraph:
[T]he memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department's rank and
file have chafed at the White House's refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria
.
How is spending
over $1 billion a year to hire, train, arm and support "moderate rebels" against the Syrian government
consistent with the claim of a U.S. "refusal to be drawn into the conflict"?
It is obvious and widely documented that the U.S. has been fueling the conflict from the very
beginning throughout five years and continues up to today to
deliver thousands of tons of weapons to the "moderate rebels".
All the above, the "diplomats" letter and the NYT writer lying, is in preparation of an open U.S.
war on Syria under a possible president Hillary Clinton. (Jo Cox, the "humanitarian" British MP who
was murdered yesterday by some neo-nazi, spoke
in support of such a crime.)
The U.S. military
continues to reject an escalation against the Syrian government. Its reasonable question "what
follows after Assad" has never been seriously answered by the war supporters in the CIA and the State
Department.
Unexpected support of the U.S. military's position now
seems to come from the Turkish side. The Erdogan regime finally acknowledges that a Syria under
Assad is more convenient to it than a Kurdish state in north-Syria which the U.S. is currently helping
to establish:
"Assad is, at the end of the day, a killer. He is torturing his own people. We're not going to
change our stance on that," a senior official from the ruling AK Party told Reuters, requesting
anonymity so as to speak more freely.
"But he does not support Kurdish autonomy. We may not like each other, but on that
we're backing the same policy ," he said.
Ankara fears that territorial gains by Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria will fuel an
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle in Turkey's
southeast for three decades.
The Turks have suddenly removed their support for their "Turkmen" proxies fighting the Syrian
government in Latakia in north west Syria. Over the last few days the "Turkmen" retreated and the
Syrian army
advanced . It may soon reach the Turkish border. Should the Latakia front calm down the Syrian
army will be able to move several thousand troops from Latakia towards other critical sectors. The
Turkish government, under the new Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, is now also
sending peace signals towards Russia.
The situation in Syria could rapidly change in favor of the Syrian government should Turkey
change its bifurcating policies and continue these moves. Without their Turkish bases and support
the "moderate rebels" would soon be out of supplies and would lack the ability to continue their
fighting. The Russians and their allies should further emphasize the "Kurdish threat" to advance
this Turkish change of mind.
The race to preempt a Hillary administration war on Syria, which the "diplomats" memo prepares
for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side win.
This is the Yankees trying to pretend that they're still exceptionally invincible, in order to
conceal the fact that they never were. One only need look at all the tentative tiptoeing around
China & Russia to see that they're trying to convince themselves that Russia and China are run
by people as loony and disconnected as the self-seducers in charge of AmeriKKKan Foreign Policy.
SmoothieX got it 100% right in the previous thread..
"The names on the memo are almost all medeival offiCIAls ..."
There, fixed it for you. Enjoying the calm before the Goldman Sturm, the takeover of the US
Executive in 2017 for the Final Solution on liberating the Fifth Quintile's Last Free Life Savings,
and plunging the globe into a New Dark Ages: Trump or Clinton, allatime same-same.
The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent
Syrian Kurdistan.
The FSA Sunnistan plan has been going down the tubes for months. With the imminent fall of
the last few FSA strongholds, the State Department has gone berserk with their latest standoff
bombing memo 'leak' nonsense. A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and
completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons.
I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal
memo by mid-level bureaucrats.
The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the
Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning
up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any
REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs
and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys.
This almost works, but not completely. For what it's worth, I don't think the Pentagram cares
at all about an independent Syrian Kurdistan, unifying the cantons or who gets what land/resources,
as long as it's taken from ISIS. When ISIS is wiped out, the SDF will cease to exist and
the SF guys will leave. The SDF and especially the YPG/YPJ will NOT ever be incented to provoke
or go to war with Assad after ISIS is gone. That's a problem for the State Department and CIA
The neocon State Department and CIA - normally at odds with the Pentagon's increasing reluctance
to get involved at all - are taking this opportunity to agitate for an independent Kurdistan.
This is done by funding the Kurdish PYD political party which purports to speak for all Kurds.
The State Department and CIA also fund the PYD's growing Asayish thug secret police 'enforcers'.
The PYD took control of Rojava by throwing out all the other political parties last year and crowning
itself the King of all Syrian Kurds. But most Kurds don't trust the PYD, figuring that either
Assad or the U.S. is really pulling the strings. The Kurds agree with the original PYD ideology,
but not its current land/resource-grabbing frenzy NOR the kind of independent Kurdistan the PYD
is suggesting. They want more rights and control of their affairs, but they do not want an actual
or de facto independent Syrian Kurdistan.
The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the
independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth -
it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped
PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the
CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny
Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to
the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue.
For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by
Kurdish media reports
, he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not
object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate
Kurdish state. The U.S. State Department does NOT want Rojava to be part of Syria or the
Syrian State and spins the Assad/Kurd relation as antagonistic in the MSM. This is the 'Plan C'
Syrian partition scheme. Hopefully, the average Kurd can see through their scheming and will not
follow the dictates of a usurped PYD to go to war with Syria for their independence. They would
be better off dumping and outlawing the PYD completely and working with the new Syrian government
on the future AFTER ISIS (and hopefully without any U.S. State Department and CIA).
Your assessment above is a supremely eloquent assessment and a scream for sanity to return.
Thank you so very much for your always illuminating writings.
I think you're quite right. That corresponds with what I've thought for some time. I'm
sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm
sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The
use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to
stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under
the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed
terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the
"moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like
the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already.
"Yet, even as Syria's military clashes with the West's proxies, the United States, Britain,
and France have begun moving in Special Forces soldiers to assist in the mission of destroying
the Syrian government, a mission that Israeli, Jordanian, and Turkish officers have joined in
as well. That is, of course, despite the fact that Russian Special Forces are on the ground fighting
on the side of the Syrian military.
"Likewise, both the United States and Russia are busy building military bases in the northern
regions of Syria to use as staging grounds for new operations."
So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look
like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the
US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever.
Since B is not mentioning it, he might as well not mention that the French terrorist invaders
along with the already US terrorists, and possibly German invaders will be occupying parts of
Syria.
Oh, but that's alright because Putin invited the evil minions of the Us empire into Syria,
you know, because the bad PR opportunity is a much better outcome then world War three.
The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor
the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must
know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything,
promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end.
As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is
a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the
American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about
zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all
mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's
getting ready to cash in his chips.
It looks to be more of the same, until they really do go after Russia, when it will be all
over for all of us. I can't imagine that they really believe they can get away with this, but
this bunch is all 'mid-level', 'just following orders', it won't be 'their fault' and that's the
level they're working at. The people calling the tune think they can play the real world as they
do their fake financial world, making up new rules as they go along, as they redefine success
after each of their serial failures.
Talk about boiled frogs. How in the hell have we let it get this far?
I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC
destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin,
Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or
the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at
the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con
plan. This letter may be, as b says, a measure of theneo-cons' fear that it will all be over
for 'their guys' in Syria by 21 January. If that were to come to pass, Vladimir Putin will have
had a big hand in it.
Nicola @10 from your link 'Extending American power' I had to laugh at this... 4. "All of which
provides the basis for our strong belief
that the United States still has the military, economic,
and political power to play the leading role in pro
-tecting a stable rules-based international order". 'Rules based',ha, the US is the leading regime
change state, acting always contrary to International law to benefit its hegemonic ambitions.
All five veto wielding powers and their friends are above International law for all time. Thankfully,
Russia and China cannot be threatened militarily and will confront the monstrous US designs in
Syria, once the head choppers are defeated the victors should move against the real source of
terrorism in the region, Saudi Arabia and the various GCC satraps. b's article above is excellent
and is echoed in this piece in Antiwar.com
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/06/16/something-going-worse-thought/
There are other worrying development in Syroi a namely changing of Riusssian attitude to Assaad.
First Lavrov said that Russia is not Syrian government ally, they just fight terrorists together.
An obvious nonsense.
And now this.
Israel, following several similar air raids in previous months just bombed SAA installation
in Homs province, in the middle of Syria just 45 second flight of S400 rockets located in latakia,
while Netanyahu was smiling with Putin in Moscow.
Can you explain WTF? All of that while IDF artillery provides cover for ANF commanded by formed
ISIL commander in Golan Heights foothills,
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around.
https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/
This is not preview nor is it a strategy, since strategies are based on more or less professional
and realistic, I may add, assessments of the outside world. I do not have any recollection of
any serious US doctrinal (policy or military wise) document in the last 20 years written from
the position of comprehensive situational awareness--this is a non existent condition among most
of US current "power elites". The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly
incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be
allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role.
They simply have no qualifications for that and are nothing more than a bunch of ideologues and
propagandists from Ivy League humanities degree mill. Back to "preview"--it is a dominant ideology
of "exceptionalism" which afflicted US "elites" today, this document is just another iteration
of this ideology.
i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that
shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement
is retarded. Of course, many of those speak from ignorance of what's really going on, but
the knee-jerk suspicion of US Syria policy & these FSO dickheads seems a good sign.
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
It is exactly the other way around. How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful
category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to
largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed
than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's
pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia
being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of
real situation in American politics, economy and military. In other words -- they know how
to count and see who pulls the strings. And then there is another "little tiny" factor--Israelis
know damn well who won WW II in Europe. It matters, a great deal.
I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected
is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of
the world. I say this not because I am psychic, but because that is her unambiguous record.
Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track
record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships.
This November I'm going for the wild-card who at least sounds rational (if you listen to what
he actually proposes, and not his style) and has a track record of actually being pragmatic, over
certain doom.
At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we
have...
This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo?
It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist.
The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy
corporate mouthpiece.
If an article does not link to an original source OR quotes only 'anon sources' be skeptical.
Journalism, especially alt news journalists, site original sources AND try like hell to get sources
to go on the record.
My apologies in advance if I'm being offensive to our generous host. That is not my intent.
Rather, it's venting a long held frustration I've had with the division within corporate newsrooms
who are there solely to sell the readers the news, even if it's made up out of thin air.
Yeah . . .agree 90%. Here are some minor details that need to be tidied up, and a couple thoughts.
1.
b: it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9 broke the ceasefire in Syria.
This is not quite accurate. Resolution 2254 exempted al Nusra from the cease-fire, not sure
about al Sham and whatever others you are referring to. If they were excluded from the cease-fire,
then they couldn't break it.
2.
The NYT writer is Mark Landler, not Lander. If you're going to accuse him of being stupid or dishonest,
you want to get the name right. Mark Lander, whoever he is, might have a pack of bulldog lawyers.
3.
I don't see in Landler's article a link to the memo or a list of the people who signed it. Someone
needs to publish that list of signatories to preserve the record of who the DOS idiots are.
4. We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied
up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in
behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other
what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans
are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando.
Thanks for sharing your outrage, b. I completely agree. I have been ranting about this all morning
and it's good to see someone else stating the case so the rest of us don't feel isolated in our
anger at this vicious and dangerous stupidity. These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning
for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers,
etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing
them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all
times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire
viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington,
DC.
CIA .... YPG .... ALNUSRA.... FSL , all these acronyms are so confusing , how about considering
the level of sanity and intelligence of these groups ( which is probably below that of a wounded
flea .... ) why not call them Scoobidoos vs the Syrian Army
so the article would go something like this :
In the memo, the Scoobidoos State Department officials argued that military action against
Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Scoobidoos because it would bolster moderate Scoobidoos,
who are necessary allies against the group, also known as Scoobidoos .
I thought it was a "cessation of hostilities" not a case fire. The difference is not trivial,
and State Department employees should know the difference. The signers are either incompetent
or evil (not mutually exclusive, of course).
dont think landler is stupid. dishonest and deceiving would be my say. he is a nyt's jew writing,
maybe lying, regarding syria. NYT: only news acceptable to jews. sometimes, many times we have
to make up stories and facts to (maybe) fit.
cant find any of the dissenting names.
like to know how many are jew if story not total fake
then there is the political hatchet job on the russian track/field olym team.
I think the key takeaway is b's last two sentences: "The race to preempt a Hillary administration
war on Syria, which the 'diplomats' memo prepares for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side
win."
Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a
Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus.
Whether during or shortly after Hillary's first 100 days in office, U.S. military engagement
with Libya and Syria will likely be significantly greater than it is now.
This is the exact reason the Ministers of Defense of Syria, Russia and Iran held meeting in Teheran
just recently. My assumption is they are planning on rolling up the acres, so to speak in Syria.
All before the new POTUS comes to office. Also, Hezbollah just announced it's sending in reinforcements
to the battlefield. All this while the Chinese continue to sleep. Sigh.
The Kurds are the last great hope for the oil and especially natural gas pipelines dream from
the GCC to Europe, but still, Israel is not happy. They wanted a branch-off pipeline for themselves.
Also Jordan was to get a small branch-off too. Israel is no more than a parasite, look up the
definition. It's exact. Turkey would benefit economically due to transit fees. That's why the
Turks are so heavily involved. Turkey, who's economy is done for due to Chinese cheap products
swamping the M.E; is crashed. Jordan is broke (hence they allow the head choppers to be trained
on their territory). The U.S is the overlord who wants this project to be implemented so as to
deny Russia the European market (see Saudia too).
Netanyahu has visited Russia 3-4 times (not sure)to dissuade Putin on his support for Bashar
( who said yes to the Friendship pipeline- Running from Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria..to the Mediterranean
thru to Greece, Europe). No other World leader makes that many visits is such a short time to
another capital. Netanyahu obviously failed in his endeavor, as the Russians are familiar with
these Zionist snakes very well. All they have to look at is the genocide perpetrated by said Zionists
in their very own 20th Century history. I even read that Putin irked Netanyahu when Putin offered
him back the Pale of Settlement if they wanted to make the smart choice. Beautiful if true. Probably
wishful thinking tho.
Anyways, Israel runs the U.S State Department(see, the Crazies in the Basement). They don't
call it Foggy Bottom for nothing. Must be foggy now due to too many employess smoking bongs in
the downstairs cafeteria, hence the ridiculous memo. Also the writer of the memo is most certainly
another member of the chosen tribe.
Yes, a 'Night of the Broken Glass' or 'Night of the Long Knives' is much needed to save Humanity
essentially. But don't hope for it. Congress, Capital Hill leaders , MSM heads and head anchors,
most everybody in the Whit house(except the kitchen staff) would have to be rounded up.
The only hope would have been the U.S Military Officer Corp. before the great purges post 9-11.
Now it's I'm possible. God help the American people and the World.
This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying
all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being
hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees.
Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs.
There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming
that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention
in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but
I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie).
Seven months. If Russia lends more of its strength, is it possible to gain the territory and
hold it to the point that, oh, the West's illegal bases will have to close down? Or might
the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some
version of
R2P
State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were
Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan.
The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake.
"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"
So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department
is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion
page on their site. They seem to feel that working for them immerses you in a 'Culture of
Leadership'. I guess the 'Culture of Chaos and Death' theme, although more neocon-appropriate,
was shot down in favor of tempting potential employees with the possibility of more power and
control.
There are times the depressing mood on MoA is mitigated by some of the rather classic spelling
errors. I sometimes wonder if they might be intentional in order to lighten the mood?
In the inner halls of Pentagramagon nothing succeeds financially like serial designed failure
...
KABUL, Afghanistan - "The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month
assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it's going to take to defeat the
Taliban, a U.S. military official has told The Associated Press.
And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S.
strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to
expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military
wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground."
No respect for
R2P warriors
at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Jo Cox as former
Oxfam executive was moved by the same massacres of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur.
Unwittingly (?) the R2P argument was used by the Obama White House to intervene in Libya and
Syria. The US took R2P a step further to force regime change which is illegal by International
law. See George Bush and
Tony Blair
to white-wash the cruelty of torture, rendition, Abu Ghraib, extrajudicial assassinations,
etc, etc.
Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford was an apprentice of John Negroponte in Baghdad,
Iraq.
If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams. Russia has
clearly allied itself closely to Israel and Nato in Syria. Some kind of sanctions relief deal
must be in the works. Syria will be split up soon. Assad is a dead man.
For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia,
supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has
been made...
"Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism
on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear
factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear,
and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom
insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is
the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected
to terror groups like Al Qaeda. If that sounds like a serious accusation, you're damn right
it is."
"The three questions are very simple, very straightforward, and, frankly, anybody can research
the answers themselves. They are:
1) What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef?
2) Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust?
3) Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups
that were funding terrorism?"
"If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams."
Interesting opinion? If you made a list of democratically elected Presidents and National Leaders
the US/GB/ISR axis have terminated you will fill a book. From Patrice Lumumba to Hugo Chavez the
list goes on and on. Could you supply me with a list of National Leaders that Russia under Putin
has terminated?
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Department of State has no plans to make public an internal memo
calling for the United States to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad's
government, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing on Friday. "There's
no plans to make it public," Kirby stated when asked when the State Department would release
the dissent letter.
Furthermore, Kirby said there will be no investigation as to how the letter ended up in
the public domain.
By 'public domain', Kirby means on some writer's desk at the NYT, never to be seen by the unwashed
masses. To be fair, the State Department's "Dissent Memo" program is supposed to be confidential
even within the State Department itself to encourage its use. Mark Landler said in his article
that a draft of it was leaked by 'a State Department official' to the NYT. So some skepticism
of the existence or eventual submission of the actual memo is warranted. Not that Landry is lying
or hasn't verified it, but the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing
it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article
on
the top of the front page .
Nyt participating in these pressures is coordinated with medecins sans frontiere announcing
today that they ll refuse eu money to protest on the treatment of refugees and with recent surge
in french and uk msm of so called white helmets exclusive pictured
Obama, despite dissent on Syria, not shifting toward strikes on Assad
The U.S. administration sought on Friday to contain fallout from a leaked internal memo critical
of its Syria policy, but showed no sign it was willing to consider military strikes against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's forces called for in the letter signed by dozens of U.S. diplomats.
Several U.S. officials said that while the White House is prepared to hear the diplomats' dissenting
viewpoint, it is not expected to spur any changes in President Barack Obama's approach to Syria
in his final seven months in office.
One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive
action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention
that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria."
It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots
down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous
it's bullshit.
The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid.
There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million
Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises,
rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable.
Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic
across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
These deals would impose trade and development aid sanctions on countries that do not stem
migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential
partners are
Somalia ,
Eritrea , Sudan and Afghanistan – four of the top ten* refugee generating countries.
kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening
fast enough. How many others are in the works? I'm running-out-of-patience waiting for the
regime change anyone with 1/2 a brain wants, right here in the U.S. Regime Change US. It's our
turn. I just read Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg Int'l Forum. He must have used the word
"cooperation" at least 20 times. We need such a great leader. Terroristic turds like kerry and
co. belong in jail.
50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? Isn't it enough
that this "peaceful" nation arms the world and places economic "pressure" on those nations that
displease her to the point of causing millions to die - do we really have to "kill the village
to save it?" Yes, I agree, each and every one of those "career diplomats" should be looking for
other work. They have not merely lost their way, they have lost their minds. My contempt for them
is manifest, as is my contempt for the entire MIC. That those trained in diplomacy should send
such a despicable petition illuminates the deep corrupting influence of American Exceptionalism
- a force for the kind of nationalism Germany endured 1933-45. Idiots.
Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact
that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully
behind much of the world. My objection is that belief in exceptionalism leads to moral decay.
It is the functional equivalent of the 19th Century preachers who endorsed slavery, who preached
that negroes carried the mark of Cain, etc. Whites were God's chosen. The pseudo-righteousness
that preaching created in believers was largely responsible for America's Civil War. Americans
will be better people, with a better society, if we dispel this myth immediately. We're OK, you're
OK. Then we could have peace. Wouldn't that be nice?
So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria
smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists,
at war all against all. The Queen of Chaos, indeed, loves these scenarios. Especially because
her quick attack as first thing should she win the White House would shut the mouths of her critics
wanting her prosecuted for her crooked political and business corruption. But she and her State
Department surrogates would be in for a surprise: Russian and Syrian defences would not remain
silent. And afterwards, what would be left? How would the Exceptionalist who "gets things done"
proceed?
The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's
part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over
the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light
as has been portrayed.
Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what
they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats.
I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or
whatever their boilerplate.
Releasing their names might give us the means to track the 5th column as it winds its way through
'our' government, and that must be prevented at all costs. Think it might lead through Hillary?
Seems no doubt here.
No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by
visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony.
Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits
of challenge/ response in a military confrontation.
"... If Donald Trump, as seems more than likely, prevails in the GOP primary, then a number of neocons may defect to the Clinton campaign. Already Robert Kagan announced in the Washington Post ..."
"... The impulse of the neocons to return to the Democratic Party should not be wholly surprising. In 1972, for example, Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... For its part, neoconservatism has always had a nationalistic streak. But Trump represents everything that the neocons believed that they had purged from the GOP. He represents continuity with the Buchananite wing, the belief that America should tend to its own knitting before launching hopeless wars abroad. When it comes to foreign policy, however, the second generation of neocons such as Kagan does not trace its lineage back to Ohio Senator Robert Taft but to the one that Republicans in the early 1950s reviled: the Truman administration. ..."
Anyone looking for further converts to the Hillary Clinton campaign might do well to look at the
Marco Rubio campaign. If Clinton is the leading liberal hawk, Rubio is the foremost neocon candidate.
In 2014 National Review published an article about him titled "The
neocons return."
Whether it's Cuba or Iran or Russia, he stakes out the most
intransigent line: "I disagree with voices in my own party who argue we should not engage at
all, who warn we should heed the words of John Quincy Adams not to go 'abroad, in search of monsters
to destroy.'" Not surprisingly, he's surrounded himself with neocon advisers, ranging from Max Boot
to Jamie Fly to Elliott Abrams.
If Donald Trump, as seems more than likely, prevails in the GOP primary, then a number of
neocons may defect to the Clinton campaign. Already
Robert Kagan announced in the Washington Post on Thursday that he intends to back Hillary
Clinton if Donald Trump receives the GOP nomination. The fact is that the loyalty of the neocons
has always been to an ideology of American exceptionalism, not to a particular party.
This is what separates the neocon conversion to Clinton from previous examples of Republicans
endorsing Barack Obama. Colin Powell wasn't making an ideological statement. He was making a practical
one, based on his distaste for where the GOP was headed. For the neocons this is a much more heartfelt
moment. They have invested decades in trying to reshape the GOP into their own image, and were quite
successful at it. But now a formidable challenge is taking place as the GOP reverts to its traditional
heritage.
The impulse of the neocons to return to the Democratic Party should not be wholly surprising.
In 1972, for example, Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal,
wrote that the fledgling neoconservatives represented "something of a swing group between the two
major parties." He was right. The neoconservatives had their home in the Democratic Party in the
1960s. Then they marched rightward, in reaction to the rise of the adversary culture inside the Democratic
Party. George McGovern's run for the presidency in 1972, followed by the Jimmy Carter presidency,
sent them into the arms of Ronald Reagan and the GOP.
But it wasn't until the George W. Bush presidency that the neocons became the dominant foreign
policy force inside the GOP. They promptly proceeded to wreck his presidency by championing the war
in Iraq. Today, having wrecked it, they are now threatening to bolt the GOP and support Hillary Clinton
rather than Donald Trump for the presidency.
Something like this scenario is
what I predicted in the New York Times in July 2014. Trump wasn't around then as a force
inside the GOP. But already it seemed clear that some of the leading neocons such as Kagan were receptive
to Clinton. Now, in a Washington Post column, Kagan has gone all in.
He decries Republican obstructionism, antipathy to Obama, and the rise of Trump. The tone is apocalyptic.
According to
Kagan,
"So what to do now? The Republicans' creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to
others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others,
the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country
still can be."
This itself represents a curious case of neocon hyperbole. Kagan is an eloquent writer, but he
elides the fact that many of Trump's positions are not all that different from what the GOP has espoused
in the past when it comes to domestic issues. It is on foreign affairs where Trump represents a marked
shift and it is this that truly troubles the neocon wing.
Trump has made it clear that he's dubious about foreign interventions. He's indicated that he
would treat with Russian president Vladimir Putin. His entire foreign policy credo, such as it is,
seems to have a
Jacksonian pedigree-don't tread on me.
For its part, neoconservatism has always had a nationalistic streak. But Trump represents
everything that the neocons believed that they had purged from the GOP. He represents continuity
with the Buchananite wing, the belief that America should tend to its own knitting before launching
hopeless wars abroad. When it comes to foreign policy, however, the second generation of neocons
such as Kagan does not trace its lineage back to Ohio Senator Robert Taft but to the one that Republicans
in the early 1950s reviled: the Truman administration.
Here we come full circle. The origins of the neocons are in the Democratic Party. Should Clinton
become the Democratic nominee and Trump the Republican one, a number of neocons may make common cause
with Clinton. Watch Rubio's ranks first.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest.
"... Prominent neocon Robert Kagan has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying she represents the best hope for saving the United States from populist billionaire Donald Trump, who has repudiated the neoconservative cause of U.S. military interventions in line with Israel's interests. ..."
"... Then referring to himself, he added, "For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The [Republican] party cannot be saved, but the country still can be." ..."
"... Kagan, who I've known since the 1980s when he was a rising star on Ronald Reagan's State Department propaganda team (selling violent right-wing policies in Central America), has been signaling his affection for Clinton for some time, at least since she appointed him as an adviser to her State Department and promoted his wife Victoria Nuland, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, to be the State Department's chief spokesperson. Largely because of Clinton's patronage, Nuland rose to assistant secretary of state for European affairs and oversaw the provocative "regime change" in Ukraine in 2014. ..."
"... "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else." ..."
"... Now, Kagan, whose Project for the New American Century wrote the blueprint for George W. Bush's disastrous Iraq War, is now abandoning the Republican Party in favor of Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... While Kagan's op-ed surely makes some accurate points about Republicans, his endorsement of Hillary Clinton raises a different issue for Democrats: Do they want a presidential candidate who someone as savvy as Kagan knows will perpetuate neocon strategies around the world? Do Democrats really trust Hillary Clinton to handle delicate issues, such as the Syrian conflict, without resorting to escalations that may make the neocon disasters under George W. Bush look minor by comparison? ..."
"... Perhaps Robert Kagan's endorsement of Hillary Clinton and what that underscores about the likely foreign policy of a second Clinton presidency might finally force war or peace to the fore of the campaign. ..."
Exclusive: Hillary Clinton's cozy ties to Washington's powerful neocons
have paid off with the endorsement of Robert Kagan, one of the most influential neocons. But it also
should raise questions among Democrats about what kind of foreign policy a President Hillary Clinton
would pursue, writes Robert Parry.
Prominent neocon Robert Kagan has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying
she represents the best hope for saving the United States from populist billionaire Donald Trump,
who has repudiated the neoconservative cause of U.S. military interventions in line with Israel's
interests.
In a Washington Post
op-ed published on Thursday, Kagan excoriated the Republican Party for creating the conditions
for Trump's rise and then asked, "So what to do now? The Republicans' creation will soon be let loose
on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out."
Then referring to himself, he added, "For this former Republican, and perhaps for others,
the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The [Republican] party cannot be saved, but
the country still can be."
While many of Kagan's observations about the Republican tolerance and even encouragement of bigotry
are correct, the fact that a leading neocon, a co-founder of the infamous Project for the New American
Century, has endorsed Clinton raises questions for Democrats who have so far given the former New
York senator and Secretary of State mostly a pass on her pro-interventionist policies.
The fact is that Clinton has generally marched in lock step with the neocons as they have implemented
an aggressive "regime change" strategy against governments and political movements that don't toe
Washington's line or that deviate from Israel's goals in the Middle East. So she has backed coups,
such as in Honduras (2009) and Ukraine (2014); invasions, such as Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011); and
subversions such as Syria (from 2011 to the present) all with various degrees of disastrous results.
Yet, with the failure of Republican establishment candidates to gain political traction against
Trump, Clinton has clearly become the choice of many neoconservatives and "liberal interventionists"
who favor continuation of U.S. imperial designs around the world. The question for Democrats now
is whether they wish to perpetuate those war-like policies by sticking with Clinton or should switch
to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who offers a somewhat less aggressive (though vaguely defined) foreign policy.
Sanders has undermined his appeal to anti-imperialist Democrats by muting his criticism of Clinton's
"regime change" strategies and concentrating relentlessly on his message of "income inequality" for
which Clinton has disingenuously dubbed him a "single-issue candidate." Whether Sanders has the will
and the time to reorient his campaign to question Clinton's status as the new neocon choice remains
in doubt.
A Reagan Propagandist
Kagan, who I've known since the 1980s when he was a rising star on Ronald Reagan's State Department
propaganda team (selling violent right-wing policies in Central America), has been signaling his
affection for Clinton for some time, at least since she appointed him as an adviser to her State
Department and promoted his wife Victoria Nuland, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney,
to be the State Department's chief spokesperson. Largely because of Clinton's patronage, Nuland rose
to assistant secretary of state for European affairs and oversaw the provocative
"regime change" in Ukraine in 2014.
Later in 2014, Kagan told The New York Times that he hoped that his neocon views which he had
begun to call "liberal interventionist" would prevail in a possible Hillary Clinton administration.
The Times reported that Clinton "remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring
their hopes" and quoted Kagan as saying:
"I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we think she
will pursue it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not
going to call it that; they are going to call it something else."
Now, Kagan, whose Project for the New American Century wrote the blueprint for George W. Bush's
disastrous Iraq War, is now abandoning the Republican Party in favor of Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
While Kagan's op-ed surely makes some accurate points about Republicans, his endorsement of
Hillary Clinton raises a different issue for Democrats: Do they want a presidential candidate who
someone as savvy as Kagan knows will perpetuate neocon strategies around the world? Do Democrats
really trust Hillary Clinton to handle delicate issues, such as the Syrian conflict, without resorting
to escalations that may make the neocon disasters under George W. Bush look minor by comparison?
Will Clinton even follow the latest neocon dream of "regime change" in Moscow as the ultimate
way of collapsing Israel's lesser obstacles - Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian
resistance? Does Clinton have the wisdom to understand that neocon schemes are often half-baked (remember
"the cakewalk" in Iraq) and that the risk of overthrowing Vladimir Putin in Moscow might lead not
to some new pliable version of Boris Yeltsin but to a dangerous Russian nationalist ready to use
the nuclear codes to defend Mother Russia? (For all Putin's faults, he is a calculating adversary,
not a crazy one.)
The fact that none of these life-and-death foreign policy questions has been thoroughly or intelligently
explored during the Democratic presidential campaign is a failure of both the mainstream media moderators
and the two candidates, Sanders and Clinton, neither of whom seems to want a serious or meaningful
debate about these existential issues.
Perhaps Robert Kagan's endorsement of Hillary Clinton and what that underscores about the
likely foreign policy of a second Clinton presidency might finally force war or peace to the fore
of the campaign.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative,
either in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com).
"... If Donald Trump, as seems more than likely, prevails in the GOP primary, then a number of neocons may defect to the Clinton campaign. Already Robert Kagan announced in the Washington Post ..."
"... The impulse of the neocons to return to the Democratic Party should not be wholly surprising. In 1972, for example, Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... For its part, neoconservatism has always had a nationalistic streak. But Trump represents everything that the neocons believed that they had purged from the GOP. He represents continuity with the Buchananite wing, the belief that America should tend to its own knitting before launching hopeless wars abroad. When it comes to foreign policy, however, the second generation of neocons such as Kagan does not trace its lineage back to Ohio Senator Robert Taft but to the one that Republicans in the early 1950s reviled: the Truman administration. ..."
Anyone looking for further converts to the Hillary Clinton campaign might do well to look at the
Marco Rubio campaign. If Clinton is the leading liberal hawk, Rubio is the foremost neocon candidate.
In 2014 National Review published an article about him titled "The
neocons return."
Whether it's Cuba or Iran or Russia, he stakes out the most
intransigent line: "I disagree with voices in my own party who argue we should not engage at
all, who warn we should heed the words of John Quincy Adams not to go 'abroad, in search of monsters
to destroy.'" Not surprisingly, he's surrounded himself with neocon advisers, ranging from Max Boot
to Jamie Fly to Elliott Abrams.
If Donald Trump, as seems more than likely, prevails in the GOP primary, then a number of
neocons may defect to the Clinton campaign. Already
Robert Kagan announced in the Washington Post on Thursday that he intends to back Hillary
Clinton if Donald Trump receives the GOP nomination. The fact is that the loyalty of the neocons
has always been to an ideology of American exceptionalism, not to a particular party.
This is what separates the neocon conversion to Clinton from previous examples of Republicans
endorsing Barack Obama. Colin Powell wasn't making an ideological statement. He was making a practical
one, based on his distaste for where the GOP was headed. For the neocons this is a much more heartfelt
moment. They have invested decades in trying to reshape the GOP into their own image, and were quite
successful at it. But now a formidable challenge is taking place as the GOP reverts to its traditional
heritage.
The impulse of the neocons to return to the Democratic Party should not be wholly surprising.
In 1972, for example, Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal,
wrote that the fledgling neoconservatives represented "something of a swing group between the two
major parties." He was right. The neoconservatives had their home in the Democratic Party in the
1960s. Then they marched rightward, in reaction to the rise of the adversary culture inside the Democratic
Party. George McGovern's run for the presidency in 1972, followed by the Jimmy Carter presidency,
sent them into the arms of Ronald Reagan and the GOP.
But it wasn't until the George W. Bush presidency that the neocons became the dominant foreign
policy force inside the GOP. They promptly proceeded to wreck his presidency by championing the war
in Iraq. Today, having wrecked it, they are now threatening to bolt the GOP and support Hillary Clinton
rather than Donald Trump for the presidency.
Something like this scenario is
what I predicted in the New York Times in July 2014. Trump wasn't around then as a force
inside the GOP. But already it seemed clear that some of the leading neocons such as Kagan were receptive
to Clinton. Now, in a Washington Post column, Kagan has gone all in.
He decries Republican obstructionism, antipathy to Obama, and the rise of Trump. The tone is apocalyptic.
According to
Kagan,
"So what to do now? The Republicans' creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to
others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others,
the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country
still can be."
This itself represents a curious case of neocon hyperbole. Kagan is an eloquent writer, but he
elides the fact that many of Trump's positions are not all that different from what the GOP has espoused
in the past when it comes to domestic issues. It is on foreign affairs where Trump represents a marked
shift and it is this that truly troubles the neocon wing.
Trump has made it clear that he's dubious about foreign interventions. He's indicated that he
would treat with Russian president Vladimir Putin. His entire foreign policy credo, such as it is,
seems to have a
Jacksonian pedigree-don't tread on me.
For its part, neoconservatism has always had a nationalistic streak. But Trump represents
everything that the neocons believed that they had purged from the GOP. He represents continuity
with the Buchananite wing, the belief that America should tend to its own knitting before launching
hopeless wars abroad. When it comes to foreign policy, however, the second generation of neocons
such as Kagan does not trace its lineage back to Ohio Senator Robert Taft but to the one that Republicans
in the early 1950s reviled: the Truman administration.
Here we come full circle. The origins of the neocons are in the Democratic Party. Should Clinton
become the Democratic nominee and Trump the Republican one, a number of neocons may make common cause
with Clinton. Watch Rubio's ranks first.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest.
The location stamps on just a handful of Twitter posts can help even low-tech stalkers find you,
researchers found.
The notion of online privacy has been greatly diminished in recent years, and just this week two
new studies confirm what to many minds is already a dismal picture.
First, a study
reported on Monday by Stanford University found that smartphone metadata-information about calls
and text messages, such as time and length-can reveal a surprising amount of personal detail.
To investigate their topic, the researchers built an Android app and used it to retrieve the metadata
about previous calls and text messages-the numbers, times, and lengths of communications-from more
than 800 volunteers' smartphone logs. In total, participants provided records of more than 250,000
calls and 1.2 million texts.
The researchers then used a combination of automated and manual processes to understand just what's
being revealed. What they found was that it's possible to infer a lot more than you might think.
A person who places multiple calls to a cardiologist, a local drug store, and a cardiac arrhythmia
monitoring device hotline likely suffers from cardiac arrhythmia, for example. Based on frequent
calls to a local firearms dealer that prominently advertises AR semiautomatic rifles and to the customer
support hotline of a major manufacturer that produces them, it's logical to conclude that another
likely owns such a weapon.
The researchers set out to fill what they consider knowledge gaps within the National Security
Agency's current phone metadata program. Currently, U.S. law gives more privacy protections to call
content and makes it easier for government agencies to obtain metadata, in part because policymakers
assume that it shouldn't be possible to infer specific sensitive details about people based on metadata
alone.
This study, reported in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests otherwise. Preliminary versions of the work have already
played a role in federal surveillance policy debates and have been cited in litigation filings and
letters to legislators in both the U.S. and abroad.
It takes as few as eight tweets to locate someone
Researchers at MIT and Oxford University, meanwhile, have
shown that the
location stamps on just a handful of Twitter posts can be enough to let even a low-tech snooper find
out where you live and work.
Though Twitter's location-reporting service is off by default, many Twitter users choose
to activate it. Now, it looks like even as few as eight tweets over the course of a single
day can give stalkers what they need to track you down.
The researchers used real tweets from Twitter users in the Boston area; users consented to the
use of their data and also confirmed their home and work addresses, their commuting routes, and the
locations of various leisure destinations from which they had tweeted.
The time and location data associated with the tweets were then presented to a group of 45 study
participants, who were asked to try to deduce whether the tweets had originated at the Twitter users'
homes, workplaces, leisure destinations or commute locations.
Bottom line: They had little trouble figuring it out. Equipped with map-based representations,
participants correctly identified Twitter users' homes roughly 65 percent of the time and their workplaces
at closer to 70 percent.
Part of a more general project at MIT's Internet Policy Research Initiative, the
paper was presented last
week at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
"Many people have this idea that only machine-learning techniques can discover interesting patterns
in location data, and they feel secure that not everyone has the technical knowledge to do that,"
said Ilaria Liccardi, a research scientist at MIT's Internet Policy Research Initiative and first
author on the paper. "What we wanted to show is that when you send location data as a secondary piece
of information, it is extremely simple for people with very little technical knowledge to find out
where you work or live."
Twitter said it does not comment on third-party research, but directed users to
online information about its optional location
feature.
Ambrose Bierce lost much public cachet when he predicted(?) McKinley would meet with a bullet,
as some believed his words were assumed as justification by the assassin.
From his "Devil's Dictionary":
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period
of international amity. The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected
may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper
meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end-that
change is the one immutable and eternal law-but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the
seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had
decreed his "stately pleasure dome"-when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in
Xanadu- that he heard from afar Ancestral voices prophesying war.
One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing
that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little
more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief
in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.
His entry just previous to this is for:
WALL STREET, n. A symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves
is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven...
I have a copy of his book "Tales of Soldiers and Civilians"; it's like reading a depressive version
of Edgar Allen Poe, all foreboding and involving some supernatural force. Perhaps that's all he could
find to explain the madness of the Civil War.
Wrapped in the flag neocon bottom feeders like Hillary (and quite possibly Trump, although
this article is from Guardian which is a fiercely pro-Clinton rag) might eventually destroy
this nice country.
Notable quotes:
"... the Golden Era of the Chickenhawk. We keep electing leaders who, on the most basic experiential level, literally have no idea what they're doing. ..."
"... Maybe they get away with it because we the people who keep voting them into office don't know anything about war ourselves. ..."
"... As long as we're cocooned in our comfortable homeland fantasy of war, one can safely predict a long and successful run for the Era of the Chickenhawk ..."
"... The author, like most Americans, is in denial about America's role in the world. The reason the US spends more on defense than the next 12 countries has nothing to do with self-defense. America wants to maintain its global military dominance. Both parties agree on this. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, the war's purpose was to demonstrate American military power. Bill Kristol takes this a stage further and wants America to play the role of global hegemon and be in a state of constant war. This is a stupid idea. ..."
"... It is a simple an obvious fact that the people most eager to see the US go to war, in every generation, are not the people who will suffer and die in those wars. Today is our Memorial Day. This is an article suggesting we, as Americans, stop and think about the people who were wounded and those who died in service to our country. Set aside your partisan rage and consider those people and their deaths, before you listen to words from any politician calling for more of those deaths. ..."
"... And the hypocrisy of all this is how Hillary Clinton doesn't have a problem with war. She participated in toppling Libya and she was doing the same to Syria. So how is it all about Trump and what a war monger he is? ..."
"... The corporations that sell war materiel actively push their products, ensure the support of the government through political contributions, and engage in blackmail by spreading out manufacturing over many locations. In this manner, the only way to profit is by selling weapons, killing more people. What state or city will want to lose employment by letting a manufacturer close? It is incredibly difficult to close an un-needed military base for the same reason, whether here or abroad. War is a great racket, the US has it down pat. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has started more wars, caused more death than Donald Trump....and yet....you don't mention that do you "We came, He died, We Laughed" ..."
"... Unfortunately we're in a position where the United States is a debtor nation, and the easiest way to keep the house of cards from falling is to maintain "full spectrum dominance" in the words of the Pentagon. There's no easy way to unwind this situation. It is, however, absolutely crucial to keep a known psychopath like Clinton out of the command chair. ..."
"... When congress votes to fund wars then [they need to] add 75% more for after care. As a combat veteran it pisses me off that [instead] charities are used to care for us. Most are run by want a be military, Senease, types. No charities, it's up to American people to pay every penny for our care, they voted for the war mongers so, so pay up people. Citizens need to know true costs, tax raises, cuts in SS , welfare, cuts in schools. Biggest thing, all elected officials and families and those work for them must use VA hospitals, let's see how that works out. ..."
"... we insulate ourselves in a nice, warm cocoon of "Support Our Veterans" slogans and flag waving. ..."
"... "Endless war: Trump and the fantasy of cost-free conflict " How about Hillary and the fantasy of war, PERIOD. There hasn't been a war she didn't like. Did you listen to her AIPAC speech? No 2 State solution there. ..."
"... So easy to be the hero in your wet dreams, your shooter games, your securely located war rooms stocked with emergency rations and the external defibrillator. This sort of unhinged fantasizing has been the defining pattern of the Era of Endless War, in which people – old men, for the most part, a good number of them rich – who never experienced war – who in their youth ran as fast from it as they could – send young men and women – most of them middle- and working-class – across oceans to fight wars based on half-facts, cooked intelligence, and magical thinking on the grand geopolitical scale. Surely it's no coincidence that the Era of the AUMF, the Era of Endless War, is also the Golden Era of the Chickenhawk. We keep electing leaders who, on the most basic experiential level, literally have no idea what they're doing. ..."
"... It is actually NOT Donald Trump who is advocating the endless global conflict and confrontation with Russia, China, India, Iran, Europe and North Korea. The candidate secretly advocating a never-ending war with the rest of the world is -- Madame Secretary, Hillary Clinton, in person. Aided and abetted - publicly - by her right-hand woman, another Madame Secretary, Madeleine Albright and yet another Madame Undersecretary, Samantha Power. All chicken hawks, all neoconservatives, all pseudo-democrats, all on Wall Street payroll, all white, and all women who will never see a second of combat for the rest of their lives. ..."
"... So, the very major premise of the article is flawed and unsustainable. Which, of course, then makes the entire article collapse as false and misleading. ..."
"... John Mearsheimer who is a history professor at the University of Chicago wrote a great book about American foreign policy. Mearsheimer explains how American foreign policy has developed over the centuries. He argues that it firs objective was to dominate the Western Hemisphere before extending its reach to Asia and Europe. The War of 1812 and the Monroe Doctrine was part of a plan to dominate the Americas. The U.S. stopped Japan and Germany dominating Asia and Europe in the 20th century. The U.S. continued to view the British Empire as its greatest threat and Roosevelt set about dismantling it during WW2. Once WW2 was won, the Soviet Union became America's new adversary and it maintained forces in Europe to check Soviet expansion. ..."
"... Mearsheimer argues that the U.S. is often in denial about its behavior and Americans are taught that the U.S. is altruistic and a force for good in the world. Measheimer states that "idealist rhetoric provided a proper mask for the brutal policies that underpinned the tremendous growth of American power." In 1991 the U.S. became the world's only super-power and according to Mearsheimer its main foreign policy objective was to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. ..."
"... Mearsheimer claims that America's foreign policy elite is still largely made up of people who want to keep America on top, but these days they usually prefer to keep their views under wraps. ..."
"... Trump is the only candidate I've ever heard question the cost of war, it's part of the reason he said we should flush NATO and we can't police the world for free any longer. ..."
"... I have no problem with destroying ISIS. I have a problem with fighting Russia over every former Soviet state on their doorstep ala Madam Secretary. The best way to remember the war dead is to work to ensure that their ranks do not swell. ..."
As America marks Memorial Day, politicians should spare us the saber-rattling and reserve
some space for silence
... ... ...
The times are such that fantasy war-mongering is solidly mainstream. We've seen candidates call
for a new campaign of "shock and awe" (Kasich), for carpet-bombing and making the desert glow (Cruz),
for "bomb[ing] the shit out of them" (Trump), for waterboarding "and a hell of a lot worse" (Trump
again), and for pre-emptive strikes and massive troop deployments (Jeb). One candidate purchased
a handgun as "the last line of defense between Isis and my family" (Rubio), and the likely Democratic
nominee includes
"the nail-eaters – McChrystal, Petraeus, Keane" among her preferred military advisers, and supports
"intensification and acceleration" of US military efforts in Iraq and Syria. Yes, America has many
enemies who heartily hate our guts and would do us every harm they're able to inflict, but the failures
of hard power over the past 15 years seem utterly lost on our political class. After the Paris attacks
last December, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard suggested that a force of 50,000 US troops deployed
to Syria, supported by air power, would crush Isis in short order, leading to the liberation of Fallujah,
Mosul, and other Isis strongholds.
"I don't think there's much in the way of unanticipated side-effects that are going to be bad there,"
opined Kristol – funny guy! – who back in 2002 said that removing Saddam Hussein "could start
a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy".
... ... ...
"A night of waking," as Bierce tersely described it years later. The sheer volume and accuracy
of ordnance made this a new kind of war, a machine for pulping acres of human flesh. Regardless of
who was winning or losing, shock-and-awe was the common experience of both sides; Confederate and
Union soldiers alike could hardly believe the things they were doing and having done to them, and
when Bierce turned to the writer's trade after the war, some fundamental rigor or just plain contrariness
wouldn't let him portray his war in conventionally heroic terms. In his hands, sentimentality and
melodrama became foils for twisted jokes. Glory was ambiguous at best, a stale notion that barely
hinted at the suicidal nature of valor in this kind of war. A wicked gift for honesty served up the
eternal clash between duty and the survival instinct, as when, early in the war, Bierce and his fellow
rookies come across a group of Union dead:
How repulsive they looked with their blood-smears, their blank, staring eyes, their teeth uncovered
by contraction of the lips! The frost had begun already to whiten their deranged clothing. We
were as patriotic as ever, but we did not wish to be that way.
... ... ...
Black humor sits alongside mordantly cool accounts of battles, wounds, horrors, absurd and tragic
turns of luck. There are lots of ghosts in Bierce's work, a menagerie of spirits and bugaboos as
well as hauntings of the more prosaic sort, people detached in one way or another from themselves
– amnesiacs, hallucinators, somnambulists, time trippers. People missing some part of their souls.
Often Bierce writes of the fatal, or nearly so, shock, the twist that flips conventional wisdom on
its back and shows reality to be much darker and crueler than we want to believe. It's hard not to
read the war into much of Bierce's writing, even when the subject is ostensibly otherwise. He was
the first American writer of note to experience modern warfare, war as mass-produced death, and the
first to try for words that would be true to the experience. He charted this new terrain, and it's
in Bierce that we find the original experience that all subsequent American war writers would grapple
with. Hemingway and Dos Passos in the first world war; Mailer, Heller, Jones and Vonnegut in the
second world war; O'Brien, Herr and Marlantes in Vietnam: they're all heritors of Bierce.
It's not decorative, what these writers were going for. They weren't trying to write fancy, or
entertain, or preach a sermon; they weren't writing to serve a political cause, at least not in any
immediate sense. One suspects that on some level they didn't have a choice, as if they realized they
would never know any peace in themselves unless they found a way of writing that, if it couldn't
make sense of their war, at least respected it. Words that represented the experience for what it
was, without illusion or fantasy. Words that would resist the eternal American genius for cheapening
and dumbing down.
.... ... ...
...unhinged fantasizing has been the defining pattern of the Era of Endless War, in which people
– old men, for the most part, a good number of them rich – who never experienced war – who in their
youth ran as fast from it as they could – send young men and women – most of them middle- and working-class
– across oceans to fight wars based on half-facts, cooked intelligence, and magical thinking on the
grand geopolitical scale. Surely it's no coincidence that the Era of the AUMF, the Era of Endless
War, is also the Golden Era of the Chickenhawk. We keep electing leaders who, on the most basic
experiential level, literally have no idea what they're doing.
Maybe they get away with it because we the people who keep voting them into office don't know
anything about war ourselves. We know the fantasy version, the movie version, but only that
1% of the nation – and their families – who have fought the wars truly know the hardship involved.
For the rest of us, no sacrifice has been called for: none. No draft. No war tax (but huge deficits),
and here it bears noting that the top tax rate during the second world war was 90%. No rationing,
the very mention of which is good for a laugh. Rationing? That was never part of the discussion.
But those years when US soldiers were piling sandbags into their thin-skinned Humvees and welding
scrap metal on to the sides also happened to coincide with the heyday of the Hummer here at home.
Where I live in Dallas, you couldn't drive a couple of blocks without passing one of those beasts,
8,600 hulking pounds of chrome and steel. Or for a really good laugh, how about this: gas rationing.
If it's really about the oil, we could support the troops by driving less, walking more. Or suppose
it's not about the oil at all, but about our freedoms, our values, our very way of life – that it's
truly "a clash of civilizations", in the words of Senator Rubio. If that's the case, if this is what
we truly believe, then our politicians should call for, and we should accept no less than, full-scale
mobilization: a draft, confiscatory tax rates, rationing.
Some 3.5 million Americans fought in the civil war, out of a population of 31 million. For years
the number killed in action was estimated at 620,000, though recent scholarship suggests a significantly
higher figure, from a low of 650,000 to a high of 850,000. In any case, it's clear that the vast
majority of American families had, as we say these days, skin in the game. The war was real; having
loved ones at risk made it real. Many saw battles being fought in their literal backyards. Lincoln
himself watched the fighting from the DC ramparts, saw men shot and killed. The lived reality of
the thing was so brutally direct that it would be more than 50 years before the US embarked on another
major war. To be sure, there was the brief Spanish-American war in 1898, and a three-year native
insurgency in the Philippines, and various forays around the Caribbean and Central America, but the
trauma of the civil war cut so deep and raw that the generation that fought it was largely cured
of war. Our own generation's appetite seems steadily robust even as we approach the 15th anniversary
of the AUMF, which, given the circumstances, makes sense. As long as we're cocooned in our comfortable
homeland fantasy of war, one can safely predict a long and successful run for the Era of the Chickenhawk
Bierce survived his own war, barely. Two weeks after writing to a friend "my turn will come",
and one day before his 22nd birthday, he was shot in the head near Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia. The
sniper's ball broke his skull "like a walnut", penetrating the left temple, fracturing the temporal
lobe and doglegging down and around behind his left ear, where it stayed. Head shots in that era
were almost always fatal, but Bierce survived not only the initial wound, but an awful two-day train
ride on an open flatcar to an army hospital in Chattanooga.
He recovered, more or less. Not the easiest personality to begin with, Bierce showed no appreciable
mellowing from his war experience. His life is an ugly litany of feuds, ruptures, lawsuits, friends
betrayed or abandoned, epic temper tantrums and equally epic funks. He was a lousy husband – cold,
critical, philandering – and essentially abandoned his wife after 17 years of marriage. His older
son shot himself dead at age 16, and the younger drank himself to death in his 20s; for his own part,
Bierce maintained a lifelong obsession with suicide. In October 1913, after a distinguished, contentious
50-year career that had made him one of the most famous and hated men in America, Bierce left Washington
DC and headed for Mexico, intending to join, or report on – it was never quite clear – Pancho Villa's
revolutionary army. En route, dressing every day entirely in black, he paid final visits to the battlefields
of his youth, hiking for miles in the Indian summer heat around Orchard Knob, Missionary Ridge, Hell's
Half-Acre. For one whole day at Shiloh he sat by himself in the blazing sun. In November he crossed
from Laredo into Mexico, and was never heard from again, an exit dramatic enough to inspire a bestselling
novel by Carlos Fuentes, The Old Gringo, and a movie adaptation of the same name starring Gregory
Peck.
Late in life, Bierce described his military service in these terms:
It was once my fortune to command a company of soldiers – real soldiers. Not professional life-long
fighters, the product of European militarism – just plain, ordinary American volunteer soldiers,
who loved their country and fought for it with never a thought of grabbing it for themselves;
that is a trick which the survivors were taught later by gentlemen desiring their votes.
About those gentlemen – and women – desiring votes: since when did it become not just acceptable
but required for politicians to hold forth on Memorial Day? Who gave them permission to speak for
the violently dead? Come Monday we'll be up to our ears in some of the emptiest, most self-serving
dreck ever to ripple the atmosphere, the standard war-fantasy talk of American politics along with
televangelist-style purlings about heroes, freedoms, the supreme sacrifice. Trump will tell us how
much he loves the veterans, and how much they love him back. Down-ticket pols will re-terrorize and
titillate voters with tough talk about Isis. Hemingway, for one, had no use for this kind of guff,
as shown in a famous passage from A Farewell to Arms:
There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of the places
had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the
places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor,
courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the
names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
The author, like most Americans, is in denial about America's role in the world. The reason the
US spends more on defense than the next 12 countries has nothing to do with self-defense. America
wants to maintain its global military dominance. Both parties agree on this. Iraq had nothing
to do with 9/11, the war's purpose was to demonstrate American military power. Bill Kristol takes
this a stage further and wants America to play the role of global hegemon and be in a state of
constant war. This is a stupid idea.
Even if Saddam had WMDs, he still had nothing to do with 9/11. The politicians are very good
at finding new scapegoats and switching the blame. A bunch of Saudis attacked the US on 9/11 so
invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Bin Laden moves to Pakistan so pretend you don't know where he is.
Some European terrorists kill other Europeans so Hillary wants to invade Syria. The assumption
seems to be that all Muslims are the same, it does not matter where you kill them.
Fantastic writing...shame Murika won't listen to any of it.
charlieblue
Reading the comments and conversations below, I found myself sickened and saddened by how
many of my fellow Americans can read a considered and well written article like this and
imagine it is a partisan screed.
It is a simple an obvious fact that the people most eager to see the US go to war, in
every generation, are not the people who will suffer and die in those wars. Today is our
Memorial Day. This is an article suggesting we, as Americans, stop and think about the people
who were wounded and those who died in service to our country. Set aside your partisan rage
and consider those people and their deaths, before you listen to words from any politician
calling for more of those deaths.
"Endless war," but it's not only attacks against other nations, it's a war against civil
liberties thus leading to a state in which, whistle blowers, folks who poke holes in the
government's 911 theory or complain about military operations in the China Sea may be
considered unpatriotic, maybe worse.
Dubikau
A friend recently asked, "What's the big deal about wars? I'v seen them on TV lots of times. They have nothing to do with me." Alas, a generation or two after a devastating conflict, it seems people forget. The lessons of history are unknown or irrelevant to the ignorant, the horror beyond imagination. That the clown, Trump, has made it this far is a living horror movie. As Emerson said about someone:
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
He's a liar and a joke. Neither friends nor enemies can take him seriously and he is unpredictable.
Bellanova Nova
Excellent article.
We must start talking seriously about Trump's pathology guarantees conflict and chaos, and should he get elected, an escalation of an endless war. The ramifications of his incurable and uncontrollable character defect in a political leader are dire and people should be educated about them before it's too late: https://medium.com/@Elamika/the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-a-narcissist-251ec901dae7#.xywh6cceu
Philip Lundt
As a veteran I have to ask you Ben: who gave you "permission to speak for the violently dead?"
A lot of people love Donald Trump. It's not because they are racists warmongers, ignorant, misinformed or stupid. Veterans overwhelmingly support Donald trump. Go ahead call us racists and warmongers too.
And the hypocrisy of all this is how Hillary Clinton doesn't have a problem with war. She participated in toppling Libya and she was doing the same to Syria. So how is it all about Trump and what a war monger he is?
villas1
Bravo. War is a racket.
olman132 -> villas1
As practiced in the US, certainly. The corporations that sell war materiel actively push their products, ensure the support of the government through political contributions, and engage in blackmail by spreading out manufacturing over many locations. In this manner, the only way to profit is by selling weapons, killing more people. What state or city will want to lose employment by letting a manufacturer close? It is incredibly difficult to close an un-needed military base for the same reason, whether here or abroad. War is a great racket, the US has it down pat.
Jim Given
When your'e putting your life at risk in a war zone wondering if you're going to make it back home, there's damned little discussion about politics. Whatever your reasons might have been for signing on the dotted line, all that matters then is the sailor, soldier, marine or airman standing beside you. It's discouraging, although painfully predictable, to read so few comments about veterans and so many comments about divisive politics.
Mshand
Hillary Clinton has started more wars, caused more death than Donald Trump....and yet....you don't mention that do you "We came, He died, We Laughed"
USApatriot12
Unfortunately we're in a position where the United States is a debtor nation, and the easiest way to keep the house of cards from falling is to maintain "full spectrum dominance" in the words of the Pentagon. There's no easy way to unwind this situation. It is, however, absolutely crucial to keep a known psychopath like Clinton out of the command chair.
talenttruth
For over 30 years, Americans have been carefully "programmed" 24/7, by deliberate Fear / Fear /
Fear propaganda, so we would believe that the entire world is full of evil, maniacal enemies out to
"get us."
Of course there always ARE insane haters out there, who are either jealous of America's wealth, or
who (more sophisticated than that) resent America's attempt to colonize-by-marketing, the entire
world for its unchecked capitalism. Two sides of the same American "coin." Those who are
conscripting jobless, hopeless young men overseas to be part of an equally mad "fundamentalist" army
against America ~ benefit hugely FROM our militarism, which "proves their point," from their warped
perspective.
Thus do the (tiny minority) of crazy America-haters out there (who we help create WITH our
militarism), serve as ongoing Perfectly Plausible Proof for Paranoia ~ the fuel for 24/7
fear/fear/fear propaganda. And who benefits from that propaganda? Oh wait, let us all think on that.
For five seconds.
In 1959, Republican war hero and President Dwight David Eisenhower warned us against combining the
incentives of capitalism with the un-audited profitability of wars: the "military industrial
complex." But in we Americans' orgy of personal materialism since the 1960's, we all forgot his
warning and have let that "complex" take over the nation, the world, all our pocketbooks (53% or
more of our treasury now goes to "defense" ~ what a lying word THAT is).
Answer? It it the 1-percent, crazily Wealth Hoarder super-rich who (a) profit insanely from Eternal
War and who now own (b) America's so-called "free press" (ha ha), the latter of which now slants all
news towards Threat, Fear, and War, again, 24/7. And now that "their" Nazi Supreme Court has ruled
that "money" = free speech, that same of sociopathic criminal class ALSO is coming to own politics.
Welcome to fully blooming Corporate Fascism, folks.
bullypulpit
In his book "1984" George Orwell wrote, "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is
strength." Have we fallen so far that we are living that nightmare without question? When we hear
the voices of politicians, with those on the political right being the most egregious offenders,
clamoring for war, we must not forget the cost. Not just in terms of treasure, but especially of the
blood spilled by our men and women in uniform. Ask, "Are the causes they are being asked to
fight...and die...for, worthy of the sacrifice?"
Jim Given -> bullypulpit
I'm afraid that yes, we actually have fallen that far. The Patriot Act is the quintessential
example. Who could possibly oppose something called The Patriot Act?
Jim Given -> bullypulpit
The War on Terror, another fine example. What, you oppose fighting terrorists? The language
stifles (reasoned) dissent. It's brilliant, really.
Tom Farkas
Every year I get an uncomfortable sensation around Memorial Day. I know why now thanks to
this article. I didn't serve in the armed forces. Not for want. I was a post Vietnam teenager.
The armed forces were a joke during the Carter years and the US was in the middle of detante
with the USSR. Nothing to fight about and the word terrorist was still a few years away from
being reinvented. My Dad was a decorated veteran of the police action in Korea. He lost his
best friend there. He rarely talked about it. He and I sat on the couch watching the fall of
Saigon on TV. He silently cried. It was all for not. All those lives, all that misery, all for
nothing but power and glory. He knew it and I've known it since but just couldn't put a finger
on it. Thanks for this article.
talenttruth -> Tom Farkas
Tom, what a beautiful post. My husband and I (recently married after we were finally
"allowed" to, just like "real people"), are both Vietnam veterans (we had to "hide" in order
to serve). And I had majored in college in "U.S. Constitutional History," then worked worked
(ironically!) in the advertising "industry" (the Lie Factory) for enough years to see how
America, business and our society actually works, INSTEAD of "constitutionally."
My self-preoccupied generation sleepwalked from the 1960's until now, foolishly allowing the
super-rich to gradually make nearly every giant corporation dependent on military contracts.
Example? The European Union has openly subsidized its aircraft manufacturer, Airbus. But here,
in the USA ~ that would be "socialism," and so Boeing was forced instead (in order to compete)
to rely on military contracts ("military welfare.") They're both "government subsidization,"
but ours is crooked.
So what do we get when all corporations "must have" ongoing Business, in order to keep their
insatiable profits rolling in? Eternal War. And its "unfortunate side effects" - maimed
veterans, dead soldiers, sailors and airmen, and the revolting hypocrisy of "Memorial Day."
On that day, we pay "respect" to those who died serving the Military Marketing Department for
America's totally out of control, unchecked capitalism, which only serves the overlords at the
top.
Sorry to sound so grim, but I did not serve my country, to have it thus stolen.
Barclay Reynolds
When congress votes to fund wars then [they need to] add 75% more for after care. As a
combat veteran it pisses me off that [instead] charities are used to care for us. Most are run
by want a be military, Senease, types. No charities, it's up to American people to pay every
penny for our care, they voted for the war mongers so, so pay up people. Citizens need to know
true costs, tax raises, cuts in SS , welfare, cuts in schools. Biggest thing, all elected
officials and families and those work for them must use VA hospitals, let's see how that works
out.
Jim Given -> Barclay Reynolds
Failure to care for our veterans is a national disgrace. Thanks for your service brother.
SusanPrice58 -> Barclay Reynolds
I agree. While I'm sure that most of these charities try to do well, it always makes me
angry to think about why the need for charities to care for veterans exists. If we are
determined to fight these wars - then every citizen should have to have deep involvement of
some sort. Raise taxes, ration oil, watch footage of battles, restore the draft - whatever.
Instead, we insulate ourselves in a nice, warm cocoon of "Support Our Veterans" slogans
and flag waving.
Tom Wessel
"Endless war: Trump and the fantasy of cost-free conflict "
How about Hillary and the fantasy of war, PERIOD. There hasn't been a war she didn't like. Did
you listen to her AIPAC speech? No 2 State solution there.
gwpriester
The obscene amount of money the US pays just on the interest on the trillions "borrowed" for the Afghanistan and Iraq adventures would fix most that is wrong with the world. Bush & Cheney discovered if you don't raise taxes, require financial sacrifices, and do not have a draft, that you can wage bogus wars of choice for over a decade without so much as a peep of protest from the public. It is sickening how much good that money could do instead of all the death and destruction it bought.
AllenPitt
"So easy to be the hero in your wet dreams, your shooter games, your securely located war rooms stocked with emergency rations and the external defibrillator. This sort of unhinged fantasizing has been the defining pattern of the Era of Endless War, in which people – old men, for the most part, a good number of them rich – who never experienced war – who in their youth ran as fast from it as they could – send young men and women – most of them middle- and working-class – across oceans to fight wars based on half-facts, cooked intelligence, and magical thinking on the grand geopolitical scale. Surely it's no coincidence that the Era of the AUMF, the Era of Endless War, is also the Golden Era of the Chickenhawk. We keep electing leaders who, on the most basic experiential level, literally have no idea what they're doing."
EXACTLY!
OZGODRK
It is actually NOT Donald Trump who is advocating the endless global conflict and
confrontation with Russia, China, India, Iran, Europe and North Korea. The candidate secretly
advocating a never-ending war with the rest of the world is -- Madame Secretary, Hillary
Clinton, in person. Aided and abetted - publicly - by her right-hand woman, another Madame
Secretary, Madeleine Albright and yet another Madame Undersecretary, Samantha Power. All
chicken hawks, all neoconservatives, all pseudo-democrats, all on Wall Street payroll, all
white, and all women who will never see a second of combat for the rest of their lives.
So, the very major premise of the article is flawed and unsustainable. Which, of course,
then makes the entire article collapse as false and misleading.
MOZGODRK -> arrggh
But you are missing the entire point. Trump is NOT advocating the conflict; he is
advocating that we TALK to our enemies, so his lack of combat experience is a moot point.
On the other hand, the Clintons, the Alzhe...er, Albright, and the Samantha Power-Tripp are
all totally kosher with sending millions to die, knowing that they themselves will not
experience a nanosecond of hot cognitive experience.
caravanserai
John Mearsheimer who is a history professor at the University of Chicago wrote a great
book about American foreign policy. Mearsheimer explains how American foreign policy has
developed over the centuries. He argues that it firs objective was to dominate the Western
Hemisphere before extending its reach to Asia and Europe. The War of 1812 and the Monroe
Doctrine was part of a plan to dominate the Americas. The U.S. stopped Japan and Germany
dominating Asia and Europe in the 20th century. The U.S. continued to view the British Empire
as its greatest threat and Roosevelt set about dismantling it during WW2. Once WW2 was won,
the Soviet Union became America's new adversary and it maintained forces in Europe to check
Soviet expansion.
Mearsheimer argues that the U.S. is often in denial about its behavior and Americans are
taught that the U.S. is altruistic and a force for good in the world. Measheimer states that
"idealist rhetoric provided a proper mask for the brutal policies that underpinned the
tremendous growth of American power." In 1991 the U.S. became the world's only super-power and
according to Mearsheimer its main foreign policy objective was to prevent the re-emergence of
a new rival. Following the difficult wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S. is less
certain of its global role. Mearsheimer claims that America's foreign policy elite is
still largely made up of people who want to keep America on top, but these days they usually
prefer to keep their views under wraps. Trump seems to be proposing something completely
different.
Rescue caravanserai
Trump is not proposing anything different. His foreign policy is the same as the establishment. He is not anti-war, nor more hawkish than Obama or Clinton.
Trumps FP is unilateral i.e. The US will go it alone without the UN or anyone else, attack any country he feels is threatning, without paying attention to intl. law, or "political correctness" as he calls it, i.e. the US will kill and torture as many ppl as it feels like to feel safe, and pay no attention to the Geneva Conventions. Other statements about his intended FP, that the msm calls shocking, has already been done, i.e. bomb the crap out of people, kill families of terrorists, waterboarding and much worse. These have been common policies since 9/11 & before. Another policy is to steal Iraq's oil. This has been de facto US FP in the Middle East since Eisenhower. The difference is that Trump says it outright. He makes subtext into the text.
Falanx
I agree with the overall point of this article... but focusing on the GOP and Trump, detracts from its otherwise valid points. What about Wilson, Truman, Johnson, Clinton, Obama and Hillary? Especially Hillary ("We came, We saw, He died") who evidently considers herself a latter day Caesar. The plain fact is that the US was conceived as a warmongering nation. Everyone else in the world understands this.
DanInTheDesert
Wow. What a fantastic article . This is what we need in the era of twitter journalism -- a long think piece. Thank you.[*]
Having said that I have disagree with the conclusion -- we have just a little over a week to avoid a forced choice between two hawks. The chances are slim but not impossible -- be active this weekend. Phonebank for Sanders. Convince a Californian to show up and vote.
PrinceVlad
Trump is the only candidate I've ever heard question the cost of war, it's part of the
reason he said we should flush NATO and we can't police the world for free any longer.
Kenarmy -> PrinceVlad
"Donald Trump would deploy up to 30,000 American soldiers in the Middle East to defeat the
Islamic State, he said at Thursday night's debate."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-iraq-syria-220608#ixzz49yJWQras
I have no problem with destroying ISIS. I have a problem with fighting Russia over
every former Soviet state on their doorstep ala Madam Secretary.
The best way to remember the war dead is to work to ensure that their ranks do not swell.
[*] and if anyone is reading who deals with such things -- y'all need to accept paypal or bitcoin so I can subscribe. Who uses their credit card online anymore?
"... Actually, you can hide nothing, and anything you said, wrote, or plausibly thought can and will be held against you at a time convenient for the Security State to whip it out if they have their way. ..."
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Obviously, this paints our (overblown) liberties with an over-wide brush, and the Wise Solons
of our Senate know just how to get around this superannuated and flawed conceptual framework.
Just ignore this amendment. You've got nothing to hide, right , so what are you worried
about? Actually, you can hide nothing, and anything you said, wrote, or plausibly thought
can and will be held against you at a time convenient for the Security State to whip it out if
they have their way.
C'mon, it's an Empire now, and it plays by its own rules, and is not to be chained to some
fossilized, starry-eyed claptrap from the Enlightenment. Sheesh.
Wait, military special forces from over a dozen countries are running an exercise in the supposedly
sovereign territory of the United States? What, is this the transnational elite's super-special
SWAT team taking off the wraps? And Idiot America loves it. The Founding Fathers weep, just as
they do concerning that first item.
Let those malcontents from Green Day whine about the Idiocracy…
For a while the information contained with the leaked documents took a backseat to the cultural
impulse to dissect Snowden as a celebrity-his Reddit posts about sex and Cosmo asking "What
the hell is Edward Snowden's girlfriend thinking right now?" Then Sunday talk shows debated whether
Snowden was a was fink, traitor, whistleblower, or spy - as the elusive former contractor made an
escape to Russia worthy of a spy-thriller chase scene.
But the Snowden documents contained serious information. Since June, we have learned about a variety
of NSA programs, including PRISM, a multilayered, multiagency program that mines the data of suspected
terrorists, as well as that of anyone even marginally associated with them. And the information that
has been released is reportedly just a
fraction of what exists.
Still, we have about eight months worth of data dumps, information that has prompted the
promise of action from the White House,
bills in the Congress, and today's "Day We Fight Back" protest, which is calling on people around
the globe to protest NSA surveillance on the Web and in person. Below, we look back at some of the
most alarming revelations from Edward Snowden thus far.
The NSA intercepts deliveries According to documents published by German newspaper
Der Spiegel, the NSA
uses a tactic called "method interdiction,"
which intercepts packages that are en route to the recipient. Malware or backdoor-enabling hardware
is installed in workshops by agents and the item then continues on its way to the customer.
The NSA can spy on PCs not connected to the Internet Der Spiegel also published a document from an NSA division called ANT, which
revealed technology the NSA uses to carry out operations, including a radio-frequency device
that can monitor and even change data on computers that are not online.
Phone companies must turn over bulk phone data In April,
Verizon was ordered to hand
over telephony metadata from calls made from the United States to other countries over the course
of three months. The metadata included originating and terminating phone numbers, mobile subscriber
identity numbers, calling card numbers, and the time and duration of calls. The secretive nature
of the FISA court that made the request for data, however, meant that Verizon and other companies
could not discuss the data requests.
The NSA hacked Yahoo and Google data centers In October, The Washington Post accused the NSA of
secretly monitoring transmissions
between the data centers of Internet giants Yahoo and Google. Both companies denied giving the NSA
permission to intercept such traffic. Google's Eric Schmidt
called the move "outrageous," if true,
while Yahoo moved to encrypt its data
after the revelation.
The NSA collects email and IM contact lists Hundreds of thousands of
contact lists
are collected by the NSA in a single day, The Washington Post also revealed. While the
targets are outside of the United States, the scope of the collection means that info from U.S. citizens
is inevitably included.
RSA created a backdoor into its encryption software at the NSA's request In December, Reuters reported that
the NSA paid RSA $10 million to create a "back door" in its encryption products, which gave the
NSA access to data protected by RSA products like Bsafe. RSA
denied the report, but the revelation
prompted speakers to bow out of this
month's RSA Conference.
The NSA eavesdrops on the phone calls of world leaders. The U.S. government's friends and family calling plan reportedly extends to the content of calls,
including tapping into German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone calls from the
roof of the U.S. embassy in Berlin. The news prompted German officials to consider
creating their own Internet.
The NSA knows how many pigs you've killed in Angry Birds. The Flappy Bird flap may be bigger, but last month,
The New York Times reported that the NSA
and British intelligence teamed up
to collect and store user data generated by "dozens of smartphone apps," including popular games
like Angry Birds. Rovio denied it,
but anti-surveillance activists still
defaced the developer's website.
The NSA engages in industrial espionage. The U.S. government has framed the NSA's activities as necessary to keeping citizens safe, but Snowden
said on German television, "If there's information at Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national
interests-even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security-then they'll
take that information nevertheless."
Tech companies cooperated with the NSA and then were asked not to talk about it. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple were all
named in the PRISM documents and
struggled with how to talk to the public about it because of gag orders.
"... Ford werke built trucks for the Germans up until the end of the war. And Prescott Bush (father and grandfather to POTUS 41 & 43) had his assets frozen and seized for trading with the enemy. ..."
"... Nearly all German corporations/large companies (they funded the parties rise) were complicit with the Nazi war and Holocaust machine and received the benefits of free (to them) slave Labor (reminds me of the US prison Labor system) and the seizure of capital assets in conquered countries. ..."
"... Being and oligarch or a faceless Corporation certainly has it's benefits, especially if there are any "scary" communists (or terrorists) around. ..."
I G Farben isn't alone in Holocaust related evilness. Check out IBMs' part, through their German
subsidiary, in making the efficiency of the "Final Solution" feasible. Figures for the liquidation
of "undesirables" were available to the New York headquarters of IBM in nearly real time.
As the
war wound down, special units attached to the U.S.Army secured and protected IBM 'assets' in Germany,
mainly the hardware and specialists who ran things.
Ford werke built trucks for the Germans up until the end of the war. And Prescott Bush (father
and grandfather to POTUS 41 & 43) had his assets frozen and seized for trading with the enemy.
But what do I know, I'm just a little prole with no Ivy league credentials. I should just trust
my betters.
By all means, go ahead, coronate another .01%er Oligarch to be President. Worked great so far.
Nearly all German corporations/large companies (they funded the parties rise) were complicit
with the Nazi war and Holocaust machine and received the benefits of free (to them) slave Labor
(reminds me of the US prison Labor system) and the seizure of capital assets in conquered countries.
What happened to them and their leaders. Not much, some were broken up (IG farben) some leaders
spent a short stint in prison (alfried Krupp) but nearly all of the largest were allowed to immediately
or eventually (Krupp) go on their merry way, so we could "stop communism".
So the very people that funded and were integral to the Nazi party having the funds and ability
to rise and benefited most, were slightly scolded at most.
Being and oligarch or a faceless Corporation certainly has it's benefits, especially if there
are any "scary" communists (or terrorists) around.
Muammar al-Qaddafi was an easy target. Oil was the goal. Everything else is describable attempt
to white wash the crime.
Notable quotes:
"... At the end, the brainwashing media convince the people to vote for the "bad choice" instead of the worst (which is Trump in this case). You don't need to have any plans or anything, just repeat "Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad, Me good" and the sheeple will follow! This strategy has been so successful that almost everywhere around the world are using it to win all types of elections! xD ..."
"... She should be a felon by now, and only her name protects her from jail. ..."
"... Although everyone recognizes that Qaddafi is a brutal ruler, his forces did not conduct deliberate, large-scale massacres in any of the cities he has recaptured, and his violent threats to wreak vengeance on Benghazi were directed at those who continued to resist his rule, not at innocent bystanders. There is no question that Qaddafi is a tyrant with few (if any) redemptive qualities, but the threat of a bloodbath that would "stain the conscience of the world" (as Obama put it) was slight ..."
"... As I've argued previously, the term "humanitarian crisis" is desperately imprecise and the informed public's ability to distinguish between civil strife (which is always bloody) and outright massacres and extermination campaigns is weak. Walt's certainty notwithstanding, the debate about the humanitarian rationale in this case has not been settled. In fact, it's barely begun ..."
"... on the basis that Gaddafi's forces were about to commit a Srebrenica-style massacre in Benghazi. Naturally we can never know what would have happened without Nato's intervention. But there is in fact no evidence – including from other rebel-held towns Gaddafi re-captured – to suggest he had either the capability or even the intention to carry out such an atrocity against an armed city of 700,000 . ..."
"... Of those, uncounted thousands will be civilians, including those killed by Nato bombing and Nato-backed forces on the ground. These figures dwarf the death tolls in this year's other most bloody Arab uprisings, in Syria and Yemen. Nato has not protected civilians in Libya – it has multiplied the number of their deaths, while losing not a single soldier of its own. ..."
"... For the western powers, of course, the Libyan war has allowed them to regain ground lost in Tunisia and Egypt, put themselves at the heart of the upheaval sweeping the most strategically sensitive region in the world, and secure valuable new commercial advantages in an oil-rich state whose previous leadership was at best unreliable. No wonder the new British defence secretary is telling businessmen to "pack their bags" for Libya, and the US ambassador in Tripoli insists American companies are needed on a "big scale". ..."
"... But for Libyans, it has meant a loss of ownership of their own future and the effective imposition of a western-picked administration of Gaddafi defectors and US and British intelligence assets. Probably the greatest challenge to that takeover will now come from Islamist military leaders on the ground, such as the Tripoli commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj – kidnapped by MI6 to be tortured in Libya in 2004 – who have already made clear they will not be taking orders from the NTC. ..."
"... This was an unpopular stance to take on Libya during the high tide of the Arab Spring, when foreign governments and media alike were uncritically lauding the opposition. The two sides in what was a genuine civil war were portrayed as white hats and black hats; rebel claims about government atrocities were credulously broadcast, though they frequently turned out to be concocted, while government denials were contemptuously dismissed. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were much more thorough than the media in checking these stories, although their detailed reports appeared long after the news agenda had moved on." ..."
"... the Taliban were winning against the Northern Alliance for various reasons, one was that a lot of people supported them. We turned a blind eye to the destabilising effects of Saudi and Pakistan support of the Taliban as well. We set this up for failure a long time ago. Riding in like the calvary and handing out billions to the Northern Alliance was not very helpful for stability. ..."
"... What people related to me was this: The Taliban were more predictable. Dostum was not predictable. Both were bad, but as Clinton fans love to highlight, the lessor of two evils must be selected. The Taliban also represented the Pashtun who were the largest ethnic bloc in Afghanistan. So in essence the people mostly supported the Taliban. The Northern Alliance had the support of Russia, and you might recall the Afghans did not have fond memories of them. ..."
"... Given our support of Saudi and knowing their interventions, as well as Pakistan, we were stupid to intervene. ..."
Most politicians these days don't care about the people and this ridiculous cycle is repeating
every 4 years! Candidates who actually want to make progress get dumped by the corrupt system
and the parties that are being controlled by their corporate masters and their money to do as
they want to return the more money to them later when they have the office!
At the end, the brainwashing media convince the people to vote for the "bad choice" instead
of the worst (which is Trump in this case). You don't need to have any plans or anything, just
repeat "Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad, Me good" and the sheeple will follow! This strategy has
been so successful that almost everywhere around the world are using it to win all types of elections!
xD
Maybe Trump becoming president is necessary for the people to realize once and for all that
this cycle of mistakes and corruption needs to stop and fundamental changes need to happen! Starts
with the USA and the world will follow over time. I personally am done with following these corrupt
political systems and their media and do as they tell me to (same goes for the financial system
but there's no escaping this one in the near future with corps and banks being in total control
of the society).
"As Alan Kuperman of the University of Texas and Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune
have now shown, the claim that the United States had to act to prevent Libyan tyrant Muammar
al-Qaddafi from slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Benghazi does not stand
up to even casual scrutiny.
Although everyone recognizes that Qaddafi is a brutal ruler, his forces did not conduct
deliberate, large-scale massacres in any of the cities he has recaptured, and his violent threats
to wreak vengeance on Benghazi were directed at those who continued to resist his rule, not
at innocent bystanders. There is no question that Qaddafi is a tyrant with few (if any) redemptive
qualities, but the threat of a bloodbath that would "stain the conscience of the world" (as
Obama put it) was slight. "
"If humanitarian intervention is to remain a live possibility, there must be much more public
scrutiny, debate and discussion of what triggers that intervention and what level of evidence
we can reasonably require. Did administration officials have communications intercepts suggesting
plans for large-scale killings of civilians? How exactly did they reach their conclusion that
these reprisals were likely? It should be no more acceptable to simply accept government claims
on this score than it was for previous administrations.
As I've argued previously, the term "humanitarian crisis" is desperately imprecise and
the informed public's ability to distinguish between civil strife (which is always bloody)
and outright massacres and extermination campaigns is weak. Walt's certainty notwithstanding,
the debate about the humanitarian rationale in this case has not been settled. In fact, it's
barely begun."
"David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy won the authorisation to use "all necessary means" from
the UN security council in March on the basis that Gaddafi's forces were about to commit a
Srebrenica-style massacre in Benghazi. Naturally we can never know what would have happened without
Nato's intervention. But there is in fact no evidence – including from other rebel-held towns
Gaddafi re-captured – to suggest he had either the capability or even the intention to carry out
such an atrocity against an armed city of 700,000 .
What is now known, however, is that while the death toll in Libya when Nato intervened was
perhaps around 1,000-2,000 (judging by UN estimates), eight months later it is probably more than
ten times that figure. Estimates of the numbers of dead over the last eight months – as Nato leaders
vetoed ceasefires and negotiations – range from 10,000 up to 50,000. The National Transitional
Council puts the losses at 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded.
Of those, uncounted thousands will be civilians, including those killed by Nato bombing
and Nato-backed forces on the ground. These figures dwarf the death tolls in this year's other
most bloody Arab uprisings, in Syria and Yemen. Nato has not protected civilians in Libya – it
has multiplied the number of their deaths, while losing not a single soldier of its own.
For the western powers, of course, the Libyan war has allowed them to regain ground lost
in Tunisia and Egypt, put themselves at the heart of the upheaval sweeping the most strategically
sensitive region in the world, and secure valuable new commercial advantages in an oil-rich state
whose previous leadership was at best unreliable. No wonder the new British defence secretary
is telling businessmen to "pack their bags" for Libya, and the US ambassador in Tripoli insists
American companies are needed on a "big scale".
But for Libyans, it has meant a loss of ownership of their own future and the effective
imposition of a western-picked administration of Gaddafi defectors and US and British intelligence
assets. Probably the greatest challenge to that takeover will now come from Islamist military
leaders on the ground, such as the Tripoli commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj – kidnapped by MI6 to
be tortured in Libya in 2004 – who have already made clear they will not be taking orders from
the NTC.
"Explanations of what one thought was happening in these countries were often misinterpreted
as justification for odious and discredited regimes. In Libya, where the uprising started on 15
February 2011, I wrote about how the opposition was wholly dependent on Nato military support
and would have been rapidly defeated by pro-Gaddafi forces without it. It followed from this that
the opposition would not have the strength to fill the inevitable political vacuum if Gaddafi
was to fall. I noted gloomily that Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies,
who were pressing for foreign intervention against Gaddafi, themselves held power by methods no
less repressive than the Libyan leader. It was his radicalism – muted though this was in his later
years – not his authoritarianism that made the kings and emirs hate him.
This was an unpopular stance to take on Libya during the high tide of the Arab Spring,
when foreign governments and media alike were uncritically lauding the opposition. The two sides
in what was a genuine civil war were portrayed as white hats and black hats; rebel claims about
government atrocities were credulously broadcast, though they frequently turned out to be concocted,
while government denials were contemptuously dismissed. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch were much more thorough than the media in checking these
stories, although their detailed reports appeared long after the news agenda had moved on."
And then in another note, why do people like you condemn the Taliban but give a free pass to the
Saudi's who have a lot to do with the state of fundamentalism in Afghanistan, and essentially
operate the same as the Taliban? Why are we not intervening in Saudi Arabia to free the people?
Nah. Do people die from either side in Afghanistan? Yes. Excusively the Taliban? no. The western
press prefers the narrative of Taliban extremism. The western press ignores and fails to report
killings by US troops, one incident I know of personally in Kabul. Never reported in the press.
So I suggest you educate yourself on the complexities of Afghanistan before you sound off with
smugness. It is obvious you have no idea of what really goes on there.
Have you ever visited Saudi Arabia? Want a litany of the horrors there? No, you don't. You
have a narrative which I suspect is ill informed.
the Taliban were winning against the Northern Alliance for various reasons, one was that
a lot of people supported them. We turned a blind eye to the destabilising effects of Saudi and
Pakistan support of the Taliban as well. We set this up for failure a long time ago. Riding in
like the calvary and handing out billions to the Northern Alliance was not very helpful for stability.
"was if ending Taliban rule had made things better"
You try to simplify a very complex situation. In fact there was never absolute rule by the
Taliban. You seem to forget there was a civil war in the country before 9/11. There was the Taliban
and the Northern Alliance. There was Pakistan and the ISI ( Pakistan of course if often supported
by the US, then we had Saudi Arabia, again supported by us). Before 9/11 The northern alliance
was about to be defeated. On both sides was indiscriminate killings. You also had a complex mix
if Pashtun Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. You had multiple political alliances which I will not bother
to list. Kabul was destroyed by the fighting. Atrocities on both sides.
You had Dostum with the Northern Alliance and Massod as well. Massod was reasonable, Dostum
was an animal worse than the Taliban.
What people related to me was this: The Taliban were more predictable. Dostum was not predictable.
Both were bad, but as Clinton fans love to highlight, the lessor of two evils must be selected.
The Taliban also represented the Pashtun who were the largest ethnic bloc in Afghanistan. So in
essence the people mostly supported the Taliban. The Northern Alliance had the support of Russia,
and you might recall the Afghans did not have fond memories of them.
So, you want to simplify the Taliban atrocities and ignore the rest. Afghans did not have the
luxury of this. They had to choose the lesser evil. Had Massood not been entangled with Dostum,
perhaps things would have been different.
We came in and supported the Northern Alliance, which did NOT sit well with a lot of people.
The majority? I don't have statistics exactly pointing this out. The Pashtun felt pushed out of
affairs by the minority remnants of the Northern Alliance. Every ..... and I mean every government
office had photos of Massood on the wall. Not Karzai. Karzai was seen as irrelevant by all sides,
he was seen as the American imposed choice. ( I will not even discuss the "election" but I was
on the ground dealing with Identity cards before the UN arrived, had meetings with the UN team
about approaches to getting ID cards out to all voters, and there is a stink over aspects of the
participation in the elections).
"And seeing a self-described leftist explaining that life under the Taliban wasn't all that
bad if you just grew a beard [!] and fell in line is really sort of pathetic."
Your smug simplistic statement indicates you have no idea of the horrors enacted on both sides.
I was told this time and time again as how people decided to survive by picking a side where there
were rules and they could survive the rules.
But lets put aside my anecdotal evidence and look at the people of Afghanistan:
"Looking at Afghans' views on reconciling with the Taliban does not appear to bear out the
concerns over ethnic divisions shared by Jones and Kilcullen. When asked whether the Afghan central
government should negotiate a settlement with the Taliban or continue fighting the Taliban and
not negotiate, a recent national survey of Afghanistan found that roughly three- quarters (74%)
of Afghans favor negotiating with the Taliban .74 This is in line with previous studies, such
as a series of polls sponsored by ABC News which found that the number of Afghans favoring reconciliation
had risen from 60% in 2007 to 73% in 2009."
""Do you think the government in Kabul should negotiate a settlement with Afghan Taliban
in which they are allowed to hold political offices if they stop fighting, or do you think the
government in Kabul should continue to fight the Taliban and not negotiate a settlement?""
77% of men and 70% of women agree with this.
Here is the ultimate point. We intervened and we had no fucking idea what we were doing. The
Afghans saw the money flowing to Beltway Bandits rather than flowing to real aid and needs. They
saw this! They were not stupid. They saw that the Pashtuns were pushed out of Government, ( hence
the Massod images in ALL government offices [My project of reform dealt with EVERY government
offices and I visited a fair few personally and finally had to ask abut why each office had Masood
an not Karzai)
My opinion? I see indications that the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden. We refused.
Is this disputed? Yes. Were we right to favour the Northern Alliance? No. They were as bad as
the Taliban, but more ..... unpredictable.
Given our support of Saudi and knowing their interventions, as well as Pakistan, we were
stupid to intervene.
"... Speaking of the US putting more troops in Europe near the Russian border, Paul notes that he doesn't think "they have strong evidence that the Russians are about to roll in tanks." Instead, a motivation for the military build-up, Paul says, is "stirring up troubles to justify more military expenditures." ..."
Speaking last week with host Scott Horton on the Scott Horton Show, three-time presidential candidate
and former Republican member of the US House of Representatives Ron Paul discussed the military-industrial
complex's role in US militarism across the world, including in Latin America and Europe.
After Horton introduced Paul as "the greatest American hero," Paul and Horton entered a fascinating
discussion of US foreign policy. Their wide-ranging discussion concerns matters including US intervention
in Iraq and Ukraine, a potential "Brexit" - exit of Great Britain from the European Union (EU), and
Paul's preference for free trade over international trade deals that Paul says put in place "managed
trade to serve the interests of some special interests."
Addressing the influence of the military-industrial complex, Paul comments in the interview on examples
in Europe and Latin America.
Speaking of the US putting more troops in Europe near the Russian border, Paul notes that he doesn't
think "they have strong evidence that the Russians are about to roll in tanks." Instead, a motivation
for the military build-up, Paul says, is "stirring up troubles to justify more military expenditures."
Paul also comments on the military-industrial complex when he discusses how a dispute over which
company would profit from its helicopters being used in the US government's "Plan Columbia" was resolved
by sending both companies' helicopters to Latin America for use in the drug war effort.
Listen through the end of the interview and you will hear Horton's strong praise for the Ron Paul
Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI). Paul founded RPI in 2013 after retiring from the House
of Representatives. Says Horton:
Check out the Ron Paul Institute at ronpaulinstitute.org.
They put out great antiwar propaganda all day long seven days a week - the great Dan McAdams,
Dr. Paul, Adam Dick and others there at the Ron Paul Institute, ronpaulinstitute.org.
"... Speaking of the US putting more troops in Europe near the Russian border, Paul notes that he doesn't think "they have strong evidence that the Russians are about to roll in tanks." Instead, a motivation for the military build-up, Paul says, is "stirring up troubles to justify more military expenditures." ..."
Speaking last week with host Scott Horton on the Scott Horton Show, three-time presidential candidate
and former Republican member of the US House of Representatives Ron Paul discussed the military-industrial
complex's role in US militarism across the world, including in Latin America and Europe.
After Horton introduced Paul as "the greatest American hero," Paul and Horton entered a fascinating
discussion of US foreign policy. Their wide-ranging discussion concerns matters including US intervention
in Iraq and Ukraine, a potential "Brexit" - exit of Great Britain from the European Union (EU), and
Paul's preference for free trade over international trade deals that Paul says put in place "managed
trade to serve the interests of some special interests."
Addressing the influence of the military-industrial complex, Paul comments in the interview on examples
in Europe and Latin America.
Speaking of the US putting more troops in Europe near the Russian border, Paul notes that he doesn't
think "they have strong evidence that the Russians are about to roll in tanks." Instead, a motivation
for the military build-up, Paul says, is "stirring up troubles to justify more military expenditures."
Paul also comments on the military-industrial complex when he discusses how a dispute over which
company would profit from its helicopters being used in the US government's "Plan Columbia" was resolved
by sending both companies' helicopters to Latin America for use in the drug war effort.
Listen through the end of the interview and you will hear Horton's strong praise for the Ron Paul
Institute for Peace and Prosperity (RPI). Paul founded RPI in 2013 after retiring from the House
of Representatives. Says Horton:
Check out the Ron Paul Institute at ronpaulinstitute.org.
They put out great antiwar propaganda all day long seven days a week - the great Dan McAdams,
Dr. Paul, Adam Dick and others there at the Ron Paul Institute, ronpaulinstitute.org.
Let's face it: in times of war, the Constitution tends to take a beating. With the safety or survival
of the nation said to be at risk, the basic law of the land-otherwise considered sacrosanct-becomes
nonbinding, subject to being waived at the whim of government authorities who are impatient, scared,
panicky, or just plain pissed off.
The examples are legion. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln
arbitrarily suspended the writ of habeas corpus and ignored court orders that took issue with his
authority to do so. After U.S. entry into World War I, the administration of Woodrow Wilson mounted
a comprehensive effort to crush dissent, shutting down anti-war publications in complete disregard
of the First Amendment. Amid the hysteria triggered by Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt issued an
executive order consigning to concentration camps more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans, many of them
native-born citizens. Asked in 1944 to review this gross violation of due process, the Supreme Court
endorsed the government's action by a 6-3 vote.
More often than not, the passing of the emergency induces second thoughts and even remorse. The
further into the past a particular war recedes, the more dubious the wartime arguments for violating
the Constitution appear. Americans thereby take comfort in the "lessons learned" that will presumably
prohibit any future recurrence of such folly.
Even so, the onset of the next war finds the Constitution once more being ill-treated. We don't
repeat past transgressions, of course. Instead, we devise new ones. So it has been during the ongoing
post-9/11 period of protracted war.
During the presidency of George W. Bush, the United States embraced torture as an instrument of
policy in clear violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Bush's
successor, Barack Obama, ordered the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen, a death by drone
that was visibly in disregard of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Both administrations-Bush's
with gusto, Obama's with evident regret-imprisoned individuals for years on end without charge and
without anything remotely approximating the "speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury" guaranteed
by the Sixth Amendment. Should the present state of hostilities ever end, we can no doubt expect
Guantánamo to become yet another source of "lessons learned" for future generations of rueful Americans.
♦♦♦
Yet one particular check-and-balance constitutional proviso now appears exempt from this recurring
phenomenon of disregard followed by professions of dismay, embarrassment, and "never again-ism" once
the military emergency passes. I mean, of course, Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which
assigns to Congress the authority "to declare war" and still stands as testimony to the genius of
those who drafted it. There can be no question that the responsibility for deciding when and whether
the United States should fight resides with the legislative branch, not the executive, and that this
was manifestly the intent of the Framers.
On parchment at least, the division of labor appears straightforward. The president's designation
as commander-in-chief of the armed forces in no way implies a blanket authorization to employ those
forces however he sees fit or anything faintly like it. Quite the contrary: legitimizing presidential
command requires explicit congressional sanction.
Actual practice has evolved into something altogether different. The portion of Article I, Section
8, cited above has become a dead letter, about as operative as blue laws still on the books in some
American cities and towns that purport to regulate Sabbath day activities. Superseding the written
text is an unwritten counterpart that goes something like this:
with legislators largely consigned
to the status of observers, presidents pretty much wage war whenever, wherever, and however they
see fit.
Whether the result qualifies as usurpation or forfeiture is one of those chicken-and-egg
questions that's interesting but practically speaking beside the point.
This is by no means a recent development. It has a history. In the summer of 1950, when President
Harry Truman decided that a U.N. Security Council resolution provided sufficient warrant for him
to order U.S. forces to fight in Korea, congressional war powers took a hit from which they would
never recover.
Congress soon thereafter bought into the notion, fashionable during the Cold War, that formal
declarations of hostilities had become passé. Waging the "long twilight struggle" ostensibly required
deference to the commander-in-chief on all matters related to national security. To sustain the pretense
that it still retained some relevance, Congress took to issuing what were essentially permission
slips, granting presidents maximum freedom of action to do whatever they might decide needed to be
done in response to the latest perceived crisis.
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 offers a notable example. With near unanimity, legislators
urged President Lyndon Johnson "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against
the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" across the length and breadth
of Southeast Asia. Through the magic of presidential interpretation, a mandate to prevent aggression
provided legal cover for an astonishingly brutal and aggressive war in Vietnam, as well as Cambodia
and Laos. Under the guise of repelling attacks on U.S. forces, Johnson and his successor, Richard
Nixon, thrust millions of American troops into a war they could not win, even if more than 58,000
died trying.
To leap almost four decades ahead, think of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)
that was passed by Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as the grandchild of the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution. This document required (directed, called upon, requested, invited, urged) President George
W. Bush "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons
he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September
11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international
terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons." In plain language:
here's a blank check; feel free to fill it in any way you like.
♦♦♦
As a practical matter, one specific individual-Osama bin Laden-had hatched the 9/11 plot. A single
organization-al-Qaeda-had conspired to pull it off. And just one nation-backward, Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan-had provided assistance, offering sanctuary to bin Laden and his henchmen. Yet nearly
15 years later, the AUMF remains operative and has become the basis for military actions against
innumerable individuals, organizations, and nations with no involvement whatsoever in the murderous
events of September 11, 2001.
Consider the following less than comprehensive list of four developments, all of which occurred
just within the last month and a half:
In Yemen, a U.S. airstrike killed at least 50 individuals, said to be members of an Islamist
organization that did not exist on 9/11.
In Somalia, another U.S. airstrike killed a reported 150 militants, reputedly members of al-Shabab,
a very nasty outfit, even if one with no real agenda beyond Somalia itself.
In Syria, pursuant to the campaign of assassination that is the latest spin-off of the Iraq
War, U.S. special operations forces bumped off the reputed "finance minister" of the Islamic State,
another terror group that didn't even exist in September 2001.
In Libya, according to press reports, the Pentagon is again gearing up for "decisive military
action"-that is, a new round of air strikes and special operations attacks to quell the disorder
resulting from the U.S.-orchestrated air campaign that in 2011 destabilized that country. An airstrike
conducted in late February gave a hint of what is to come: it killed approximately 50 Islamic
State militants (and possibly two Serbian diplomatic captives).
Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Libya share at least this in common: none of them, nor any of the groups
targeted, had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
Imagine if, within a matter of weeks, China were to launch raids into Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan,
with punitive action against the Philippines in the offing. Or if Russia, having given a swift kick
to Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, leaked its plans to teach Poland a lesson for mismanaging its
internal affairs. Were Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin to order
such actions, the halls of Congress would ring with fierce denunciations. Members of both houses
would jostle for places in front of the TV cameras to condemn the perpetrators for recklessly violating
international law and undermining the prospects for world peace. Having no jurisdiction over the
actions of other sovereign states, senators and representatives would break down the doors to seize
the opportunity to get in their two cents worth. No one would be able to stop them. Who does Xi think
he is! How dare Putin!
Yet when an American president undertakes analogous actions over which the legislative branch
does
have jurisdiction, members of Congress either yawn or avert their eyes.
In this regard, Republicans are especially egregious offenders. On matters where President Obama
is clearly acting in accordance with the Constitution-for example, in nominating someone to fill
a vacancy on the Supreme Court-they spare no effort to thwart him, concocting bizarre arguments nowhere
found in the Constitution to justify their obstructionism. Yet when this same president cites the
2001 AUMF as the basis for initiating hostilities hither and yon, something that is on the face of
it not legal but ludicrous, they passively assent.
Indeed, when Obama in 2015 went so far as to ask Congress to pass a new AUMF addressing the specific
threat posed by the Islamic State-that is, essentially rubberstamping the war he had already launched
on his own in Syria and Iraq-the Republican leadership took no action. Looking forward to the day
when Obama departs office, Senator Mitch McConnell with his trademark hypocrisy worried aloud that
a new AUMF might constrain his successor. The next president will "have to clean up this mess, created
by all of this passivity over the last eight years," the majority leader remarked. In that regard,
"an authorization to use military force that ties the president's hands behind his back is not something
I would want to do." The proper role of Congress was to get out of the way and give this commander-in-chief
carte blanche
so that the next one would enjoy comparably unlimited prerogatives.
Collaborating with a president they roundly despise-implicitly concurring in Obama's questionable
claim that "existing statutes [already] provide me with the authority I need" to make war on ISIS-the
GOP-controlled Congress thereby transformed the post-9/11 AUMF into what has now become, in effect,
a writ of permanent and limitless armed conflict. In Iraq and Syria, for instance, what began as
a limited but open-ended campaign of air strikes authorized by President Obama in August 2014 has
expanded to include an ever-larger contingent of U.S. trainers and advisers for the Iraqi military,
special operations forces conducting raids in both Iraq and Syria, the first new all-U.S. forward
fire base in Iraq, and at least 5,000 U.S. military personnel now on the ground, a number that continues
to grow incrementally.
Remember Barack Obama campaigning back in 2008 and solemnly pledging to end the Iraq War? What
he neglected to mention at the time was that he was retaining the prerogative to plunge the country
into another Iraq War on his own ticket. So has he now done, with members of Congress passively assenting
and the country essentially a prisoner of war.
By now, through its inaction, the legislative branch has, in fact, surrendered the final remnant
of authority it retained on matters relating to whether, when, against whom, and for what purpose
the United States should go to war. Nothing now remains but to pay the bills, which Congress routinely
does, citing a solemn obligation to "support the troops." In this way does the performance of lesser
duties provide an excuse for shirking far greater ones.
In military circles, there is a term to describe this type of behavior. It's called cowardice.
The revelation that an Israeli firm cracked the iPhone raises questions about state-corporate
espionage.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) court battle with Apple over the security system in
place on iPhones appears to be over. But some experts in the communications security community are
expressing concern because of the
According to government sources speaking both on and off the record, the FBI succeeded in breaking
through the Apple security measures
with the assistance of an unidentified third party. The technique used was apparently not a one-off
and is transferable as the Bureau
has now indicated that
it will be accessing data on a second phone involved in a murder investigation in Arkansas and is
even considering allowing local police forces to share the technology. That means that the FBI
and whatever other security and police agencies both in the U.S. and abroad it provides the information
to will have the same capability, potentially compromising the security of all iPhones worldwide.
The breakthrough in the case leads inevitably to questions about the identity of the company or
individual that assisted the Bureau. It means that someone outside government circles would also
have the ability to unlock the phones, information that could eventually wind up in the hands of
criminals or those seeking to disrupt or sabotage existing telecommunications systems.
No security system is unbreakable if a sophisticated hacker is willing to put enough time, money
and resources into the effort. If the hacker is a government with virtually unlimited resources the
task is somewhat simpler as vast computer power will permit millions of attempts to compromise a
phone's operating system.
In this case, the problem consisted of defeating an "Erase Data" feature linked to a passcode
that had been placed on the target phone by Syed Farook, one of the shooters in December's San Bernardino
terrorist attack. Apple had
designed the system so that 10 failures to enter the correct passcode would lock the phone and
erase all the data on it. This frustrated FBI efforts to come up with the passcode by what is referred
to as a "brute force" attack where every possible combination of numbers and letters is entered until
the right code is revealed. Apple's security software also was able to detect multiple attempts after
entry of an incorrect passcode and slow down the process, meaning that in theory it would take five
and a half years for a computer to try all possible combinations of a six-character alphanumeric
passcode using numbers and lowercase letters even if it could disable the "Erase Data" feature.
Speculation is that the FBI and its third party associate were able to break the security by
circumventing the measure that monitors the number of unsuccessful passcode entries, possibly to
include generating new copies of the phone's NAND storage chip to negate the 10-try limit. The computer
generated passcodes could then be entered again and again until the correct code was discovered.
And, of course, once the method of corrupting the Erase Data security feature is determined it can
be used on any iPhone by anyone with the necessary computer capability, precisely the danger that
Apple had warned about when it refused to cooperate with the FBI in the first place.
Most of the U.S. mainstream media has been reluctant to speculate on who the third party that
aided the FBI might be but the Israeli press has not been so reticent. They
have
identified a company called Cellebrite, a digital forensics company located in Israel. It is
reported that the company's executive vice president for mobile forensics Leeor Ben-Peretz was recently
in Washington consulting with clients. Ben-Peretz is Cellebrite's marketing chief, fully capable
of demonstrating the company's forensics capabilities. Cellebrite reportedly has worked with the
FBI before, having had a
contract arrangement entered into in 2013 to provide decryption services.
Cellebrite was purchased by Japanese cellular telephone giant Suncorporation in 2007 but it is
still headquartered and managed from Petah Tikva, Israel with a North American office in Parsippany,
New Jersey and branches in Germany, Singapore and Brazil. It works closely with the Israeli police
and intelligence services and is reported to have ties to both Mossad and Shin Bet. Many of its employees
are former Israeli government employees who had worked in cybersecurity and telecommunications.
If Cellebrite is indeed the "third party" responsible for the breakthrough on the Apple problem,
it must lead to speculation that the key to circumventing iPhone security is already out there in
the small world of top level telecommunications forensic experts. It might reasonably be assumed
that the Israeli government has access to the necessary technology, as well as Cellebrite's Japanese
owners. From there, the possibilities inevitably multiply.
Most countries obtain much of their high grade intelligence from communications intercepts. Countries
like Israel, China, and France conduct much of their high-tech spying through exploitation of their
corporate presence in the United States. Israel, in particular, is heavily embedded in the telecommunications
industry, which permits direct access to confidential exchanges of information.
Israel has in fact a somewhat
shady reputation in the United
States when it comes to telecommunications spying. Two companies in particular-Amdocs and Comverse
Infosys-have at times dominated their market niches in America. Amdocs,
which has contracts with many of the largest telephone companies in the U.S. that together handle
90 percent of all calls made, logs all calls that go out and come in on the system. It does not retain
the conversations themselves, but the records provide patterns, referred to as "traffic analysis,"
that can provide intelligence leads. In 1999, the National Security Agency warned that records of
calls made in the United States were winding up in Israel.
Comverse Infosys, which
dissolved in 2013
after charges of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering and making false filings, provided wiretapping
equipment to law enforcement throughout the United States. Because equipment used to tap phones for
law enforcement is integrated into the networks that phone companies operate, it cannot be detected.
Phone calls were intercepted, recorded, stored, and transmitted to investigators by Comverse, which
claimed that it had to be "hands on" with its equipment to maintain the system. Many experts believe
that it is relatively easy to create an internal cross switch that permits the recording to be sent
to a second party, unknown to the authorized law-enforcement recipient. Comverse
was also believed to be involved with NSA on a program of illegal spying directed against American
citizens.
Comverse equipment was never inspected by FBI or NSA experts to determine whether the information
it collected could be leaked, reportedly because senior government managers blocked such inquiries.
According to a Fox News investigative
report, which was later deleted from Fox's website under pressure from various pro-Israel groups,
DEA and FBI sources said post-9/11 that even to suggest that Israel might have been spying using
Comverse was "considered career suicide."
Some might argue that collecting intelligence is a function of government and that espionage,
even between friends, will always take place. When it comes to smartphones, technical advances in
phone security will provide a silver bullet for a time but the hackers, and governments, will inevitably
catch up. One might assume that the recent revelations about the FBI's capabilities vis-à-vis the
iPhone indicate that the horse is already out of the stable. If Israel was party to the breaking
of the security and has the technology it will use it. If the FBI has it, it will share it with other
government agencies and even with foreign intelligence and security services.
Absent from the discussion regarding Apple are the
more than 80 percent of smartphones used worldwide that employ the Google developed Android operating
system that has its own distinct security features designed to block government intrusion. The FBI
is clearly driven by the assumption that all smartphones should be accessible to law enforcement.
The next big telecommunications security court case might well be directed against Google.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National
Interest.
"... Actually, he upgraded his army after Georgia launched a surprise blitzkrieg operation on S. Ossetia, killing UN-mandated Russian peacekeepers and a few hundred sleeping Ossets, with or without a wink and a nod from the US. Verdict's still out on that last one. You'll have to wait for Karl Rove's posthumous memoirs for that insight. ..."
"... Another silly "what if" article. A conflict between Nato and Russia will very quickly go nuclear. Nobody wins. Taking the three tiny Baltic countries into Nato was an incredibly stupid move. The purpose was purely to provoke Russia. They can't be defended without going nuclear. They will be lost forever. Nato gains nothing except the claim of being the victim. ..."
"... The NATO-bloc spends about a trillion dollars each year on the military -- as much as is spent by all other countries in the world combined, and an order of magnitude more than what Russia spends. ..."
"... If NATO is defending "Freedom", as we're told, then why does it require such a titanic amount of force and money? If U.S.-style "Freedom" is such a good thing, if this Exceptional "Freedom" is something that every sane person wants, then why does it take so much force to impose this "Freedom" on people ? ..."
"... NATO is selling death and destruction, repackaged as "Freedom and Democracy". Ask what is inside the pretty package! -- then you will understand why this "Freedom" is such a hard sell. ..."
"... The Baltic leaders are just milking NATO, with their constant 'threat alerts'. And NATO milks them right back. It's a symbiotic milk maid festival. ..."
Just typical propaganda to justify endless billions for a nonexistent threat. ,you have to be
a brainwashed neocon idiot or have stock in defense corporations or likely both to believe Russia
has any interest in invading anyone. How would we feel if Russia moved missiles and troops to
our borders?
You should be use to it by now since all of your former allies have either joined NATO or want
to join NATO as protection against Russia.
You see - we actually don't have to do anything to convince nations to work with us - we just
let Russia act the way it normally acts and the rest falls into place.
I'm fond of saying that Putin is our best man in Russia. We couldn't ask for a better ally
in helping us dismantle Russia.
Actually, he upgraded his army after Georgia launched a surprise blitzkrieg operation on S. Ossetia,
killing UN-mandated Russian peacekeepers and a few hundred sleeping Ossets, with or without a
wink and a nod from the US. Verdict's still out on that last one. You'll have to wait for Karl
Rove's posthumous memoirs for that insight.
You are right and Georgia was armed and trained by US and instigated by US to attack Russia and
what happened it took Russia 5 days to defeat the well armed US backed Georgians and this is an
indicator how the US will fare against a war with Russia - FULL RETREAT
Brian you really don't know what you are talking about. I doubt you ever have left your neighborhood
let alone the state. You talk down about Russia and how great the American military is. But then
again like all talk it is just talk. In a real war Russia has many more nukes then we do. They
kept their nuclear program up while ours has fallen. Should a real war happen all you will see
Brian is flashes of of light everywhere and that will be the end. GET IT WAKE UP !!!
Without firing a shot? Apparently, you missed the right sector snipers in the Hotel Ukraina, the
Azov battalion civilian massacres in Mariupol and the Odessa holocaust, eh?
But we know, you loved every bullet of it. Psychopaths are as psychopaths do.
And BTW, speak for yourself. This 'we' thing is delusional. If 'we' met, you'd understand that
quick enough.
The Russians brought it upon themselves with their history of bullying...
Your neighbors will continue to hate you, and we don't need to do anything about it.
I'll be happy to send a donation to Ukraine so they can buy more defensive weapons - the more
Russians that invade their land, the more body bags they can send back to Russia.
The Ukrainians brought it upon themselves, sir. You obviously share in that endearing Ukrainian
trait to blame everyone but yourself for the consequences of your actions. Next time, try to keep
your banderite fascist ideologues at bay and maybe you'll learn something about those 'European
values' that Poroshenko seems to like to lecture the Europeans about, if that ain't a hoot in
itself.
What just happened in Syria?
What about the untraceable subs Russia has that can knock out our aircraft carries easily? PS:
Iran has one and we lost track of it shortly after they purchased it from Russia.
What about the large number of nuclear weapon Russia has and has used this threat in an offensives
manor lately?
Are you the type of person who leaves his front door unlocked when you go to work?
Just type up your SS#, Credit Cards, and Name for us please...along with you address since you
do not believe in preventive measures to safeguard yourself.
The untraceable diesel electric are very short range by ocean going standard AND become more visible
it they need to approach the target (The hope to submerge, sit and have a vessel pass very close).
The Baltics and Poland should take an example from Finland. Finland has managed to avoid conflict
with Russia, without any help from the U.S. or NATO. Threats of imminent Russian invasion are
fairy tales.
Another silly "what if" article. A conflict between Nato and Russia will very quickly go nuclear.
Nobody wins. Taking the three tiny Baltic countries into Nato was an incredibly stupid move. The
purpose was purely to provoke Russia. They can't be defended without going nuclear. They will
be lost forever. Nato gains nothing except the claim of being the victim.
MY CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOU OPINION WHICH IS MY OPINION. I AM A PROFESSIONAL ARMY OFFFICER. YOUR
OPINION IS THE CORRECT AND THE REAL ONE. ALL THOSE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT WHATEVER STRENGTH AND KIND
OF TROOPS OR WEAPONS NATO MIGTH HAVE WHEREVER... WITHIN EUROPE IS SIMPLY SILLY...
I THINK ANY ARMY OFFICER KNOWS WHAT YOU JUST TOLD... SO EITHER ALL THIS SHIT AROUND WHOM, WHAT
AND WHERE TO DEPLOY MILITARY POWER TO STOP THE RUSSIANS IS JUST TO HAVE THE STUPID EUROPEANS SPENDING
MORE MONEY BUYING USA WEAPONS OR IF NATO BELIEVES WHAT THEY ARE DOING... THEN THE GENERALS IN
CHARGE ARE JUST DONKEYS ... AND I APOLOGIZE TO DONKEYS... OF COURSE ANY VERY FIRST MILITARY ACTION
FROM RUSSIA EITHER TO DEFEND ITSELF FROM A NATO/ USA ATTACK OR TO CARRY OUT A PRE EMPTIVE ATTACK
WILL BE IMMEDIATELY NUCLEAR... MORE THAN THAT IT WILL BE GLOBAL.... NOT ONLY AGAINST EUROPE...
THE MAIN TARGET WILL BE USA AND ITS MILITARY BASES AROUND THE WORLD... AND OF COURSE EUROPE...
SO CONVENCIONAL MILITARY MEANS IN SUCH A CONTEXT THEY SHALL BE BASICALLY TROOPS AND EQUIPMENT
ABLE TO OPERATE IN A NUCLEAR AND NBQ ENVIRONMENT.
Russia wouldn't have to go nuclear to defeat Europe, so if it does go nuclear, it will be the
US that pushes the button.
As the Russian army would be in Europe, the US would nuke Europe.
"Taking the three tiny Baltic countries into NATO was an incredibly stupid move."
I disagree. Americas' Principles have always stressed spreading Freedom & Liberty as far as
possible. Where "we" Americans went wrong was not electing leadership who understood this principle.
I can agree with the Far Left on one thing: Europeans need to bring their military strength
back up. It's obvious that my country (USA) is headed down a path of isolationism. A pity, really.
Has the Europeans learned to value each other as equals...... or will ancient rivalries tear them
apart?
The NATO-bloc spends about a trillion dollars each year on the military -- as much as is spent
by all other countries in the world combined, and an order of magnitude more than what Russia
spends.
If NATO is defending "Freedom", as we're told, then why does it require such a titanic
amount of force and money? If U.S.-style "Freedom" is such a good thing, if this Exceptional "Freedom"
is something that every sane person wants, then why does it take so much force to impose this
"Freedom" on people ?
If I invent something that people want -- a better mouse-trap, say -- do I have to bomb people
into buying my product? Do I have to use "police" armed with tanks and machine-guns to round people
up and force them into the store where my mouse-trap is sold?
Real freedom is something that sells itself. Freedom is something to live for, not something
to kill and be killed for. We develop freedom by exercising our rights, not by turning other countries
into rubble!
NATO is selling death and destruction, repackaged as "Freedom and Democracy". Ask what
is inside the pretty package! -- then you will understand why this "Freedom" is such a hard sell.
Freedom & Liberty via bombs in invasion! Democracy only when US puppet will win otherwise regime
change like in Syria and in the past many other countries
your reply is silly and stupid. Principles never won anything. You are one of those pedantic liberals
who think we (but, of course, not you) need to save everyone. Reality says most would rather give
up than fight themselves.
I agree with principles (They should not be underestimated!) however I think as Americans we are
going to have to be a bit more pragmatic going forward.
The politicians prefer the U.S. to Russia, perhaps. But I'm not sure that the same can be said
of the people.
A referendum on the future of the Soviet Union was held on 17 March 1991. The question put
to voters was: "Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom
of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?"
Russia SFSR:
Choice .......... ------Votes . -----%
For .............. 56,860,783 .. 73.00
Against .......... 21,030,753 .. 27.00
Invalid ........... 1,809,633 ...... -
Total ............ 79,701,169 . 100.00
Reg., Turnout ... 105,643,364 .. 75.44
A similar referendum was held 22 years later, by Gallup. In the
2013 Gallup poll , people in countries formed by the Soviet dissolution said, by a two-to-one
margin, that they were worse off than before the Soviet break-up .
But it doesn't matter, of course, what the people think. The "West" -- the U.S. Empire -- decided
that the Soviet Union was bad, and the rulers/bankers/gangsters of the "West" know what is
best for everyone everywhere . That's because the rulers/bankers of the U.S. Empire are Exceptional,
Enlightened and Inherently Superior. They were Born Without Sin, their intentions are Pure and
Holy, and they Know More Than God.
It was foolish. How did Finland survive as a neutral country? If anyone had any justification
for joining NATO after WWII, it was certainly Finland, yet it prospered undisturbed, even benefiting
from Russia trade.
The Baltic leaders are just milking NATO, with their constant 'threat alerts'. And NATO milks
them right back. It's a symbiotic milk maid festival.
"... When President George HW Bush invaded Iraq in 1991, the warhawks celebrated what they considered the end of that post-Vietnam period where Americans were hesitant about being the policeman of the world. President Bush said famously at the time, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all." ..."
"... Last month was another anniversary. March 20, 2003 was the beginning of the second US war on Iraq. It was the night of "shock and awe" as bombs rained down on Iraqis. Like Vietnam, it was a war brought on by government lies and propaganda, amplified by a compliant media that repeated the lies without hesitation. ..."
Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington
in commemoration of the "50th anniversary" of that war. The date is confusing, as the war started
earlier and ended far later than 1966. But the Vietnam War at 50 commemoration presents a good opportunity
to reflect on the war and whether we have learned anything from it.
Some 60,000 Americans were killed fighting in that war more than 8,000 miles away. More than a
million Vietnamese military and civilians also lost their lives. The US government did not accept
that it had pursued a bad policy in Vietnam until the bitter end. But in the end the war was lost
and we went home, leaving the destruction of the war behind. For the many who survived on both sides,
the war would continue to haunt them.
It was thought at the time that we had learned something from this lost war. The War Powers Resolution
was passed in 1973 to prevent future Vietnams by limiting the president's ability to take the country
to war without the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional declaration of war. But the law failed
in its purpose and was actually used by the war party in Washington to make it easier to go to war
without Congress.
Such legislative tricks are doomed to failure when the people still refuse to demand that elected
officials follow the Constitution.
When President George HW Bush invaded Iraq in 1991, the warhawks celebrated what they considered
the end of that post-Vietnam period where Americans were hesitant about being the policeman of the
world. President Bush said famously at the time, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once
and for all."
They may have beat the Vietnam Syndrome, but they learned nothing from Vietnam.
Colonel Harry Summers returned to Vietnam in 1974 and told his Vietnamese counterpart Colonel
Tsu, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield." The Vietnamese officer responded, "That may
be so, but it is also irrelevant."
He is absolutely correct: tactical victories mean nothing when pursuing a strategic mistake.
Last month was another anniversary. March 20, 2003 was the beginning of the second US war
on Iraq. It was the night of "shock and awe" as bombs rained down on Iraqis. Like Vietnam, it was
a war brought on by government lies and propaganda, amplified by a compliant media that repeated
the lies without hesitation.
Like Vietnam, the 2003 Iraq war was a disaster. More than 5,000 Americans were killed in the war
and as many as a million or more Iraqis lost their lives. There is nothing to show for the war but
destruction, trillions of dollars down the drain, and the emergence of al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Sadly, unlike after the Vietnam fiasco there has been almost no backlash against the US empire.
In fact, President Obama has continued the same failed policy and Congress doesn't even attempt to
reign him in. On the very anniversary of that disastrous 2003 invasion, President Obama announced
that he was sending US Marines back into Iraq! And not a word from Congress.
We've seemingly learned nothing.
There have been too many war anniversaries! We want an end to all these pointless wars. It's time
we learn from these horrible mistakes.
You can't just clear a cookie. Google builds a permanent
profile on you and stores it at their end. They use a variety
of means to do this, such as taking your MAC address and every
other bit transmitted on the internet and linking it to a
database they have built that records your popular searches and
clicks.
This is how people get filter bubbled and steered; dirty
internet searches. A clean search would see actual societal
interests and trends instead of the contrived ones pushed by the
State narrative. It's also part of the meta- and direct data
that goes into secret profiles in the "intelligence community".
They think they can use this trendy (yet largely mythical)
Big Data to create a precrime division. It's also nice to have
dirt on the whole country in case anyone gets out of line and
challenges the aristocracy.
I am "not isolationist, but I am 'America First,'"
Donald Trump told The New York times last weekend. "I like the expression."
Of NATO, where the U.S. underwrites three-fourths of the cost of defending Europe, Trump calls
this arrangement
"unfair, economically, to us," and adds, "We will not be ripped off
anymore."
Beltway media may be transfixed with Twitter wars over wives and alleged infidelities.
But the ideas Trump aired should ignite a national debate over U.S. overseas commitments - especially
NATO.
For the Donald's ideas are not lacking for authoritative support.
The first NATO supreme commander, Gen. Eisenhower, said in February 1951 of the alliance:
"If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been
returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed."
As JFK biographer Richard Reeves relates, President Eisenhower, a decade later, admonished the
president-elect on NATO.
"Eisenhower told his successor it was time to start bringing the troops home from Europe. 'America
is carrying far more than her share of free world defense,' he said. It was time for other nations
of NATO to take on more of the costs of their own defense."
No Cold War president followed Ike's counsel.
But when the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the dissolution of the Warsaw
Pact, and the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 nations, a new debate erupted.
The conservative coalition that had united in the Cold War fractured. Some of us argued that when
the Russian troops went home from Europe, the American troops should come home from Europe.
Time for a populous prosperous Europe to start defending itself.
Instead, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush began handing out NATO memberships, i.e., war guarantees,
to all ex-Warsaw Pact nations and even Baltic republics that had been part of the Soviet Union.
In a historically provocative act, the U.S. moved its "red line" for war with Russia from the
Elbe River in Germany to the Estonian-Russian border, a few miles from St. Petersburg.
We declared to the world that should Russia seek to restore its hegemony over any part of its
old empire in Europe, she would be at war with the United States.
No Cold War president ever considered issuing a war guarantee of this magnitude, putting our homeland
at risk of nuclear war, to defend Latvia and Estonia.
Recall. Ike did not intervene to save the Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956. Lyndon Johnson did
not lift a hand to save the Czechs, when Warsaw Pact armies crushed "Prague Spring" in 1968. Reagan
refused to intervene when Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, on Moscow's orders, smashed Solidarity in 1981.
These presidents put America first. All would have rejoiced in the liberation of Eastern Europe.
But none would have committed us to war with a nuclear-armed nation like Russia to guarantee it.
Yet, here was George W. Bush declaring that any Russian move against Latvia or Estonia meant war
with the United States. John McCain wanted to extend U.S. war guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine.
This was madness born of hubris. And among those who warned against moving NATO onto Russia's
front porch was America's greatest geostrategist, the author of containment, George Kennan:
"Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post-Cold
War era. Such a decision may be expected to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly
not to our liking."
Kennan was proven right. By refusing to treat Russia as we treated other nations that repudiated
Leninism, we created the Russia we feared, a rearming nation bristling with resentment.
The Russian people, having extended a hand in friendship and seen it slapped away, cheered the
ouster of the accommodating Boris Yeltsin and the arrival of an autocratic strong man who would make
Russia respected again. We ourselves prepared the path for Vladimir Putin.
While Trump is focusing on how America is bearing too much of the cost of defending Europe, it
is the risks we are taking that are paramount, risks no Cold War president ever dared to take.
Why should America fight Russia over who rules in the Baltic States or Romania and
Bulgaria? When did the sovereignty of these nations become interests so vital we would risk a military
clash with Moscow that could escalate into nuclear war? Why are we still committed to fight for scores
of nations on five continents?
Trump is challenging the mindset of a foreign policy elite whose thinking is frozen in a world
that disappeared around 1991.
He is suggesting a new foreign policy where the United States is committed to war only
when are attacked or U.S. vital interests are imperiled.
And when we agree to defend other
nations, they will bear a full share of the cost of their own defense. The era of the free rider
is over.
Trump's phrase, "America First!" has a nice ring to it.
Trumps statements are true, but don't go far enough.
Since the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, there is
no reason for NATO to exist, or especially for us to be
a part of it. We gain nothing except the promises to go
to nuclear war with Russia, even over a shitshow country
like turkey, who shot down a fucking Russia plane.
It would also be interesting to see what happens to
the welfare states of Western Europe if they were forced
to pay for all this shit, or the US left all together.
Surely Trump is not so stupid to believe that we are being "had"
by the Europeans in regards to the collective NATO defense budget?
Surely he understands NATO is merely a captive audience for arms sales
ex USA?
Surely he understands that by paying "more than our share" we
are utilizing it to push a fucked up agenda abroad with the complicity
of those who are "not paying their share"?
In a manner of speaking he's right. Other countries don't pay their
fair share of the expenses. However,
the size and scope of what
exists now is orders of magnitude TOO BIG. So everyone else shouldn't
pay more, the US should scale back and spend WAY less.
That is what will get someone killed. Scaling back at all and therefore
costing any private predatory military supplier / contractor money..
Something extraordinary has taken place in the last few weeks.
More and more old-time Republican stalwarts and leaders have
laid their voices bare, if not defending Donald Trump, then for certain
excoriating the three decade long NeoLib/NeoCon pact that is strangulating
American sovereignty and paving the way for a NWO. Paul Craig
Roberts, as always, was perhaps the first. But now David Stockman
(Reagan's Budget Director), Peggy Noonan (Reagan's speechwriter), Patrick
Buchanan (another Reaganite and erstwhile Republican curmudgeon), Robert
Bennett (Reagan's head of the Department of Education), and perhaps
many more that I am not aware of are coming out of the closet.
It is almost as though Trump's 'take-no-prisoners' ethos, and
getting away with it and media and political correctness be damned,
is actually creating enough breathing space for others to say what's
been on their mind but have been too frightened to speak out about.
Well spoken, known, and credible voices are pushing back.
This could be a snowball careening downhill turning into an avalanche.
If enough of these folks keep emerging from dark corners they could
well provide Trump with a political phalanx that diminish the probabliity
of something as outrageous as stealing the nomination or even assassination.
One thing is for certain. A civil war is taking place
already, and its in the Republican Party.
NATO? The USA and European nations cannot even protect
their borders from invasion. End NATO. It is only good for
genocide against small unarmed countries.
"... This type of 'terrorism' fits other well established models that are characterized as a 'strategy of tension', and these historically were planned and executed by assets of US-NATO military intelligence themselves, as part of the Gladio program. ..."
"... So we have to divide between military ISIS - that army of mercenaries, misled youth, drug addicts, ex-prisoners, and religious fanatics on the one hand, backed by Turkey and Gulf monarchies, from the 'ISIS' that is more like Al Qaeda - specially trained intelligence and security assets with knowledge of electronics, bomb making, counter-security/penetration, etc. - who are directly controlled by CIA/Mossad/MI6 and Saudi security and Pakistani ISI. ..."
"... The US-NATO intelligence program, through Gladio has long time assets in Europe, and the last year has been reminiscent of a time during the Cold War when this strategy of tension reached its peak in Europe during the 1970's. ..."
Words always fail to speak to the human tragedy component of yesterday's 'terrorist' attacks, and
my words cannot adequately address them either.
Moreover, it seems in poor judgment to specifically lament over one criminal tragedy, when such
criminal tragic events are so rampant around the world, and are often the product of US-NATO
operations globally.
The terrorist attacks in Belgium are a direct part of US-NATO's plans to perpetuate war and
instability, and destabilization anywhere that the US senses hesitation to fully support its
plans.
I have not yet seen evidence that the individuals who pulled off these attacks have any
connection to any of the named or known 'terrorist' networks. What I have read so far as a
Kurdish media sources claiming that ISIS had claimed responsibility.
For those linking these attacks to the known and documented ISIS/FSA members/soldiers that have
now decided to seek 'refuge' in Europe from the way which they created, I would say that while it
is possible that any such individuals who came as refugees in the recent wave could have been
used in these attacks, such assets already existed and lived in Europe for an indeterminably long
time.
There is a link, however, between the 'refugee' crisis and these terrorist attacks, - and that is
that these are both components of the general destabilization of the middle-east and now, Europe.
From a sociological and strategic point of view, it is difficult to imagine that such
'reverberations' were not foreseen, and therefore expected, and as such perhaps even viewed as
desirable by the powers that be. Which powers that be do I speak of?
This type of 'terrorism' fits other well established models that are characterized as a 'strategy
of tension', and these historically were planned and executed by assets of US-NATO military
intelligence themselves, as part of the Gladio program.
It is unlikely in my view that ISIS, in the meaningful sense of the term, was behind this.
Terrorist attacks such as this have a purpose for actual terrorist groups when they are linked
with demands, a quid pro quo, release of prisoners, or some change in policy, recognition, or
even a cash payment. They come after general warnings, and some inability of the terrorist group
to get its demands met.
At the same time we have another 'ISIS' or, if you will, Al Qaeda - as a western intelligence and
operations program designed to attack targets designated by their US/NATO handlers.
So we have to divide between military ISIS - that army of mercenaries, misled youth, drug
addicts, ex-prisoners, and religious fanatics on the one hand, backed by Turkey and Gulf
monarchies, from the 'ISIS' that is more like Al Qaeda - specially trained intelligence and
security assets with knowledge of electronics, bomb making, counter-security/penetration, etc. -
who are directly controlled by CIA/Mossad/MI6 and Saudi security and Pakistani ISI.
These 'random' attacks serve no tactical purpose for an actual terrorist group in my view, and
only increase the chances that European voters or citizens will support some action, direct or
kinetic, against ISIS. So this does not serve ISIS's interests.
The US-NATO intelligence program, through Gladio has long time assets in Europe, and the last
year has been reminiscent of a time during the Cold War when this strategy of tension reached its
peak in Europe during the 1970's.
Then, as perhaps now, the goal was to push European citizens/voters into a hostile position
against a generally described 'enemy' - then communism, today 'Islamicism/Islamism'.
"... Besides which, it's hard to buy the idea that Gaddafi was "rogue" or " a threat" when both parties named here were "rendering" secret prisoners to him for outsourced torture. ..."
"... There is no honour among thieves, clearly. But it would be folly to depict a squabble among them as a narrative of sinner vs saint... ..."
"... After the cold war, the US and had the chance to lead to a new world order based on democracy and human rights. Yet instead, its politics based became based on bullying and warmongering, and joined by their European allies. As a result we have a world entrenched in chaos and violence. ..."
"... To top it off, there is also their allies, the Saudi and Gulf allies. Therefore, if you want to know how bad the world has become as a result of the US, European and Gulf allies, their hypocrisy, criminal behavior, destruction of countries, and total disregard of international law, all you need to see is the war in Yemen. ..."
"... Imperialism never left,.. The Capitalists are always working at complete control, it has no problem dancing with Dictators and Authoritarian rulers when it suites its purpose. Its just now they appear to be wanting to improve their image by changing their partners who stepped on their toes and Israel's on occasion .. ..."
"... Yes, I will claim it as a U.S. inspired regime change policy, in all those Middle East secular and sovereign countries, by our own beloved War Mongering Nationalistic Neo Cons.. That is already being shown as a complete disaster.. Only 2 million dead so far and just wait until the religious fanatics are in complete control.. ..."
"... "keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies" mmm. An incomplete reading I think. What about oil and gas? Libya is north African richest country if I'm not mistaken ... Is Britain (and France) still trying to get its share there? ..."
"... "Western [ mostly american and british ] warmongering over the past two decades has had nothing to do with the existential defense of territory. "Defense" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it." ..."
"... "The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war." ..."
"... The Sykes-Picot agreement was one of the secrets uncovered by the Russian Revolution: it was in the files of the newly-overthrown government, and promptly publicized by the Bolsheviks, along with lots of other documents relating to imperialist secret diplomacy. Sound familiar? ..."
"... The interventionist model that the West has carried out recently is really an extension of the old colonialism in a different guise. In the olden days, the excuse was to spread Western civilization and Christianity to the world living in backwardness. In the modern era, it's democracy. Unfortunately democracy cannot be installed by force. Even if the people of the country being invaded wanted it, the opportunists (either among them or the outsiders) would find ways to exploit the chaos for their own benefits. We have seen different forms of such evolution in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq. ..."
"... The CIA funded and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to fight the Russians, just as they backed Saddam against Iran. And the US has been mucking about in the Middle East since the 50s, the Brits since the late 19th century. Yours is a very selective reading of history. ..."
"... No, small groups of people with their own particular interests "begged for help." The "Arab Spring" was a Western media confection used to justify Western intervention to get rid of Gaddafi and Assad. Worked with Gaddafi, Assad not so well. ..."
"... You forget who triggered the French intervention. Another neo-con working for Israel. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?_r=2 ..."
"... Israel does not want a functioning Arab State left in the Middle-East. ..."
"... It's like the Soviet Union invading the US because a few militiamen holed up in a wildlife refuge in Oregon. The neo-con press feeds us this propaganda and the willing idiots lap it up and deny responsibility when everything falls apart. ..."
"... Jihad Dave is supporting islamist maniacs in Libya and Syria. He succeeded in Libya, along with the ludicrous Sarkozy clown, but Russia and Iran have stood up to the plate in Syria. ..."
"... However much we might sympathise with fellow human beings living under brutal dictators and governments, a country can only really progress from within. Certainly, dialogue, sanctions and international cooperation can help foster change, but ultimately countries must want to change. ..."
"... No, Gaddafy's crime was actually to spend the bulk of Libya's oil revenues on useless things such as schools, hospitals, housing and subsidised food when that money could have been flowing into the pockets of the West. ..."
"... Taliban has been trained in the Saudi religious schools in Pakistan. Wahhabism is the official ideology of Saudi Arabia. 10 out of 11 terrorists 9/11 were the Saudis. All the Islamic terror in the last two decades was sponsored by the Saudis, including ISIS. ..."
"... Bosnia - a slow ticking bomb. Just bubbling under the surface. Kosovo - a mafia state run by drug lord Thaci, supported by the US. It is no secret that the main source of income in Kosovo today is drugs, prostitution, organ trafficking. ..."
"... There are no winners or losers in Iraq, everyone lost. Not a single group benefited from that western backed regime change, same in Libya and Syria. ..."
"... The US empire blew up Libya with some help from it's puppets, Sarkozy and Cameron. 100% imperialism. ..."
"... The USA - and its mini-me, the UK - have so blatantly bombed societies, manipulated governments and undermined social change in so many parts of the world that their trading positions are under real threat from emerging economic powers. ..."
"... Yes, Obama shows himself for the buffoon he really is. ..."
"... I, however, would caution against thinking the US led Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals is weakening. Its economic hegemony is almost complete only China and Russia remaining, and Obama with his "Pivot to Asia" (TM) has them surrounded and all set up for the female Chaney - Clinton the warmonger to get on with it. ..."
"... The Empire will only get more and more brutal - it has absolutely no concern for human life or society - power over the globe as the Pentagon phrases it: "Global full spectrum domination" don't kid yourself they are going all out to reach their goal and a billion people could be killed - the Empire would say - so what, it was in our strategic interest. ..."
"... Very well put, Sir. Obama's self-serving statement is borderline stupid. I constantly wonder why I voted for him twice. His Deep State handlers continue from the Bush period and having installed their coterie of right-wing extremists from Hillary to the Directors of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, ad nauseum Obama has not had the courage at any point to admit not only the "mess" he makes, but the he is a captive mess of the shadow government. ..."
"... Your comment is so stereotyped: when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every excuse is trundle out, every nuance examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there is always a convenient statute of limitations. But when others are involved, specifically America and Israel, the same Guardian readers allow no excuses or nuances and every tiny detail going back hundreds of years is repeatedly and thoroughly examined. ..."
"... Smith was murdered by extremists that took over Libya precisely because the death of Gadaffi left a dangerous power vacuum. The US aided and abetted certain groups, weapons found their way to the worse groups and Smith, a brave man, was his own country's victim in one sense. Hilary Clinton who should have known better publicly gloated over Gadaffi's death. Since his death the victimisation of black Libyans and other black Africans has become common, Libya has been overrun by extremists, and as we write is being used as a conduit for uncontrolled entry into Europe. ..."
"... The biggest unanswered and puzzling question, is that of how could Obama have expected or assumed that Britain and France would have stayed behind and clean up the mess they and the Americans have made of Libya? Why did the Americans resolved to play only the part of 'hired guns' to go in and blitzed the Libyan Government and its armed forces, and neglected to learn the lesson of planning what should follow after the destruction? ..."
"... The argument that the Americans had assumed that France and Britain would clean up the euphemistic mess has little or no credibility, since all three countries had been very clear about not wanting American, British and French 'boots on the ground.' ..."
"... "The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war." ..."
"... We bombed in support of competing Jihadis groups, bandits and local war Lords then our well laid plans for a Utopian peace were thwarted because of the unforeseen chaos created as the Militias we gave close airsupport to fought over the spoils. ..."
"... We should remember that we funded the terrorists in Libya and then sent weapons to ISIS from Libya to Syria that is we again used Al Qaeda as a proxy force. We then again used the "threat" from the proxy forces i,e. Al Qaeda to justify mass surveillance of the general population. ..."
"... Of its 237 years of existence it has been at war or cold war for 222 of those years. ..."
"... NATO is behind ISIS and the wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Chechen, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine. ..."
"... Jane they didn't "come apart" and Libya and Syria were the most stable and least under the thumb of radicals. Syria had equality and education for women who could wear whatever they wanted. Furthermore they did not fall apart they were attacked by the largest military forces in the world excluding Russia. NATO sent in special operations forces to destabilise the government. They along with Al Nusra and other violent Wahabi terrorists attacked police and army barracks, and when Assads police and military hit back it was presented by the Western media and propagandists as an attack on the people of Syria. Do you think any other country would allow terrorists to attack police and other public institutions without retaliating and restoring order. ..."
"... Many people who do not accept the Western medias false reporting at face value know that the wars in Syria were about changing the leaders and redrawing national boundaries to isolate Iran and sideline Russian influence. It was and is an illegal war and it was the barbarity of our Western leaders that caused the terrible violence. It was a pre planned plan and strategy outlined in the US Special Forces document below. http://nsnbc.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf ..."
"... In the Libyan case, it was a clear US strategy to put in the forefront their English and French valets, in a coup (euphemistically called "regime change") wanted by them. The nobel peace winner got some nerves to put the blame on his accomplices for the chaos in Libya, while the permanent objective of the US is to divide and conquer, sowing chaos wherever it occurs: Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria. Also Hillary is no stranger to the actions in Libya. ..."
"... Simon Jenkins, don't pretend you were against American punitive expeditions around the world to overthrow third world dictators. You worked from the same neo-con ideological script to defend the ultra-liberal, military industrial economy; scare mongering in the pages of the Guardian, as far back as I can remember. You lot are as totally discredited as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and American Nato toadies. ..."
"... Libya , Ukraine ,Syria have had the same recipe of de-stabilisation by the US and NATO. The so called popular rebels were in fact CIA trained and financed. Jihadist in Libya and Syria and neo-Nazis in Ukraine. After completing regime change in Libya as planned ,the Jihadist, with their looted arms were transferred to Syria and renamed ISIS. ISIS is Washingtons Foreign Legion army, used as required for their Imperial ends. Renamed as required on whichever territory they operate ..."
"... Cameron has been given a free pass on Libya. It really is quite astonishing. The man has turned a functioning society into a jihadi infested failed state which is exporting men and weapons across North Africa and down the Sahara and now serves as a new front line for ISIS ..."
"... Attacking Libya and deposing Gaddafi was down to enforcing the R2P doctrine on the pretext of "stopping another Rwanda". But it was a pretext. Islamist rebels attacked the armouries within Libya and the Libyans had every right to try and put down the rebellion. Samantha Powers et al were the war mongers. ..."
"... The 2011 regime change shenanigans of the west against Libya is colonialism at its worst from all the parties who instigated it. The aftermath, the resultant mayhem and chaos, was in itself adding insult to injury. Gaddafi was no saint, but the militias, Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS now running rampant in the country are infinitely worse. This is a war crime of the first magnitude and no effort should be spared to address it ..."
"... The west who has assassinated or organised coups against democratically elected secular leaders who didn't give us their natural resources (eg iran) and installed brutal, clepto dictatorships who also take part in plundering the resources leaving the general population poor, uneducated and susceptible to indoctrination from Islamists. ..."
So
Barack Obama thinks Britain in 2011 left Libya in chaos – and besides it does not pull its weight
in the world. Britain thinks that a bit rich, given the shambles America left in Iraq. Then both
sides say sorry. They did not mean to be rude.
Thus do we wander across the ethical wasteland of the west's wars of intervention. We blame and
we name-call. We turn deaf ears to the cries of those whose lives we have destroyed. Then we kiss
and make up – to each other.
Obama was right first time round about Libya's civil war. He wanted to keep out. As
he recalls to the Atlantic magazine , Libya was "not so at the core of US interests that it makes
sense for us to unilaterally strike against the Gaddafi regime". He cooperated with Britain and France,
but on the assumption that David Cameron would clear up the resulting mess. That did not happen because
Cameron had won his Falklands war and could go home crowing.
Obama is here describing all the recent "wars of choice".
America had no "core interest" in Afghanistan or Iraq, any more than Britain had in
Libya . When a state attacks
another state and destroys its law and order, morally it owns the mess. There is no such thing as
imperialism-lite. Remove one fount of authority and you must replace and sustain another, as Europe
has done at vast expense in Bosnia and Kosovo.
America and Britain both attacked countries in the Middle East largely to satisfy the machismo
and domestic standing of two men, George Bush and Tony Blair. The result has been mass killing, destruction
and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war. In this despicable
saga, Cameron's Libyan venture was a sideshow, though one that has destabilised north
Africa and may yet turn it
into another Islamic State caliphate. It is his Iraq.
As for Obama's charge that Britain and other countries are not pulling their weight and are "free
riders" on American defence spending, that too deserves short shrift.
British and French military expenditure is proportionately among the highest in the world, mostly
blown on archaic weapons and archaic forms of war. Western warmongering over the past two decades
has had nothing to do with the existential defence of territory. "Defence" has become attack, keeping
alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it.
Meanwhile the bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen. They do so, against
all the odds, because they grow from one culture and one outlook on life. That mercifully has nothing
to do with politicians.
I'm stunned that Obama has been able to get away with his absolutely abysmal record with foreign
policy. Libya was a complete disaster and there is evidence to suggest that Libya was a much better
place under Gaddafi. And the fact that once they were in Iraq (something started by his predecessor)
he wasn't committed to bringing about serious change, thus leaving a giant vacuum which, coincided
with the Syrian Civil War, has now been filled by ISIS.
That's not even talking about the Iran deal, Benghazi and the disastrous "Bring Back our Girls"
campaign.
"People find it very hard," said Iman Fannoush, with her two children in tow and a husband
she knows not where. "They are up all night shooting because of good news. We hear the UN is
coming to help us or our fighters have taken Brega or the air strikes have destroyed Gaddafi's
tanks. Then everyone is afraid again when they hear Gaddafi's army is coming and they all want
to know where is France, where are the air strikes, why is the west abandoning us?
We are grateful for the role played by the international community in protecting the Libyan
people; Libyans will never forget those who were our friends at this critical stage and will
endeavour to build closer relations with those states on the basis of our mutual respect and
common interests. However, the future of Libya is for the Libyans alone to decide. We cannot
compromise on sovereignty or allow others to interfere in our internal affairs, position themselves
as guardians of our revolution or impose leaders who do not represent a national consensus.
Hilsum gives a riveting account of the battle for Tripoli, with activists risking their lives
to pass intelligence to Nato, whose targeting – contrary to regime propaganda – was largely
accurate, and too cautious for many Libyans.
The UN security council authorised action to protect Libyan civilians from the Gaddafi regime
but Russia, China and other critics believe that the western alliance exceeded that mandate
and moved to implement regime change.
Libya's Arab spring was a bloody affair, ending with the killing of Gaddafi, one of the world's
most ruthless dictators. His death saw the rebel militias turn on each other in a mosaic of
turf wars. Full-scale civil war came last summer, when Islamist parties saw sharp defeats in
elections the United Nations had supervised, in the hope of bringing peace to the country.
Islamists and their allies rebelled against the elected parliament and formed the Libya Dawn
coalition, which seized Tripoli. The new government fled to the eastern city of Tobruk and
fighting has since raged across the country.
With thousands dead, towns smashed and 400,000 homeless, the big winner is Isis, which has
expanded fast amid the chaos. Egypt, already the chief backer of government forces, has now
joined a three-way war between government, Libya Dawn and Isis.
It is all a long way from the hopes of the original revolutionaries. With Africa's largest
oil reserves and just six million people to share the bounty, Libya in 2011 appeared set for
a bright future. "We thought we would be the new Dubai, we had everything," says a young activist
who, like the student, prefers not to give her name. "Now we are more realistic."
Perpetually engineered destabilization is highly lucrative and has been for 200 years, but I don't
know what's Central or Intelligent about it......except for a tiny handful at the top globally.
On balance, is Libya worse off now than it would have been, had Gaddaffi been allowed free
rein in Benghazi?
No-one can possibly know the answer to that, certainly not Mr Jenkins.
Clearly it was a dictatorship like say Burma is today.....but....from an economic point of
view, it was like the Switzerland of Africa. And actually tons of European companies had flocked
over there to set up shop. In contrast to now where its like the Iraquistan of Africa. No contest
in the comparison there...
Besides which, it's hard to buy the idea that Gaddafi was "rogue" or " a threat" when both
parties named here were "rendering" secret prisoners to him for outsourced torture.
There is no honour among thieves, clearly. But it would be folly to depict a squabble among
them as a narrative of sinner vs saint...
After the cold war, the US and had the chance to lead to a new world order based on democracy
and human rights. Yet instead, its politics based became based on bullying and warmongering, and
joined by their European allies. As a result we have a world entrenched in chaos and violence.
To top it off, there is also their allies, the Saudi and Gulf allies. Therefore, if you
want to know how bad the world has become as a result of the US, European and Gulf allies, their
hypocrisy, criminal behavior, destruction of countries, and total disregard of international law,
all you need to see is the war in Yemen.
Imperialism never left,.. The Capitalists are always working at complete control, it has no
problem dancing with Dictators and Authoritarian rulers when it suites its purpose. Its just now
they appear to be wanting to improve their image by changing their partners who stepped on their
toes and Israel's on occasion ..
Yes, I will claim it as a U.S. inspired regime change policy, in all those Middle East secular
and sovereign countries, by our own beloved War Mongering Nationalistic Neo Cons.. That is already
being shown as a complete disaster.. Only 2 million dead so far and just wait until the religious
fanatics are in complete control..
Yep, many pictures, as there always are with media confections. Remember the footage of Saddam's
statue being torn down in front of a huge crowd? It was only months later we saw the wide angle
shot that showed just how few people there really were there.
These US and UK involvement in the ME are matters of official record; are you really denying the
CIA trained the Mujahideen, or that both the UK and US propped up Saddam? Even Robert Fisk acknowledges
that! And please, don't patronise me. You have no idea what I've read or haven't.
......c'mon, the powers behind the powers intentionally engineer mid-East destabilization to keep
the perpetual war pumping billions to the ATM's in their living rooms; then, on top of it, they
send the bill to average joe's globally; when is this farce going to be called out ?
It is completely illogical, can't stand even eye tests, yet continues like an emperor with
new clothes in our face.
"keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies" mmm. An incomplete reading I think. What about
oil and gas? Libya is north African richest country if I'm not mistaken ... Is Britain (and France)
still trying to get its share there?
"Western [ mostly american and british ] warmongering over the past two decades has
had nothing to do with the existential defense of territory. "Defense" has become attack, keeping
alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it."
"The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least
outside Africa, since the second world war."
The Sykes-Picot agreement was one of the secrets uncovered by the Russian Revolution: it was
in the files of the newly-overthrown government, and promptly publicized by the Bolsheviks, along
with lots of other documents relating to imperialist secret diplomacy. Sound familiar?
The interventionist model that the West has carried out recently is really an extension of
the old colonialism in a different guise. In the olden days, the excuse was to spread Western
civilization and Christianity to the world living in backwardness. In the modern era, it's democracy.
Unfortunately democracy cannot be installed by force. Even if the people of the country being
invaded wanted it, the opportunists (either among them or the outsiders) would find ways to exploit
the chaos for their own benefits. We have seen different forms of such evolution in Libya, Egypt,
Syria, Iraq.
Get your facts right. Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan were all states that crumbled after
the demise of the USSR.
Bullshit. The CIA funded and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to fight the Russians,
just as they backed Saddam against Iran. And the US has been mucking about in the Middle East
since the 50s, the Brits since the late 19th century. Yours is a very selective reading of history.
No, small groups of people with their own particular interests "begged for help." The "Arab
Spring" was a Western media confection used to justify Western intervention to get rid of Gaddafi
and Assad. Worked with Gaddafi, Assad not so well.
this might answer your question. Syria has suffered for its geography since it was artificially
created by the Sykes Picot agreement at the end of the Ottoman Empire.
"Libyan rebels are secularists, want unified country
Gardels: If the French aim is successful and Qaddafi falls, who are the rebels the West is
allying with? Secularists? Islamists? And what do they want?
Levy: Secularists. They want a unified Libya whose capital will remain Tripoli and whose government
will be elected as a result of free and transparent elections. I am not saying that this will
happen from one day to the next, and starting on the first day. But I have seen these men enough,
I have spoken with them enough, to know that this is undeniably the dream, the goal, the principle
of legitimacy.
It's like the Soviet Union invading the US because a few militiamen holed up in a wildlife
refuge in Oregon. The neo-con press feeds us this propaganda and the willing idiots lap it up
and deny responsibility when everything falls apart.
Britain started the mess in the Middle-East with the Balfour declaration and the theft of Palestinian
land to create an illegal Jewish state. Europe should pay massive reparations of money and equivalent
land in Europe for the Palestinian refugees living in squalid camps. Neo-con Jews who lobbied
for the Iraq, Syria and Libyan wars should have their wealth confiscated to pay for the mess they
created. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?_r=2
Jihad Dave is supporting islamist maniacs in Libya and Syria. He succeeded in Libya, along
with the ludicrous Sarkozy clown, but Russia and Iran have stood up to the plate in Syria.
Presumably he's going down the Blair/Clinton route of cosying up to Middle Eastern Supremacist
Cults in the hope that he can increase his income by tens of millions within the next 10 years.
There can be no other explanation for his actions, that have never had anything whatsoever to
do with the interests of either Britain or the wider European community.
For me, the bottom line is that, however much might like to believe it, military intervention
does not create nice, liberal, secular democracies. These can only be fostered from within.
However much we might sympathise with fellow human beings living under brutal dictators
and governments, a country can only really progress from within. Certainly, dialogue, sanctions
and international cooperation can help foster change, but ultimately countries must want to change.
The military, under the instruction of politicians, of the West should be pro-defence but anti-regime
change or "nation building".
I'm not suggesting a completely isolationist position, but offensive military action should
be seen as a last resort.
Mr Jenkins is a knowledgeable man but should've thought through this a bit more before so casually
associating death and destruction and misery with Africa.
China's cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward alone killed and displaced more people
after the second world war than all the conflicts in Africa put together. How about the break
up of India in 1947? Korean War?
But no when he thought about misery Africa popped into his mind..
Meanwhile the bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen. They do so,
against all the odds, because they grow from one culture and one outlook on life. That mercifully
has nothing to do with politicians.
One culture?
One outlook?
Sounds all very Soviet.
So, all Enlightened souls are reduced to a monoculture, within the Anglo American Empire.
Obama is a bill of goods. The Voters that choose him thought that they were getting a progressive,
Obama used the reverend
Wright to make himself seem like a man committed to radical change, but behind Obama was Chicago
investment banker Louis Susman (appointed ambassador to Britain).
Obama, a Harvard law professor, is the choice of the bankers, he does not play a straight bat,
all the wars and killing are someone else's fault. Banking wanted rid of Gaddafi since he threatened
the dollar as the reserve currency (as did Dominique Strauss-Kahn) as does the Euro, Obama let
Cameron think he was calling the shots but he was just Obama's beard. Obama is nothing if not
cunning, when he says stay in Europe but the Elites of the Tory party are pushing for out guess
what, they got the nod from Obama and the Banks.
So? All the numbers in the world can't undo Jenkins' thesis: there is no imperialism-lite. Imperialist
wars are imperialist wars no matter how many die, and whether chaos, or neo-colonial rule follow.
In his interview, Obama claims a more deliberate, opaque, and efficient war machine. To him, and
his conscience, John Brennan, these metrics add up to significant moral milestones. To us innumerates,
it's just more imperialist b.s.
Gadaffy had since long planned to free his country and other African states from the yoke of being
forced to trade within the American dollar sphere. He was about to lance his thoroughy well prepared
alternative welcomed not the least by the Chinese when Libya was attacked. Obama is not truthful
when suggesting the attack was not a "core" interest to the US. It was of supreme interest for
the US to appear with its allies, Gadaffy´s independence of mind being no small challenge.
Gadafy may have been particularly nasty with dissidents, but the UK has plenty of allies in the
Muslim world that are far worse: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain... The Gulf States work their imported
slaves to death and the UK kowtows to them. The UK has supplied billions of pounds worth of weapons
to Saudi Arabia and sent military advisors to advise them how to use them to bomb Yemeni schools
and hospitals.
No, Gaddafy's crime was actually to spend the bulk of Libya's oil revenues on useless things
such as schools, hospitals, housing and subsidised food when that money could have been flowing
into the pockets of the West.
Kosovo is also mentioned. There was a relatively low-level conflict (much like the Northern
Ireland 'troubles') there until NATO started bombing and then oversaw the massive ethnic cleansing
of Kosovo Serbs from their homeland (Serbs are the most ethnically-cleansed group in the former
Yugoslavia: around 500,000 refugees).
Yugoslavia's real crime? It was the last country in Europe to refuse the market economy and
the hegemony of Western banks and corporates.
The message is, 'Accept capitalism red in tooth or claw, or we'll bomb the crap out of you.'
Did the attack on Afghanistan improve the situation? Perhaps temporarily in the cities, some things
got a little better as long as you weren't shot or blown up. Over the country as a whole, it made
the situation much worse.
I remember John Simpson crowing that the Western invaders had freed Afghanistan when they entered
Kabul. My reaction at the time was, 'Well, the Soviets had no problem holding the cities. Wait
until you step outside them.' There followed many years of war achieving pretty much nothing except
to kill a lot of people and get recruits flocking to the Taliban.
It seemed we had learned absolutely nothing from the British and Soviet experiences.
And you seem to have forgotten the multitude of US terror attacks on Muslims before the Afghan
invasion, repackaged for our media as 'targeted attacks with collateral damage'. Bombing aspirin
factories and such. And the First Gulf War. And US bases occupying the region. And the fact that
the situation in Afghanistan was due to the Americans and Saudis having showered weapons and cash
on anyone who was fighting the Soviets, not giving a damn about their aims. Bin Laden, for instance.
And one aspect of law and order under the Taliban was that they virtually stopped opium production.
After the invasion, it rose again to dizzying heights.
The only way to deal with countries such as Afghanistan as it returns to its default system,
along with other, more aggressive rogue states such as Saudi Arabia, is to starve them of all
weapons and then let their peoples sort it out. It may take a long time but it's the sole possibility.
As long as we keep pouring weapons into the Middle East for our own shameful purposes, the
apocalypse will continue.
Reading this excellent article one wonders how the war criminal Blair can be offered any peace-keeping
role in the world or continue to get any air or press time.
Taliban has been trained in the Saudi religious schools in Pakistan. Wahhabism is the official
ideology of Saudi Arabia. 10 out of 11 terrorists 9/11 were the Saudis. All the Islamic terror
in the last two decades was sponsored by the Saudis, including ISIS.
Bosnia - a slow ticking bomb. Just bubbling under the surface. Kosovo - a mafia state run
by drug lord Thaci, supported by the US. It is no secret that the main source of income in Kosovo
today is drugs, prostitution, organ trafficking. Tear gas in Parliament for the third time
in as many months. While the squares full of unemployed young and old are adorned with statues
of those that gave them this opportunity Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were popular but I think
their halos are tarnished somewhat. The situation is so serious that the US is beefing up its
presence in camp Bondsteel but you won't read about it in the Guardian.
when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every excuse is trundle out, every nuance
examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there is always a convenient statute
of limitations
So true . "Oh, oh, but the Spanish/Mongols/Romans etc etc", "Oh, like they were all
so peaceful before Empire came along", "Oh, but but" (ad infinitum).
The bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen? Here's hoping. The neo-con
cum neo-ultra liberal dream keeps on giving. Even after Brexit, Britain remains America's poodle
at its peril. The rest of the article is right, but by now accepted wisdom amongst those capable
of independent and rational thought.
Here we go again, off course next phase is the "enlightment" in Al-Andalus...
1. Conflict between sunni and shiites has been dormant for decades. Saudi Arabias promotion
of Wahhabism has awoken it again, along with the catalyst for the recent bloodshed, the invasion
of Iraq. That placed it back in the hands of the majority Shia and upset radical sunnis (eg
the Saudis).
Wahabism grew because of the oil export from Saudi Arabia which started way before World war II.
Bollocks, there was a short period of calm while Europe defeated the Ottoman empire , but the
Mughal empire took great pleasure in slaughtering shiites, and the Ottoman empire had huge conflicts
with the Safavid empire.
2. Pogroms were common against Jews in Europe and Europe has a far worse history of treating
Jews than Muslims ever had. The "golden age of Judaism" in Europe was under Muslim rule in
Spain. Need I mention that the Holocaust was perpetrated by European Christians?
He-he, the fabulous golden age which is always mentioned, no doubt they were golden at that
time compared to Europe, but to compare it today, it would be like living in Nazi Germany as a
Jew before the Nürnberg laws were implemented.
Would you like to pay a special non-muslim tax, step aside when a Muslim passed the street,
be unable to claim any high positions in society to due to your heritage?
3. Didnt forget. the USSR didnt hand them chemical weapons though. That would be the West.
And it wasnt Russia who invaded Iraq later over the scam that they had WMDs.
The Iran-Iraq war made the millions of dead possible primarily due to Soviet equipment, Halabja
killed 5000. No, Russia prefered Chechnya and directly killed 300.000 civilians with the Grad
bombings of cities and villages, whereas the casualties in Iraq primarily can be contributed to
sectional violence.
4. I think you are forgetting Mossadeq in Iran in the 50s. Nasser in Egypt and any Pan-Arab
group that was secular in nature. Pan-Arabism is now dead and radical Islamism is alive and
well thanks to our lust for control over the region.
None of the mentioned were prime examples of democracy, Nasser for example had no problems in
eliminating the Muslim brotherhood or killing 10s of thousands of rebels and civilians in Yemen
with mustard gas.
Obama's remark that the Europeans and Gulf States "detested" Gaddafi and wanted to get rid of
him while others had "humanitarian concerns" is of interest. It's unlikely the Arabs had humanitarian
concerns in all the circumstances; they just wanted Regime Change. It is the lethal combination
of Gulf Arabs and Neo-colonial France and Britain that has driven the Syrian war too- and continues
to do so. No wonder America claims these countries enthuse about war until it comes and then expect
them to fight it. France currently demands the surrender of Assad and for Russia to "leave the
country immediately". Britain says there can be no peace while he remains and that Russia's "interference"
is helping IS.
It's your prerogative whether or not you believe that the US and NATO intervene in countries based
on moral grounds. But if you do want to delude yourself, remember that they only intervene in
countries where they can make money off resources, like Libya and Iraq's oil revenues. If it were
about morality, don't you think NATO and the West would have rushed to help Rwanda during the
genocide?
There are no winners or losers in Iraq, everyone lost. Not a single group benefited from that
western backed regime change, same in Libya and Syria. You do not win when your situation
is worse than it was before Saddam. You can't be a winner when you life in generally worse off
than it was before. basically there is no rule of law now in these nations. Saddam was no monster
like you want to portray him.
Actually, some of those Latin American governments we overthrew were indeed liberal democracies.
As for Canada, there are several reasons we haven't invaded. Too big, too sparse too white...and
economically already a client state. Of course, we did try once: the War of 1812.
"When the same leaders did initially stand aside (as in Syria) "
They didn't stand aside though, they helped create the trouble in the first place, as too with
Libya; gather intelligence to find out who will take up arms, fund, train and give them promises,
get them to organize and attack, then when the dictator strikes back the press swing into action
to tell us all how much of a horrible bastard he is(even though we've been supporting and trading
with him for eons), ergo, we have to bomb him! It's HUMANITARIAN! Not. It would be conquest though.
Frightening.
Obama has done everything in his power to morph into Bush including hiring a flaming chicken hawk
in Ash Carter to play the role of Dick Cheyney. Bush left us with Iraq and Afghanistan, to which
Obama added Egypt with the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, Libya, Syria and Yemen. He also
restarted the Cold War with Russia. He is now going after China for building islands in the South
China Sea, a disputed area, something he as well as other Presidents before him has allowed Israel
to build settlements on disputed land for the past fifty years and throughthrough $ 3.5 billion
in gifts annually, has provided for enough concrete to cover all the land the Palestinians live
on.
The 3.5 billion annually will increase by $40 billion over ten years, unless Netanyahu gets
the increase he wants to 15 billion per year. So Obama must settle on a legacy which makes him
both a warmonger and one of the very best arms dealer in the world. His family must be so proud.
To be a humanitarian intervention, a military intervention has to avoid causing regime collapse,
because people will die because of regime collapse. This is an elementary point that the political
class appears not to want to learn.
I agree with your analysis except the last paragraph. Pretty much in all interventions that
we have witnessed, the political class deliberately caused the regimes to collapse. That was always
the primary goal. Humanitarian intervention were never the primary, secondary or even tertiary
objective.
If the political class want to do some humanitarian interventions, they can always start with
Boko Haram in Nigeria.
America had no "core interest" in Afghanistan or Iraq
The USA was enforcing the UN blockade of Iraq, and had massive forces in place to do it. It was
costing a fortune and there were regular border skirmishes taking place. It has been suggested
that Bush and his advisors thought that they could take out Saddam and then pull all their forces
back to the US. They won't admit it now because of the disaster that unfolded afterwards.
Another good piece. What about all the weapons we sold Israel after they started their recent
slaughter in Gaza and the selling of weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen (one of the poorest
country's in the world) says everything you need to know about the tory party. They are sub humans
and as such should be treated like dirt. I don't believe in the concept of evil...all a bit religious
for me but if I did, it's what they are.
It astonishes me that these great men and women-I include Sec'y Clinton here-give no indication
that their calculations were made without the slightest knowledge of the countries they were preparing
to attack in one way or another. From what one read in the long NYTimes report on preparations
for the Libyan intervention, the participants in the planning knew a great deal about military
matters and less about Libya than they could have found out in a few minutes with Wikipedia. Tribal
societies are different from western societies, dear people, and you damn well should have known
that.
Honduras. The USA backed the coup there. Honduras is now run by generals and is the world's murder
capital. I could go on, jezzam. Please read William Blum's books on US foreign policy. They provide
evidence that the US record is not good.
Without the US the UK and France couldn't have overthrown Gaddafi. The jihadis would have been
killed or fled Libya. I don't believe any post-Gaddafi plan existed. Why would there have been
one? Killing Gaddafi was the war's aim. A western puppet strong man leader grabbing power would
have been icing on the cake of course but why would the US care about Libya once Gaddafi was gone?
Well, Cameron just followed Obama's 'regime change' bad ideas.
Obama is a failed leader of the World who made our lives so much worse.
Obama likes to entertain recently, so after his presidency the best job for him is a clown in
a circus.
We will never know why Stevens and the others were killed.
Absent reliable information, everyone is free to blame whomever they dislike most.
Based on zero non-partisan information, Hillary is the media's top choice for Big Villain.
She may in fact be more responsible than most for this horror, but she may not be too.
Who ya gonna ask: the CIA, the Pentagon, Ted Cruz?
It seems everyone who's ever even visited Washington,D.C., has some anonymous inside
source that proves Hillary did it.
To hear the GOP tell it, she flew to Libya secretly and shot Stevens herself
just because she damn well felt it, o kay -- (female troubles)
My question is: Where has US/Euro invasion resulted in a better government for all those
Middle Eastern people we blasted to bits of blood and bone? How's Yemen doin' these days?
Hope Europe enjoys assimilating a few million people who share none of Europe's customs,
values or languages.
I'm sure euro-businesses would never hire the new immigrants instead of union-backed
locals.
Why, that would almost be taking advantage of a vast reservoir of ultra-cheap labor!
Nor will the sudden ocean of euro-a-day workers undercut unions or wages in the EU. No siree,
not possible.
Just like unions have not been decimated, and wages have not stagnated in the US since 1980
or so. No siree. Not in Europe .
jezzam writes, "the dictator starts massacring hundreds of thousands of his own civilians." But
he didn't. Cameron lied.
The rebellion against Gaddafi began in February 2011. The British, French and US governments
intervened on their usual pretext of protecting civilians. The UN said that 1,000-2,000 people
had been killed before the NATO powers attacked.
Eight months later, after the NATO attack, 30,000 people had been killed and 50,000 wounded
(National Transitional Council figures).
Cameron made the mess; Cameron caused the vast refugee crisis. The NATO powers are getting
what they want – the destruction of any states and societies that oppose their rule, control over
Africa's rich resources. Libya is now plagued by "relentless warfare where competing militias
compete for power while external accumulators of capital such as oil companies can extract resources
under the protection of private military contractors."
any state that wishes to be taken seriously as a player on the world stage
The classic phrase of imperialism - an attitude that seems to believe any nation has the right
to interfere in, or invade, other countries'.
Usually done under some pretence of moral superiority - it used to be to 'bring the pagans to
God', these days more 'they're not part of our belief system'. In fact, it only really happens
when the imperial nations see the economic interests of their ruling class come under threat.
The USA - and its mini-me, the UK - have so blatantly bombed societies, manipulated governments
and undermined social change in so many parts of the world that their trading positions are under
real threat from emerging economic powers.
The two that they are most scared of are Russia and China, who combined can offer the capital
and expertise to replace the old US / European axis across Africa, for instance. The war is already
being fought on many fronts, as
this article makes clear.
Yes, Obama shows himself for the buffoon he really is. Clinton had it right when the
going gets tough Obama gives a speech (see Cairo).
I, however, would caution against thinking the US led Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals
is weakening. Its economic hegemony is almost complete only China and Russia remaining, and Obama
with his "Pivot to Asia" (TM) has them surrounded and all set up for the female Chaney - Clinton
the warmonger to get on with it.
The Empire will only get more and more brutal - it has absolutely no concern for human
life or society - power over the globe as the Pentagon phrases it: "Global full spectrum domination"
don't kid yourself they are going all out to reach their goal and a billion people could be killed
- the Empire would say - so what, it was in our strategic interest.
The odd thing is, Obama didn't seem to think getting rid of Gaddafi a bad thing at all at the
time. Clinton was all, "We came, we saw, he died." And this bit about "no core interest" in Afghanistan
and Iraq is just bizarre. Given the mess both countries are in, and the resurgence of the Taliban
and zero clue about Iraq it was clearly a master stroke for Obama to decide the US exit both with
no effective governments in place, ones that could deal with the Taliban et al. Never mind, he
can tootle off and play golf.
Very well put, Sir. Obama's self-serving statement is borderline stupid. I constantly wonder
why I voted for him twice. His Deep State handlers continue from the Bush period and having installed
their coterie of right-wing extremists from Hillary to the Directors of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD,
ad nauseum Obama has not had the courage at any point to admit not only the "mess" he makes, but
the he is a captive mess of the shadow government.
America has a historic crisis of leadership and being the sole model left in that field, the
world has followed, the UK and all of Europe included.
Libya is all Hilarys work so expect to return with boots on the ground once Wall Sts finest is
parked in the Oval office. She has the midas touch in reverse and Libya has turned (and will continue)
to turn out worse than Iraq and Syria (believe me its possible) There is absolutely no one on
the ground that the west can work with so the old chestnut of arming and training al qaeda or
'moderate' opposition is not an option. ISIL are solidifying a base there and other than drones
there is zip we can do.
Critising Cameron just shows how insecure Obama is, lets be honest the middle east and afghanistan
are in the state they are because Obama had zero interest in foreign policy when his first term
started, thus allowing the neocons to move into the vacuum and create the utter disaster that
is Syraq and Ukraine. We in europe are now dealing with the aftermath of this via the refugee
crisis which will top 2 million people this year. Obamas a failure and he knows it, hence the
criticism of other leaders. Cameron is no different, foreign policy being almost totally abandoned
to the US, there is no such thing as independent defence policy in the UK, everything is carried
out at the behest of the US. Don't kid yourself we have any autonomy, we don't and there are plenty
of high level armed forces personnel who feel the same way. Europe is leaderless in general and
with the economy flatlining they too have abandoned defence and foreign affairs to the pentagon.
Right now we're in the quiet before the storm, once HRC gets elected expect the situation to
deteriorate rapidly, our only hope is that someone has got the dirt to throw her out of the race.
ISIS established itself in Iraq before moving into Syria. Would ISIS exist is Britain had not
totally destabilized Iraq? Going back even further, it is the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot
agreement, that great exercise in British Imperialism that created the artificial nations in the
Middle East that are collapsing today.
Your comment is so stereotyped: when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every
excuse is trundle out, every nuance examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there
is always a convenient statute of limitations. But when others are involved, specifically America
and Israel, the same Guardian readers allow no excuses or nuances and every tiny detail going
back hundreds of years is repeatedly and thoroughly examined.
Transparent hypocrisy. Accept responsibility and stop offloading it to Calais.
Ambassador Stevens was killed in a cover up over the arms dealing from Libya to Syria, (weapons
and fighters to ISIS). It seems more likely that he was killed because he was investigating the
covert operation given that he was left to fend for himself by all US military forces but in a
classic defamation strategy he has been accused of being behind the operation. Had he been he
would have been well defended.
"Defense" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering
military establishments that depend on it.
Couldn't put it better myself. Yes, America is a full blown Empire now. Evil to it's very core.
Bent on world domination and any cost. All we lack is a military dictatorship. Of course, with
the nation populated by brainwashed sheep, a "Dear Leader" is inevitable,
President Obama was correct in keeping US boots off the ground in Syria. An active US troop presence
would have resulted in an even greater level of confusion and destruction on all sides. However,
it was precisely the US' meddling in Libya that helped pave the way for its current dysfunctional,
failed state status, riven by sectarian conflicts and home to a very active Al Quaida presence.
US interference in Libya saw Gadaffi backstabbed by the US before literally being stabbed to
death although he had been given assurances that the US would respect his rule particularly as
he had sought to become part of the alliance against the likes of Al Quaida.
Obama was behind the disgraceful lie that the mob that attacked the US' Benghazi Embassy and
murdered Ambassador Smith y was 'inflamed' by an obscure video on youtube that attacked extremist
elements of the Islamic faith. Smith deserved better than this blatant lie and the grovelling,
snivelling faux apologies Obama and then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made to the Muslim
world for something that had nothing to do with 99.9 percent of non Muslims.
Smith was murdered by extremists that took over Libya precisely because the death of Gadaffi
left a dangerous power vacuum. The US aided and abetted certain groups, weapons found their way
to the worse groups and Smith, a brave man, was his own country's victim in one sense. Hilary
Clinton who should have known better publicly gloated over Gadaffi's death. Since his death the
victimisation of black Libyans and other black Africans has become common, Libya has been overrun
by extremists, and as we write is being used as a conduit for uncontrolled entry into Europe.
Disappointingly, President Obama forgets the Biblical saying about pointing out a speck in
somebody's eye while ignoring the plank in his own.
Mr President doesn't privately refer to the Libyan upheaval as the "shit show" for no good reason.
The chaos and anarchy that have ensued since, including the migrant crisis in Europe and the rise
of Islamic State, is directly attributable to the shoddy interventionist approach used by both
Britain and France.
Good article, with justified moral indignation. Only thing I would have changed, is "imperialism-lite"
to 'lesser and greater imperialism.
Would it not have been a great contribution towards peace and justice, had the US decided not
to invade Iraq and Libya, on account that other western countries were "free-riders" and would
not have pulled their weight?
So, what does the world needs now? More 'free-riding countries' to dissuade so-called responsible
countries - Britain, France, America, Italy - from conspiring to invade other countries, after
consulting in the equivalent of a 'diplomatic toilet and drawing up their war plans on the back
of the proverbial cigarette packet.'
For all Obama's niceties, it would now appear that he has been seething and mad as hell about
his perception of Britain and France 'abandoning' Libya and watching it perceptible destabilizing
the region and the flames fanning farther afield.
The biggest unanswered and puzzling question, is that of how could Obama have expected
or assumed that Britain and France would have stayed behind and clean up the mess they and the
Americans have made of Libya? Why did the Americans resolved to play only the part of 'hired guns'
to go in and blitzed the Libyan Government and its armed forces, and neglected to learn the lesson
of planning what should follow after the destruction?
The argument that the Americans had assumed that France and Britain would clean up the
euphemistic mess has little or no credibility, since all three countries had been very clear about
not wanting American, British and French 'boots on the ground.'
Is the Americans now telling the world that they went into Libya without planning for the aftermath,
because it was 'an emergency to save lives' and they had to go in immediately?
Well, if so, that is now how nations behave responsibly, and it is now clear that more lives
have probably been lost and continue to be sacrificed, than those which might have been saved
as a result of the West invading and attacking Libya.
the Europeans expected America to pick up the tab for reconstruction
I don't think there would be many complaints from Halliburton or other American companies to
help with the reconstruction, if the place wasn't such a shit-storm right now.
"The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least
outside Africa, since the second world war."
Judging from the sentiments expressed in the overwhelming majority of comments posted on multiple
threads on this forum, the British people don't want to accept responsibility for "migration on
a scale not seen... since the second world war". The almost universal resistance to accepting
refugees and migrants that fled their homes due to unprovoked British aggression is disgusting
and pathetic. It highlights the hypocrisy of those who see themselves morally fit to judge almost
everyone else.
Mitchell says that we had a plan to stabilise Libya but that it could not be implement the plan
because there was no peace?#*^..... Der
We bombed in support of competing Jihadis groups, bandits and local war Lords then our
well laid plans for a Utopian peace were thwarted because of the unforeseen chaos created as the
Militias we gave close airsupport to fought over the spoils.
Well there you have it- its the fault of the Libyans.
Hilary Clinton recently blamed Sarkozy for Libya describing him as so "very excited" about the
need to start bombing that he persuaded her and she, Nuland and Power persuaded a reluctant Obama.
Three civilian females argued down the military opinion that it was unnecessary and likely to
cause more trouble than it was worth.
As this was clearly to support French interests the Americans insisted the Europeans do it
themselves if they were that keen. Old Anglo-French rivalry has never been far from the surface
in the ME and it seems Cameron jumped on the bandwagon in fear France would take all the glory.
Neither of them appear to have given any thought about reconstruction. The blame is mostly Cameron's
as Sorkozy was chucked out of office just months later. Did Cameron have a plan at all? If so
it was his biggest mistake and one we'll be paying for over the coming years.
Without Putin's mischief making though, this would have been sorted out long ago.
Putin intervened in September 2015. What have the West been doing since 2011 to stop the conflict,
one wonders.
Russia vetoes any UN attempt to sort out the mess
Looking bad you'd realize that it at least prompted Obama to retract in 2013. Since then though
support to Saudi and proxies destabilizing Syria has only increased.
Russia is clearing the mess of the West, and they should be grateful. Obama might be from what
I read today from his "confessions".
Yes. I don't think that is a pro-imperialist stance. He's arguing that there is no middle ground;
getting rid of dictators you don't like is imperialism, and whether you follow through or not,
there are serious consequences, but to not follow through is an abnegation of moral responsibility
to the people you are at attemting to "free". It seems to me he is arguing against any foreign
intervention, hence his castigation of Obama and Cameron for the "ethical wasteland of their wars
of intervention."
Please do me a favour and study 20th century history a little more. The US overthrow countless
democracies in Latin America and the Middle East and installed fascist dictatorships.
Liberal Democracy haha come on now. They dont care about Democracy. They care about money.
They will install and support any dictatorship (look at Saudi Arabia for example) as long as they
do as they are told economically.
I love western values, dont get me wrong. It is the best place to live freely. However, if
you werent lucky enough to be born in the west and the west wants something your country has (eg.
oil).....you are in for a lot of bad times.
I just wish western leaders/governments actually followed the western values that we all love
and hold dear.
We should remember that we funded the terrorists in Libya and then sent weapons to ISIS from
Libya to Syria that is we again used Al Qaeda as a proxy force. We then again used the "threat"
from the proxy forces i,e. Al Qaeda to justify mass surveillance of the general population.
The solution as Corbyn pointed out is to stop funding the Terrorists.
By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar;
the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals
into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian
entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them,
were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the
CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer.
Peter Oborne investigates claims that Britain and the West embarked on an unspoken alliance
of convenience with militant jihadi groups in an attempt to bring down the Assad regime.
He hears how equipment supplied by the West to so called Syrian moderates has ended up in
the hands of jihadis, and that Western sponsored rebels have fought alongside Al Qaeda. But
what does this really tell us about the conflict in Syria?
This edition of The Report also examines the astonishing attempt to re brand Al Nusra, Al
Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, as an organisation with which we can do business.
What is good that this is finally coming out ,the denial by both Obama and a very left wing media
has failed to confront this issue in what is an incredibly low point for Obama and Hilary Clinton
and their naive ideas about the Arab Spring.
As it is equally so for David Cameron and William Hague. Sarkozy is different he was not naive
he knew exactly what he was doing thais was about saving french influence in North Africa,he was
thinking about Tunisa, Algeria which he was keen to drag others into -- He was the most savvy of
all those politicians at least he was not a fool,but France priorities are not the same as the
UK --
Obama's comments once again as usual do not really confront the real problems of Libya and
gloss over the key issues and ending up passing the buck, he can do no wrong ? It was not the
aftermath of Libya but the whole idea of changing the controlling demographics of the country
which he played a major part in destabilising through the UN AND Nato which was the problem --
It was thought the lessons of Iraq was all about not putting boots on the ground ,or getting
your feet dirty ,as this antagonises the locals and that a nice clinical arms length bombardment
creating havoc ,is the best way to go .
This was not the lesson of Iraq , which was actually not to destabilise the controlling demographics
of the country which will never recover if you do ..It is one thing to depose a leader or ask
a leader to step down but do not disturb 100 of years controlling demographics, sectarian or not
in these countries is not wise . To do so is a misstep or misjudgement --
Demographics are like sand dunes they have taken many years to evolve and rest uneasy, in the
highly religious and sectarian landscape but can be unsettled over night, grain by grain even
by a small shift in the evening night breeze , a small beetle can zig zag across and the whole
dune will crumble
Once again the US pushed the UK who vied with France at how high they could jump, using the
UN blank cheque as cover ,for melting down the country and has left UN credibilty in taters has
now no credibility and Nato is now not trusted .
They took disgracefully no less the UN 1973 Peace Resolution , point one, Cease fire and point
two No Fly Zone .They bent it , twisted it , contorted it into blatant out right support of the
eastern shiite sympathisers sectarian group, against the more secular Sunni Tripoli groups .
(Gaddafi was not one man Mr apologist Rifkind he was the tribal leaders of a quite a large
tribe !)
Which has been part of a historic rivalry going back hundreds of years . They killed more civilians
that Gaddafi ever had or could have done . They even attacked in a no fly zone government troops
retreating and fired on government planes on the ground in a non fly zone .
Then they refused to negotiate with the government or allow the Organisation of African states
to mediate who had agreed general elections .They went on bombing until there was no infrastructure
no institutions or sand dunes ,or beetles left --
It was done after Iraq and that is why it is so shameful and why Obama , Cameron, Sarkozy ,
the UN , Nato must face up to what they have done , and after the Chilcot enquiry there needs
to be a Cameron enquiry . Presumably it will have the backing of Obama --
What is worse is the knock on effect on this massive arm caches and fighters from Libya then
went on to Syria, reek havoc and destabilised the country . Because Russia and China could never
trust again the UN , the UN has been ineffective in Syria for that very reason .The deaths of
British tourist in next door Tunisia has to laid firmly at David Cameron's and the foreign office
door --
No wonder Libya is keeping Obama awake at night , no wonder he is indulging in damage limitation
, no wonder he is trying to re write history ? How can I get this out of my legacy . If only I
had not met Mr Cameron a yes man -- If only I had been told by some with an once of common sense
, not to touch this country with a barge pole ?
The poor Libyan people will agree with him --
The lesson for the UK is do want you think is right not what the US thinks as right , a lesson
that David Cameron has failed to learn , and has shown he is not a safe pari of hands and lacks
judgement --
1. Conflict between sunni and shiites has been dormant for decades. Saudi Arabias promotion of
Wahhabism has awoken it again, along with the catalyst for the recent bloodshed, the invasion
of Iraq. That placed it back in the hands of the majority Shia and upset radical sunnis (eg the
Saudis).
2. Pogroms were common against Jews in Europe and Europe has a far worse history of treating
Jews than Muslims ever had. The "golden age of Judaism" in Europe was under Muslim rule in Spain.
Need I mention that the Holocaust was perpetrated by European Christians?
3. Didnt forget. the USSR didn't hand them chemical weapons though. That would be the West.
And it wasn't Russia who invaded Iraq later over the scam that they had WMDs.
4. I think you are forgetting Mossadeq in Iran in the 50s. Nasser in Egypt and any Pan-Arab
group that was secular in nature. Pan-Arabism is now dead and radical Islamism is alive and well
thanks to our lust for control over the region.
Obama? Censored? You forgot Hillary. she even said the other day at the townhall before Miss/MI
to the effect 'if Assad had been taken out early like Gaddafi then Syria would only be as bad
as Libya'. laughable really. i presume you aren't criticising Hillary Clinton?
Kosovo is now basket case that we are paying for but it is small. Now we have also backed NeoCon
regime change in Ukraine which we are going to be paying for. Libya will soon have enough Jihadist
training camps to be a direct threat.
What we see is a Strategy of Chaos from the US NeoCons but what we have failed to notice is
that the NeoCons see us as the target, as the enemy.
Totally agree that there is no such thing as Imperialism Lite, just as there is no such thing
as Wahabi Lite or Zionism Lite. So I wonder why Hilary Benn thinks Britain has anything to feel
proud about our foreign policy. It seems to me Britain's Foreign Policy is a combination of incompetence,
jingoism and pure evil.
What is the point of employing the brightest brains in the land at the Foreign Office when we
get it wrong almost all the time ?
"Western warmongering over the past two decades has had nothing to do with the existential defence
of territory. "Defence" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering
military establishments that depend on it."
Attacking Al qaeda in Afghanistan had nothing to do with defending territory?
Libyan 'rebels' were armed and trained by 'the West' in a first place. The plan was the same for
Syria but Russians stopped it with not allowing 'no fly zone' or to call it properly 'bomb them
into the stone age'.
You probably don't know how 'bloody' Gaddafi was to the Libyans.
* GDP per capita - $ 14,192.
* For each family member the state pays $ 1000 grants per year.
* Unemployment - $ 730.
* Salary Nurse - $ 1000.
* For every newborn is paid $ 7000.
* The bride and groom given away $ 64,000 to buy an apartment.
* At the opening of a one-time personal business financial assistance - $ 20,000.
* Large taxes and extortions are prohibited.
* Education and medicine are free.
* Education and training abroad - at the expense of the state.
* Store chain for large families with symbolic prices of basic foodstuffs.
* For the sale of products past their expiry date - large fines and detention.
* Part of pharmacies - with free dispensing.
* For counterfeiting - the death penalty.
* Rents - no.
* No Fees for electricity for households!
* Loans to buy a car and an apartment - interest free.
* Real estate services are prohibited.
* Buying a car up to 50% paid by the state, for militia fighters - 65%.
* Gasoline is cheaper than water. 1 liter - 0,14 $.
* If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary
of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
* Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River
project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country
The Gadaffi regime had upset the USA because Gadaffi was setting up an oil currency system based
on gold rather than US dollars. While this was not the sole reason the West turned against him
it was an important factor. The largest factor for the wars so far, and the planned war against
Iran was to cut out the growing Russian domination of the oil supply to Europe, China and India.
A decent article as we could expect from the author.
However personally I doubt there was no ulterior motive in the case of Lybia. Lybia was one
of the countries who tried the change the status quo on the oil market and it has huge reserves
too (as we know Europe is running out of oil, at least Great Britain is).
It is very likely that the European countries retreated because Libya started to look like
another Iraq.
When you are talking about "democratic forces of the revolution.." i imagine you being an enthusiastic
teenager girl who hardly knows anything about the world but goes somewhere far for a gap year
as a volunteer to make locals aware of something that will help them forever. It is instead of
demanding responsible policies and accountability from her own government.
Sorry!!!
What planet have you been living on. What do you read apart from lifestyle magazines full of shots
of celebrity boobs and bums.
The United states is the most interventionist country in history. Of its 237 years of existence
it has been at war or cold war for 222 of those years. NATO is behind ISIS and the wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Chechen, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine.
If the West stopped intervening there would be very few wars and if the West used its influence
for peace rather than control there would rarely be any was at all.
Well put. People forget the importance of oil in maintaining the standard of living in our western
democracies. Controlling it's supply trumps all other issues.
Jane they didn't "come apart" and Libya and Syria were the most stable and least under the
thumb of radicals. Syria had equality and education for women who could wear whatever they wanted.
Furthermore they did not fall apart they were attacked by the largest military forces in the world
excluding Russia. NATO sent in special operations forces to destabilise the government. They along
with Al Nusra and other violent Wahabi terrorists attacked police and army barracks, and when
Assads police and military hit back it was presented by the Western media and propagandists as
an attack on the people of Syria. Do you think any other country would allow terrorists to attack
police and other public institutions without retaliating and restoring order.
Many people who do not accept the Western medias false reporting at face value know that
the wars in Syria were about changing the leaders and redrawing national boundaries to isolate
Iran and sideline Russian influence. It was and is an illegal war and it was the barbarity of
our Western leaders that caused the terrible violence. It was a pre planned plan and strategy
outlined in the US Special Forces document below.
http://nsnbc.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf
If you get your facts right it ruins your argument doesn't it.
In the Libyan case, it was a clear US strategy to put in the forefront their English and French
valets, in a coup (euphemistically called "regime change") wanted by them. The nobel peace winner
got some nerves to put the blame on his accomplices for the chaos in Libya, while the permanent
objective of the US is to divide and conquer, sowing chaos wherever it occurs: Afghanistan, Sudan,
Iraq, Syria. Also Hillary is no stranger to the actions in Libya.
These Middle East countries should have been left alone by the West. Due to their nature, these
countries have strong divisions and battle for their beliefs and a strong man, a dictator is what
prevented them to fall into the chaos they are today. Without the Western meddling, arming and
financing various rebel groups, Isis would not exist today.
Neither is putting political opponents in acid baths and burning tyres, as Tony Blair's friends
in the central Asian Republics have been doing, neither is beheading gays, raped women and civil
rights protesters, as Cameron's Saudi friends have been enjoying, the latter whilst we sell them
shit loads of munitions to obliterate Yemeni villagers. I wonder how the Egyptian president is
getting on with all that tear gas and bullets we sold him? And are the Bahrani's, fresh from killing
their own people for daring to ask for civil rights, enjoying the cash we gave them for that new
Royal Navy base? Our foreign policy is complacent and inconsistent, we talk about morality but
the bottom line is that that doesn't come into it when BAE systems and G4S have contracts to win.
Don't get me wrong, Britain has played a positive role internationally in many different areas,
but there is always a neo-liberal arsehole waiting to pop up and ruin the lives of millions, a
turd with a school tie that just wont be flushed away.
Simon Jenkins, don't pretend you were against American punitive expeditions around the world
to overthrow third world dictators. You worked from the same neo-con ideological script to defend
the ultra-liberal, military industrial economy; scare mongering in the pages of the Guardian,
as far back as I can remember. You lot are as totally discredited as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and
American Nato toadies.
It is high time that Europe reviewed and evaluated its relationship with the United States, with
NATO, Russia and China. The world needs to be a peaceable place and there needs to be more legislation
imposed upon the Financial Markets to stop them being a place where economic destabilisation and
warfare can and do take place. The United States would not contemplate these reviews taking place
as they are integral to their continuing position in the world but also integral to the problems
we are all experiencing? It will take a brave Europe to do this but it is a step that has to be
taken if the world is to move forward! Britain should be a huge part of this, outside a weakend
EU this would benefit the United States from Britains lack of input, another reason we should
vote to stay and be positive to our European position. The most vulnerable herring is the one
that breaks out of the shoal?
Libya , Ukraine ,Syria have had the same recipe of de-stabilisation by the US and NATO. The
so called popular rebels were in fact CIA trained and financed. Jihadist in Libya and Syria and
neo-Nazis in Ukraine. After completing regime change in Libya as planned ,the Jihadist, with their
looted arms were transferred to Syria and renamed ISIS. ISIS is Washingtons Foreign Legion army,
used as required for their Imperial ends. Renamed as required on whichever territory they operate
Cameron has been given a free pass on Libya. It really is quite astonishing. The man has turned
a functioning society into a jihadi infested failed state which is exporting men and weapons across
North Africa and down the Sahara and now serves as a new front line for ISIS
Cameron's Libya policy from start to finish is a foreign policy catastrophe and in a just world
would have seen him thrown out of office on his ear
Attacking Libya and deposing Gaddafi was down to enforcing the R2P doctrine on the pretext
of "stopping another Rwanda". But it was a pretext. Islamist rebels attacked the armouries within
Libya and the Libyans had every right to try and put down the rebellion. Samantha Powers et al
were the war mongers.
Then there is this gem: "Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called for a United Nations
resolution allowing international forces to intervene in Libya.
There was no other choice, he told French radio. "We will not allow them to cut off the heads
of our children."
"We abandoned the Libyan people as prisoners to extremist militias," Mr Sisi told Europe 1
radio. He was referring to the aftermath of the 2011 war in which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
was toppled with the help of an international coalition.
That intervention was "an unfinished mission", he said."
The US, France and the UK own this ongoing mess but do not have the moral fortitude to clean
it up. As with the "Arab Spring", this will not end well.
The 2011 regime change shenanigans of the west against Libya is colonialism at its worst from
all the parties who instigated it. The aftermath, the resultant mayhem and chaos, was in itself
adding insult to injury. Gaddafi was no saint, but the militias, Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS now
running rampant in the country are infinitely worse. This is a war crime of the first magnitude
and no effort should be spared to address it
The west who propped up the Saudis, who's crazy wahhabi brand of Islam helped radicalise the Islamic
world with 100 billion dollars spent on promoting it.
The west who created israel and then has done nothing to stop israels ever growing land theft
and occupation over decades (not even a single sanction)...leading the Muslim world to hate us
more for our hypocrisy and double standards.
The west who has assassinated or organised coups against democratically elected secular
leaders who didn't give us their natural resources (eg iran) and installed brutal, clepto dictatorships
who also take part in plundering the resources leaving the general population poor, uneducated
and susceptible to indoctrination from Islamists.
The west who arms brutal dictators to wage proxy wars and then invades and bombs these same
dictators countries over claims they have WMDs (that we sold to them).
The west has been intervening in the middle east alot longer than post 9/11. We are very very
culpable for the disasters engulfing the region.
Libya was "not so at the core of US interests that it makes sense for us to unilaterally strike
against the Gaddafi regime"
Let's examine what Obama is saying here: when it is perceived to be at the core of US
interests, the USA reserves the right to attack any country, at any time.
The world inhabits a moral vacuum, and in that state, any country can justifiably choose to
do anything, against anyone, for any reason. And this guy got the Nobel Peace Prize.
In this despicable saga, Cameron's Libyan venture was a sideshow, though one that has destabilised
north Africa and may yet turn it into another Islamic State caliphate.
You forgot to mention Cameron was only following Sarkozy .
Don't forget the French role .
25 February 2011: Sarkozy said Gaddafi "must go."
28 February 2011: British Prime Minister David Cameron proposed the idea of a no-fly zone
11 March 2011: Cameron joined forces with Sarkozy after Sarkozy demanded immediate action
from international community for a no-fly zone against air attacks by Gaddafi.
14 March 2011: In Paris at the Élysée Palace, before the summit with the G8 Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Sarkozy, who is also the president of the G8, along with French Foreign Minister
Alain Juppé met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and pressed her to push for intervention
in Libya
.
19 March 2011: French[72] forces began the military intervention in Libya, later joined
by coalition forces
Well said in the headline. Imperialism-lite/heavy, colonialism, and neo-colonialism don't work,
should be a thing of the past. Intervening in the politics of another country is a mug's game.
Don't understand why Obama is blaming Cameron for it, perhaps playing to his domestic gallery.
Blair's love fest with the deluded Gaddafi family, followed by the volte-face of pushing for his
violent overthrow by the next government, were both severely misguided policies. Need to diplomatically
encourage change, in foreign policy, and the desired type of political movements to take hold.
Military interventions have the opposite effect, so does propping up dictators, religiously fanatical
regimes, proven time and time again.
So the choices are to do nothing, or invade and create a colony?
Pretty much. As Jenkins rightly says, if you want to launch an aggressive war you either do
it or you don't. If you do it then it is your responsibility to clear up the mess, however many
of your own lives are lost and however much it costs. Trashing a country and then buggering off
is not an option.
Of course, using force for defensive reasons is fine. That's why modern warmongering politicians
always call it "defence" when they drop bombs on innocent people in faraway countries. It is no
such thing.
There was no massacre, not even a hint of one. Total obfuscation to give Hillary Clinton a foreign
policy "success" so that she could use it as a springboard to the presidency. "Hillary Clinton
was so proud of her major role in instigating the war against Libya that she and her advisors
initially planned to use it as basis of a "Clinton doctrine", meaning a "smart power" regime change
strategy, as a presidential campaign slogan.
War creates chaos, and Hillary Clinton has been an eager advocate of every U.S. aggressive
war in the last quarter of a century. These wars have devastated whole countries and caused an
unmanageable refugee crisis. Chaos is all there is to show for Hillary's vaunted "foreign policy
experience".
"... Yeah. Painting the Syria/Libya crisis as Hillary vs the Repubs however is dishonest. not lacking insight or clarity. dishonest. On the Repubs: all the candidates except Trump said at the debate a few days ago that peace was not in the interests of Israel and therefore a US President would betray Israel by SEEKING peace. ..."
"... Hillary said at the townhall before Miss/MI that 'if we'd taken out Assad earlier like we did Gaddafi then Syria would only be as bad as Libya'. Your Hillary vs the Repubs routine is dishonest. This is the neocon oligrachy fighting for its life election. do not fake it in the name of Hillary. ..."
"... The Obama administration has redefined the word "militant " to be a "male of military age within the strike zone" and here's the killer ..."unless POSTHUMOUSLY proven to be innocent" ..."
"... Ramos ought to have asked Hilary exactly why Gadaffi was deposed, and came back at her fiercely with statistics and independent reports if she dared to even muse the suggestion that it was another "humanitarian intervention". ..."
"... If Hillary's two decade history of war mongering was exposed for what it really represents by "journalists" in the corporate media, she would no longer be insulated from the scrutiny her deeply flawed decision making warrants. ..."
"... Unfortunately, the American public have only independent news sites like the Intercept, Truthdig, the Jacobin, Harpers Magazine, Mondoweiss, and a few others from which to evaluate the real damage Hillary has caused. ..."
"... What gives Amerika the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations in the first place? Are they unaware that the rest of the world fears American terrorism more that anything else, or more likely, do they care? No wonder Hillary and the Republican hawks are worrying the planet. ..."
You are absolutely right as far as these five questions are concerned. Yet you forgot an important
one: TTIP as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These so-called free trade agreements are
a fatal threat to democracy as they invest more power in corporations than in parliaments and
additionally they are detrimental to labour and the environment in the concerned countries.
It's a good article and reflects some of the questions I've been having.
My curiosity was aroused when the first CIA-directed drone killed its first victims, a terrorist
leader and some comrades in Yemen years ago. I'd thought that the CIA's assassination of anyone
in a foreign country was illegal. Evidently the rules have changed but I don't recall hearing
about it.
The media are always an easy target but lately I think their responsibility for our collective
ignorance has increased. The moderators in the TV debates seem deliberately provocative. I can
remember the first televised debate -- Kennedy vs. Nixon -- when both men soberly addressed the
camera when answering questions of substance.
The first interaction BETWEEN debators was a brief remark in 1980 by Reagan aimed at Jimmy
Carter. "There you go again." Before then, the debates were sober and dignified, as in a courtroom.
After that, the debates slowly slid into the cage fights they've become.
I'm afraid I see the media as not setting the proper ground rules. Fox News is the absolute
worst. The result is a continuous positive feedback loop in which we are gradually and unwittingly
turned into those people who buy gossip tabloids at the supermarket checkout counter.
BREAKING NEWS! HILLARY WETS BED UNTIL TWELVE YEARS OLD!
If we wind up with one of these egomaniacal clowns in the White House, we'll deserve what we
get.
here it is again Cruz: right now in Fox: Iran wants to kill us; 'Donald' wants to negotiate deals
with Iran and Cuba. We don't negotiate with terrorists. By failing to note what Trump actually
says and by pretending that Hillary is not a neocon - a subtle one to be sure - you are revising
the facts. actually as the facts appear. think about it and be clear. the moderate Islam routine
BY Cruz Rubio Kasich is not about islam. its about the supposed sunni supposed allies. like please.
add some insight. at least a bit.
Yeah. Painting the Syria/Libya crisis as Hillary vs the Repubs however is dishonest. not lacking
insight or clarity. dishonest. On the Repubs: all the candidates except Trump said at the debate
a few days ago that peace was not in the interests of Israel and therefore a US President would
betray Israel by SEEKING peace.
Trump said he'd be even-handed for the purpose of negotitating
a peace deal. the other candidates say - reading from a script, certainly not thinking - that
the trick was to get Saudi Arabia and Turkey to fight ISIS. sure, except they wont. Their agenda
is anti-Assad in the name of conservative sunni-ism. the moderate arab sheikdom theocracy routines
IS part of the problem. frankly the other Repub candidates would flirt with nuking Iran. Iran
must be part of the solution like it or not. Hillary said at the townhall before Miss/MI that
'if we'd taken out Assad earlier like we did Gaddafi then Syria would only be as bad as Libya'.
Your Hillary vs the Repubs routine is dishonest. This is the neocon oligrachy fighting for its
life election. do not fake it in the name of Hillary.
Isn't the reason for most foreign policy decisions that they will make money for the Military
Industrial Complex?
"Modernizing" nuclear weapons? Helping Saudi Arabia slaughter citizens of Yemen? Destabilizing
multiple countries so that MORE weapons become "necessary" to deal with the instability?
All the question should be framed on that basis: "Is there any reason to 'modernize' our nuclear
weapons other than to enhance the bottom line of the companies involved, especially when we are
supposed to be working against nuclear proliferation?"
Fantastic article, absolutely spot on. Its been a long wait , thank you.
The Obama administration has redefined the word "militant " to be a "male of military age within
the strike zone" and here's the killer ..."unless POSTHUMOUSLY proven to be innocent"
Democrats or Republicans alike, foreign policy is predicated on the American drive to maintain
global dominance, whatever illegal murderous callous action it takes.
Ramos ought to have asked Hilary exactly why Gadaffi was deposed, and came back at her fiercely
with statistics and independent reports if she dared to even muse the suggestion that it was another
"humanitarian intervention".
Sanders should be pressed on Israel, and whether he can formally condemn the state for repeatedly
breaking promises re: settlement on the West Bank and for committing war crimes during the Gaza
strip conflict.
If Hillary's two decade history of war mongering was exposed for what it really represents by
"journalists" in the corporate media, she would no longer be insulated from the scrutiny her deeply
flawed decision making warrants. If democracy and transparency actually functioned in the media,
Hillary would be exposed as a neocon, whose terrible policy decisions have led to one global disaster
after another, fomenting terrorism. (Even the New York Times-which endorsed Hillary-detailed her
disastrous decisions in Libya).
Unfortunately, the American public have only independent news sites like the Intercept, Truthdig,
the Jacobin, Harpers Magazine, Mondoweiss, and a few others from which to evaluate the real damage
Hillary has caused.
But, like her domestic policies-historically: from Clintonomics to mass incarceration; welfare
reform; the war on drugs; education (especially in Arkansas); disastrous "free" trade agreements;
rampant fascism in the form of corporatism; plus, the millions donated to her campaign from dark
money super pacs; and her sham "foundation; Hillary continues to represent the worst that politics
offers, both globally and domestically.
And the list above also includes the devolution of the Democratic Party from FDR-like socialism
to Clinton dominated corporate hacks, since Bill's election in 1992.
Until Clinton, Inc is stopped from commanding allegiance from "democratic" politicians on everything
from the macro to micro levels of Democratic Party matters, voters will continue to be denied
a true forum for change.
What gives Amerika the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations in the first place?
Are they unaware that the rest of the world fears American terrorism more that anything else,
or more likely, do they care? No wonder Hillary and the Republican hawks are worrying the planet.
"Currently Saudi Arabia is engaged in an indiscriminate bombing campaign in one of the world's
poorest.."
Saudi Arabia is bombing with logistical help from US and UK, we're not only silent on the crimes
of KSA, we help them
"Currently Saudi Arabia is engaged in an indiscriminate bombing campaign in one of the world's
poorest.."
Saudi Arabia is bombing with logistical help from US and UK, we're not only silent on the crimes
of KSA, we help them
Hillary was the push behind the U.S. Participation in Ukraine, Syria and Libya. Just a pathological
warlord. She appointed VIc Nuland as undersecretary of state for Gods sake. A neo-con. The people
that brought us the Iraq war. If she's elected you will get more of the same in a big way as she
will increase the force structure and the involvement.
It is futile to expect reason from people whose foreign policy education comes primarily from
Hollywood. It used to be that 96 % of people in congress had never left the country, even less
lived abroad with other people and learned a foreign language. The ignorance is truly amazing
and it would be funny if these people were not those that decide what happens in the world.
If the US keeps meddling in world affairs then the whole world should vote in their elections.
Don't exactly celebrate the US 'wag my tail' relationship with Wahhabi Arabia but on Syria, the
only good option is to ally with President Assad and bomb out the Wahhabi infestation.
Libya is the dog that doesn't bark in the night in UK politics too.
During the debate on bombing Syria, speaker after speaker alluded to the disastrous intervention
in Iraq, for which the guilty parties are no longer in the house.
But not one brought up the disastrous intervention in Libya, for which the guilty party was
currently urging us into another intervention.
Having an amateurish, inward-looking Labour party doesn't help, of course.
The only people who have called Cameron out on Libya in the past year are Nigel Farage and
Barack Obama. Ye gods.
"According to the 24 February 2010 policy analysis "The Year of the Drone", released by the New
America Foundation, the civilian fatality rate since 2004 is approximately 32%. The study reports
that 114 reported UAV-based missile strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to present killed
between 830 and 1,210 individuals, around 550 to 850 of whom were militants."
You can quibble about the exact number of civilians killed, but the moment you approve of your
local police bagging bad guys even if your family gets killed then you can maybe make a comment.
Many human rights organizations have called them illegal, and retired military leaders have
said they backfire, creating more terrorists than they kill.
After reading " The Dron Papers
" Edward Snowden came to the conclusion that drones do not really chase the terrorists, but
they chase their mobile phones. Hence so many innocent victims, because who can guarantee that
the mobile phone which was earlier in the possessions of some terrorist, is not now in the hands
of entirely innocent people.
So, in addition to many ethical questions about the use of drones, this raised another question
on how much "high-tech killing" is indeed reliable.
Excellent article.
Informative and quite rightly challenging.
America is really running away with itself on who, where, how and why they attack.
Britains 'special' relations with the US, should be curtailed, forthwith, because they have the
audacity to now start pressuring us about the EU refferendum, too.
Obama had the nerve to say that we were free loading on the back of "US might" and their attempts
at "global order", his words. While neatly avoiding the questions you ask here, about their role
in Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, drones etc., etc, etc.
Britain should fight back with these facts and distance ourselves from this aggression.
While an enormous amount of time during this campaign has focused around the Iran nuclear
deal, almost no attention has been given to any country that actually has nuclear weapons and
what they plan to do with them over the coming years and decades.
This is also a proof of the "schizophrenic" Obama-Clinton foreign policy. US administration is
doing everything to solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear program, and at the same time doing
everything to spoil relations with the other nuclear power in the world, Russia.
The curiosity of its kind is that Russia, which is also affected by the US sanctions, helps US
to resolve its dispute with Iran and suspend sanctions against this country. And not only that,
but Russia agrees to relocate enriched uranium from Iran to its territory and thus provide a practical
implementation of the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.
yet the presidential candidates are almost never asked about why congress has not authorized
the military action like the constitution requires.
Yes, Trevor Timm also criticized this in some of his previous articles, as well as Ron Paul, who
also often criticized Obama for this fact. It's completely unclear why Obama continues to rely
on the two authorizations that George W. Bush has got from Congress "to punish the perpetrators
of the 9/11 attacks", and for "the destruction of Saddam Hussein's [non-existent] WMD". This is
particularly unclear given that Obama himself came to power mainly due to his criticism of Bush's
war adventures.
It is possible that Obama does not have enough confidence that he can get authorization from the
GOP dominant Congress to combat Isis in Syria and Iraq. However, by using authorizations for the
old wars for something that has nothing to do with the new wars, Obama is not only acting illegally,
but also provides an opportunity for the conclusion that he now supports Bush for the same thing
for which he criticized him earlier, that is, for the Afghan and Iraq war.
'course I wouldn't approve. And I doubt most countries approve of being invaded (except for the
folks who DO approve anyways).
"The US must stop acting as the world police.' Great phrase. You hear it a lot. Totally insupportable.
Here's the fundamental problem: the globe is a small place these days. Countries really are no
longer isolated entities than can act with little to no impact on anybody else. What one does,
others feel. And leadership is a thing - somebody will always lead. Right now, there are very
few candidates for that. With the fall of imperial England, the US became the only real superpower
left (other than Russia, which has since collapsed, and is busy trying to come back). Thus, whether
it likes it or not, the US has a leadership role to play. If it abdicates that position, and does
as you and so many other less-than-brilliant folks demand? Power abhors a vacuum. Most likely
is that either Russia or China will take over the role currently played by the US. And if you
think either of THOSE countries will do a better job than the US, well... enjoy your personal
delusion.
As for 'scratching heads and bleating' about intervention... we did not have to intervene.
Said that before, saying it again, get it through your skull - we did not have to intervene. We
could, in fact, totally disarm and just sit back and do nothing, anywhere. But. THIS WOULD HAVE
CONSEQUENCES TOO. Seriously. Understand that. Doing nothing is doing something. Sitting out is
still an action one can take. And it is INCREDIBLY likely that things would be WORSE in Libya
right now had we not intervened. Not guaranteed, but likely.
The situation sucks. It would have been great if it had all turned out better. It didn't. But
it probably would have been worse had we made a substantially different choice. Yeah, sure, you
could then pat yourself on the back, and pretend that at least the US wasn't responsible, but,
well, as a certain red-and-blue clad superhero says, with great power comes great responsibility.
The US has great power - if we didn't intervene, and horrible things happened, it'd be just as
much our fault as it is now that we DID intervene, and bad things happened. Because it would have
been in our power to stop it, and we didn't.
"... Besides which, it's hard to buy the idea that Gaddafi was "rogue" or " a threat" when both parties named here were "rendering" secret prisoners to him for outsourced torture. ..."
"... There is no honour among thieves, clearly. But it would be folly to depict a squabble among them as a narrative of sinner vs saint... ..."
"... After the cold war, the US and had the chance to lead to a new world order based on democracy and human rights. Yet instead, its politics based became based on bullying and warmongering, and joined by their European allies. As a result we have a world entrenched in chaos and violence. ..."
"... To top it off, there is also their allies, the Saudi and Gulf allies. Therefore, if you want to know how bad the world has become as a result of the US, European and Gulf allies, their hypocrisy, criminal behavior, destruction of countries, and total disregard of international law, all you need to see is the war in Yemen. ..."
"... Imperialism never left,.. The Capitalists are always working at complete control, it has no problem dancing with Dictators and Authoritarian rulers when it suites its purpose. Its just now they appear to be wanting to improve their image by changing their partners who stepped on their toes and Israel's on occasion .. ..."
"... Yes, I will claim it as a U.S. inspired regime change policy, in all those Middle East secular and sovereign countries, by our own beloved War Mongering Nationalistic Neo Cons.. That is already being shown as a complete disaster.. Only 2 million dead so far and just wait until the religious fanatics are in complete control.. ..."
"... "keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies" mmm. An incomplete reading I think. What about oil and gas? Libya is north African richest country if I'm not mistaken ... Is Britain (and France) still trying to get its share there? ..."
"... "Western [ mostly american and british ] warmongering over the past two decades has had nothing to do with the existential defense of territory. "Defense" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it." ..."
"... "The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war." ..."
"... The Sykes-Picot agreement was one of the secrets uncovered by the Russian Revolution: it was in the files of the newly-overthrown government, and promptly publicized by the Bolsheviks, along with lots of other documents relating to imperialist secret diplomacy. Sound familiar? ..."
"... The interventionist model that the West has carried out recently is really an extension of the old colonialism in a different guise. In the olden days, the excuse was to spread Western civilization and Christianity to the world living in backwardness. In the modern era, it's democracy. Unfortunately democracy cannot be installed by force. Even if the people of the country being invaded wanted it, the opportunists (either among them or the outsiders) would find ways to exploit the chaos for their own benefits. We have seen different forms of such evolution in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq. ..."
"... The CIA funded and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to fight the Russians, just as they backed Saddam against Iran. And the US has been mucking about in the Middle East since the 50s, the Brits since the late 19th century. Yours is a very selective reading of history. ..."
"... No, small groups of people with their own particular interests "begged for help." The "Arab Spring" was a Western media confection used to justify Western intervention to get rid of Gaddafi and Assad. Worked with Gaddafi, Assad not so well. ..."
"... You forget who triggered the French intervention. Another neo-con working for Israel. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?_r=2 ..."
"... Israel does not want a functioning Arab State left in the Middle-East. ..."
"... It's like the Soviet Union invading the US because a few militiamen holed up in a wildlife refuge in Oregon. The neo-con press feeds us this propaganda and the willing idiots lap it up and deny responsibility when everything falls apart. ..."
"... Jihad Dave is supporting islamist maniacs in Libya and Syria. He succeeded in Libya, along with the ludicrous Sarkozy clown, but Russia and Iran have stood up to the plate in Syria. ..."
"... However much we might sympathise with fellow human beings living under brutal dictators and governments, a country can only really progress from within. Certainly, dialogue, sanctions and international cooperation can help foster change, but ultimately countries must want to change. ..."
"... No, Gaddafy's crime was actually to spend the bulk of Libya's oil revenues on useless things such as schools, hospitals, housing and subsidised food when that money could have been flowing into the pockets of the West. ..."
"... Taliban has been trained in the Saudi religious schools in Pakistan. Wahhabism is the official ideology of Saudi Arabia. 10 out of 11 terrorists 9/11 were the Saudis. All the Islamic terror in the last two decades was sponsored by the Saudis, including ISIS. ..."
"... Bosnia - a slow ticking bomb. Just bubbling under the surface. Kosovo - a mafia state run by drug lord Thaci, supported by the US. It is no secret that the main source of income in Kosovo today is drugs, prostitution, organ trafficking. ..."
"... There are no winners or losers in Iraq, everyone lost. Not a single group benefited from that western backed regime change, same in Libya and Syria. ..."
"... The US empire blew up Libya with some help from it's puppets, Sarkozy and Cameron. 100% imperialism. ..."
"... The USA - and its mini-me, the UK - have so blatantly bombed societies, manipulated governments and undermined social change in so many parts of the world that their trading positions are under real threat from emerging economic powers. ..."
"... Yes, Obama shows himself for the buffoon he really is. ..."
"... I, however, would caution against thinking the US led Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals is weakening. Its economic hegemony is almost complete only China and Russia remaining, and Obama with his "Pivot to Asia" (TM) has them surrounded and all set up for the female Chaney - Clinton the warmonger to get on with it. ..."
"... The Empire will only get more and more brutal - it has absolutely no concern for human life or society - power over the globe as the Pentagon phrases it: "Global full spectrum domination" don't kid yourself they are going all out to reach their goal and a billion people could be killed - the Empire would say - so what, it was in our strategic interest. ..."
"... Very well put, Sir. Obama's self-serving statement is borderline stupid. I constantly wonder why I voted for him twice. His Deep State handlers continue from the Bush period and having installed their coterie of right-wing extremists from Hillary to the Directors of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, ad nauseum Obama has not had the courage at any point to admit not only the "mess" he makes, but the he is a captive mess of the shadow government. ..."
"... Your comment is so stereotyped: when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every excuse is trundle out, every nuance examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there is always a convenient statute of limitations. But when others are involved, specifically America and Israel, the same Guardian readers allow no excuses or nuances and every tiny detail going back hundreds of years is repeatedly and thoroughly examined. ..."
"... Smith was murdered by extremists that took over Libya precisely because the death of Gadaffi left a dangerous power vacuum. The US aided and abetted certain groups, weapons found their way to the worse groups and Smith, a brave man, was his own country's victim in one sense. Hilary Clinton who should have known better publicly gloated over Gadaffi's death. Since his death the victimisation of black Libyans and other black Africans has become common, Libya has been overrun by extremists, and as we write is being used as a conduit for uncontrolled entry into Europe. ..."
"... The biggest unanswered and puzzling question, is that of how could Obama have expected or assumed that Britain and France would have stayed behind and clean up the mess they and the Americans have made of Libya? Why did the Americans resolved to play only the part of 'hired guns' to go in and blitzed the Libyan Government and its armed forces, and neglected to learn the lesson of planning what should follow after the destruction? ..."
"... The argument that the Americans had assumed that France and Britain would clean up the euphemistic mess has little or no credibility, since all three countries had been very clear about not wanting American, British and French 'boots on the ground.' ..."
"... "The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war." ..."
"... We bombed in support of competing Jihadis groups, bandits and local war Lords then our well laid plans for a Utopian peace were thwarted because of the unforeseen chaos created as the Militias we gave close airsupport to fought over the spoils. ..."
"... We should remember that we funded the terrorists in Libya and then sent weapons to ISIS from Libya to Syria that is we again used Al Qaeda as a proxy force. We then again used the "threat" from the proxy forces i,e. Al Qaeda to justify mass surveillance of the general population. ..."
"... Of its 237 years of existence it has been at war or cold war for 222 of those years. ..."
"... NATO is behind ISIS and the wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Chechen, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine. ..."
"... Jane they didn't "come apart" and Libya and Syria were the most stable and least under the thumb of radicals. Syria had equality and education for women who could wear whatever they wanted. Furthermore they did not fall apart they were attacked by the largest military forces in the world excluding Russia. NATO sent in special operations forces to destabilise the government. They along with Al Nusra and other violent Wahabi terrorists attacked police and army barracks, and when Assads police and military hit back it was presented by the Western media and propagandists as an attack on the people of Syria. Do you think any other country would allow terrorists to attack police and other public institutions without retaliating and restoring order. ..."
"... Many people who do not accept the Western medias false reporting at face value know that the wars in Syria were about changing the leaders and redrawing national boundaries to isolate Iran and sideline Russian influence. It was and is an illegal war and it was the barbarity of our Western leaders that caused the terrible violence. It was a pre planned plan and strategy outlined in the US Special Forces document below. http://nsnbc.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf ..."
"... In the Libyan case, it was a clear US strategy to put in the forefront their English and French valets, in a coup (euphemistically called "regime change") wanted by them. The nobel peace winner got some nerves to put the blame on his accomplices for the chaos in Libya, while the permanent objective of the US is to divide and conquer, sowing chaos wherever it occurs: Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Syria. Also Hillary is no stranger to the actions in Libya. ..."
"... Simon Jenkins, don't pretend you were against American punitive expeditions around the world to overthrow third world dictators. You worked from the same neo-con ideological script to defend the ultra-liberal, military industrial economy; scare mongering in the pages of the Guardian, as far back as I can remember. You lot are as totally discredited as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and American Nato toadies. ..."
"... Libya , Ukraine ,Syria have had the same recipe of de-stabilisation by the US and NATO. The so called popular rebels were in fact CIA trained and financed. Jihadist in Libya and Syria and neo-Nazis in Ukraine. After completing regime change in Libya as planned ,the Jihadist, with their looted arms were transferred to Syria and renamed ISIS. ISIS is Washingtons Foreign Legion army, used as required for their Imperial ends. Renamed as required on whichever territory they operate ..."
"... Cameron has been given a free pass on Libya. It really is quite astonishing. The man has turned a functioning society into a jihadi infested failed state which is exporting men and weapons across North Africa and down the Sahara and now serves as a new front line for ISIS ..."
"... Attacking Libya and deposing Gaddafi was down to enforcing the R2P doctrine on the pretext of "stopping another Rwanda". But it was a pretext. Islamist rebels attacked the armouries within Libya and the Libyans had every right to try and put down the rebellion. Samantha Powers et al were the war mongers. ..."
"... The 2011 regime change shenanigans of the west against Libya is colonialism at its worst from all the parties who instigated it. The aftermath, the resultant mayhem and chaos, was in itself adding insult to injury. Gaddafi was no saint, but the militias, Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS now running rampant in the country are infinitely worse. This is a war crime of the first magnitude and no effort should be spared to address it ..."
"... The west who has assassinated or organised coups against democratically elected secular leaders who didn't give us their natural resources (eg iran) and installed brutal, clepto dictatorships who also take part in plundering the resources leaving the general population poor, uneducated and susceptible to indoctrination from Islamists. ..."
So
Barack Obama thinks Britain in 2011 left Libya in chaos – and besides it does not pull its weight
in the world. Britain thinks that a bit rich, given the shambles America left in Iraq. Then both
sides say sorry. They did not mean to be rude.
Thus do we wander across the ethical wasteland of the west's wars of intervention. We blame and
we name-call. We turn deaf ears to the cries of those whose lives we have destroyed. Then we kiss
and make up – to each other.
Obama was right first time round about Libya's civil war. He wanted to keep out. As
he recalls to the Atlantic magazine , Libya was "not so at the core of US interests that it makes
sense for us to unilaterally strike against the Gaddafi regime". He cooperated with Britain and France,
but on the assumption that David Cameron would clear up the resulting mess. That did not happen because
Cameron had won his Falklands war and could go home crowing.
Obama is here describing all the recent "wars of choice".
America had no "core interest" in Afghanistan or Iraq, any more than Britain had in
Libya . When a state attacks
another state and destroys its law and order, morally it owns the mess. There is no such thing as
imperialism-lite. Remove one fount of authority and you must replace and sustain another, as Europe
has done at vast expense in Bosnia and Kosovo.
America and Britain both attacked countries in the Middle East largely to satisfy the machismo
and domestic standing of two men, George Bush and Tony Blair. The result has been mass killing, destruction
and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside Africa, since the second world war. In this despicable
saga, Cameron's Libyan venture was a sideshow, though one that has destabilised north
Africa and may yet turn it
into another Islamic State caliphate. It is his Iraq.
As for Obama's charge that Britain and other countries are not pulling their weight and are "free
riders" on American defence spending, that too deserves short shrift.
British and French military expenditure is proportionately among the highest in the world, mostly
blown on archaic weapons and archaic forms of war. Western warmongering over the past two decades
has had nothing to do with the existential defence of territory. "Defence" has become attack, keeping
alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it.
Meanwhile the bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen. They do so, against
all the odds, because they grow from one culture and one outlook on life. That mercifully has nothing
to do with politicians.
I'm stunned that Obama has been able to get away with his absolutely abysmal record with foreign
policy. Libya was a complete disaster and there is evidence to suggest that Libya was a much better
place under Gaddafi. And the fact that once they were in Iraq (something started by his predecessor)
he wasn't committed to bringing about serious change, thus leaving a giant vacuum which, coincided
with the Syrian Civil War, has now been filled by ISIS.
That's not even talking about the Iran deal, Benghazi and the disastrous "Bring Back our Girls"
campaign.
"People find it very hard," said Iman Fannoush, with her two children in tow and a husband
she knows not where. "They are up all night shooting because of good news. We hear the UN is
coming to help us or our fighters have taken Brega or the air strikes have destroyed Gaddafi's
tanks. Then everyone is afraid again when they hear Gaddafi's army is coming and they all want
to know where is France, where are the air strikes, why is the west abandoning us?
We are grateful for the role played by the international community in protecting the Libyan
people; Libyans will never forget those who were our friends at this critical stage and will
endeavour to build closer relations with those states on the basis of our mutual respect and
common interests. However, the future of Libya is for the Libyans alone to decide. We cannot
compromise on sovereignty or allow others to interfere in our internal affairs, position themselves
as guardians of our revolution or impose leaders who do not represent a national consensus.
Hilsum gives a riveting account of the battle for Tripoli, with activists risking their lives
to pass intelligence to Nato, whose targeting – contrary to regime propaganda – was largely
accurate, and too cautious for many Libyans.
The UN security council authorised action to protect Libyan civilians from the Gaddafi regime
but Russia, China and other critics believe that the western alliance exceeded that mandate
and moved to implement regime change.
Libya's Arab spring was a bloody affair, ending with the killing of Gaddafi, one of the world's
most ruthless dictators. His death saw the rebel militias turn on each other in a mosaic of
turf wars. Full-scale civil war came last summer, when Islamist parties saw sharp defeats in
elections the United Nations had supervised, in the hope of bringing peace to the country.
Islamists and their allies rebelled against the elected parliament and formed the Libya Dawn
coalition, which seized Tripoli. The new government fled to the eastern city of Tobruk and
fighting has since raged across the country.
With thousands dead, towns smashed and 400,000 homeless, the big winner is Isis, which has
expanded fast amid the chaos. Egypt, already the chief backer of government forces, has now
joined a three-way war between government, Libya Dawn and Isis.
It is all a long way from the hopes of the original revolutionaries. With Africa's largest
oil reserves and just six million people to share the bounty, Libya in 2011 appeared set for
a bright future. "We thought we would be the new Dubai, we had everything," says a young activist
who, like the student, prefers not to give her name. "Now we are more realistic."
Perpetually engineered destabilization is highly lucrative and has been for 200 years, but I don't
know what's Central or Intelligent about it......except for a tiny handful at the top globally.
On balance, is Libya worse off now than it would have been, had Gaddaffi been allowed free
rein in Benghazi?
No-one can possibly know the answer to that, certainly not Mr Jenkins.
Clearly it was a dictatorship like say Burma is today.....but....from an economic point of
view, it was like the Switzerland of Africa. And actually tons of European companies had flocked
over there to set up shop. In contrast to now where its like the Iraquistan of Africa. No contest
in the comparison there...
Besides which, it's hard to buy the idea that Gaddafi was "rogue" or " a threat" when both
parties named here were "rendering" secret prisoners to him for outsourced torture.
There is no honour among thieves, clearly. But it would be folly to depict a squabble among
them as a narrative of sinner vs saint...
After the cold war, the US and had the chance to lead to a new world order based on democracy
and human rights. Yet instead, its politics based became based on bullying and warmongering, and
joined by their European allies. As a result we have a world entrenched in chaos and violence.
To top it off, there is also their allies, the Saudi and Gulf allies. Therefore, if you want
to know how bad the world has become as a result of the US, European and Gulf allies, their hypocrisy,
criminal behavior, destruction of countries, and total disregard of international law, all you
need to see is the war in Yemen.
Imperialism never left,.. The Capitalists are always working at complete control, it has no problem
dancing with Dictators and Authoritarian rulers when it suites its purpose. Its just now they
appear to be wanting to improve their image by changing their partners who stepped on their toes
and Israel's on occasion ..
Yes, I will claim it as a U.S. inspired regime change policy, in all those Middle East secular
and sovereign countries, by our own beloved War Mongering Nationalistic Neo Cons.. That is already
being shown as a complete disaster.. Only 2 million dead so far and just wait until the religious
fanatics are in complete control..
Yep, many pictures, as there always are with media confections. Remember the footage of Saddam's
statue being torn down in front of a huge crowd? It was only months later we saw the wide angle
shot that showed just how few people there really were there.
These US and UK involvement in the ME are matters of official record; are you really denying the
CIA trained the Mujahideen, or that both the UK and US propped up Saddam? Even Robert Fisk acknowledges
that! And please, don't patronise me. You have no idea what I've read or haven't.
......c'mon, the powers behind the powers intentionally engineer mid-East destabilization to keep
the perpetual war pumping billions to the ATM's in their living rooms; then, on top of it, they
send the bill to average joe's globally; when is this farce going to be called out ?
It is completely
illogical, can't stand even eye tests, yet continues like an emperor with new clothes in our face.
"keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies"
mmm. An incomplete reading I think. What about oil and gas? Libya is north African richest country
if I'm not mistaken ... Is Britain (and France) still trying to get its share there?
"Western [ mostly american and british ] warmongering over the past two decades has had
nothing to do with the existential defense of territory. "Defense" has become attack, keeping
alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering military establishments that depend on it."
"The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least
outside Africa, since the second world war."
The Sykes-Picot agreement was one of the secrets uncovered by the Russian Revolution: it was in
the files of the newly-overthrown government, and promptly publicized by the Bolsheviks, along
with lots of other documents relating to imperialist secret diplomacy. Sound familiar?
The interventionist model that the West has carried out recently is really an extension of the
old colonialism in a different guise. In the olden days, the excuse was to spread Western civilization
and Christianity to the world living in backwardness. In the modern era, it's democracy. Unfortunately
democracy cannot be installed by force. Even if the people of the country being invaded wanted
it, the opportunists (either among them or the outsiders) would find ways to exploit the chaos
for their own benefits. We have seen different forms of such evolution in Libya, Egypt, Syria,
Iraq.
Get your facts right. Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan were all states that crumbled after the
demise of the USSR.
Bullshit. The CIA funded and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, to fight the Russians,
just as they backed Saddam against Iran. And the US has been mucking about in the Middle East
since the 50s, the Brits since the late 19th century. Yours is a very selective reading of history.
No, small groups of people with their own particular interests "begged for help." The "Arab Spring"
was a Western media confection used to justify Western intervention to get rid of Gaddafi and
Assad. Worked with Gaddafi, Assad not so well.
this might answer your question. Syria has suffered for its geography since it was artificially
created by the Sykes Picot agreement at the end of the Ottoman Empire.
"Libyan rebels are secularists, want unified country
Gardels: If the French aim is successful and Qaddafi falls, who are the rebels the West is
allying with? Secularists? Islamists? And what do they want?
Levy: Secularists. They want a unified Libya whose capital will remain Tripoli and whose government
will be elected as a result of free and transparent elections. I am not saying that this will
happen from one day to the next, and starting on the first day. But I have seen these men enough,
I have spoken with them enough, to know that this is undeniably the dream, the goal, the principle
of legitimacy.
It's like the Soviet Union invading the US because a few militiamen holed up in a wildlife refuge
in Oregon. The neo-con press feeds us this propaganda and the willing idiots lap it up and deny
responsibility when everything falls apart.
Britain started the mess in the Middle-East with the Balfour declaration and the theft of Palestinian
land to create an illegal Jewish state. Europe should pay massive reparations of money and equivalent
land in Europe for the Palestinian refugees living in squalid camps. Neo-con Jews who lobbied
for the Iraq, Syria and Libyan wars should have their wealth confiscated to pay for the mess they
created. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/africa/02levy.html?_r=2
Jihad Dave is supporting islamist maniacs in Libya and Syria. He succeeded in Libya, along with
the ludicrous Sarkozy clown, but Russia and Iran have stood up to the plate in Syria.
Presumably he's going down the Blair/Clinton route of cosying up to Middle Eastern Supremacist
Cults in the hope that he can increase his income by tens of millions within the next 10 years.
There can be no other explanation for his actions, that have never had anything whatsoever to
do with the interests of either Britain or the wider European community.
For me, the bottom line is that, however much might like to believe it, military intervention
does not create nice, liberal, secular democracies. These can only be fostered from within.
However much we might sympathise with fellow human beings living under brutal dictators and
governments, a country can only really progress from within. Certainly, dialogue, sanctions and
international cooperation can help foster change, but ultimately countries must want to change.
The military, under the instruction of politicians, of the West should be pro-defence but anti-regime
change or "nation building".
I'm not suggesting a completely isolationist position, but offensive military action should
be seen as a last resort.
Mr Jenkins is a knowledgeable man but should've thought through this a bit more before so casually
associating death and destruction and misery with Africa.
China's cultural revolution and the Great Leap Forward alone killed and displaced more people
after the second world war than all the conflicts in Africa put together. How about the break
up of India in 1947? Korean War?
But no when he thought about misery Africa popped into his mind..
Meanwhile the bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen. They do so,
against all the odds, because they grow from one culture and one outlook on life. That mercifully
has nothing to do with politicians.
One culture?
One outlook?
Sounds all very Soviet.
So, all Enlightened souls are reduced to a monoculture, within the Anglo American Empire.
Obama is a bill of goods. The Voters that choose him thought that they were getting a progressive,
Obama used the reverend
Wright to make himself seem like a man committed to radical change, but behind Obama was Chicago
investment banker Louis Susman (appointed ambassador to Britain).
Obama, a Harvard law professor, is the choice of the bankers, he does not play a straight bat,
all the wars and killing are someone else's fault. Banking wanted rid of Gaddafi since he threatened
the dollar as the reserve currency (as did Dominique Strauss-Kahn) as does the Euro, Obama let
Cameron think he was calling the shots but he was just Obama's beard. Obama is nothing if not
cunning, when he says stay in Europe but the Elites of the Tory party are pushing for out guess
what, they got the nod from Obama and the Banks.
So? All the numbers in the world can't undo Jenkins' thesis: there is no imperialism-lite. Imperialist
wars are imperialist wars no matter how many die, and whether chaos, or neo-colonial rule follow.
In his interview, Obama claims a more deliberate, opaque, and efficient war machine. To him, and
his conscience, John Brennan, these metrics add up to significant moral milestones. To us innumerates,
it's just more imperialist b.s.
Gadaffy had since long planned to free his country and other African states from the yoke of being
forced to trade within the American dollar sphere. He was about to lance his thoroughy well prepared
alternative welcomed not the least by the Chinese when Libya was attacked. Obama is not truthful
when suggesting the attack was not a "core" interest to the US. It was of supreme interest for
the US to appear with its allies, Gadaffy´s independence of mind being no small challenge.
Gadafy may have been particularly nasty with dissidents, but the UK has plenty of allies in the
Muslim world that are far worse: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain... The Gulf States work their imported
slaves to death and the UK kowtows to them. The UK has supplied billions of pounds worth of weapons
to Saudi Arabia and sent military advisors to advise them how to use them to bomb Yemeni schools
and hospitals.
No, Gaddafy's crime was actually to spend the bulk of Libya's oil revenues on useless things
such as schools, hospitals, housing and subsidised food when that money could have been flowing
into the pockets of the West.
Kosovo is also mentioned. There was a relatively low-level conflict (much like the Northern
Ireland 'troubles') there until NATO started bombing and then oversaw the massive ethnic cleansing
of Kosovo Serbs from their homeland (Serbs are the most ethnically-cleansed group in the former
Yugoslavia: around 500,000 refugees).
Yugoslavia's real crime? It was the last country in Europe to refuse the market economy and
the hegemony of Western banks and corporates.
The message is, 'Accept capitalism red in tooth or claw, or we'll bomb the crap out of you.'
Did the attack on Afghanistan improve the situation? Perhaps temporarily in the cities, some things
got a little better as long as you weren't shot or blown up. Over the country as a whole, it made
the situation much worse.
I remember John Simpson crowing that the Western invaders had freed Afghanistan when they entered
Kabul. My reaction at the time was, 'Well, the Soviets had no problem holding the cities. Wait
until you step outside them.' There followed many years of war achieving pretty much nothing except
to kill a lot of people and get recruits flocking to the Taliban.
It seemed we had learned absolutely nothing from the British and Soviet experiences.
And you seem to have forgotten the multitude of US terror attacks on Muslims before the Afghan
invasion, repackaged for our media as 'targeted attacks with collateral damage'. Bombing aspirin
factories and such. And the First Gulf War. And US bases occupying the region. And the fact that
the situation in Afghanistan was due to the Americans and Saudis having showered weapons and cash
on anyone who was fighting the Soviets, not giving a damn about their aims. Bin Laden, for instance.
And one aspect of law and order under the Taliban was that they virtually stopped opium production.
After the invasion, it rose again to dizzying heights.
The only way to deal with countries such as Afghanistan as it returns to its default system,
along with other, more aggressive rogue states such as Saudi Arabia, is to starve them of all
weapons and then let their peoples sort it out. It may take a long time but it's the sole possibility.
As long as we keep pouring weapons into the Middle East for our own shameful purposes, the
apocalypse will continue.
Reading this excellent article one wonders how the war criminal Blair can be offered any peace-keeping
role in the world or continue to get any air or press time.
Taliban has been trained in the Saudi religious schools in Pakistan. Wahhabism is the official
ideology of Saudi Arabia. 10 out of 11 terrorists 9/11 were the Saudis. All the Islamic terror
in the last two decades was sponsored by the Saudis, including ISIS.
Bosnia - a slow ticking bomb. Just bubbling under the surface. Kosovo - a mafia state run by drug
lord Thaci, supported by the US. It is no secret that the main source of income in Kosovo today
is drugs, prostitution, organ trafficking. Tear gas in Parliament for the third time in as many
months. While the squares full of unemployed young and old are adorned with statues of those that
gave them this opportunity Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were popular but I think their halos are
tarnished somewhat. The situation is so serious that the US is beefing up its presence in camp Bondsteel but you won't read about it in the Guardian.
when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every excuse is trundle out, every
nuance examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there is always a convenient
statute of limitations
So true . "Oh, oh, but the Spanish/Mongols/Romans etc etc", "Oh, like they were all
so peaceful before Empire came along", "Oh, but but" (ad infinitum).
The bonds between America and Britain will continue to strengthen? Here's hoping. The neo-con cum
neo-ultra liberal dream keeps on giving. Even after Brexit, Britain remains America's poodle
at its peril. The rest of the article is right, but by now accepted wisdom amongst those capable
of independent and rational thought.
Here we go again, off course next phase is the "enlightment" in Al-Andalus...
1. Conflict between sunni and shiites has been dormant for decades. Saudi Arabias promotion
of Wahhabism has awoken it again, along with the catalyst for the recent bloodshed, the invasion
of Iraq. That placed it back in the hands of the majority Shia and upset radical sunnis (eg
the Saudis).
Wahabism grew because of the oil export from Saudi Arabia which started way before World war II.
Bollocks, there was a short period of calm while Europe defeated the Ottoman empire , but the
Mughal empire took great pleasure in slaughtering shiites, and the Ottoman empire had huge conflicts
with the Safavid empire.
2. Pogroms were common against Jews in Europe and Europe has a far worse history of treating
Jews than Muslims ever had. The "golden age of Judaism" in Europe was under Muslim rule in
Spain. Need I mention that the Holocaust was perpetrated by European Christians?
He-he, the fabulous golden age which is always mentioned, no doubt they were golden at that
time compared to Europe, but to compare it today, it would be like living in Nazi Germany as a
Jew before the Nürnberg laws were implemented.
Would you like to pay a special non-muslim tax, step aside when a Muslim passed the street,
be unable to claim any high positions in society to due to your heritage?
3. Didnt forget. the USSR didnt hand them chemical weapons though. That would be the West.
And it wasnt Russia who invaded Iraq later over the scam that they had WMDs.
The Iran-Iraq war made the millions of dead possible primarily due to Soviet equipment, Halabja
killed 5000.
No, Russia prefered Chechnya and directly killed 300.000 civilians with the Grad bombings of cities
and villages, whereas the casualties in Iraq primarily can be contributed to sectional violence.
4. I think you are forgetting Mossadeq in Iran in the 50s. Nasser in Egypt and any Pan-Arab
group that was secular in nature. Pan-Arabism is now dead and radical Islamism is alive and
well thanks to our lust for control over the region.
None of the mentioned were prime examples of democracy, Nasser for example had no problems in
eliminating the Muslim brotherhood or killing 10s of thousands of rebels and civilians in Yemen
with mustard gas.
Obama's remark that the Europeans and Gulf States "detested" Gaddafi and wanted to get rid of
him while others had "humanitarian concerns" is of interest. It's unlikely the Arabs had humanitarian
concerns in all the circumstances; they just wanted Regime Change. It is the lethal combination
of Gulf Arabs and Neo-colonial France and Britain that has driven the Syrian war too- and continues
to do so. No wonder America claims these countries enthuse about war until it comes and then expect
them to fight it. France currently demands the surrender of Assad and for Russia to "leave the
country immediately". Britain says there can be no peace while he remains and that Russia's "interference"
is helping IS.
It's your prerogative whether or not you believe that the US and NATO intervene in countries based
on moral grounds. But if you do want to delude yourself, remember that they only intervene in
countries where they can make money off resources, like Libya and Iraq's oil revenues. If it were
about morality, don't you think NATO and the West would have rushed to help Rwanda during the
genocide?
There are no winners or losers in Iraq, everyone lost. Not a single group benefited from that
western backed regime change, same in Libya and Syria. You do not win when your situation is worse
than it was before Saddam. You can't be a winner when you life in generally worse off than it
was before. basically there is no rule of law now in these nations. Saddam was no monster like
you want to portray him.
Actually, some of those Latin American governments we overthrew were indeed liberal democracies.
As for Canada, there are several reasons we haven't invaded. Too big, too sparse too white...and
economically already a client state. Of course, we did try once: the War of 1812.
"When the same leaders did initially stand aside (as in Syria) "
They didn't stand aside though, they helped create the trouble in the first place, as too with
Libya; gather intelligence to find out who will take up arms, fund, train and give them promises,
get them to organize and attack, then when the dictator strikes back the press swing into action
to tell us all how much of a horrible bastard he is(even though we've been supporting and trading
with him for eons), ergo, we have to bomb him! It's HUMANITARIAN! Not. It would be conquest though.
Frightening.
Obama has done everything in his power to morph into Bush including hiring a flaming chicken hawk
in Ash Carter to play the role of Dick Cheyney. Bush left us with Iraq and Afghanistan, to which
Obama added Egypt with the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood, Libya, Syria and Yemen. He also
restarted the Cold War with Russia. He is now going after China for building islands in the South
China Sea, a disputed area, something he as well as other Presidents before him has allowed Israel
to build settlements on disputed land for the past fifty years and throughthrough $ 3.5 billion
in gifts annually, has provided for enough concrete to cover all the land the Palestinians live
on.
The 3.5 billion annually will increase by $40 billion over ten years, unless Netanyahu gets
the increase he wants to 15 billion per year. So Obama must settle on a legacy which makes him
both a warmonger and one of the very best arms dealer in the world. His family must be so proud.
To be a humanitarian intervention, a military intervention has to avoid causing regime collapse,
because people will die because of regime collapse. This is an elementary point that the political
class appears not to want to learn.
I agree with your analysis except the last paragraph. Pretty much in all interventions that
we have witnessed, the political class deliberately caused the regimes to collapse. That was always
the primary goal. Humanitarian intervention were never the primary, secondary or even tertiary
objective.
If the political class want to do some humanitarian interventions, they can always start with
Boko Haram in Nigeria.
America had no "core interest" in Afghanistan or Iraq
The USA was enforcing the UN blockade of Iraq, and had massive forces in place to do it. It was
costing a fortune and there were regular border skirmishes taking place. It has been suggested
that Bush and his advisors thought that they could take out Saddam and then pull all their forces
back to the US. They won't admit it now because of the disaster that unfolded afterwards.
Another good piece. What about all the weapons we sold Israel after they started their recent
slaughter in Gaza and the selling of weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen (one of the poorest
country's in the world) says everything you need to know about the tory party. They are sub humans
and as such should be treated like dirt. I don't believe in the concept of evil...all a bit religious
for me but if I did, it's what they are.
It astonishes me that these great men and women-I include Sec'y Clinton here-give no indication
that their calculations were made without the slightest knowledge of the countries they were preparing
to attack in one way or another. From what one read in the long NYTimes report on preparations
for the Libyan intervention, the participants in the planning knew a great deal about military
matters and less about Libya than they could have found out in a few minutes with Wikipedia. Tribal
societies are different from western societies, dear people, and you damn well should have known
that.
Honduras. The USA backed the coup there. Honduras is now run by generals and is the world's murder
capital. I could go on, jezzam. Please read William Blum's books on US foreign policy. They provide
evidence that the US record is not good.
Without the US the UK and France couldn't have overthrown Gaddafi. The jihadis would have been
killed or fled Libya. I don't believe any post-Gaddafi plan existed. Why would there have been
one? Killing Gaddafi was the war's aim. A western puppet strong man leader grabbing power would
have been icing on the cake of course but why would the US care about Libya once Gaddafi was gone?
Well, Cameron just followed Obama's 'regime change' bad ideas.
Obama is a failed leader of the World who made our lives so much worse.
Obama likes to entertain recently, so after his presidency the best job for him is a clown in
a circus.
We will never know why Stevens and the others were killed.
Absent reliable information, everyone is free to blame whomever they dislike most.
Based on zero non-partisan information, Hillary is the media's top choice for Big Villain.
She may in fact be more responsible than most for this horror, but she may not be too.
Who ya gonna ask: the CIA, the Pentagon, Ted Cruz?
It seems everyone who's ever even visited Washington,D.C., has some anonymous inside
source that proves Hillary did it.
To hear the GOP tell it, she flew to Libya secretly and shot Stevens herself
just because she damn well felt it, o kay -- (female troubles)
My question is: Where has US/Euro invasion resulted in a better government for all those
Middle Eastern people we blasted to bits of blood and bone? How's Yemen doin' these days?
Hope Europe enjoys assimilating a few million people who share none of Europe's customs,
values or languages.
I'm sure euro-businesses would never hire the new immigrants instead of union-backed
locals.
Why, that would almost be taking advantage of a vast reservoir of ultra-cheap labor!
Nor will the sudden ocean of euro-a-day workers undercut unions or wages in the EU. No siree,
not possible.
Just like unions have not been decimated, and wages have not stagnated in the US since 1980
or so. No siree. Not in Europe .
jezzam writes, "the dictator starts massacring hundreds of thousands of his own civilians." But
he didn't. Cameron lied.
The rebellion against Gaddafi began in February 2011. The British, French and US governments intervened
on their usual pretext of protecting civilians. The UN said that 1,000-2,000 people had been killed
before the NATO powers attacked.
Eight months later, after the NATO attack, 30,000 people had been killed and 50,000 wounded (National
Transitional Council figures).
Cameron made the mess; Cameron caused the vast refugee crisis. The NATO powers are getting what
they want – the destruction of any states and societies that oppose their rule, control over Africa's
rich resources. Libya is now plagued by "relentless warfare where competing militias compete for
power while external accumulators of capital such as oil companies can extract resources under
the protection of private military contractors."
any state that wishes to be taken seriously as a player on the world stage
The classic phrase of imperialism - an attitude that seems to believe any nation has the right
to interfere in, or invade, other countries'.
Usually done under some pretence of moral superiority - it used to be to 'bring the pagans to
God', these days more 'they're not part of our belief system'. In fact, it only really happens
when the imperial nations see the economic interests of their ruling class come under threat.
The USA - and its mini-me, the UK - have so blatantly bombed societies, manipulated governments
and undermined social change in so many parts of the world that their trading positions are under
real threat from emerging economic powers.
The two that they are most scared of are Russia and China, who combined can offer the capital
and expertise to replace the old US / European axis across Africa, for instance. The war is already
being fought on many fronts, as
this article makes clear.
Yes, Obama shows himself for the buffoon he really is. Clinton had it right when the going gets
tough Obama gives a speech (see Cairo).
I, however, would caution against thinking the US led Neoliberal Empire of the Exceptionals
is weakening. Its economic hegemony is almost complete only China and Russia remaining, and Obama
with his "Pivot to Asia" (TM) has them surrounded and all set up for the female Chaney - Clinton
the warmonger to get on with it.
The Empire will only get more and more brutal - it has absolutely no concern for human life
or society - power over the globe as the Pentagon phrases it: "Global full spectrum domination"
don't kid yourself they are going all out to reach their goal and a billion people could be killed
- the Empire would say - so what, it was in our strategic interest.
The odd thing is, Obama didn't seem to think getting rid of Gaddafi a bad thing at all at the
time. Clinton was all, "We came, we saw, he died." And this bit about "no core interest" in Afghanistan
and Iraq is just bizarre. Given the mess both countries are in, and the resurgence of the
Taliban
and zero clue about Iraq it was clearly a master stroke for Obama to decide the US exit both with
no effective governments in place, ones that could deal with the Taliban et al. Never mind, he
can tootle off and play golf.
Very well put, Sir. Obama's self-serving statement is borderline stupid. I constantly wonder why
I voted for him twice.
His Deep State handlers continue from the Bush period and having installed their coterie of
right-wing extremists from Hillary to the Directors of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, ad nauseum Obama
has not had the courage at any point to admit not only the "mess" he makes, but the he is a captive
mess of the shadow government.
America has a historic crisis of leadership and being the sole model left in that field, the
world has followed, the UK and all of Europe included.
Libya is all Hilarys work so expect to return with boots on the ground once Wall Sts finest is
parked in the Oval office. She has the midas touch in reverse and Libya has turned (and will continue)
to turn out worse than Iraq and Syria (believe me its possible) There is absolutely no one on
the ground that the west can work with so the old chestnut of arming and training al qaeda or
'moderate' opposition is not an option. ISIL are solidifying a base there and other than drones
there is zip we can do.
Critising Cameron just shows how insecure Obama is, lets be honest the middle east and afghanistan
are in the state they are because Obama had zero interest in foreign policy when his first term
started, thus allowing the neocons to move into the vacuum and create the utter disaster that
is Syraq and Ukraine. We in europe are now dealing with the aftermath of this via the refugee
crisis which will top 2 million people this year. Obamas a failure and he knows it, hence the
criticism of other leaders. Cameron is no different, foreign policy being almost totally abandoned
to the US, there is no such thing as independent defence policy in the UK, everything is carried
out at the behest of the US. Don't kid yourself we have any autonomy, we don't and there are plenty
of high level armed forces personnel who feel the same way. Europe is leaderless in general and
with the economy flatlining they too have abandoned defence and foreign affairs to the pentagon.
Right now we're in the quiet before the storm, once HRC gets elected expect the situation to
deteriorate rapidly, our only hope is that someone has got the dirt to throw her out of the race.
ISIS established itself in Iraq before moving into Syria. Would ISIS exist is Britain had not
totally destabilized Iraq? Going back even further, it is the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot
agreement, that great exercise in British Imperialism that created the artificial nations in the
Middle East that are collapsing today.
Your comment is so stereotyped: when British aggression or war crimes are involved, every
excuse is trundle out, every nuance examined, every extenuating circumstance and of course there
is always a convenient statute of limitations. But when others are involved, specifically America
and Israel, the same Guardian readers allow no excuses or nuances and every tiny detail going
back hundreds of years is repeatedly and thoroughly examined.
Transparent hypocrisy. Accept responsibility and stop offloading it to Calais.
Ambassador Stevens was killed in a cover up over the arms dealing from Libya to Syria, (weapons
and fighters to ISIS). It seems more likely that he was killed because he was investigating the
covert operation given that he was left to fend for himself by all US military forces but in a
classic defamation strategy he has been accused of being behind the operation. Had he been he
would have been well defended.
"Defense" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering
military establishments that depend on it.
Couldn't put it better myself. Yes, America is a full blown Empire now. Evil to it's very core.
Bent on world domination and any cost. All we lack is a military dictatorship. Of course, with
the nation populated by brainwashed sheep, a "Dear Leader" is inevitable,
President Obama was correct in keeping US boots off the ground in Syria. An active US troop presence
would have resulted in an even greater level of confusion and destruction on all sides. However,
it was precisely the US' meddling in Libya that helped pave the way for its current dysfunctional,
failed state status, riven by sectarian conflicts and home to a very active Al Quaida presence.
US interference in Libya saw Gadaffi backstabbed by the US before literally being stabbed to death
although he had been given assurances that the US would respect his rule particularly as he had
sought to become part of the alliance against the likes of Al Quaida.
Obama was behind the disgraceful lie that the mob that attacked the US' Benghazi Embassy and murdered
Ambassador Smith y was 'inflamed' by an obscure video on youtube that attacked extremist elements
of the Islamic faith. Smith deserved better than this blatant lie and the grovelling, snivelling
faux apologies Obama and then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made to the Muslim world for something
that had nothing to do with 99.9 percent of non Muslims.
Smith was murdered by extremists that took over Libya precisely because the death of Gadaffi left
a dangerous power vacuum. The US aided and abetted certain groups, weapons found their way to
the worse groups and Smith, a brave man, was his own country's victim in one sense. Hilary Clinton
who should have known better publicly gloated over Gadaffi's death. Since his death the victimisation
of black Libyans and other black Africans has become common, Libya has been overrun by extremists,
and as we write is being used as a conduit for uncontrolled entry into Europe.
Disappointingly, President Obama forgets the Biblical saying about pointing out a speck in somebody's
eye while ignoring the plank in his own.
Mr President doesn't privately refer to the Libyan upheaval as the "shit show" for no good reason.
The chaos and anarchy that have ensued since, including the migrant crisis in Europe and the rise
of Islamic State, is directly attributable to the shoddy interventionist approach used by both
Britain and France.
Good article, with justified moral indignation. Only thing I would have changed, is "imperialism-lite"
to 'lesser and greater imperialism.
Would it not have been a great contribution towards peace and justice, had the US decided not
to invade Iraq and Libya, on account that other western countries were "free-riders" and would
not have pulled their weight?
So, what does the world needs now? More 'free-riding countries' to dissuade so-called responsible
countries - Britain, France, America, Italy - from conspiring to invade other countries, after
consulting in the equivalent of a 'diplomatic toilet and drawing up their war plans on the back
of the proverbial cigarette packet.'
For all Obama's niceties, it would now appear that he has been seething and mad as hell about
his perception of Britain and France 'abandoning' Libya and watching it perceptible
destabilizing
the region and the flames fanning farther afield.
The biggest unanswered and puzzling question, is that of how could Obama have expected or assumed
that Britain and France would have stayed behind and clean up the mess they and the Americans
have made of Libya? Why did the Americans resolved to play only the part of 'hired guns' to go
in and blitzed the Libyan Government and its armed forces, and neglected to learn the lesson of
planning what should follow after the destruction?
The argument that the Americans had assumed that France and Britain would clean up the euphemistic
mess has little or no credibility, since all three countries had been very clear about not wanting
American, British and French 'boots on the ground.'
Is the Americans now telling the world that they went into Libya without planning for the aftermath,
because it was 'an emergency to save lives' and they had to go in immediately?
Well, if so, that is now how nations behave responsibly, and it is now clear that more lives
have probably been lost and continue to be sacrificed, than those which might have been saved
as a result of the West invading and attacking Libya.
the Europeans expected America to pick up the tab for reconstruction
I don't think there would be many complaints from Halliburton or other American companies to
help with the reconstruction, if the place wasn't such a shit-storm right now.
"The result has been mass killing, destruction and migration on a scale not seen, at least outside
Africa, since the second world war."
Judging from the sentiments expressed in the overwhelming majority of comments posted on multiple
threads on this forum, the British people don't want to accept responsibility for "migration on
a scale not seen... since the second world war". The almost universal resistance to accepting
refugees and migrants that fled their homes due to unprovoked British aggression is disgusting
and pathetic. It highlights the hypocrisy of those who see themselves morally fit to judge almost
everyone else.
Mitchell says that we had a plan to stabilise Libya but that it could not be implement the plan
because there was no peace?#*^..... Der
We bombed in support of competing Jihadis groups, bandits and local war Lords then our well
laid plans for a Utopian peace were thwarted because of the unforeseen chaos created as the Militias
we gave close airsupport to fought over the spoils.
Well there you have it- its the fault of the Libyans.
Hilary Clinton recently blamed Sarkozy for Libya describing him as so "very excited" about the
need to start bombing that he persuaded her and she, Nuland and Power persuaded a reluctant Obama.
Three civilian females argued down the military opinion that it was unnecessary and likely to
cause more trouble than it was worth.
As this was clearly to support French interests the Americans
insisted the Europeans do it themselves if they were that keen. Old Anglo-French rivalry has never
been far from the surface in the ME and it seems Cameron jumped on the bandwagon in fear France
would take all the glory. Neither of them appear to have given any thought about reconstruction.
The blame is mostly Cameron's as Sorkozy was chucked out of office just months later. Did Cameron
have a plan at all? If so it was his biggest mistake and one we'll be paying for over the coming
years.
Without Putin's mischief making though, this would have been sorted out long ago.
Putin intervened in September 2015. What have the West been doing since 2011 to stop the conflict,
one wonders.
Russia vetoes any UN attempt to sort out the mess
Looking bad you'd realize that it at least prompted Obama to retract in 2013. Since then though
support to Saudi and proxies destabilizing Syria has only increased.
Russia is clearing the mess of the West, and they should be grateful. Obama might be from what
I read today from his "confessions".
Yes. I don't think that is a pro-imperialist stance. He's arguing that there is no middle ground;
getting rid of dictators you don't like is imperialism, and whether you follow through or not,
there are serious consequences, but to not follow through is an abnegation of moral responsibility
to the people you are at attemting to "free". It seems to me he is arguing against any foreign
intervention, hence his castigation of Obama and Cameron for the "ethical wasteland of their wars
of intervention."
Please do me a favour and study 20th century history a little more. The US overthrow countless
democracies in Latin America and the Middle East and installed fascist dictatorships.
Liberal Democracy haha come on now. They dont care about Democracy. They care about money.
They will install and support any dictatorship (look at Saudi Arabia for example) as long as they
do as they are told economically.
I love western values, dont get me wrong. It is the best place to live freely. However, if
you werent lucky enough to be born in the west and the west wants something your country has (eg.
oil).....you are in for a lot of bad times.
I just wish western leaders/governments actually followed the western values that we all love
and hold dear.
We should remember that we funded the terrorists in Libya and then sent weapons to ISIS from Libya
to Syria that is we again used Al Qaeda as a proxy force. We then again used the "threat" from
the proxy forces i,e. Al Qaeda to justify mass surveillance of the general population.
The solution as Corbyn pointed out is to stop funding the Terrorists.
By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar;
the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals
into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian
entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them,
were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the
CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer.
Peter Oborne investigates claims that Britain and the West embarked on an unspoken alliance
of convenience with militant jihadi groups in an attempt to bring down the Assad regime.
He hears how equipment supplied by the West to so called Syrian moderates has ended up in
the hands of jihadis, and that Western sponsored rebels have fought alongside Al Qaeda. But
what does this really tell us about the conflict in Syria?
This edition of The Report also examines the astonishing attempt to re brand Al Nusra, Al
Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, as an organisation with which we can do business.
What is good that this is finally coming out ,the denial by both Obama and a very left wing media
has failed to confront this issue in what is an incredibly low point for Obama and Hilary Clinton
and their naive ideas about the Arab Spring.
As it is equally so for David Cameron and William Hague. Sarkozy is different he was not naive
he knew exactly what he was doing thais was about saving french influence in North Africa,he was
thinking about Tunisa, Algeria which he was keen to drag others into -- He was the most savvy of
all those politicians at least he was not a fool,but France priorities are not the same as the
UK --
Obama's comments once again as usual do not really confront the real problems of Libya and
gloss over the key issues and ending up passing the buck, he can do no wrong ? It was not the
aftermath of Libya but the whole idea of changing the controlling demographics of the country
which he played a major part in destabilising through the UN AND Nato which was the problem --
It was thought the lessons of Iraq was all about not putting boots on the ground ,or getting
your feet dirty ,as this antagonises the locals and that a nice clinical arms length bombardment
creating havoc ,is the best way to go .
This was not the lesson of Iraq , which was actually not to destabilise the controlling demographics
of the country which will never recover if you do ..It is one thing to depose a leader or ask
a leader to step down but do not disturb 100 of years controlling demographics, sectarian or not
in these countries is not wise . To do so is a misstep or misjudgement --
Demographics are like sand dunes they have taken many years to evolve and rest uneasy, in the
highly religious and sectarian landscape but can be unsettled over night, grain by grain even
by a small shift in the evening night breeze , a small beetle can zig zag across and the whole
dune will crumble
Once again the US pushed the UK who vied with France at how high they could jump, using the
UN blank cheque as cover ,for melting down the country and has left UN credibilty in taters has
now no credibility and Nato is now not trusted .
They took disgracefully no less the UN 1973 Peace Resolution , point one, Cease fire and point
two No Fly Zone .They bent it , twisted it , contorted it into blatant out right support of the
eastern shiite sympathisers sectarian group, against the more secular Sunni Tripoli groups .
(Gaddafi was not one man Mr apologist Rifkind he was the tribal leaders of a quite a large
tribe !)
Which has been part of a historic rivalry going back hundreds of years . They killed more civilians
that Gaddafi ever had or could have done . They even attacked in a no fly zone government troops
retreating and fired on government planes on the ground in a non fly zone .
Then they refused to negotiate with the government or allow the Organisation of African states
to mediate who had agreed general elections .They went on bombing until there was no infrastructure
no institutions or sand dunes ,or beetles left --
It was done after Iraq and that is why it is so shameful and why Obama , Cameron, Sarkozy ,
the UN , Nato must face up to what they have done , and after the Chilcot enquiry there needs
to be a Cameron enquiry . Presumably it will have the backing of Obama --
What is worse is the knock on effect on this massive arm caches and fighters from Libya then
went on to Syria, reek havoc and destabilised the country . Because Russia and China could never
trust again the UN , the UN has been ineffective in Syria for that very reason .The deaths of
British tourist in next door Tunisia has to laid firmly at David Cameron's and the foreign office
door --
No wonder Libya is keeping Obama awake at night , no wonder he is indulging in damage limitation
, no wonder he is trying to re write history ? How can I get this out of my legacy . If only I
had not met Mr Cameron a yes man -- If only I had been told by some with an once of common sense
, not to touch this country with a barge pole ?
The poor Libyan people will agree with him --
The lesson for the UK is do want you think is right not what the US thinks as right , a lesson
that David Cameron has failed to learn , and has shown he is not a safe pari of hands and lacks
judgement --
1. Conflict between sunni and shiites has been dormant for decades. Saudi Arabias promotion of
Wahhabism has awoken it again, along with the catalyst for the recent bloodshed, the invasion
of Iraq. That placed it back in the hands of the majority Shia and upset radical sunnis (eg the
Saudis).
2. Pogroms were common against Jews in Europe and Europe has a far worse history of treating
Jews than Muslims ever had. The "golden age of Judaism" in Europe was under Muslim rule in Spain.
Need I mention that the Holocaust was perpetrated by European Christians?
3. Didnt forget. the USSR didn't hand them chemical weapons though. That would be the West.
And it wasn't Russia who invaded Iraq later over the scam that they had WMDs.
4. I think you are forgetting Mossadeq in Iran in the 50s. Nasser in Egypt and any Pan-Arab
group that was secular in nature. Pan-Arabism is now dead and radical Islamism is alive and well
thanks to our lust for control over the region.
Obama? Censored? You forgot Hillary. she even said the other day at the townhall before Miss/MI
to the effect 'if Assad had been taken out early like Gaddafi then Syria would only be as bad
as Libya'. laughable really. i presume you aren't criticising Hillary Clinton?
Kosovo is now basket case that we are paying for but it is small. Now we have also backed NeoCon
regime change in Ukraine which we are going to be paying for. Libya will soon have enough Jihadist
training camps to be a direct threat.
What we see is a Strategy of Chaos from the US NeoCons but what we have failed to notice is
that the NeoCons see us as the target, as the enemy.
Totally agree that there is no such thing as Imperialism Lite, just as there is no such thing
as Wahabi Lite or Zionism Lite. So I wonder why Hilary Benn thinks Britain has anything to feel
proud about our foreign policy. It seems to me Britain's Foreign Policy is a combination of incompetence,
jingoism and pure evil.
What is the point of employing the brightest brains in the land at the Foreign Office when we
get it wrong almost all the time ?
"Western warmongering over the past two decades has had nothing to do with the existential defence
of territory. "Defence" has become attack, keeping alive the military-industrial lobbies and lumbering
military establishments that depend on it."
Attacking Al qaeda in Afghanistan had nothing to do with defending territory?
Libyan 'rebels' were armed and trained by 'the West' in a first place. The plan was the same for
Syria but Russians stopped it with not allowing 'no fly zone' or to call it properly 'bomb them
into the stone age'.
You probably don't know how 'bloody' Gaddafi was to the Libyans.
* GDP per capita - $ 14,192.
* For each family member the state pays $ 1000 grants per year.
* Unemployment - $ 730.
* Salary Nurse - $ 1000.
* For every newborn is paid $ 7000.
* The bride and groom given away $ 64,000 to buy an apartment.
* At the opening of a one-time personal business financial assistance - $ 20,000.
* Large taxes and extortions are prohibited.
* Education and medicine are free.
* Education and training abroad - at the expense of the state.
* Store chain for large families with symbolic prices of basic foodstuffs.
* For the sale of products past their expiry date - large fines and detention.
* Part of pharmacies - with free dispensing.
* For counterfeiting - the death penalty.
* Rents - no.
* No Fees for electricity for households!
* Loans to buy a car and an apartment - interest free.
* Real estate services are prohibited.
* Buying a car up to 50% paid by the state, for militia fighters - 65%.
* Gasoline is cheaper than water. 1 liter - 0,14 $.
* If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary
of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
* Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River
project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country
The Gadaffi regime had upset the USA because Gadaffi was setting up an oil currency system based
on gold rather than US dollars. While this was not the sole reason the West turned against him
it was an important factor. The largest factor for the wars so far, and the planned war against
Iran was to cut out the growing Russian domination of the oil supply to Europe, China and India.
A decent article as we could expect from the author.
However personally I doubt there was no ulterior motive in the case of Lybia. Lybia was one
of the countries who tried the change the status quo on the oil market and it has huge reserves
too (as we know Europe is running out of oil, at least Great Britain is).
It is very likely that the European countries retreated because Libya started to look like
another Iraq.
When you are talking about "democratic forces of the revolution.." i imagine you being an enthusiastic
teenager girl who hardly knows anything about the world but goes somewhere far for a gap year
as a volunteer to make locals aware of something that will help them forever. It is instead of
demanding responsible policies and accountability from her own government.
Sorry!!!
What planet have you been living on. What do you read apart from lifestyle magazines full of shots
of celebrity boobs and bums.
The United states is the most interventionist country in history. Of its 237 years of existence
it has been at war or cold war for 222 of those years. NATO is behind ISIS and the wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Chechen, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine.
If the West stopped intervening there would be very few wars and if the West used its influence
for peace rather than control there would rarely be any was at all.
Well put. People forget the importance of oil in maintaining the standard of living in our western
democracies. Controlling it's supply trumps all other issues.
Jane they didn't "come apart" and Libya and Syria were the most stable and least under the thumb
of radicals. Syria had equality and education for women who could wear whatever they wanted.
Furthermore they did not fall apart they were attacked by the largest military forces in the world
excluding Russia. NATO sent in special operations forces to destabilise the government. They along
with Al Nusra and other violent Wahabi terrorists attacked police and army barracks, and when
Assads police and military hit back it was presented by the Western media and propagandists as
an attack on the people of Syria. Do you think any other country would allow terrorists to attack
police and other public institutions without retaliating and restoring order.
Many people who do not accept the Western medias false reporting at face value know that the wars
in Syria were about changing the leaders and redrawing national boundaries to isolate Iran and
sideline Russian influence. It was and is an illegal war and it was the barbarity of our Western
leaders that caused the terrible violence. It was a pre planned plan and strategy outlined in
the US Special Forces document below.
http://nsnbc.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf
If you get your facts right it ruins your argument doesn't it.
In the Libyan case, it was a clear US strategy to put in the forefront their English and French
valets, in a coup (euphemistically called "regime change") wanted by them.
The nobel peace winner got some nerves to put the blame on his accomplices for the chaos in Libya, while
the permanent objective of the US is to divide and conquer, sowing chaos wherever it occurs: Afghanistan,
Sudan, Iraq, Syria. Also Hillary is no stranger to the actions in Libya.
These Middle East countries should have been left alone by the West. Due to their nature, these
countries have strong divisions and battle for their beliefs and a strong man, a dictator is what
prevented them to fall into the chaos they are today. Without the Western meddling, arming and
financing various rebel groups, Isis would not exist today.
Neither is putting political opponents in acid baths and burning tyres, as Tony Blair's friends
in the central Asian Republics have been doing, neither is beheading gays, raped women and civil
rights protesters, as Cameron's Saudi friends have been enjoying, the latter whilst we sell them
shit loads of munitions to obliterate Yemeni villagers. I wonder how the Egyptian president is
getting on with all that tear gas and bullets we sold him? And are the Bahrani's, fresh from killing
their own people for daring to ask for civil rights, enjoying the cash we gave them for that new
Royal Navy base? Our foreign policy is complacent and inconsistent, we talk about morality but
the bottom line is that that doesn't come into it when BAE systems and G4S have contracts to win.
Don't get me wrong, Britain has played a positive role internationally in many different areas,
but there is always a neo-liberal arsehole waiting to pop up and ruin the lives of millions, a
turd with a school tie that just wont be flushed away.
Simon Jenkins, don't pretend you were against American punitive expeditions around the world to
overthrow third world dictators.
You worked from the same neo-con ideological script to defend the ultra-liberal, military industrial
economy; scare mongering in the pages of the Guardian, as far back as I can remember. You lot are as totally discredited as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and American
Nato toadies.
It is high time that Europe reviewed and evaluated its relationship with the United States, with
NATO, Russia and China. The world needs to be a peaceable place and there needs to be more legislation
imposed upon the Financial Markets to stop them being a place where economic destabilisation and
warfare can and do take place. The United States would not contemplate these reviews taking place
as they are integral to their continuing position in the world but also integral to the problems
we are all experiencing? It will take a brave Europe to do this but it is a step that has to be
taken if the world is to move forward! Britain should be a huge part of this, outside a weakend
EU this would benefit the United States from Britains lack of input, another reason we should
vote to stay and be positive to our European position. The most vulnerable herring is the one
that breaks out of the shoal?
Libya , Ukraine ,Syria have had the same recipe of de-stabilisation by the US and NATO. The so
called popular rebels were in fact CIA trained and financed. Jihadist in Libya and Syria and neo-Nazis
in Ukraine.
After completing regime change in Libya as planned ,the Jihadist, with their looted arms were transferred
to Syria and renamed ISIS.
ISIS is Washingtons Foreign Legion army, used as required for their Imperial ends.
Renamed as required on whichever territory they operate
Cameron has been given a free pass on Libya. It really is quite astonishing. The man has turned a functioning society into a jihadi infested failed state which is exporting
men and weapons across North Africa and down the Sahara and now serves as a new front line for
ISIS
Cameron's Libya policy from start to finish is a foreign policy catastrophe and in a just world
would have seen him thrown out of office on his ear
Attacking Libya and deposing Gaddafi was down to enforcing the R2P doctrine on the pretext of
"stopping another Rwanda". But it was a pretext. Islamist rebels attacked the armouries within
Libya and the Libyans had every right to try and put down the rebellion. Samantha Powers et al
were the war mongers.
Then there is this gem: "Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called for a United Nations
resolution allowing international forces to intervene in Libya.
There was no other choice, he told French radio. "We will not allow them to cut off the heads
of our children."
"We abandoned the Libyan people as prisoners to extremist militias," Mr Sisi told Europe 1
radio. He was referring to the aftermath of the 2011 war in which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
was toppled with the help of an international coalition.
That intervention was "an unfinished mission", he said."
The US, France and the UK own this ongoing mess but do not have the moral fortitude to clean
it up. As with the "Arab Spring", this will not end well.
The 2011 regime change shenanigans of the west against Libya is colonialism at its worst from
all the parties who instigated it. The aftermath, the resultant mayhem and chaos, was in itself
adding insult to injury. Gaddafi was no saint, but the militias, Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS now
running rampant in the country are infinitely worse. This is a war crime of the first magnitude
and no effort should be spared to address it
The west who propped up the Saudis, who's crazy wahhabi brand of Islam helped radicalise the Islamic
world with 100 billion dollars spent on promoting it.
The west who created israel and then has done nothing to stop israels ever growing land theft
and occupation over decades (not even a single sanction)...leading the Muslim world to hate us
more for our hypocrisy and double standards.
The west who has assassinated or organised coups against democratically elected secular leaders
who didn't give us their natural resources (eg iran) and installed brutal, clepto dictatorships
who also take part in plundering the resources leaving the general population poor, uneducated
and susceptible to indoctrination from Islamists.
The west who arms brutal dictators to wage proxy wars and then invades and bombs these same
dictators countries over claims they have WMDs (that we sold to them).
The west has been intervening in the middle east alot longer than post 9/11. We are very very
culpable for the disasters engulfing the region.
Libya was "not so at the core of US interests that it makes sense for us to unilaterally strike
against the Gaddafi regime"
Let's examine what Obama is saying here: when it is perceived to be at the core of US
interests, the USA reserves the right to attack any country, at any time.
The world inhabits a moral vacuum, and in that state, any country can justifiably choose to
do anything, against anyone, for any reason. And this guy got the Nobel Peace Prize.
In this despicable saga, Cameron's Libyan venture was a sideshow, though one that has destabilised
north Africa and may yet turn it into another Islamic State caliphate.
You forgot to mention Cameron was only following Sarkozy .
Don't forget the French role .
25 February 2011: Sarkozy said Gaddafi "must go."
28 February 2011: British Prime Minister David Cameron proposed the idea of a no-fly zone
11 March 2011: Cameron joined forces with Sarkozy after Sarkozy demanded immediate action
from international community for a no-fly zone against air attacks by Gaddafi.
14 March 2011: In Paris at the Élysée Palace, before the summit with the G8 Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Sarkozy, who is also the president of the G8, along with French Foreign Minister
Alain Juppé met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and pressed her to push for intervention
in Libya
.
19 March 2011: French[72] forces began the military intervention in Libya, later joined
by coalition forces
Well said in the headline. Imperialism-lite/heavy, colonialism, and neo-colonialism don't work,
should be a thing of the past. Intervening in the politics of another country is a mug's game.
Don't understand why Obama is blaming Cameron for it, perhaps playing to his domestic gallery.
Blair's love fest with the deluded Gaddafi family, followed by the volte-face of pushing for his
violent overthrow by the next government, were both severely misguided policies. Need to diplomatically
encourage change, in foreign policy, and the desired type of political movements to take hold.
Military interventions have the opposite effect, so does propping up dictators, religiously fanatical
regimes, proven time and time again.
So the choices are to do nothing, or invade and create a colony?
Pretty much. As Jenkins rightly says, if you want to launch an aggressive war you either do
it or you don't. If you do it then it is your responsibility to clear up the mess, however many
of your own lives are lost and however much it costs. Trashing a country and then buggering off
is not an option.
Of course, using force for defensive reasons is fine. That's why modern warmongering politicians
always call it "defence" when they drop bombs on innocent people in faraway countries. It is no
such thing.
There was no massacre, not even a hint of one. Total obfuscation to give Hillary Clinton a foreign
policy "success" so that she could use it as a springboard to the presidency. "Hillary Clinton
was so proud of her major role in instigating the war against Libya that she and her advisors
initially planned to use it as basis of a "Clinton doctrine", meaning a "smart power" regime change
strategy, as a presidential campaign slogan.
War creates chaos, and Hillary Clinton has been an eager advocate of every U.S. aggressive
war in the last quarter of a century. These wars have devastated whole countries and caused an
unmanageable refugee crisis. Chaos is all there is to show for Hillary's vaunted "foreign policy
experience".
"... And he reminds us that governments also have unprecedented potential to surveil their populations at a moment's notice, without anyone ever realizing what's happening. ..."
"There's a very real difference between allegiance to country–allegiance to people–than allegiance
to state, which is what nationalism today is really more about," says Edward Snowden. On February
20, the whistleblowing cybersecurity expert addressed a wide range of questions during an in-depth
interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie at Liberty Forum, a gathering of the Free State Project (FSP)
in Manchester, New Hampshire.
FSP seeks to move 20,000 people over the next five years to New Hampshire, where they will secure
"liberty in our lifetime" by affecting the political, economic, and cultural climate of the state.
Over 1,900 members have already migrated to the state and their impact is already being felt. Among
their achievements to date:
getting 15 of their brethren in the state House, challenging anti-ridehail laws, fighting in court
for outre religious liberty, winning legal battles over taping cops, being mocked by Colbert for
heroically paying off people's parking meters, hosting cool anything goes festivals for libertarians,
nullifying pot juries, and inducing occasional pants-wetting absurd paranoia in local statists.
Snowden's cautionary tale about the the dangers of state surveillance wasn't lost on his audience
of libertarians and anarchists who reside in the "Live Free or Die" state. He believes that technology
has given rise to unprecedented freedom for individuals around the world-but he says so from an undisclosed
location in authoritarian Russia.
And he reminds us that governments also have unprecedented potential to surveil their populations
at a moment's notice, without anyone ever realizing what's happening.
"They know more about us than they ever have in the history of the United States," Snowden
warns. "They're excusing themselves from accountability to us at the same time they're trying to
exert greater power over us."
In the midst of a fiercely contested presidential race, Snowden remains steadfast in his distrust
of partisan politics and declined to endorse any particular candidate or party, or even to label
his beliefs. "I do see sort of a clear distinction between people who have a larger faith in liberties
and rights than they do in states and institutions," he grants. "And this would be sort of the authoritarian/libertarian
axis in the traditional sense. And I do think it's clear that if you believe in the progressive liberal
tradition, which is that people should have greater capability to act freely, to make their own choices,
to enjoy a better and freer life over the progression of sort of human life, you're going to be pushing
away from that authoritarian axis at all times."
Snowden drews laughs when asked if he was eligible to vote via absentee ballot. "This is still
a topic of...active research," he deadpans.
But he stresses that the U.S. government can win back trust and confidence through rigorous accountability
to citizens and by living up to the ideals on which the country was founded. "We don't want Russia
or China or North Korea or Iran or France or Germany or Brazil or any other country in the world
to hold us up as an example for why we should be narrowing the boundaries of liberty around the world
instead of expanding them," says Snowden.
Runs about 50 minutes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 - Edward Snowden, welcome to New Hampshire. Meet the Free State Project.
0:53 - Apple vs. the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Why should strong encryption be legal?
5:02 - Is privacy dead? Should we just get over it?
10:48 - What would a legal and effective government surveillance program look like?
14:53 - Could we have stopped the slide into mass surveillance? Shouldn't we have seen it coming?
19:04 - How can government earn back the trust and confidence of the American people?
Produced by Todd Krainin and Nick Gillespie. Cameras by Meredith Bragg and Krainin.
Visit http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/02/22...
for full text, links, and downloadable versions. And subscribe to Reason TV to be notified when new
videos are released.
As an analytical thinker, communicator and recovering professional journalist, I can thoroughly
appreciate Ed Snowden's take on the benefits of using pseudonyms when releasing potentially incendiary
ideas to the greater population. Fairly sure we both know that no critical thinking goes unpunished
in America these days. Mission 1: Stay safe!
Michael O'Rourke
Being a former Army Ranger I find it difficult to understand how Americans support the
Right to bear Arms but not the Right of Free speech and Privacy of communication. all three
amendments have equal rights. While I don't agree with how Snowden leaked the 1984
Surveillance Corporations, I'm glad he did. Sua sponte, Uncle Mike
Robert Van Tuinen2
I am. the government intentionally hid this information and discredited and fire previous
whistleblowers. What he did was right and necessary.
Q Queuenstein
"We want a government that is...small...and legitimate". SPEAK FOR YOURSELF! GOVERNMENT IS
THE OPPOSITE OF LEGITIMATE. Government is a monopoly on violent coercive force, no matter how
small. "Representing the people" is impossible without perpetrating evil on a large
percentage. Demand 100% voluntary interaction now. No government=no rulers. We are not a
government of law when The Constitution is up for "interpretation". The government is the
biggest breach of contract and coersive force ever perpetrated on people. It's historical
existance does not argue for its continued existance. Think: zero coersion. Pessimistic? Me
too, but look at the social change enabled by digital communication. Look at the Free State
Project, Look at cryptography; We may at least find a piece of freedom in this world of
coersion and distrust. Things are bad but we are bound to hit bottom. Please applause.j/k.
robinbuster
amazing! This person's value system, sense of morality, loyalty to humanity and liberty is
admirable. The people are starving for politicians with that kind of ethos. I wish Ron Paul
run for president. I kinda like Bernie Sanders most out of the options offered in this
election.
Vlad Ratzen2
snowden said "im an engineer not a politican". when you listen to Ed Snowden, you must
recognize that he is in fact a great philosopher.
when i listen to his answers when he was asked about the apple case. the things he said are
exactly right without a single flaw in his descriptions. he described every single aspect and
he showed us by doing that, what the apple case is really all about.
he points out: it is important to make sure that a goverment does not allow backdors in
encryption, but we have also to accept the reality that we are simply unable to protect us
against the NSA surveillance apparatus. again snowden talks about NSAs (in my opinion) the
very dangerous ability to store all communication data in advance. by the way: Russ Tice said
more then once "they store everything indefinitely".
what Snowden said about the apple case destroys the sophisticated narrative the media has
created on purpose to suggest that surveillance can be avoided somehow. there is a nice
article on reason.com talking in detail about the Apple case, and how it was planned well in
advance.
if i had a single chance to ask mr snowden one question i would ask him "Mr Snowden, do you
believe what the goverment has told us about 9/11"? i am sure there was enough time for mr
snowden to listen to a guy named David Chandler, or to take a look at the movie "HYPOTHESIS"
for example.
it might be interesting to watch his reaction.
Fork Unsa1
If EVERY gubermant agency had ONE person with BALLS like Snowden and told the truth about
tyranny the American people (not to be confused with it's slimeball government) would be on
the good path to taking our Republic back. Those who perform unconstitutional tasks, or
enforce unconstitutional laws against their fellow Americans are TRAITORS and the modern day
equivalent to Hitlers SS.
dman john2
Edward Snowden is a gifted outlier, born with genius brain. How I wish to be born with such
mind.
Video... on 12.30 some assessment of Hilary email scandals. he think that she should face
criminal procecution for mishanding emails while being Secretery State...
UPDATE 9/05/2015: In a rare exclusive interview from Russia, Edward Snowden states he would come
back to the United States if he was guaranteed a fair trial. A fair trial is unlikely says ex-whistle-blower,
Daniel Ellsberg. He would not be allowed to confront his accusers. He would not be allowed to testify
in front of a jury. It would be like a closed military tribunal, and he would be locked up with no
detailed press coverage.
"... What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what the Democrats have done. ..."
"... The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view. ..."
"... Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers. ..."
"... The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces ..."
"... The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and less democratic. ..."
"... Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place ..."
What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what
the Democrats have done.
The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build
myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view.
Trump is impetuous and dangerous but he would be a lame duck president like Jimmy Carter; unable to muster Congressional support
to do much of anything.
Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster
support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers.
Since the Oligarchy supposedly control the media, the corporations, the money, the congress, the bureaucracy, the states, the
armed forces, etc, why on earth would one alleged Lefty in the White House be 'very dangerous' for them? Even assuming he really
wanted to be a real threat to them (as distinct from merely saying the things that get him votes), he simply wouldn't have the
power to do any more than a few minor things that marginally protect the interests of the 99.9% of us who are not so-called Oligarchs.
Did you watch the debate tonight? He brought up all the coups. He is a Social Democrat, so was Allende and Albeniz.
Cruz is a political whore, I am a simple Dem Socialist Bernie supporter.
Cruz is a phony Jesus freak (was Catholic), I am an Atheist, like all Dem Socialists.
Cruz is a Canadian, I am an American.
Cruz is a transgender, I am straight.
Cruz is a racist teabagger, who made fame by opposing even the most conservative Obama policies. I have Dr. King's portrait in
my office and a fierce enemy of social injustice.
Cruz is a demagogue, I simply pointed some historical facts (bloody Coups) and some of our historical atrocities around the globe.
Super delegates are almost completely with HRC, the WS call girl. Why...do you think it is so?
Again, Bernie is very dangerous for the ruling few that run this Oligarchy. He used the term Oligarchy again in this debate.
And he stated again that this is not a democracy.
Hillary and Bill are murderers, rapists, thieves, fraudsters and drug dealers. A long history of criminal violence. Google "Mena
Airport" and take it from there, you will be busy for days.
The elite don't care about you, they only care about their own access to your tax dollar.
Do not vote for Hillary, the world will be a better place when she and rapist Bill swing from the end of a rope
The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and
Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces
This is a cause worth fighting for. America is crumbling under our feet, yet the Uniparty continues to point us towards a downward
spiral. But, the People have awakened. They realize the game is rigged. Nothing illustrates this better than Big Media and the
DNC that marginalize Sanders and his message every chance it gets. Why? They obviously support the official Uniparty pick, Clinton.
America is fortunate that Sanders has stepped up to face the Clinton campaign machine. Sanders wants to do what is best for America.
Not the elite. But the People. Sanders has fought for civil rights and equality his entire political career. Name anyone else
who has done this over decades. We can use them on the good ship Reclaim America.
Join the political revolution of the People, for the People, by the People. Vote for Bernie. He is the only candidate running
who is for all of us, because he cares...
If nothing else, America, please stop voting for the same crowd, the Uniparty; they are literally sucking the life out of the
People and have been for decades (going back to Bill Clinton and beyond)...
The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this
was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and
less democratic.
Corporate media and Dem establishment campaign against Bernie's chances have completely backlashed. And the more he stays in the
race, the more likely he will get the max number of pledged delegates or nomination.
And the longer the race for nomination is, the more likely that the WS speeches, Sec of State emails, and bribes by foreign
sleazy regimes to the Foundation will be exposed before nomination.
Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms
of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place, wanted Bernie out by last night;...thanks to Michigan...we will see them all
in Philadelphia!
The WS(Ruben, Summers, Geithner,...)/Clinton/Obama wing of the party will be buried by Uncle Bernie when all this is said and
done, and with it the D-establishment media: msnbc athews, the executive Wolffe and te corporate-feminist Maddows!
The truth is that before Tuesday's elections, Clinton was ahead of Sanders by 673 to 477 pledged delegates, and her lead is now
745 to 540-by no means insurmountable, as a recent NBC-Washington Post poll shows (the numbers don't sum to 100% because 'Other'
and 'No opinion' replies were included): In December Clinton led Sanders 59% to 28%; in January 55% to 36%; in March 49% to 42%.
These figures show that Hillary's lead is slowly but steadily evaporating.
Anyone who believes that superdelegates can hand Clinton the nomination even if she loses the primary fight is betting the
Democratic Party is willing to commit suicide: Sanders supporters already loathe Hillary Clinton, and if she is carried to the
coronation throne on the backs of superdelegates, that loathing will multiply, and many of them will stay home or participate
in a write-in campaign for Bernie, enough to cause Hillary to lose the general election. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her friends
in the DNC will have achieved their goal: a woman will have been nominated, but at the price of making Donald Trump President,
and having to find another name for their party-"Democratic Party" would hardly be fitting after such a betrayal.
free trade is unfair trade it is like these subsidies on food where people pay tax and then farmers get money from govt to grow
what they are told. Then there is free trade deal such as with europe where the american subsidised food too compete with the
european subsidised food but there are differences in regulations so too compete fairly the europeans would have to reduce the
regulations in a race to the bottom with the Americans who are already suffering from obesity. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2015/12/ttip-disaster-left-brexit-would-be-worse
Here's my comment finally allowed to be published in the NYT today 3/8 after Michigan
Bernie is on the Bern across America --- and he hasn't even fired a 'shout heard round the world' yet.
When Bernie fires a non-violent 'shout heard round the world' to further ignite his & our "Political Revolution against Empire"
the Bern will burn through the rest of the primary states.
Understand that Bernie will increase both the enthusiasm and the education of Americans in evolutionary ways of understanding
the essential need for the "Political Revolution against Empire".
Initially, Bernie can point to the flaws and failures of a 'foreign policy' that does not serve the interests of Americans
nor peace in our world, any better than domestic economic tyranny at home, because our country is being pushed by the same corrupted
politics to "act like a global Empire abroad".
Even the most trusted elder anchorman and author of "Greatest Generation", Tom Brokaw, on "Meet the Press" shocked Chuck Toad
and other young pundits at the 'Round Table' when he explained, "When Trump and Cruz are talking about three year old orphans
and refugees [from Syria to Europe], what we're really talking about is three year old orphans and refugees, caused by
American policy".
Such truth telling by older and politically experienced people like Bernie, Tom, and the late Walter Cronkite is what has radically
changed, even Revolutionized the political landscape as it did half a century ago when such truthful shocks caused LBJ not to
run and admit, "If I've lost Cronkite, we've lost the war"
Looks like the corporate media attempts to keep Bernie Sanders coverage down, and making any attention they do give him negative
isn't totally working... what will they try next?
I just don't like the slaughter of half a million Syrians and Libyans and 10 million refugees facing devastation of their lives
just so the USA and NATO can control oil supplies out of the Middle East. Its not a good look Hillary.
I'm not all that happy about the splitting up of Syria just to isolate Iran and destroy the Russian economy while risking a nuclear
war.
illary needs to explain why we can't have world peace because the insecurity and armaments industry makes so much money for the
1%. In fact Hilary needs to prove she cares about the worlds ordinary people like the Palestinians living under the yoke of the
cruel oppresive Israeli Gogernment. And she would need to demonstrate her concern with policies to help the people living on the
streets of America before I would support her.
(RECENT!) Hillary Clinton's Email About Gay Parents Should Seriously Trouble Her LGBT Supporters
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/10/01/hillary_clinton_on_gay_rights_a_new_email_is_troubling.html
Looks like she hasn't really "evolved" on LGBT acceptance, but is simply taking on positions that she thinks is politically beneficial
to her, as usual. Much of her campaign platform (specifically her sudden focus on social and civil issues) is pretty much copied
over from Sander's after all.
Racism is still alive. Black lives DO matter, and the things BLM activists are doing may look excessive, but I find it necessary
if they are EVER to be heard by the government. Things are desperate now, and the Clintons has a hand in the current sad sate
of things for African Americans due to the policies that they have pushed. Bernie have repeatedly highlighted how Black people
in America is oppressed. Just look at the % of black vs white jobless rate, and % of black vs white people being jailed for weed
possession. Something needs to be done. "Enough is Enough" as Bernie says.
"... What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what the Democrats have done. ..."
"... The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view. ..."
"... Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers. ..."
"... The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces ..."
"... The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and less democratic. ..."
"... Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place ..."
What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what
the Democrats have done.
The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build
myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view.
Trump is impetuous and dangerous but he would be a lame duck president like Jimmy Carter; unable to muster Congressional support
to do much of anything.
Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster
support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers.
Since the Oligarchy supposedly control the media, the corporations, the money, the congress, the bureaucracy, the states, the
armed forces, etc, why on earth would one alleged Lefty in the White House be 'very dangerous' for them? Even assuming he really
wanted to be a real threat to them (as distinct from merely saying the things that get him votes), he simply wouldn't have the
power to do any more than a few minor things that marginally protect the interests of the 99.9% of us who are not so-called Oligarchs.
Did you watch the debate tonight? He brought up all the coups. He is a Social Democrat, so was Allende and Albeniz.
Cruz is a political whore, I am a simple Dem Socialist Bernie supporter.
Cruz is a phony Jesus freak (was Catholic), I am an Atheist, like all Dem Socialists.
Cruz is a Canadian, I am an American.
Cruz is a transgender, I am straight.
Cruz is a racist teabagger, who made fame by opposing even the most conservative Obama policies. I have Dr. King's portrait in
my office and a fierce enemy of social injustice.
Cruz is a demagogue, I simply pointed some historical facts (bloody Coups) and some of our historical atrocities around the globe.
Super delegates are almost completely with HRC, the WS call girl. Why...do you think it is so?
Again, Bernie is very dangerous for the ruling few that run this Oligarchy. He used the term Oligarchy again in this debate.
And he stated again that this is not a democracy.
Hillary and Bill are murderers, rapists, thieves, fraudsters and drug dealers. A long history of criminal violence. Google "Mena
Airport" and take it from there, you will be busy for days.
The elite don't care about you, they only care about their own access to your tax dollar.
Do not vote for Hillary, the world will be a better place when she and rapist Bill swing from the end of a rope
The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and
Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces
This is a cause worth fighting for. America is crumbling under our feet, yet the Uniparty continues to point us towards a downward
spiral. But, the People have awakened. They realize the game is rigged. Nothing illustrates this better than Big Media and the
DNC that marginalize Sanders and his message every chance it gets. Why? They obviously support the official Uniparty pick, Clinton.
America is fortunate that Sanders has stepped up to face the Clinton campaign machine. Sanders wants to do what is best for America.
Not the elite. But the People. Sanders has fought for civil rights and equality his entire political career. Name anyone else
who has done this over decades. We can use them on the good ship Reclaim America.
Join the political revolution of the People, for the People, by the People. Vote for Bernie. He is the only candidate running
who is for all of us, because he cares...
If nothing else, America, please stop voting for the same crowd, the Uniparty; they are literally sucking the life out of the
People and have been for decades (going back to Bill Clinton and beyond)...
The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this
was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and
less democratic.
Corporate media and Dem establishment campaign against Bernie's chances have completely backlashed. And the more he stays in the
race, the more likely he will get the max number of pledged delegates or nomination.
And the longer the race for nomination is, the more likely that the WS speeches, Sec of State emails, and bribes by foreign
sleazy regimes to the Foundation will be exposed before nomination.
Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms
of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place, wanted Bernie out by last night;...thanks to Michigan...we will see them all
in Philadelphia!
The WS(Ruben, Summers, Geithner,...)/Clinton/Obama wing of the party will be buried by Uncle Bernie when all this is said and
done, and with it the D-establishment media: msnbc athews, the executive Wolffe and te corporate-feminist Maddows!
The truth is that before Tuesday's elections, Clinton was ahead of Sanders by 673 to 477 pledged delegates, and her lead is now
745 to 540-by no means insurmountable, as a recent NBC-Washington Post poll shows (the numbers don't sum to 100% because 'Other'
and 'No opinion' replies were included): In December Clinton led Sanders 59% to 28%; in January 55% to 36%; in March 49% to 42%.
These figures show that Hillary's lead is slowly but steadily evaporating.
Anyone who believes that superdelegates can hand Clinton the nomination even if she loses the primary fight is betting the
Democratic Party is willing to commit suicide: Sanders supporters already loathe Hillary Clinton, and if she is carried to the
coronation throne on the backs of superdelegates, that loathing will multiply, and many of them will stay home or participate
in a write-in campaign for Bernie, enough to cause Hillary to lose the general election. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her friends
in the DNC will have achieved their goal: a woman will have been nominated, but at the price of making Donald Trump President,
and having to find another name for their party-"Democratic Party" would hardly be fitting after such a betrayal.
free trade is unfair trade it is like these subsidies on food where people pay tax and then farmers get money from govt to grow
what they are told. Then there is free trade deal such as with europe where the american subsidised food too compete with the
european subsidised food but there are differences in regulations so too compete fairly the europeans would have to reduce the
regulations in a race to the bottom with the Americans who are already suffering from obesity. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2015/12/ttip-disaster-left-brexit-would-be-worse
Here's my comment finally allowed to be published in the NYT today 3/8 after Michigan
Bernie is on the Bern across America --- and he hasn't even fired a 'shout heard round the world' yet.
When Bernie fires a non-violent 'shout heard round the world' to further ignite his & our "Political Revolution against Empire"
the Bern will burn through the rest of the primary states.
Understand that Bernie will increase both the enthusiasm and the education of Americans in evolutionary ways of understanding
the essential need for the "Political Revolution against Empire".
Initially, Bernie can point to the flaws and failures of a 'foreign policy' that does not serve the interests of Americans
nor peace in our world, any better than domestic economic tyranny at home, because our country is being pushed by the same corrupted
politics to "act like a global Empire abroad".
Even the most trusted elder anchorman and author of "Greatest Generation", Tom Brokaw, on "Meet the Press" shocked Chuck Toad
and other young pundits at the 'Round Table' when he explained, "When Trump and Cruz are talking about three year old orphans
and refugees [from Syria to Europe], what we're really talking about is three year old orphans and refugees, caused by
American policy".
Such truth telling by older and politically experienced people like Bernie, Tom, and the late Walter Cronkite is what has radically
changed, even Revolutionized the political landscape as it did half a century ago when such truthful shocks caused LBJ not to
run and admit, "If I've lost Cronkite, we've lost the war"
Looks like the corporate media attempts to keep Bernie Sanders coverage down, and making any attention they do give him negative
isn't totally working... what will they try next?
I just don't like the slaughter of half a million Syrians and Libyans and 10 million refugees facing devastation of their lives
just so the USA and NATO can control oil supplies out of the Middle East. Its not a good look Hillary.
I'm not all that happy about the splitting up of Syria just to isolate Iran and destroy the Russian economy while risking a nuclear
war.
illary needs to explain why we can't have world peace because the insecurity and armaments industry makes so much money for the
1%. In fact Hilary needs to prove she cares about the worlds ordinary people like the Palestinians living under the yoke of the
cruel oppresive Israeli Gogernment. And she would need to demonstrate her concern with policies to help the people living on the
streets of America before I would support her.
(RECENT!) Hillary Clinton's Email About Gay Parents Should Seriously Trouble Her LGBT Supporters
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/10/01/hillary_clinton_on_gay_rights_a_new_email_is_troubling.html
Looks like she hasn't really "evolved" on LGBT acceptance, but is simply taking on positions that she thinks is politically beneficial
to her, as usual. Much of her campaign platform (specifically her sudden focus on social and civil issues) is pretty much copied
over from Sander's after all.
Racism is still alive. Black lives DO matter, and the things BLM activists are doing may look excessive, but I find it necessary
if they are EVER to be heard by the government. Things are desperate now, and the Clintons has a hand in the current sad sate
of things for African Americans due to the policies that they have pushed. Bernie have repeatedly highlighted how Black people
in America is oppressed. Just look at the % of black vs white jobless rate, and % of black vs white people being jailed for weed
possession. Something needs to be done. "Enough is Enough" as Bernie says.
Chin up, boys. Like Lt. Lockhart said in Full Metal Jacket: "In other words, it's a huge shit sandwich,
and we're all gonna have to take a bite."
Life will not get any better, or at least
much
better, than it is already. And it's likely
to get a whole lot worse tomorrow. There is true freedom in realizing that. The strength in personality
is to
grok the horrors of
reality
without retreating to
the comfort of fantasy stories
. Most aren't up to the task.
"The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and
annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive."
-
Ernest Becker
The Denial of Death
"A Civilization is a dominant community that imposes its beliefs upon all other communities
by violence, which must involve the use of genocide; so any community that recoils from inflicting
genocide will suffer genocide."
The best essay I've ever seen on the philosophical question
of good/evil comes from an anarchist...and you know what I think
of anarchist. (Im still willing to learn from my lessors.)
Are humans essentially good, or essentially evil? This
is one of the most basic, perennial questions in philosophy.
Many identify our individual answers to this question as determing
our political spectrum - conservatives believe humans are inherently
evil, and require strict rules to make them good, while liberals
believe humans are inherently good, and must simply be free to
act on such goodness. Both positions are unrealistic. Humans
are products of evolution, and evolution is unconcerned with
such abstractions as "good" or "evil." As Aristotle said, humans
are social animals. We are neither "good" nor "evil." We are
only inherently social.
"Think about it. We all start out the same way... a single sperm
among 50 million other sperm, all desperate to get to one egg. To win.
You, me, everyone else on the planet ever in history, we all won that
100-meter in-utero, winner-take-all race to mama's enchanted, life-giving
egg. First prize? Life? Second prize? Death. Right. Now, you think
we weren't throwing a few elbows? You think you weren't knocking a
few other sperm over, stabbing 'em in the back just to get ahead, just
to win? Thom, you don't win that kind of race without being an asshole.
I mean, a huge asshole. Your problem is you think that assholes are
some sort of anomaly, some sort of aberration. Nature is an asshole
factory, my friend.
If you exist, you're an asshole.
You think, therefore you are, but you are, therefore you're
an asshole."
-
Nature is an asshole making factory
Happyish
Showtime, 2015
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGjTHtPn_No
merica is the
destabilizing force
, ongoing, as
soon as order and boundries get established like wolves do, we will
re-arrive on command from a secret message from our higher powers and
stir the hornets nests. then we can claim democracy is in progress
once again. now do you understand?
I am almost certain that at least some on the ground are more than
aware of who orchestrated this nightmare (hell some probably get patched
up in Israeli hospitals)...but I bet they are more concerned with the
bastards shooting at them right now. However, it is certain that whatever
the result of this mess, Israel has not made many new friends in the region...but
once you realise that the whole purpose of Israel is to remain a weeping
sore in the most resource rich region on earth everything starts to make
sense.
Israel is
supposed
to be a nightmare apartheid
weapons testing ground murdering kids everyday. That way the Rothschild
central bank owners in the three city states that comprise the City of
London, Washington DC and the Vatican can extract resources from the surrounding
countries for pennies on the dollar!!! The plan works perfectly when you
think like a diabolical psychopath. If anything the poor Jewish people
comprise a useful scapegoat that can at anytime be ditched and blamed
once the resources in the region become depleted or the global economy
moves beyond petroleum products. Israel is a vital lynchpin of the petrodollar
like Saudi Arabia. I am actually quite sure that once supporting it is
no longer profitable to the "west" it will be cut adrift. In fact, I believe
that barring any Zionist plots, this process has already begun with the
Iran deal. If oil becomes redundant or abundant in the next few centuries
I actually expect the Israelis themselves will push for a peace deal before
they get pushed into the sea. Any thoughts?
In fact, I would go so far as to say that Israel is a classic
British colonial project. We British are renowned for transplanting
foreigners into other peoples lands and hoovering up the resources
that fall out of the inevitable bust up!! Just look at the Sri
Lankan mess we made by importing Indians of a different religion to
work the tea plantations...It caused a bloody nightmare for over a
century whilst we extracted Ceylon's finest...It is kind of
depressing when you think about how well it worked. Thankfully the
Sri Lankans kicked us out once the jig was up but the damage it
caused continued for decades after we left. Disgraceful really.
Geepers, whose propoganda book did you pull this mess from? And
as far as he US backing away from Israel, you're right on that
one. But...its because of that Dangling Dingbat with a Loose
Wingnut we got in DC and his slightly confused and murdering self
destructing administration that's doing it. Not the "We the
people" or is that "we the folk"
"... Brazil is corrupt to the core - from the comprador elites down to a great deal of the crass "new" elites, which include the PT. The greed and incompetence displayed by an array of PT stalwarts is appalling - a reflection of the lack of quality cadres. Corruption and traffic of influence involving Petrobras, construction companies and politicians is undeniable, even if it pales compared to Goldman Sachs shenanigans or Big Oil and/or Koch Brothers/Sheldon Adelson-style buying/bribing of US politicians. ..."
"... The Central Bank still keeps its benchmark interest rate at a whopping 14.25%. A disastrous Rousseff neoliberal "fiscal adjustment" actually increased the economic crisis. Today Rousseff "governs" - that's a figure of speech - for the banking cartel and the rentiers of Brazilian public debt. Over $120 billion of the government's budget evaporates to pay interest on the public debt. ..."
"... It's no coincidence that three major BRICS nations are simultaneously under attack - on myriad levels: Russia, China and Brazil. The concerted strategy by the Masters of the Universe who dictate the rules in the Wall Street/Beltway axis is to undermine by all means the BRICS's collective effort to produce a viable alternative to the global economic/financial system, which for the moment is subjected to casino capitalism. It's unlikely Lula, by himself, will be able to stop them. ..."
"... These oligarchs,.. GOOD. Those oligarchs.... BAD. ..."
"... The Oligarchs of the BRICS have been duped and co-opted by TPTB in the US. Their foot-dragging and lack or decisive and timely action means that their Window Of Opportunity is probably gone. The various Trans-Oceanic Trade Deals that the US has cooking is front-running their indecisiveness and lack of action. ..."
"... They are 'toast', because these Trade Deals have the USD baked into them, and the combined GDPs of each Pact is far bigger than that of the BRICS. ..."
Imagine one of the most admired global political leaders in modern
history taken from his apartment at 6 am by armed Brazilian Federal Police
agents and forced into an unmarked car to the Sao Paulo airport to be interrogated
for almost four hours in connection with a billion dollar corruption scandal
involving the giant state oil company Petrobras.
This is the stuff Hollywood is made of. And that was exactly
the logic behind the elaborate production.
The public prosecutors of the two-year-old Car Wash investigation maintain there
are "
elements of proof " implicating Lula in receiving funds - at least 1.1 million
euros - from the dodgy kickback scheme involving major Brazilian construction
companies connected to Petrobras. Lula might - and the operative word is "might"
- have personally profited from it mostly in the form of a ranch (which he does
not own), a relatively modest seaside apartment, speaking fees in the global
lecture circuit, and donations to his charity.
Lula is the ultimate political animal - on a Bill Clinton level. He had already
telegraphed he was waiting for such a gambit, as the Car Wash machine had already
arrested dozens of people suspected of embezzling contracts between their companies
and Petrobras - to the tune of over $2 billion - to pay for politicians of the
Workers' Party (PT), of which Lula was leader.
Lula's name surfaced via the proverbial rascal turned informer, eager to
strike a plea bargain. The working hypothesis - there is no smoking gun - is
that Lula, when he led Brazil between 2003 and 2010, personally benefited from
the corruption scheme with Petrobras at the center, obtaining favors for himself,
the PT and the government. Meanwhile, inefficient President Dilma Rousseff is
herself under attack engineered via a plea bargain by the former government
leader in the Senate.
Lula was questioned in connection to money laundering, corruption and suspected
dissimulation of assets. The Hollywood blitz was cleared by federal judge Sergio
Moro - who always insists he's been inspired by the Italian judge Antonio di
Pietro and the notorious 1990s
Mani Pulite
("Clean Hands") investigation.
And here, inevitably, the plot thickens.
Round up the usual media suspects
Moro and the Car Wash prosecutors justified the Hollywood blitz insisting
Lula refused to be interrogated. Lula and the PT vehemently insist otherwise.
And yet Car Wash investigators had consistently leaked to mainstream media
words to the effect, "We can't just bite Lula. When we get to him, we will swallow
him." This would imply, at a minimum, a politicization of justice, the Federal
Police and the Public Ministry. And would also imply that the Hollywood blitz
may have been supported by a smoking gun. As perception is reality in the frenetic
non-stop news cycle, the "news" - instantly global - was that Lula was arrested
because he's corrupt.
Yet it gets curioser and curioser when we learn that judge Moro wrote an
article in an obscure magazine way back in 2004 (in Portuguese only, titled
Considerations about Mani Pulite , CEJ magazine, issue number 26, July/September
2004), where he clearly extols "authoritarian subversion of juridical order
to reach specific targets " and using the media to intoxicate the political
atmosphere.
All of this serving a very specific agenda, of course. In Italy, right-wingers
saw the whole Mani Pulite saga as a nasty judicial over-reach; the left, on
the other hand, was ecstatic. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) emerged with
clean hands. In Brazil, the target is the left - while the right, at least for
the moment, seems to be composed of hymn-singing angels.
The pampered, cocaine-snorting loser candidate of the 2014 Brazilian presidential
election, Aecio Neves, for instance, was singled out for corruption by three
different accusers - and it all went nowhere, without further investigation.
Same with another dodgy scheme involving former president Fernando Henrique
Cardoso - the notoriously vainglorious former developmentalist turned neoliberal
enforcer.
What Car Wash has already forcefully imprinted across Brazil is the
perception that corruption only pays when the accused is a progressive nationalist.
As for Washington consensus vassals, they are always
angels - mercifully immune from prosecution.
That's happening because Moro and his team are masterfully playing to the
hilt Moro's self-described use of the media to intoxicate the political atmosphere
- with public opinion serially manipulated even before someone is formally charged
with any crime. And yet Moro and his prosecutors' sources are largely farcical,
artful dodgers cum serial liars. Why trust their word? Because there are no
smoking guns, something even Moro admits.
And that leads us towards the nasty scenario of a made in Brazil media-judicial-police
complex possibly hijacking one of the healthiest democracies in the world. And
that is supported by a stark fact: the right-wing Brazilian opposition's entire
"project" boils down to ruining the economy of the 7 th largest global
economic power to justify the destruction of Lula as a presidential candidate
in 2018.
Elite Plundering Rules
None of the above can be understood by a global audience without some acquaintance
with classic Braziliana. Local legend rules that Brazil is not for beginners.
Indeed; this is an astonishingly complex society - which essentially descended
from a Garden of Eden (before the Portuguese "discovered" it in 1500) to slavery
(which still permeates all social relations) to a crucial event in 1808: the
arrival of
Dom John VI of Portugal (and Emperor of Brazil for life), fleeing Napoleon's
invasion, and carrying with him 20,000 people who masterminded the "modern"
Brazilian state. "Modern" is an euphemism; history shows the descendants of
these 20,000 actually have been raping the country blind for the past 208 years.
And few have ever been held accountable.
Traditional Brazilian elites compose one of the most noxious arrogant-ignorant-prejudiced
mixes on the planet. "Justice" - and police enforcement - are only used as a
weapon when the polls do not favor their agenda.
Brazilian mainstream media owners are an intrinsic part of these elites.
Much like the US concentration model, only four families control the media landscape,
foremost among them the Marinho family's Globo media empire. I have experienced,
from the inside, in detail, how they operate.
Brazil is corrupt to the core - from the comprador elites down to a great
deal of the crass "new" elites, which include the PT. The greed and incompetence
displayed by an array of PT stalwarts is appalling - a reflection of the lack
of quality cadres. Corruption and traffic of influence involving Petrobras,
construction companies and politicians is undeniable, even if it pales compared
to Goldman Sachs shenanigans or Big Oil and/or Koch Brothers/Sheldon Adelson-style
buying/bribing of US politicians.
If this was a no-holds-barred
crusade against corruption - which the Car Wash prosecutors insist it is
- the right-wing opposition/vassals of the old elites should have been equally
exposed in mainstream media. But then the elite-controlled media would simply
ignore the prosecutors. And there would be nothing remotely on the scale of
the Hollywood blitz, with Lula - pictured as a lowly delinquent - humiliated
in front of the whole planet.
Car Wash prosecutors are right; perception is reality. But what if it backfires?
No consumption, no investment, no credit
Brazil couldn't be in a gloomier situation. GDP was down 3.8% last year;
probably will be down 3.5% this year. The industrial sector was down 6.2% last
year, and the mining sector down 6.6% in the last quarter. The nation is on
the way to its worst recession since…1901.
There was no Plan B by the - incompetent - Rousseff administration for the
Chinese slowdown in buying Brazil's mineral/agricultural wealth and the overall
global slump in commodity prices.
The Central Bank still keeps its benchmark interest rate at a whopping
14.25%. A disastrous Rousseff neoliberal "fiscal adjustment" actually increased
the economic crisis. Today Rousseff "governs" - that's a figure of speech -
for the banking cartel and the rentiers of Brazilian public debt. Over $120
billion of the government's budget evaporates to pay interest on the public
debt.
Inflation is up - now in double-digit territory. Unemployment is at 7.6%
- still not bad as many a player across the EU - but rising.
The usual suspects of course are gloating, spinning non-stop how Brazil has
become "toxic" for global investors.
Yes, it's bleak. There's no consumption. No investment. No credit. The only
way out would be to unlock the political crisis. Maggots in the opposition racket
though have a one-track obsession; the impeachment of President Rousseff. Shades
of good ol' regime change; for these Wall Street/Empire of Chaos vassals, an
economic crisis, fueled by a political crisis, must by all means bring down
the elected government of a key BRICS player.
And then, suddenly, out of left field, surges…Lula. The move against him
by the Car Wash investigation may yet backfire - badly. He's already on campaign
mode for 2018 - although he's not an official candidate, yet. Never underestimate
a political animal of his stature.
Brazil is not on the ropes. If reelected, and assuming he could purge the
PT from a legion of crooks, Lula could push for a new dynamic. Before the crisis,
Brazilian capital was going global - via Petrobras, Embraer, the BNDES (the
bank model that inspired the BRICS bank), the construction companies. At the
same time, there might be benefits in breaking, at least partially, this oligarchic
cartel that control all infrastructure construction in Brazil; think of Chinese
companies building the high-speed rail, dams and ports the country badly lacks.
Judge Moro himself has theorized that corruption festers because the Brazilian
economy is too closed to the outside world, as India's was until recently. But
there's a stark difference between opening up some sectors of the Brazilian
economy and let foreign interests tied to the comprador elites plunder the nation's
wealth.
So once again, we must go back to the recurrent theme in all major global
conflicts.
It's the oil, stupid
For the Empire of Chaos, Brazil has been a major headache since Lula was
first elected, in 2002 (for an appraisal of complex US-Brazil relations, check
the indispensable work of Moniz Bandeira).
A top priority of the Empire of Chaos is to prevent the emergence of regional
powers fueled by abundant natural resources, from oil to strategic minerals.
Brazil amply fits the bill. Washington of course feels entitled to "defend"
these resources. Thus the need to quash not only regional integration associations
such as Mercosur and Unasur but most of all the global reach of the BRICS.
Petrobras used to be a very efficient state company that then doubled as
the single operator of the largest oil reserves discovered in the 21 st
century so far; the pre-salt deposits. Before it became the target of
a massive speculative, judicial and media attack, Petrobras used to account
for 10% of investment and 18% of Brazilian GDP.
Petrobras found the pre-salt deposits based on its own research
and technological innovation applied to exploring oil in deep waters - with
no foreign input whatsoever. The beauty is there's no risk; if you drill in
this pre-salt layer, you're bound to find oil. No company on the planet would
hand this over to the competition.
And yet a notorious right-wing opposition maggot promised Chevron in 2014
to hand over the exploitation of pre-salt mostly to Big Oil. The right-wing
opposition is busy altering the juridical regime of pre-salt; it's already been
approved in the Senate. And Rousseff is meekly going for it. Couple it to the
fact that Rousseff's government did absolutely nothing to buy back Petrobras
stock - whose vertiginous fall was deftly engineered by the usual suspects.
The meticulous dismantling of Petrobras, Big Oil eventually profiting from
the pre-salt deposits, keeping in check Brazil's global power projection, all
this plays beautifully to the interests of the Empire of Chaos. Geopolitically,
this goes way beyond the Hollywood blitz and the Car Wash investigation.
It's no coincidence that three major BRICS nations are simultaneously
under attack - on myriad levels: Russia, China and Brazil. The concerted strategy
by the Masters of the Universe who dictate the rules in the Wall Street/Beltway
axis is to undermine by all means the BRICS's collective effort to produce a
viable alternative to the global economic/financial system, which for the moment
is subjected to casino capitalism. It's unlikely Lula, by himself, will be able
to stop them.
The Oligarchs of the BRICS have been duped and co-opted by TPTB in
the US. Their foot-dragging and lack or decisive and timely action means
that their Window Of Opportunity is probably gone. The various Trans-Oceanic
Trade Deals that the US has cooking is front-running their indecisiveness
and lack of action.
They are 'toast', because these Trade Deals have the USD baked into
them, and the combined GDPs of each Pact is far bigger than that of the
BRICS.
Math + Action beats Hope + Hype every time, kiddies. (Those of you who
can't handle the Truth or the Cognitive Dissonance, had best go to their
"Safe Space".)
Using a decent VPN for everything is rapidly becoming a must. It probably won't protect
you from the NSA, but it will do the job of protecting you from your own ISP.
That you have to protect yourself from your ISP is becoming just one more part of the
sad reality that is the modern United States.
I would say Tor is about as good except that Google, Akami, and Cloudflare sites (cough
NC cough) regularly block Tor exit nodes. Still, you get a little more hardening using Tor
browser than other browsers (using defaults).
Umm… I am not sure if you confusing VPN with something else, but yes. Its trivially easy
to use VPN with almost any smartphone.
As for Tor: i agree that State sponsor surveillance is still a risk, but as noted above,
the topic was ISPs (and i mentioned websites). When you use a phone, your carrier acts as
the ISP.
The header with your unique identifier can be scrubbed out when your using a VPN. Verizon
only sees that you "went" to the VPN address…all sites you visit see you as coming from the
VPN address. Neither the two shall meet without further snooping (which is not covered by the
injection Verizon does…that we know of).
Damn, I knew I should have gone through the process to remove the drm from my e books. I might
have to look into doing that immediately. But first I should check how my couple of nook newstand
subscriptions will be handled.
Whew, I have time. That is in the UK. Still a good warning shot over the bow…
"… But U.S. critics say that could allow foreign companies to use the agreement to invalidate
U.S. safety rules and regulations."
One thing no one much mentions is that the TPP allows
foreign
corporations the
ability to sue to invalidate regulations, but does not all local corporations the same. In
this, TPP privileges foreign over local production, and ensures a race to the bottom on product
place of origin.
"A Party may exclude from patentability inventions, the prevention within their
territory of the commercial exploitation of which is necessary to protect ordre public
or morality, including to protect human, animal or plant life or health or to avoid
serious prejudice to nature or the environment, provided that such exclusion is not
made merely because the exploitation is prohibited by its law."
I thought I saw the word morality some place else in the TPP, but apparently, the IP chapter
was the only place. Bad research on my part! In any case, beware the ratchet clauses and the
enemies within, lest your health system become just "Canadian™" enough for the world market.
"... What does "rebuild the military" mean? Has the budget been gutted? Have the useless weapons programs like the F-35 finally been shut down? No, the United States still spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined. And the official military budget is only part of the story. The total spending on the US empire is well over one trillion dollars per year. Under the Obama Administration the military budget is still 41 percent more than it was in 2001, and seven percent higher than at the peak of the Cold War. ..."
"... Russia, which the neocons claim is the greatest threat to the United States, spends about one-tenth what we do on its military. China, the other "greatest threat," has a military budget less than 25 percent of ours. ..."
"... I would rebuild it in a very different way, however. I would not rebuild it according to the demands of the military-industrial complex, which cares far more about getting rich than about protecting our country. I would not rebuild the military so that it can overthrow more foreign governments who refuse to do the bidding of Washington's neocons. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better protect our wealthy allies in Europe, NATO, Japan, and South Korea. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better occupy countries overseas and help create conditions for blowback here at home. ..."
"... No. The best way to really "rebuild" the US military would be to stop abusing the military in the first place. The purpose of the US military is to defend the United States. It is not to make the world safe for oil pipelines, or corrupt Gulf monarchies, or NATO, or Israel. Unlike the neocons who are so eager to send our troops to war, I have actually served in the US military. I understand that to keep our military strong we must constrain our foreign policy. We must adopt a policy of non-intervention and a strong defense of this country. The neocons will weaken our country and our military by promoting more war. We need to "rebuild" the military by restoring as its mission the defense of the United States, not of Washington's overseas empire. ..."
The Republican presidential debates have become so heated and filled with insults, it almost seems
we are watching a pro wrestling match. There is no civility, and I wonder whether the candidates
are about to come to blows. But despite what appears to be total disagreement among them, there is
one area where they all agree. They all promise that if elected they will "rebuild the military."
What does "rebuild the military" mean? Has the budget been gutted? Have the useless weapons programs
like the F-35 finally been shut down? No, the United States still spends more on its military than
the next 14 countries combined. And the official military budget is only part of the story. The total
spending on the US empire is well over one trillion dollars per year. Under the Obama Administration
the military budget is still 41 percent more than it was in 2001, and seven percent higher than at
the peak of the Cold War.
Russia, which the neocons claim is the greatest threat to the United States, spends about
one-tenth what we do on its military. China, the other "greatest threat," has a military budget less
than 25 percent of ours.
Last week the Pentagon announced it is sending a small naval force of US warships to the South
China Sea because, as Commander of the US Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed
Services Committee, China is militarizing the area. Yes, China is supposedly militarizing the area
around China, so the US is justified in sending its own military to the area. Is that a wise use
of the US military?
The US military maintains over 900 bases in 130 countries. It is actively involved in at least
seven wars right now, including in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere. US Special Forces are deployed
in 134 countries across the globe. Does that sound like a military that has been gutted?
I do not agree with the presidential candidates, but I do agree that the military needs to be
rebuilt. I would rebuild it in a very different way, however. I would not rebuild it according
to the demands of the military-industrial complex, which cares far more about getting rich than about
protecting our country. I would not rebuild the military so that it can overthrow more foreign governments
who refuse to do the bidding of Washington's neocons. I would not rebuild the military so that it
can better protect our wealthy allies in Europe, NATO, Japan, and South Korea. I would not rebuild
the military so that it can better occupy countries overseas and help create conditions for blowback
here at home.
No. The best way to really "rebuild" the US military would be to stop abusing the military
in the first place. The purpose of the US military is to defend the United States. It is not to make
the world safe for oil pipelines, or corrupt Gulf monarchies, or NATO, or Israel. Unlike the neocons
who are so eager to send our troops to war, I have actually served in the US military. I understand
that to keep our military strong we must constrain our foreign policy. We must adopt a policy of
non-intervention and a strong defense of this country. The neocons will weaken our country and our
military by promoting more war. We need to "rebuild" the military by restoring as its mission the
defense of the United States, not of Washington's overseas empire.
"... This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation process of global capitalism & its "1%" class. ..."
"... One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating, is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination economic empire is the goal. ..."
"... The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see the whole electoral mirage for what it is. ..."
"... Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing, especially the race war against the Arab people. ..."
"... Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump? ..."
"... Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept. It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show. What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing. ..."
"... Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more acute. ..."
"... why do American politicians become incontinent when they mention Saudi Arabia ..."
"... recycling mechanism for capitalism ..."
"... there is a suicidal death pact between the West and Saudi Arabia ..."
"... Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. ..."
"... For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism) has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru history 'The 99%'...). ..."
"... So long as he rises to militarily protect "National Interests" abroad - read: imperial billionaire class interests - he's really one of them. ..."
"... He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor. ..."
"... Excellent discussion and lecture. A very important part of the 'due diligence' of democratic participation and research by the people. ..."
Be nice to have a book called "The Foreign Policy of the 1%".
Maybe include references to GATT, TPP, oil wars as mentioned in the presentation.
Other questions:
1) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to Economic Hitman, John Perkins?
2) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to conservative founders like Jeane Kirkpatrick?
3) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to rise to Regan Revolution? Trump?
This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be
copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the
neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation
process of global capitalism & its "1%" class.
Deepest thanks to Vijay Prashad...and to others
like professor Bennis (present in the audience)... whose in-depth analysis of the system can, if
studied, contribute to putting the nascent 'political revolution' Bernie calls for...into a real
democratic movement in this country. We are so woefully ignorant as 'members of the 99%'- it seems
worst of all in America-- intentionally kept isolated from knowing anything about this country/corporation's
'foreign policy' (aka as Capitalist system policy or 'the 1% policy) that Bernie cannot even broach
what Vijay has given here. But he at least opens up some of our can of worms, the interrconnectdedness
of class-interests and the devastation this country's (and the global cabal of ) capitalist voracious
economic interests rains upon the planet.
The Mid-East is a product of Capitalism that will, if
we don't recognize the process & change course & priorties, will soon overtake all of Africa and
all 'undeveloped' (pre-Capitalist) countries around the globe--The destruction and never-ending
blur of war and annihilation of peoples, cultures and even the possibility of 'political evolution'
is a product of the profit-at-any-and-all-costs that is the hidden underbelly of a system of economics
that counts humanity as nothing. It is a sick system. It is a system whose sickness brings death
to all it touches... and we are seeing now it is bringing ITS OWN DEATH as well.
The '99% policy'
(again a phrase Prashad should be congratulated for bringing into the language) is indeed one
that understands that our needs --the people's needs, not 'national interests' AKA capitalist
corporate/financial interests --- are global, that peace projects are essentially anti-capitalist
projects.... and our needs-to build a new society here in the U.S. must begin to be linked to
seeing Capitalism as the root cause of so much suffering that must be replaced by true democratic
awakening a- r/evolutionary process that combines economic and civic/political -- that we must
support in every way possible. Step One: support the movement for changed priorities & values
by voting class-consciously.
The 1% or the oligarchy have completely won the world, our only way to fight against such power
is to abandon buying their products, take great care on who you vote for in any election, only
people who have a long record of social thinking should be considers. They can be diminished but
not beaten.
One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating,
is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination
economic empire is the goal.
The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course
they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and
global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put
forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see
the whole electoral mirage for what it is.
All of what's been said about the elites, the one percent, has already been said many years ago.
The conversation about the wealthy elites destroying our world has changed only in the area of
how much of our world has and is being destroyed. Absolutely nothing else has changed, nothing
else.
Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and
their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than
ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing,
especially the race war against the Arab people. Meanwhile, as we continue to speak the ocean
is licking at our doorstep, the average mean temperature has ticked up a few notches and we are
all completely distracted by which power hungry corporate zealot is going to occupy the office
which is responsible for making our human condition even more dire. The circus that is this election
is merely a ploy by the elites to make us believe that we actually do have a choice. Uh-huh; yet
if I were to suggest what REALLY needs to be done to save the human race I would be in a court
which functions only to impoverish those of us who try to speak the truth of our situation objectively.
The 'Justice' system's only function is to render us powerless. Whether one is guilty or innocent
is completely irrelevant anymore. All they have to do is file charges and they have your wealth.
Good luck to all of us as we all talk ourselves to death.
Dear denden11: You get gold stars in heaven as far as I'm concerned for telling the exact truth
in the plainest possible terms. Bravissimo. "Talk/ing/ ourselves to death" is, I'm sorry to say,
what we are doing. I've been working on these issues for forty years, looking for an exit from
this completely interlocked system. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen the exit. I do understand
how we have painted ourselves into this corner over the past 250 years (since the so-called Enlightenment),
but without repentance on our part and grace on God's part, we're doomed because we all believe
the Big Lies pumped into us moment by moment by Big Brother. And it's the Big Lies that keep us
terminally confused and fragmented.
Don't Believe the Hype was an NWA rap anthem over twenty year ago.
I always liked the shouted line, "And I don't take Ritalin!"
Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does
the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump?
In defeat, will Sander's campaign supporters radicalize or demoralize into apathy or tepid
support for Hillary - on the grounds that she's less of an evil than Trumpty Dumbty?
If not defeated, will Sanders and his campaign mobilize the People to fight the powers that
be? Otherwise, he has no real power base, short of selling out on his domestic spending promises
and becoming another social democratic lapdog for Capital- like Tony Blair.
Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is
weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept.
It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show.
What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing.
As material conditions change drastically for tens of millions of USAns, the old propaganda loses
effect.
New propaganda is required to channel the new class tensions. Still an opening may be created.
People can't heat their homes with propaganda, the kids are living in the basement and grandpa
can't afford a nursing home and he's drinking himself to death. That's the new normal, or variations
on it for a lot of people who don't believe the hype anymore.
Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything
for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more
acute.
Great work Vijay...got my "filters" back on. Cut and pasted original comment below despite TRNN
labeling of "time of posting" which is irrelevant at this point.
Wow...now that I got my rational filters back on this was a great piece by Vijay and succinctly
states what many of us who "attempt" to not only follow ME events but to understand not only the
modern history by the motives of the major players in the region. Thanks for this piece and others...looking
forward to the others.
Posted earlier while my mind was on 2016 election cycle watching MSM in "panic mode"
Thought this was going to be a rational discussion on US foreign policy until the part on ?
"Trumps Red Book". I had hoped to rather hear, "The Red Book of the American Templars" ...taking
from the Knights Templar in Europe prior the collapse of the feudal system. I will say that Vijay's
comment on Cruz was quite appropriate though it would also have been better to not only put it
into context but also illustrate that Cruz's father Rafael Cruz believes in a system contrary
to the founding ideals of the US Constitution: He states in an interview with mainstream media
during his son's primary campaign that [to paraphrase] "secularism is evil and corrupt". Here
is an excerpt of his bio from Wiki:
"During an interview conducted by the Christian Post in 2014, Rafael Cruz stated, "I think
we cannot separate politics and religion; they are interrelated. They've always been interrelated."[29]
Salon described Cruz as a "Dominionist, devoted to a movement that finds in Genesis a mandate
that 'men of faith' seize control of public institutions and govern by biblical principle."[30]
However, The Public Eye states that Dominionists believe that the U.S. Constitution should be
the vehicle for remaking America as a Christian nation.[31]"
Fareed Zakaria interviewed a columnist from the Wall Street Journal today on Fareed's GPS program
and flatly asked him [paraphrased], "Is not the Wall Street Journal responsible for creating the
racist paradigm that Trump took advantage of "? Let us begin with rational dialogue and not demagogy.
Quite frankly with regard to both Cruz and Trump [in context of the 2016 elections cycle] a more
insightful comment would have been...Change cannot come from within the current electoral processes
here in the US with Citizen's United as its "masthead" and "Corporations are people as its rallying
cry"!
Not the West....just the F.I.R.E industries...driving the housing bubble; shopping malls; office
buildings; buying municipal bonds [as they the municipalities bought and built prisons; jails;
SWAT vehicles and security equipment (developed by the Israelis); and keeping the insurance companies
afloat while AllState had time after Katrina to pitch their subsidiaries allowing these subsidiaries
to file for bankruptcy]...now all the maintenance expense is coming due and cities and counties
are going broke... along with the Saudi investments here in US.
Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we
are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation
of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. What about the 99 percent?
While populations simply need and want also income and investment security globally.
What about
populations in massive consumer debt for education, housing, etc. to fund one percent Growth.
Laborers across globe are all in same boat simply labor for food without anything else to pass
along to progeny but what is most important ethics. A world government established by corporatism
advantage by authority of law and advantage all directed toward endless returns to oligarchy family
cartels is not an acceptable world organization of division of resources because it is tranny,
exclusive, extraction and fraudulent. Such madness does NOT float all boats.
All this while oligarchs
control Taxation of government authority and hidden excessive investment and fraud return taxation.
While Governments in west don't even jail corporate criminals while west claims law is just while
skewed in favor of protecting one percent, their returns on investment and investments. Billionaires
we find in some parts of so called Unjust regions of world not yet on board with cartel game are
calling out fraud that harms individuals and society aggressively.
TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked
to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the judiciary spokesman
said Sunday.
Babak Zanjani and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among
other charges, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said in brief remarks broadcast on state TV. He did
not identify the two associates. Previous state media reports have said the three were charged
with forgery and fraud.
"The court has recognized the three defendants as 'corruptors on earth' and sentenced them
to death," said Ejehi. "Corruptors on earth" is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable
by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict, which came after a nearly five-month
trial, can be appealed.
So when Bernie winds up on the regime change band wagon (of mostly leftist governments) and stays
silent in the face of US aided and approved of coups (Honduras/Zelaya being the next most recent
before Ukraine) while railing against the billionaire class on Wall Street and the neoliberal
trade agreements, he's not only missing the elephant in the room; he's part of this elephant.
For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in
the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism)
has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or
even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm
of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign
appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation
it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful
yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru
history 'The 99%'...).
And as all past power-elites have done, our '1%' has misread the age-old
evolution of culture when an old system NO LONGER WORKS that makes freedom, imagination & rebellion
more acceptable more attractive, more exciting and NECESSARY. Then, once energized BY NEED, DESIRE,
and yes HOPE....change begins and can't be stopped like a slow-moving rain that keeps moving.
As with past eras & past changes, in our own day this 'millennial plus 60's' powerful generational
tide is JUST BEGINNING to feel our strength & ability. Turning what was supposed to be a globalist-coronation
into what right now certainly seems like a step towards real change, towards building a recognition
of the power, we 'the 99%' can --IF WE ACT WISELY & WITH COMMITTMENT begin the work of creating
a new world.
Criticising Bernie is criticizing the real way progress works...We need to get out
of an ego-centric adolescent approach to human problem-solving, understand we need to keep our
movement growing even if it doesn't look the WAY WE EXPECTED IT TO LOOK...keep clear on GOALS
that Bernie's campaign is just a part of. The 'left' needs to recognize its our historic moment:
to either move ahead or SELF-destruct.. Impatience needs to be replaced by a serious look down
the road for our children's future. If we don't, the power elite of the System wins again (vote
Hillary?? don't vote??). We need to take a breath & rethink how change really happens because
this lost opportunity Is a loss we can no longer afford. The movement must be 'bigger than Bernie'.
I just hope he does not get forced to resign which the L-MSM is now beginning to parrot so Hillary
can win given the huge turnouts the Repugs are getting in the primaries. I want to see four candidates
at the National Convention...in addition to Third parties.
No one can be elected Commander and Chief by stating they will not defend oligarchs interests
as well as populations interests. We agree populations interests are negated and subverted all
over earth . That cannot be changed by armed rebellion but it can be changed by electing electable
voices of reason such as Sanders. Sanders will fight to protect populations and resist oligarchy
war mongering while holding oligarchs accountable. Sanders will address corrupted law and injustice.
Vote Sanders.
You are probably correct in your thinking, but the real power will never allow any potential effective
changes to the system that is. People who try usually end up dead.
This is why we must as citizens become active players in government far greater then we are today,
we must do far more then voting. We must have time from drudgery of earning a substandard wage
that forces most to have little time for advancing democracy. Without such time oligarchs and
one percent end-up controlling everything.
We can BEGIN the march toward mountain top toward socializations
which will promote aware individualizations. We don't expect we will advance anything without
oppositions in fact we expect increased attacks. Those increased attacks can become our energy
that unites masses as we all observe the insanity they promote as our direction. We merely must
highlight insanity and path forward toward sanity. Nothing can make lasting change this generation
the march will take generations. The speed advance only will depend on how foolish oligarchs are
at attempts to subvert public awareness seeking change. As they become more desperate our movements
become stronger. We must refrain from violence for that is only thing that can subvert our movement.
He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking
down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor.
Instead he does the LOTE thing for the neoliberal-neocon party "D". That's just dishonest bullshit
opportunism.
Do not receives daily email for a long time without clue why? so haven't in contact with TRN's
daily report until subject video appears on youtube website. and impressed by the panelists's
congregated pivotal works done thru all these years.
"... Washington has a long history of massacring people, for example, the destruction of the Plains Indians by the Union war criminals Sherman and Sheridan and the atomic bombs dropped on Japanese civilian populations, but Washington has progressed from periodic massacres to fulltime massacring. From the Clinton regime forward, massacre of civilians has become a defining characteristic of the United States of America. ..."
"... Washington is responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and part of Syria. Washington has enabled Saudi Arabia's attack on Yemen, Ukraine's attack on its former Russian provinces, and Israel's destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people. ..."
"... In a recent article , Mattea Kramer points out that Washington has added to its crimes the mass murder of civilians with drones and missile strikes on weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, medical centers and people's homes. Nothing can better illustrate the absence of moral integrity and moral conscience of the American state and the population that tolerates it than the cavalier disregard of the thousands of murdered innocents as "collateral damage." ..."
"... violence creates terrorists ..."
"... The only possible conclusion is that under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama the US government has become an unaccountable, lawless, criminal organization and is a danger to the entire world and its own citizens. ..."
Washington has a long history of massacring people, for example, the destruction of the Plains Indians
by the Union war criminals Sherman and Sheridan and the atomic bombs dropped on Japanese civilian
populations, but Washington has progressed from periodic massacres to fulltime massacring. From the
Clinton regime forward, massacre of civilians has become a defining characteristic of the United
States of America.
Washington is responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Somalia, and part of Syria. Washington has enabled Saudi Arabia's attack on Yemen, Ukraine's attack
on its former Russian provinces, and Israel's destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.
The American state's murderous rampage through the Middle East and North Africa was enabled by
the Europeans who provided diplomatic and military cover for Washington's crimes. Today the Europeans
are suffering the consequences as they are over-run by millions of refugees from Washington's wars.
The German women who are raped by the refugees can blame their chancellor, a Washington puppet, for
enabling the carnage from which refugees flee to Europe.
In a recent
article, Mattea Kramer points out that Washington has added to its crimes the mass murder of
civilians with drones and missile strikes on weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, medical
centers and people's homes. Nothing can better illustrate the absence of moral integrity and moral
conscience of the American state and the population that tolerates it than the cavalier disregard
of the thousands of murdered innocents as "collateral damage."
If there is any outcry from Washington's European, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese vassals,
it is too muted to be heard in the US.
As Kramer points out, American presidential hopefuls are competing on the basis of who will commit
the worst war crimes. A leading candidate has endorsed torture, despite its prohibition under US
and international law. The candidate proclaims that "torture works" - as if that is a justification
- despite the fact that experts know that it does not work. Almost everyone being tortured will say
anything in order to stop the torture. Most of those tortured in the "war on terror" have proven
to have been innocents. They don't know the answers to the questions even if they were prepared to
give truthful answers. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn relates that Soviet dissidents likely to be picked
up and tortured by the Soviet secret police would memorize names on gravestones in order to comply
with demands for the names of their accomplices. In this way, torture victims could comply with demands
without endangering innocents.
Washington's use of invasion, bombings, and murder by drone as its principle weapon against terrorists
is mindless. It shows a government devoid of all intelligence, focused on killing alone. Even a fool
understands that violence creates terrorists. Washington hasn't even the intelligence of
fools.
The American state now subjects US citizens to execution without due process of law despite the
strict prohibition by the US Constitution. Washington's lawlessness toward others now extends to
the American people themselves.
The only possible conclusion is that under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama the US government
has become an unaccountable, lawless, criminal organization and is a danger to the entire world and
its own citizens.
"... This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation process of global capitalism & its "1%" class. ..."
"... One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating, is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination economic empire is the goal. ..."
"... The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see the whole electoral mirage for what it is. ..."
"... Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing, especially the race war against the Arab people. ..."
"... Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump? ..."
"... Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept. It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show. What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing. ..."
"... Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more acute. ..."
"... why do American politicians become incontinent when they mention Saudi Arabia ..."
"... recycling mechanism for capitalism ..."
"... there is a suicidal death pact between the West and Saudi Arabia ..."
"... Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. ..."
"... For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism) has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru history 'The 99%'...). ..."
"... So long as he rises to militarily protect "National Interests" abroad - read: imperial billionaire class interests - he's really one of them. ..."
"... He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor. ..."
"... Excellent discussion and lecture. A very important part of the 'due diligence' of democratic participation and research by the people. ..."
Be nice to have a book called "The Foreign Policy of the 1%".
Maybe include references to GATT, TPP, oil wars as mentioned in the presentation.
Other questions:
1) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to Economic Hitman, John Perkins?
2) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to conservative founders like Jeane Kirkpatrick?
3) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to rise to Regan Revolution? Trump?
This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be
copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the
neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation
process of global capitalism & its "1%" class.
Deepest thanks to Vijay Prashad...and to others
like professor Bennis (present in the audience)... whose in-depth analysis of the system can, if
studied, contribute to putting the nascent 'political revolution' Bernie calls for...into a real
democratic movement in this country. We are so woefully ignorant as 'members of the 99%'- it seems
worst of all in America-- intentionally kept isolated from knowing anything about this country/corporation's
'foreign policy' (aka as Capitalist system policy or 'the 1% policy) that Bernie cannot even broach
what Vijay has given here. But he at least opens up some of our can of worms, the interrconnectdedness
of class-interests and the devastation this country's (and the global cabal of ) capitalist voracious
economic interests rains upon the planet.
The Mid-East is a product of Capitalism that will, if
we don't recognize the process & change course & priorties, will soon overtake all of Africa and
all 'undeveloped' (pre-Capitalist) countries around the globe--The destruction and never-ending
blur of war and annihilation of peoples, cultures and even the possibility of 'political evolution'
is a product of the profit-at-any-and-all-costs that is the hidden underbelly of a system of economics
that counts humanity as nothing. It is a sick system. It is a system whose sickness brings death
to all it touches... and we are seeing now it is bringing ITS OWN DEATH as well.
The '99% policy'
(again a phrase Prashad should be congratulated for bringing into the language) is indeed one
that understands that our needs --the people's needs, not 'national interests' AKA capitalist
corporate/financial interests --- are global, that peace projects are essentially anti-capitalist
projects.... and our needs-to build a new society here in the U.S. must begin to be linked to
seeing Capitalism as the root cause of so much suffering that must be replaced by true democratic
awakening a- r/evolutionary process that combines economic and civic/political -- that we must
support in every way possible. Step One: support the movement for changed priorities & values
by voting class-consciously.
The 1% or the oligarchy have completely won the world, our only way to fight against such power
is to abandon buying their products, take great care on who you vote for in any election, only
people who have a long record of social thinking should be considers. They can be diminished but
not beaten.
One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating,
is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination
economic empire is the goal.
The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course
they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and
global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put
forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see
the whole electoral mirage for what it is.
All of what's been said about the elites, the one percent, has already been said many years ago.
The conversation about the wealthy elites destroying our world has changed only in the area of
how much of our world has and is being destroyed. Absolutely nothing else has changed, nothing
else.
Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and
their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than
ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing,
especially the race war against the Arab people. Meanwhile, as we continue to speak the ocean
is licking at our doorstep, the average mean temperature has ticked up a few notches and we are
all completely distracted by which power hungry corporate zealot is going to occupy the office
which is responsible for making our human condition even more dire. The circus that is this election
is merely a ploy by the elites to make us believe that we actually do have a choice. Uh-huh; yet
if I were to suggest what REALLY needs to be done to save the human race I would be in a court
which functions only to impoverish those of us who try to speak the truth of our situation objectively.
The 'Justice' system's only function is to render us powerless. Whether one is guilty or innocent
is completely irrelevant anymore. All they have to do is file charges and they have your wealth.
Good luck to all of us as we all talk ourselves to death.
Dear denden11: You get gold stars in heaven as far as I'm concerned for telling the exact truth
in the plainest possible terms. Bravissimo. "Talk/ing/ ourselves to death" is, I'm sorry to say,
what we are doing. I've been working on these issues for forty years, looking for an exit from
this completely interlocked system. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen the exit. I do understand
how we have painted ourselves into this corner over the past 250 years (since the so-called Enlightenment),
but without repentance on our part and grace on God's part, we're doomed because we all believe
the Big Lies pumped into us moment by moment by Big Brother. And it's the Big Lies that keep us
terminally confused and fragmented.
Don't Believe the Hype was an NWA rap anthem over twenty year ago.
I always liked the shouted line, "And I don't take Ritalin!"
Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does
the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump?
In defeat, will Sander's campaign supporters radicalize or demoralize into apathy or tepid
support for Hillary - on the grounds that she's less of an evil than Trumpty Dumbty?
If not defeated, will Sanders and his campaign mobilize the People to fight the powers that
be? Otherwise, he has no real power base, short of selling out on his domestic spending promises
and becoming another social democratic lapdog for Capital- like Tony Blair.
Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is
weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept.
It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show.
What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing.
As material conditions change drastically for tens of millions of USAns, the old propaganda loses
effect.
New propaganda is required to channel the new class tensions. Still an opening may be created.
People can't heat their homes with propaganda, the kids are living in the basement and grandpa
can't afford a nursing home and he's drinking himself to death. That's the new normal, or variations
on it for a lot of people who don't believe the hype anymore.
Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything
for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more
acute.
Great work Vijay...got my "filters" back on. Cut and pasted original comment below despite TRNN
labeling of "time of posting" which is irrelevant at this point.
Wow...now that I got my rational filters back on this was a great piece by Vijay and succinctly
states what many of us who "attempt" to not only follow ME events but to understand not only the
modern history by the motives of the major players in the region. Thanks for this piece and others...looking
forward to the others.
Posted earlier while my mind was on 2016 election cycle watching MSM in "panic mode"
Thought this was going to be a rational discussion on US foreign policy until the part on ?
"Trumps Red Book". I had hoped to rather hear, "The Red Book of the American Templars" ...taking
from the Knights Templar in Europe prior the collapse of the feudal system. I will say that Vijay's
comment on Cruz was quite appropriate though it would also have been better to not only put it
into context but also illustrate that Cruz's father Rafael Cruz believes in a system contrary
to the founding ideals of the US Constitution: He states in an interview with mainstream media
during his son's primary campaign that [to paraphrase] "secularism is evil and corrupt". Here
is an excerpt of his bio from Wiki:
"During an interview conducted by the Christian Post in 2014, Rafael Cruz stated, "I think
we cannot separate politics and religion; they are interrelated. They've always been interrelated."[29]
Salon described Cruz as a "Dominionist, devoted to a movement that finds in Genesis a mandate
that 'men of faith' seize control of public institutions and govern by biblical principle."[30]
However, The Public Eye states that Dominionists believe that the U.S. Constitution should be
the vehicle for remaking America as a Christian nation.[31]"
Fareed Zakaria interviewed a columnist from the Wall Street Journal today on Fareed's GPS program
and flatly asked him [paraphrased], "Is not the Wall Street Journal responsible for creating the
racist paradigm that Trump took advantage of "? Let us begin with rational dialogue and not demagogy.
Quite frankly with regard to both Cruz and Trump [in context of the 2016 elections cycle] a more
insightful comment would have been...Change cannot come from within the current electoral processes
here in the US with Citizen's United as its "masthead" and "Corporations are people as its rallying
cry"!
Not the West....just the F.I.R.E industries...driving the housing bubble; shopping malls; office
buildings; buying municipal bonds [as they the municipalities bought and built prisons; jails;
SWAT vehicles and security equipment (developed by the Israelis); and keeping the insurance companies
afloat while AllState had time after Katrina to pitch their subsidiaries allowing these subsidiaries
to file for bankruptcy]...now all the maintenance expense is coming due and cities and counties
are going broke... along with the Saudi investments here in US.
Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we
are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation
of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. What about the 99 percent?
While populations simply need and want also income and investment security globally.
What about
populations in massive consumer debt for education, housing, etc. to fund one percent Growth.
Laborers across globe are all in same boat simply labor for food without anything else to pass
along to progeny but what is most important ethics. A world government established by corporatism
advantage by authority of law and advantage all directed toward endless returns to oligarchy family
cartels is not an acceptable world organization of division of resources because it is tranny,
exclusive, extraction and fraudulent. Such madness does NOT float all boats.
All this while oligarchs
control Taxation of government authority and hidden excessive investment and fraud return taxation.
While Governments in west don't even jail corporate criminals while west claims law is just while
skewed in favor of protecting one percent, their returns on investment and investments. Billionaires
we find in some parts of so called Unjust regions of world not yet on board with cartel game are
calling out fraud that harms individuals and society aggressively.
TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked
to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the judiciary spokesman
said Sunday.
Babak Zanjani and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among
other charges, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said in brief remarks broadcast on state TV. He did
not identify the two associates. Previous state media reports have said the three were charged
with forgery and fraud.
"The court has recognized the three defendants as 'corruptors on earth' and sentenced them
to death," said Ejehi. "Corruptors on earth" is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable
by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict, which came after a nearly five-month
trial, can be appealed.
So when Bernie winds up on the regime change band wagon (of mostly leftist governments) and stays
silent in the face of US aided and approved of coups (Honduras/Zelaya being the next most recent
before Ukraine) while railing against the billionaire class on Wall Street and the neoliberal
trade agreements, he's not only missing the elephant in the room; he's part of this elephant.
For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in
the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism)
has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or
even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm
of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign
appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation
it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful
yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru
history 'The 99%'...).
And as all past power-elites have done, our '1%' has misread the age-old
evolution of culture when an old system NO LONGER WORKS that makes freedom, imagination & rebellion
more acceptable more attractive, more exciting and NECESSARY. Then, once energized BY NEED, DESIRE,
and yes HOPE....change begins and can't be stopped like a slow-moving rain that keeps moving.
As with past eras & past changes, in our own day this 'millennial plus 60's' powerful generational
tide is JUST BEGINNING to feel our strength & ability. Turning what was supposed to be a globalist-coronation
into what right now certainly seems like a step towards real change, towards building a recognition
of the power, we 'the 99%' can --IF WE ACT WISELY & WITH COMMITTMENT begin the work of creating
a new world.
Criticising Bernie is criticizing the real way progress works...We need to get out
of an ego-centric adolescent approach to human problem-solving, understand we need to keep our
movement growing even if it doesn't look the WAY WE EXPECTED IT TO LOOK...keep clear on GOALS
that Bernie's campaign is just a part of. The 'left' needs to recognize its our historic moment:
to either move ahead or SELF-destruct.. Impatience needs to be replaced by a serious look down
the road for our children's future. If we don't, the power elite of the System wins again (vote
Hillary?? don't vote??). We need to take a breath & rethink how change really happens because
this lost opportunity Is a loss we can no longer afford. The movement must be 'bigger than Bernie'.
I just hope he does not get forced to resign which the L-MSM is now beginning to parrot so Hillary
can win given the huge turnouts the Repugs are getting in the primaries. I want to see four candidates
at the National Convention...in addition to Third parties.
No one can be elected Commander and Chief by stating they will not defend oligarchs interests
as well as populations interests. We agree populations interests are negated and subverted all
over earth . That cannot be changed by armed rebellion but it can be changed by electing electable
voices of reason such as Sanders. Sanders will fight to protect populations and resist oligarchy
war mongering while holding oligarchs accountable. Sanders will address corrupted law and injustice.
Vote Sanders.
You are probably correct in your thinking, but the real power will never allow any potential effective
changes to the system that is. People who try usually end up dead.
This is why we must as citizens become active players in government far greater then we are today,
we must do far more then voting. We must have time from drudgery of earning a substandard wage
that forces most to have little time for advancing democracy. Without such time oligarchs and
one percent end-up controlling everything.
We can BEGIN the march toward mountain top toward socializations
which will promote aware individualizations. We don't expect we will advance anything without
oppositions in fact we expect increased attacks. Those increased attacks can become our energy
that unites masses as we all observe the insanity they promote as our direction. We merely must
highlight insanity and path forward toward sanity. Nothing can make lasting change this generation
the march will take generations. The speed advance only will depend on how foolish oligarchs are
at attempts to subvert public awareness seeking change. As they become more desperate our movements
become stronger. We must refrain from violence for that is only thing that can subvert our movement.
He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking
down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor.
Instead he does the LOTE thing for the neoliberal-neocon party "D". That's just dishonest bullshit
opportunism.
Do not receives daily email for a long time without clue why? so haven't in contact with TRN's
daily report until subject video appears on youtube website. and impressed by the panelists's
congregated pivotal works done thru all these years.
"... "These endorsements are a last-ditch effort by the DC Establishment to try to blunt our large and growing command of the race. It comes as no surprise that these moves are made just two days after
Rep. Grayson became the first major statewide candidate in the country to endorse the anti-Establishment candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, for the Presidency.
They come just one day after a new poll shows Rep. Grayson with a double-digit lead, winning among men and women, every age group, and whites, blacks and Hispanics. The anti-Democratic Party Establishment is desperate to drag Grayson's opponent, their do-nothing, errand boy for Wall Street, over the finish line. But Florida voters in both parties are fed up with egregious manipulation by outside forces to dictate our candidates.
These arrogant Empire-Strikes-Back efforts by the Democratic politburo will be no more successful than the similar failed attempts by Republican party bosses. This is the year when the voters decide." ..."
"... This simply shows that, like Charlie Crist, Murphy, the former Republican turned Democrat, cannot be trusted and will always pander to whatever group that will aid his ambition. ..."
The endorsements bring the biggest possible names into the hotly-contested race for the Democratic
nomination for Florida's U.S. Senate seat between Murphy, of Jupiter, and U.S. Rep. Alan
Grayson or Orlando.
In a news release issued by Murphy's campaign, Obama called Murphy a "tireless champion for middle-class
families."
"I am proud to endorse Congressman Patrick Murphy for the United States Senate. Patrick has been
a tireless champion for middle-class families and a defender of the economic progress that American
workers and businesses have made," Obama stated in the release. "In Congress, he's fought to strengthen
Medicare and Social Security, reform our criminal justice system, and protect a woman's right to
choose. Floridians can count on Patrick Murphy to stand up for them every day as their next Senator."
Grayson's campaign responded calling the endorsements "the DC establishment" and noted they come
one day after Grayson endorsed outsider Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders
against Hillary Clinton.
For Murphy, the endorsements could not come any higher; he already has brought in dozens of Democratic
endorsements. Grayson, meanwhile, has brought in a few of his own, mostly from people in the progressive
wing of the party.
"I am honored that President Obama and Vice President Biden are endorsing my campaign for Florida's
middle-class families," Murphy stated in the release. "The president, the vice president and I share
the same values and commitment - strengthening Social Security and Medicare for our seniors, protecting
a woman's right to choose, and growing America's middle class.
"Over the past seven years, President Obama and Vice President Biden have been champions for Democrats
and hardworking families across our country, and I am humbled and proud to receive their endorsement
and campaign shoulder-to-shoulder with them for what we believe in," he continued.
"These endorsements are a last-ditch effort by the DC Establishment to try to blunt our
large and growing command of the race. It comes as no surprise that these moves are made just
two days after Rep. Grayson became the first major statewide candidate in the country to endorse
the anti-Establishment candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, for the Presidency. They come just one
day after a new poll shows Rep. Grayson with a double-digit lead, winning among men and women,
every age group, and whites, blacks and Hispanics. The anti-Democratic Party Establishment is
desperate to drag Grayson's opponent, their do-nothing, errand boy for Wall Street, over the finish
line. But Florida voters in both parties are fed up with egregious manipulation by outside forces
to dictate our candidates. These arrogant Empire-Strikes-Back efforts by the Democratic politburo
will be no more successful than the similar failed attempts by Republican party bosses. This is
the year when the voters decide."
Here is a response from Brian Swensen, Campaign Manager for Carlos Lopez-Cantera
for U.S. Senate:
"Patrick Murphy continues on the path to become Charlie Crist 2.0 by moving further and further
to the left for political expediency and gain. This simply shows that, like Charlie Crist, Murphy,
the former Republican turned Democrat, cannot be trusted and will always pander to whatever group
that will aid his ambition.
By receiving Obama's endorsement Murphy has cast his allegiance to those who don't believe in
American exceptionalism, those whose policies have severely hindered economic growth and those who
refuse to stand with our most important ally, Israel."
A really interesting analyses
of the USA foreign policy from the son of Robert Kennedy "They don't hate 'our freedoms.' They hate
that we've betrayed our ideals in their own countries-for oil. "
Notable quotes:
"... But thanks in large part to Allen Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. ..."
"... This is the bloody history that modern interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists "hate us for our freedoms." For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedoms-our own ideals-within their borders. ..."
"... But in March 1949, Syria's democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation for Al-Quwatli's lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. pipeline, the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the CIA's handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, four and a half months into his regime. ..."
"... That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to declare that "Syria is ripe for a coup" and send his two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus. ..."
"... Despite Dulles' needling, President Harry Truman had forbidden the CIA from actively joining the British caper to topple Mosaddegh. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he immediately unleashed Dulles. After ousting Mosaddegh in "Operation Ajax," Stone and Roosevelt installed Shah Reza Pahlavi, who favored U.S. oil companies but whose two decades of CIA sponsored savagery toward his own people from the Peacock throne would finally ignite the 1979 Islamic revolution that has bedeviled our foreign policy for 35 years. ..."
"... Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with $3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Quwatli's democratically elected secularist regime, according to Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados. ..."
"... That report observes that control of the Persian Gulf oil and gas deposits will remain, for the U.S., "a strategic priority" that "will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war." Rand recommended using "covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare" to enforce a "divide and rule" strategy. "The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists to launch a proxy campaign" and "U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world ... possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran." ..."
"... When Sunni soldiers of the Syrian Army began defecting in 2013, the western coalition armed the Free Syrian Army to further destabilize Syria. The press portrait of the Free Syrian Army as cohesive battalions of Syrian moderates was delusional. The dissolved units regrouped in hundreds of independent militias most of which were commanded by, or allied with, jihadi militants who were the most committed and effective fighters. ..."
"... Despite the prevailing media portrait of a moderate Arab uprising against the tyrant Assad, U.S. intelligence planners knew from the outset that their pipeline proxies were radical jihadists who would probably carve themselves a brand new Islamic caliphate from the Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... a seven-page August 12, 2012, study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained by the right-wing group Judicial Watch, warned that thanks to the ongoing support by U.S./Sunni Coalition for radical Sunni Jihadists, "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (now ISIS), are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." ..."
"... The Pentagon report warns that this new principality could move across the Iraqi border to Mosul and Ramadi and "declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria." ..."
"... Bremer elevated the Shiites to power and banned Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party, laying off some 700,000 mostly Sunni, government and party officials from ministers to schoolteachers. He then disbanded the 380,000-man army, which was 80 percent Sunni. Bremer's actions stripped a million of Iraq's Sunnis of rank, property, wealth and power; leaving a desperate underclass of angry, educated, capable, trained and heavily armed Sunnis with little left to lose. The Sunni insurgency named itself Al Qaeda in Iraq. Beginning in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI fighters into Syria. ..."
"... "ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals. ... Many are members of Saddam Hussein's secular Ba'ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons." ..."
America's unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria-little-known to the American people
yet well-known to Syrians-sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates
any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American
public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound
the crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry this week announced a "provisional" ceasefire in Syria.
But since U.S. leverage and prestige within Syria is minimal-and the ceasefire doesn't include key
combatants such as Islamic State and al Nusra--it's bound to be a shaky truce at best. Similarly
President Obama's stepped-up military intervention in Libya-U.S. airstrikes targeted an Islamic State
training camp last week-is likely to strengthen rather than weaken the radicals. As the New York
Times reported in a December 8, 2015, front-page story, Islamic State political leaders and strategic
planners are working to provoke an American military intervention. They know from experience this
will flood their ranks with volunteer fighters, drown the voices of moderation and unify the Islamic
world against America.
To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians' perspective and particularly
the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising
that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War
weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
This did not happen without controversy at home. In July 1957, following a failed coup in Syria
by the CIA, my uncle, Sen. John F. Kennedy, infuriated the Eisenhower White House, the leaders of
both political parties and our European allies with a milestone speech endorsing the right of self-governance
in the Arab world and an end to America's imperialist meddling in Arab countries. Throughout my lifetime,
and particularly during my frequent travels to the Mideast, countless Arabs have fondly recalled
that speech to me as the clearest statement of the idealism they expected from the U.S. Kennedy's
speech was a call for recommitting America to the high values our country had championed in the Atlantic
Charter; the formal pledge that all the former European colonies would have the right to self-determination
following World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt had strong-armed Winston Churchill and the other allied
leaders to sign the Atlantic Charter in 1941 as a precondition for U.S. support in the European war
against fascism.
But thanks in large part to Allen Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were
often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the
Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy,
sat on a secret committee charged with investigating the CIA's clandestine mischief in the Mideast.
The so called "Bruce-Lovett Report," to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan,
Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the
American people who believed, at face value, their government's denials. The report blamed the CIA
for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root "in the many countries in
the world today." The Bruce-Lovett Report pointed out that such interventions were antithetical to
American values and had compromised America's international leadership and moral authority without
the knowledge of the American people. The report also said that the CIA never considered how we would
treat such interventions if some foreign government were to engineer them in our country.
This is the bloody history that modern interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz and
Marco Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists "hate us for
our freedoms." For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedoms-our
own ideals-within their borders.
***
For Americans to really understand what's going on, it's important to review some details about
this sordid but little-remembered history. During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles
brothers-CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles-rebuffed Soviet treaty
proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead,
they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism-which Allen Dulles equated with communism-particularly
when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants
in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies
thath they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the
CIA's director of plans, Frank Wisner, and John Foster Dulles, in September 1957, Eisenhower advised
the agency, "We should do everything possible to stress the 'holy war' aspect," according to a memo
recorded by his staff secretary, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster.
Two years later, Amb. Kennedy served on a secret committee that sharply criticized the CIA-backed
oversees operations that inflamed anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. That same year, freshman
Senator John F. Kennedy, pictured right with brother Robert during a Senate committee hearing, delivered
a speech from the Senate floor titled "Imperialism-The Enemy of Freedom," similarly excoriating the
Eisenhower administration for hindering political self-determination in the region.
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949-barely a year after the agency's creation.
Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted
a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March 1949, Syria's democratically
elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American
project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In
his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation for Al-Quwatli's
lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. pipeline, the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the
CIA's handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im barely had time to
dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, four and
a half months into his regime.
Following several counter-coups in the newly destabilized country, the Syrian people again tried
democracy in 1955, re-electing al-Quwatli and his National Party. Al-Quwatli was still a Cold War
neutralist, but, stung by American involvement in his ouster, he now leaned toward the Soviet camp.
That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to declare that "Syria is ripe for a coup" and send his
two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus.
Two years earlier, Roosevelt and Stone had orchestrated a coup in Iran against the democratically
elected President Mohammed Mosaddegh, after Mosaddegh tried to renegotiate the terms of Iran's lopsided
contracts with the British oil giant Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). Mosaddegh was the first
elected leader in Iran's 4,000-year history and a popular champion for democracy across the developing
world. Mosaddegh expelled all British diplomats after uncovering a coup attempt by U.K. intelligence
officers working in cahoots with BP. Mosaddegh, however, made the fatal mistake of resisting his
advisers' pleas to also expel the CIA, which, they correctly suspected, was complicit in the British
plot. Mosaddegh idealized the U.S. as a role model for Iran's new democracy and incapable of such
perfidies. Despite Dulles' needling, President Harry Truman had forbidden the CIA from actively
joining the British caper to topple Mosaddegh. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he immediately
unleashed Dulles. After ousting Mosaddegh in "Operation Ajax," Stone and Roosevelt installed Shah
Reza Pahlavi, who favored U.S. oil companies but whose two decades of CIA sponsored savagery toward
his own people from the Peacock throne would finally ignite the 1979 Islamic revolution that has
bedeviled our foreign policy for 35 years.
Flush from his Operation Ajax "success" in Iran, Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with
$3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians
to overthrow al-Quwatli's democratically elected secularist regime, according to Safe for Democracy:
The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados. Working with the Muslim Brotherhood and millions
of dollars, Rocky Stone schemed to assassinate Syria's chief of intelligence, the chief of its General
Staff and the chief of the Communist Party, and to engineer "national conspiracies and various strong
arm" provocations in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan that could be blamed on the Syrian Ba'athists. Tim
Weiner describes in Legacy of Ashes how the CIA's plan was to destabilize the Syrian government and
create a pretext for an invasion by Iraq and Jordan, whose governments were already under CIA control.
Kim Roosevelt forecast that the CIA's newly installed puppet government would "rely first upon repressive
measures and arbitrary exercise of power," according to declassified CIA documents reported in The
Guardian newspaper.
... ... ...
Having alienated Iraq and Syria, Kim Roosevelt fled the Mideast to work as an executive for the
oil industry that he had served so well during his public service career at the CIA. Roosevelt's
replacement as CIA station chief, James Critchfield, attempted a failed assassination plot against
the new Iraqi president using a toxic handkerchief, according to Weiner. Five years later, the CIA
finally succeeded in deposing the Iraqi president and installing the Ba'ath Party in power in Iraq.
A charismatic young murderer named Saddam Hussein was one of the
distinguished leaders of the CIA's Ba'athist team. The Ba'ath Party's Secretary, Ali Saleh Sa'adi,
who took office alongside Saddam Hussein, would later say, "We came to power on a CIA train," according
to A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, by Said Aburish, a journalist and author.
Aburish recounted that the CIA supplied Saddam and his cronies a murder list of people who "had to
be eliminated immediately in order to ensure success." Tim Weiner writes that Critchfield later acknowledged
that the CIA had, in essence, "created Saddam Hussein."
... ... ...
The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline, which
would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin's stifling economic and
political leverage. Turkey, Russia's second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end
its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian
fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia's conservative Sunni monarchy
by giving it a foothold in Shia-dominated Syria. The Saudis' geopolitical goal is to contain the
economic and political power of the kingdom's principal rival, Iran, a Shiite state, and close ally
of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S.-sponsored Shiite takeover in Iraq (and, more
recently, the termination of the Iran trade embargo) as a demotion to its regional power status and
was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against
the Iranian backed Houthi tribe.
Of course, the Russians,
who sell 70
percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat.
In Putin's view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its
only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European
energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline
to run through Syria "to protect the interests of our Russian ally."
Despite pressure from Republicans, Barack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as
mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate. Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground
troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to "moderate insurgents." But by late 2011, Republican
pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray.
In 2011, the U.S. joined France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UK to form the Friends of
Syria Coalition, which formally demanded the removal of Assad. The CIA provided $6 million to Barada,
a British TV channel, to produce pieces entreating Assad's ouster. Saudi intelligence documents,
published by WikiLeaks, show that by 2012, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were arming, training and
funding radical jihadist Sunni fighters from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere to overthrow the Assad's Shiite-allied
regime. Qatar, which had the most to gain,
invested $3 billion in building the insurgency and invited the Pentagon to train insurgents at
U.S. bases in Qatar. According to an April 2014 article by Seymour Hersh, the CIA weapons ratlines
were
financed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The idea of fomenting a Sunni-Shiite civil war to weaken the Syrian and Iranian regimes in order
to to maintain control of the region's petrochemical supplies was not a novel notion in the Pentagon's
lexicon. A
damning 2008 Pentagon-funded Rand report proposed a precise blueprint for what was about to happen.
That report observes that control of the Persian Gulf oil and gas deposits will remain, for the
U.S., "a strategic priority" that "will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war."
Rand recommended using "covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare" to enforce
a "divide and rule" strategy. "The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists
to launch a proxy campaign" and "U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni
conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment
movements in the Muslim world ... possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly
hostile Iran."
As predicted, Assad's overreaction to the foreign-made crisis-dropping barrel bombs onto Sunni
strongholds and killing civilians-polarized Syria's Shiite/Sunni divide and allowed U.S. policymakers
to sell Americans the idea that the pipeline struggle was a humanitarian war. When Sunni soldiers
of the Syrian Army began defecting in 2013, the western coalition armed the Free Syrian Army to further
destabilize Syria. The press portrait of the Free Syrian Army as cohesive battalions of Syrian moderates
was delusional. The dissolved units regrouped in hundreds of independent militias most of which were
commanded by, or allied with, jihadi militants who were the most committed and effective fighters.
By then, the Sunni armies of Al Qaeda in Iraq were crossing the border from Iraq into Syria and joining
forces with the squadrons of deserters from the Free Syrian Army, many of them trained and armed
by the U.S.
Despite the prevailing media portrait of a moderate Arab uprising against the tyrant Assad,
U.S. intelligence planners knew from the outset that their pipeline proxies were radical jihadists
who would probably carve themselves a brand new Islamic caliphate from the Sunni regions of Syria
and Iraq. Two years before ISIL throat cutters stepped on the world stage, a
seven-page August 12, 2012, study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained by the right-wing
group Judicial Watch, warned that thanks to the ongoing support by U.S./Sunni Coalition for radical
Sunni Jihadists, "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (now ISIS), are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria." Using U.S. and Gulf state funding, these groups had turned the peaceful
protests against Bashar Assad toward "a clear sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) direction." The paper
notes that the conflict had become a sectarian civil war supported by Sunni "religious and political
powers." The report paints the Syrian conflict as a global war for control of the region's resources
with "the west, Gulf countries and Turkey supporting [Assad's] opposition, while Russia, China and
Iran support the regime." The Pentagon authors of the seven-page report
appear to endorse the predicted advent of the ISIS caliphate: "If the situation unravels, there
is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria
(Hasaka and Der Zor) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in
order to isolate the Syrian regime."The Pentagon report warns that this new principality
could move across the Iraqi border to Mosul and Ramadi and "declare an Islamic state through its
union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria."
Of course, this is precisely what has happened. Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied
by the Islamic State exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline.
Across the Mideast, Arab leaders routinely accuse the U.S. of having created the Islamic State.
To most Americans, such accusations seem insane. However, to many Arabs, the evidence of U.S. involvement
is so abundant that they conclude that our role in fostering the Islamic State must have been deliberate.
In fact, many of the Islamic State fighters and their commanders are ideological and organizational
successors to the jihadists that the CIA has been nurturing for more than 30 years from Syria and
Egypt to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to the American invasion, there was no Al Qaeda in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. President George
W. Bush destroyed Saddam's secularist government, and his viceroy, Paul Bremer, in a monumental act
of mismanagement, effectively created the Sunni Army, now named the Islamic State. Bremer elevated
the Shiites to power and banned Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party, laying off some 700,000 mostly Sunni,
government and party officials from ministers to schoolteachers. He then disbanded the 380,000-man
army, which was 80 percent Sunni. Bremer's actions stripped a million of Iraq's Sunnis of rank, property,
wealth and power; leaving a desperate underclass of angry, educated, capable, trained and heavily
armed Sunnis with little left to lose. The Sunni insurgency named itself Al Qaeda in Iraq. Beginning
in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI fighters into Syria.
In April 2013, having entered Syria, AQI changed its name to ISIL. According to Dexter Filkins
of the New Yorker, "ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals. ... Many are members
of Saddam Hussein's secular Ba'ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons."
The $500 million in U.S. military aid that Obama did send to Syria almost certainly ended up benefiting
these militant jihadists. Tim Clemente, the former chairman of the FBI's joint task force, told me
that the difference between the Iraq and Syria conflicts is the millions of military-aged men who
are fleeing the battlefield for Europe rather than staying to fight for their communities.
The obvious explanation is that the nation's moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war.
They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad's Russian-backed tyranny and
the vicious jihadist Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing
pipelines. You can't blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation
minted in either Washington or Moscow. The superpowers have left no options for an idealistic future
that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline.
... ... ..
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the president of Waterkeeper Alliance. His newest book is
Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak.
A really interesting analyses
of the USA foreign policy from the son of Robert Kennedy "They don't hate 'our freedoms.' They hate
that we've betrayed our ideals in their own countries-for oil. "
Notable quotes:
"... But thanks in large part to Allen Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often
directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic
Charter was the road not taken. ..."
"... This is the bloody history that modern interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco
Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists "hate us for our freedoms."
For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedoms-our own ideals-within
their borders. ..."
"... But in March 1949, Syria's democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to
approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi
Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts
that in retaliation for Al-Quwatli's lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. pipeline, the CIA engineered a
coup replacing al-Quwatli with the CIA's handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im.
Al-Za'im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen
deposed him, four and a half months into his regime. ..."
"... That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to declare that "Syria is ripe for a coup" and send
his two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus. ..."
"... Despite Dulles' needling, President Harry Truman had forbidden the CIA from actively joining
the British caper to topple Mosaddegh. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he immediately unleashed
Dulles. After ousting Mosaddegh in "Operation Ajax," Stone and Roosevelt installed Shah Reza Pahlavi,
who favored U.S. oil companies but whose two decades of CIA sponsored savagery toward his own people
from the Peacock throne would finally ignite the 1979 Islamic revolution that has bedeviled our foreign
policy for 35 years. ..."
"... Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with $3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants
and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Quwatli's democratically elected
secularist regime, according to Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados. ..."
"... That report observes that control of the Persian Gulf oil and gas deposits will remain, for
the U.S., "a strategic priority" that "will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war."
Rand recommended using "covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare" to enforce a
"divide and rule" strategy. "The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists
to launch a proxy campaign" and "U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni
conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment
movements in the Muslim world ... possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly
hostile Iran." ..."
"... When Sunni soldiers of the Syrian Army began defecting in 2013, the western coalition armed
the Free Syrian Army to further destabilize Syria. The press portrait of the Free Syrian Army as cohesive
battalions of Syrian moderates was delusional. The dissolved units regrouped in hundreds of independent
militias most of which were commanded by, or allied with, jihadi militants who were the most committed
and effective fighters. ..."
"... Bremer elevated the Shiites to power and banned Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party, laying off some
700,000 mostly Sunni, government and party officials from ministers to schoolteachers. He then disbanded
the 380,000-man army, which was 80 percent Sunni. Bremer's actions stripped a million of Iraq's Sunnis
of rank, property, wealth and power; leaving a desperate underclass of angry, educated, capable, trained
and heavily armed Sunnis with little left to lose. The Sunni insurgency named itself Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Beginning in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI fighters into Syria. ..."
"... "ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals. ... Many are members of Saddam Hussein's
secular Ba'ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons." ..."
America's unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria-little-known to the American people
yet well-known to Syrians-sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates
any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American
public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound
the crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry this week announced a "provisional" ceasefire in Syria.
But since U.S. leverage and prestige within Syria is minimal-and the ceasefire doesn't include key
combatants such as Islamic State and al Nusra--it's bound to be a shaky truce at best. Similarly
President Obama's stepped-up military intervention in Libya-U.S. airstrikes targeted an Islamic State
training camp last week-is likely to strengthen rather than weaken the radicals. As the New York
Times reported in a December 8, 2015, front-page story, Islamic State political leaders and strategic
planners are working to provoke an American military intervention. They know from experience this
will flood their ranks with volunteer fighters, drown the voices of moderation and unify the Islamic
world against America.
To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians' perspective and particularly
the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising
that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War
weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
This did not happen without controversy at home. In July 1957, following a failed coup in Syria
by the CIA, my uncle, Sen. John F. Kennedy, infuriated the Eisenhower White House, the leaders of
both political parties and our European allies with a milestone speech endorsing the right of self-governance
in the Arab world and an end to America's imperialist meddling in Arab countries. Throughout my lifetime,
and particularly during my frequent travels to the Mideast, countless Arabs have fondly recalled
that speech to me as the clearest statement of the idealism they expected from the U.S. Kennedy's
speech was a call for recommitting America to the high values our country had championed in the Atlantic
Charter; the formal pledge that all the former European colonies would have the right to self-determination
following World War II. Franklin D. Roosevelt had strong-armed Winston Churchill and the other allied
leaders to sign the Atlantic Charter in 1941 as a precondition for U.S. support in the European war
against fascism.
But thanks in large part to Allen Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were
often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the
Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy,
sat on a secret committee charged with investigating the CIA's clandestine mischief in the Mideast.
The so called "Bruce-Lovett Report," to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan,
Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the
American people who believed, at face value, their government's denials. The report blamed the CIA
for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root "in the many countries in
the world today." The Bruce-Lovett Report pointed out that such interventions were antithetical to
American values and had compromised America's international leadership and moral authority without
the knowledge of the American people. The report also said that the CIA never considered how we would
treat such interventions if some foreign government were to engineer them in our country.
This is the bloody history that modern interventionists like George W. Bush, Ted Cruz and
Marco Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists "hate us for
our freedoms." For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedoms-our
own ideals-within their borders.
***
For Americans to really understand what's going on, it's important to review some details about
this sordid but little-remembered history. During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles
brothers-CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles-rebuffed Soviet treaty
proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead,
they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism-which Allen Dulles equated with communism-particularly
when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants
in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies
thath they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the
CIA's director of plans, Frank Wisner, and John Foster Dulles, in September 1957, Eisenhower advised
the agency, "We should do everything possible to stress the 'holy war' aspect," according to a memo
recorded by his staff secretary, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster.
Two years later, Amb. Kennedy served on a secret committee that sharply criticized the CIA-backed
oversees operations that inflamed anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. That same year, freshman
Senator John F. Kennedy, pictured right with brother Robert during a Senate committee hearing, delivered
a speech from the Senate floor titled "Imperialism-The Enemy of Freedom," similarly excoriating the
Eisenhower administration for hindering political self-determination in the region.
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949-barely a year after the agency's creation.
Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted
a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March 1949, Syria's democratically
elected president, Shukri-al-Quwatli, hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American
project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In
his book, Legacy of Ashes, CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation for Al-Quwatli's
lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. pipeline, the CIA engineered a coup replacing al-Quwatli with the
CIA's handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im barely had time to
dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, four and
a half months into his regime.
Following several counter-coups in the newly destabilized country, the Syrian people again tried
democracy in 1955, re-electing al-Quwatli and his National Party. Al-Quwatli was still a Cold War
neutralist, but, stung by American involvement in his ouster, he now leaned toward the Soviet camp.
That posture caused CIA Director Dulles to declare that "Syria is ripe for a coup" and send his
two coup wizards, Kim Roosevelt and Rocky Stone, to Damascus.
Two years earlier, Roosevelt and Stone had orchestrated a coup in Iran against the democratically
elected President Mohammed Mosaddegh, after Mosaddegh tried to renegotiate the terms of Iran's lopsided
contracts with the British oil giant Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). Mosaddegh was the first
elected leader in Iran's 4,000-year history and a popular champion for democracy across the developing
world. Mosaddegh expelled all British diplomats after uncovering a coup attempt by U.K. intelligence
officers working in cahoots with BP. Mosaddegh, however, made the fatal mistake of resisting his
advisers' pleas to also expel the CIA, which, they correctly suspected, was complicit in the British
plot. Mosaddegh idealized the U.S. as a role model for Iran's new democracy and incapable of such
perfidies. Despite Dulles' needling, President Harry Truman had forbidden the CIA from actively
joining the British caper to topple Mosaddegh. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, he immediately
unleashed Dulles. After ousting Mosaddegh in "Operation Ajax," Stone and Roosevelt installed Shah
Reza Pahlavi, who favored U.S. oil companies but whose two decades of CIA sponsored savagery toward
his own people from the Peacock throne would finally ignite the 1979 Islamic revolution that has
bedeviled our foreign policy for 35 years.
Flush from his Operation Ajax "success" in Iran, Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1957 with
$3 million to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians
to overthrow al-Quwatli's democratically elected secularist regime, according to Safe for Democracy:
The Secret Wars of the CIA, by John Prados. Working with the Muslim Brotherhood and millions
of dollars, Rocky Stone schemed to assassinate Syria's chief of intelligence, the chief of its General
Staff and the chief of the Communist Party, and to engineer "national conspiracies and various strong
arm" provocations in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan that could be blamed on the Syrian Ba'athists. Tim
Weiner describes in Legacy of Ashes how the CIA's plan was to destabilize the Syrian government and
create a pretext for an invasion by Iraq and Jordan, whose governments were already under CIA control.
Kim Roosevelt forecast that the CIA's newly installed puppet government would "rely first upon repressive
measures and arbitrary exercise of power," according to declassified CIA documents reported in The
Guardian newspaper.
... ... ...
Having alienated Iraq and Syria, Kim Roosevelt fled the Mideast to work as an executive for the
oil industry that he had served so well during his public service career at the CIA. Roosevelt's
replacement as CIA station chief, James Critchfield, attempted a failed assassination plot against
the new Iraqi president using a toxic handkerchief, according to Weiner. Five years later, the CIA
finally succeeded in deposing the Iraqi president and installing the Ba'ath Party in power in Iraq.
A charismatic young murderer named Saddam Hussein was one of the
distinguished leaders of the CIA's Ba'athist team. The Ba'ath Party's Secretary, Ali Saleh Sa'adi,
who took office alongside Saddam Hussein, would later say, "We came to power on a CIA train," according
to A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite, by Said Aburish, a journalist and author.
Aburish recounted that the CIA supplied Saddam and his cronies a murder list of people who "had to
be eliminated immediately in order to ensure success." Tim Weiner writes that Critchfield later acknowledged
that the CIA had, in essence, "created Saddam Hussein."
... ... ...
The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline, which
would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin's stifling economic and
political leverage. Turkey, Russia's second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end
its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian
fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia's conservative Sunni monarchy
by giving it a foothold in Shia-dominated Syria. The Saudis' geopolitical goal is to contain the
economic and political power of the kingdom's principal rival, Iran, a Shiite state, and close ally
of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S.-sponsored Shiite takeover in Iraq (and, more
recently, the termination of the Iran trade embargo) as a demotion to its regional power status and
was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against
the Iranian backed Houthi tribe.
Of course, the Russians,
who sell 70
percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat.
In Putin's view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its
only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European
energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline
to run through Syria "to protect the interests of our Russian ally."
Despite pressure from Republicans, Barack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as
mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate. Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground
troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to "moderate insurgents." But by late 2011, Republican
pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray.
In 2011, the U.S. joined France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UK to form the Friends of
Syria Coalition, which formally demanded the removal of Assad. The CIA provided $6 million to Barada,
a British TV channel, to produce pieces entreating Assad's ouster. Saudi intelligence documents,
published by WikiLeaks, show that by 2012, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were arming, training and
funding radical jihadist Sunni fighters from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere to overthrow the Assad's Shiite-allied
regime. Qatar, which had the most to gain,
invested $3 billion in building the insurgency and invited the Pentagon to train insurgents at
U.S. bases in Qatar. According to an April 2014 article by Seymour Hersh, the CIA weapons ratlines
were
financed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The idea of fomenting a Sunni-Shiite civil war to weaken the Syrian and Iranian regimes in order
to to maintain control of the region's petrochemical supplies was not a novel notion in the Pentagon's
lexicon. A
damning 2008 Pentagon-funded Rand report proposed a precise blueprint for what was about to happen.
That report observes that control of the Persian Gulf oil and gas deposits will remain, for the
U.S., "a strategic priority" that "will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war."
Rand recommended using "covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare" to enforce
a "divide and rule" strategy. "The United States and its local allies could use the nationalist jihadists
to launch a proxy campaign" and "U.S. leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni
conflict trajectory by taking the side of the conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment
movements in the Muslim world ... possibly supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly
hostile Iran."
As predicted, Assad's overreaction to the foreign-made crisis-dropping barrel bombs onto Sunni
strongholds and killing civilians-polarized Syria's Shiite/Sunni divide and allowed U.S. policymakers
to sell Americans the idea that the pipeline struggle was a humanitarian war. When Sunni soldiers
of the Syrian Army began defecting in 2013, the western coalition armed the Free Syrian Army to further
destabilize Syria. The press portrait of the Free Syrian Army as cohesive battalions of Syrian moderates
was delusional. The dissolved units regrouped in hundreds of independent militias most of which were
commanded by, or allied with, jihadi militants who were the most committed and effective fighters.
By then, the Sunni armies of Al Qaeda in Iraq were crossing the border from Iraq into Syria and joining
forces with the squadrons of deserters from the Free Syrian Army, many of them trained and armed
by the U.S.
Despite the prevailing media portrait of a moderate Arab uprising against the tyrant Assad,
U.S. intelligence planners knew from the outset that their pipeline proxies were radical jihadists
who would probably carve themselves a brand new Islamic caliphate from the Sunni regions of Syria
and Iraq. Two years before ISIL throat cutters stepped on the world stage, a
seven-page August 12, 2012, study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained by the right-wing
group Judicial Watch, warned that thanks to the ongoing support by U.S./Sunni Coalition for radical
Sunni Jihadists, "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (now ISIS), are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria." Using U.S. and Gulf state funding, these groups had turned the peaceful
protests against Bashar Assad toward "a clear sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) direction." The paper
notes that the conflict had become a sectarian civil war supported by Sunni "religious and political
powers." The report paints the Syrian conflict as a global war for control of the region's resources
with "the west, Gulf countries and Turkey supporting [Assad's] opposition, while Russia, China and
Iran support the regime." The Pentagon authors of the seven-page report
appear to endorse the predicted advent of the ISIS caliphate: "If the situation unravels, there
is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria
(Hasaka and Der Zor) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in
order to isolate the Syrian regime."The Pentagon report warns that this new principality
could move across the Iraqi border to Mosul and Ramadi and "declare an Islamic state through its
union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria."
Of course, this is precisely what has happened. Not coincidentally, the regions of Syria occupied
by the Islamic State exactly encompass the proposed route of the Qatari pipeline.
Across the Mideast, Arab leaders routinely accuse the U.S. of having created the Islamic State.
To most Americans, such accusations seem insane. However, to many Arabs, the evidence of U.S. involvement
is so abundant that they conclude that our role in fostering the Islamic State must have been deliberate.
In fact, many of the Islamic State fighters and their commanders are ideological and organizational
successors to the jihadists that the CIA has been nurturing for more than 30 years from Syria and
Egypt to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Prior to the American invasion, there was no Al Qaeda in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. President George
W. Bush destroyed Saddam's secularist government, and his viceroy, Paul Bremer, in a monumental act
of mismanagement, effectively created the Sunni Army, now named the Islamic State. Bremer elevated
the Shiites to power and banned Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party, laying off some 700,000 mostly Sunni,
government and party officials from ministers to schoolteachers. He then disbanded the 380,000-man
army, which was 80 percent Sunni. Bremer's actions stripped a million of Iraq's Sunnis of rank, property,
wealth and power; leaving a desperate underclass of angry, educated, capable, trained and heavily
armed Sunnis with little left to lose. The Sunni insurgency named itself Al Qaeda in Iraq. Beginning
in 2011, our allies funded the invasion by AQI fighters into Syria.
In April 2013, having entered Syria, AQI changed its name to ISIL. According to Dexter Filkins
of the New Yorker, "ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals. ... Many are members
of Saddam Hussein's secular Ba'ath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons."
The $500 million in U.S. military aid that Obama did send to Syria almost certainly ended up benefiting
these militant jihadists. Tim Clemente, the former chairman of the FBI's joint task force, told me
that the difference between the Iraq and Syria conflicts is the millions of military-aged men who
are fleeing the battlefield for Europe rather than staying to fight for their communities.
The obvious explanation is that the nation's moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war.
They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad's Russian-backed tyranny and
the vicious jihadist Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing
pipelines. You can't blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation
minted in either Washington or Moscow. The superpowers have left no options for an idealistic future
that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline.
... ... ..
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the president of Waterkeeper Alliance. His newest book is
Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak.
"... In the US, the establishment can live with Hillary , and if either Trump or Sanders-the revolution's candidates-wins, the new president will soon learn who actually runs the government. Or he will have an unfortunate accident or heart attack. However, the Empire is leaving nothing to chance; it has already initiated a preemptive counterattack. ..."
The populist revolt fueling non-mainstream political movements
in both Europe and the US flows from a single source: you can not fool all the people all the time.
The central lie of our time is that governments can and should forcibly assume control of
individuals' lives, in the name of vague and always shifting greater goods.
The Command and Control Futility Principle holds that governments and central banks can control
one, but not all variables in a multi-variable system. The number of variables global governments
and central banks have arrogated to their purported control has grown beyond measure.
Breakdowns
are visible everywhere, and as those failures exact their ever-increasing toll on the masses,
the masses are pushing back.
The last financial crisis was a watershed. Capitalism's rough justice was obviously, and gallingly,
not allowed to play out. Favored financial institutions didn't face the consequences-insolvency and
bankruptcy-of their promotion of various bubbles and their leveraged business models. They were bailed
out with taxpayer funds. Especially galling was that they knew they were going to be bailed out.
More salt on the wound: improvident homeowners and housing speculators who took on too much mortgage
debt were, other than a few spotty government programs, not bailed out or even offered appreciable
relief. Since the crisis passed, banks have operated on the assumption they will be bailed out again
during the next crisis. Despite all the hype about improved capital ratios and cleaned up loan books,
fractional reserve banking is still fractional reserve banking; a leveraged business model that is
wiped out if enough loans and speculations go bad.
... ... ...
The messes the globalist powers that be have made outside their jurisdictions are even larger
than the ones inside. Led by the US, the Western powers have bestowed unending chaos on the Middle
East and Northern Africa. They have achieved none of their goals, (see "How
To Defeat Your Enemies") but have created massive blowback with the spread of terrorism and the
refugee inundation of Europe. Not only have the war-torn lands not been reordered along liberal democratic
lines, but mountains of money and barrels of blood continue to be spent in perpetual war. Meanwhile,
ordinary citizens in Western homelands, not the elites, are left to contend with terrorist attacks,
refugees burdening already strained social welfare systems, and obnoxious and illegal behavior by
some of the new entrants. The elites shun even acknowledging these problems.
It comes as a surprise only to the elites and their media mouthpieces that the peasants are revolting,
tired of their prevarication, arrogance, and ineptitude. Don't, however, expect them to pay attention
to anything so insignificant as the popular will; they won't go gentle into that good night.
In the US,
the
establishment can live with Hillary, and if either Trump or Sanders-the revolution's candidates-wins,
the new president will soon learn who actually runs the government. Or he will have an unfortunate
accident or heart attack. However, the Empire is leaving nothing to chance; it has already initiated
a preemptive counterattack.
The counterattack has three overlapping fronts: war, the economy, and civil liberties. "The
Quagmire to End All Quagmires" stated that "the US faces the danger of being dragged into World
War III." That phrasing may have been an error (SLL reserves the right, in perpetuity, to make mistakes,
see "On
Failure"). The US government most likely won't get "dragged" into World War III; it will probably
initiate it. If Turkey and Saudi Arabia invade Syria, assume they've been green-lighted by the US
government, which will join them in the carnage.
"... Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert program, overseen by the CIA , that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict. ..."
"... If indeed 'buzzfeed" has there story correct then Russia will be continuing the campaign of kicking our fucking asses in new innovative ways that were never thought possible! ..."
"... I happen to believe that like the Seymour Hersh PR psyops stunt of a story about DOD not following orders from the Commander-in-Chief and "going rogue" on him in those Countries they already destroyed is still committing treason no matter how you slice it . ..."
"... In short the CIA is at the head of the MIC always has been and always will be until it's time of death which may be coming sooner than we think! ..."
"... The invisible hand of the market applied to mayhem - US style? ..."
"... The US Doesn't have a Foreign Relations policy, it's Israel's foreign relations policy installed on US soil. ..."
"... But it looks like the YPG in northeast Syria (where the US spec ops where deployed) is the favorite since they seem to have gotten the advanced Javelin anti tank missile while the moderate Jihadists only got the not as effective TOW. Video and photo at RT. ..."
"... Pictures have emerged on social media which appear to show Syrian Kurds with an advanced US-produced anti-tank missile. A video allegedly shows a rocket blowing up an Islamic State truck. Washington has denied "providing the YPG with weapons." ..."
"... The FGM-148 Javelin is a portable anti-tank missile, which was developed by the United States. It is able to lock on to potential targets using infrared imaging, which makes it a lot more effective than the TOW missile system, which militias fighting against IS had been using, as the TOW is heavier and requires a portable power supply ..."
"... "Also, Javelin launchers and missiles are rather expensive. In 2002, a single Javelin command launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000." ..."
Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S.
government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another
arm of the U.S. government.
The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration's
Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.
The confusion is playing out on the battlefield - with the U.S. effectively engaged in a proxy
war with itself.
***
Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert
program, overseen by the CIA , that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict.
The Kurdish militants, on the other hand, receive weapons and support from the Pentagon
as part of U.S. efforts to fight ISIS. Known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG,
they are
the centerpiece of the Obama administration's strategy against the extremists in Syria and
coordinate regularly with U.S. airstrikes.
The Daily Beast also
reports that U.S. allies are fighting CIA-backed rebels. The U.S. is supporting the Kurds, who
are the best on-the-ground fighters against ISIS … yet America's close ally Turkey is
trying to wipe out the Kurds . Moreover, the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia are
all
using the Incerlik air base in
Adana, Turkey , on
the border with Syria to launch military operations in Syria. The U.S. is using Incerlik to SUPPORT
the Kurds, but Turkey is using the
EXACT SAME air base to
BOMB the Kurds . In addition, the U.S. is supporting
Shia
Muslims in Iraq … but supporting their arch-enemy –
Sunnis Muslims – in neighboring Syria.
And the U.S. claims to be fighting the war on terror AGAINST the exact same groups – ISIS and
Al Qaeda – that
our
closest allies are SUPPORTING . Absolutely insane …
If indeed 'buzzfeed" has there story correct then Russia will be continuing the campaign
of kicking our fucking asses in new innovative ways that were never thought possible!
I happen to believe that like the Seymour Hersh PR psyops stunt of a story about DOD not
following orders from the Commander-in-Chief and "going rogue" on him in those Countries they
already destroyed is still committing treason no matter how you slice it .... is all simply
a way of attempting to draw Russia in closer to get intel on them while they continue to work
miracles on our "proxies" which is depleting our stable of Mercs R' Us day by day.
The event that took place this past weekend in Homs and Damascus is indicative of just that.
And if Russia did indeed make the mistake of giving too much information out to Uncle Sam, the
U.S. military and Langley won't be enjoying that luxury again!...
I'm pretty certain that "Winter Soldier" Kerry's desire to carve up Syria should the cease
fire aka Plan B not come to fruition... It was always the Only Option on the table for Langley
and the Pentagon!!
In short the CIA is at the head of the MIC always has been and always will be until it's
time of death which may be coming sooner than we think!
The 'insouciant' Goyim remain mesmerized under the spell of entertainment and Political-Correctness
gone mad. Hence, unable are they to mount any sort of opposition to this 'soft takeover' of their
nation.
But it looks like the YPG in northeast Syria (where the US spec ops where deployed) is
the favorite since they seem to have gotten the advanced Javelin anti tank missile while the moderate
Jihadists only got the not as effective TOW. Video and photo at RT.
Pictures have emerged on social media which appear to show Syrian Kurds with an advanced
US-produced anti-tank missile. A video allegedly shows a rocket blowing up an Islamic State truck.
Washington has denied "providing the YPG with weapons."
If the video, believed to have been filmed near the Syrian town of Shaddadi, is authenticated
it would show that Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) forces have been given an upgrade
in technology. The footage shows a truck allegedly belonging to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
on the receiving end of a direct hit from the missile.
The FGM-148 Javelin is a portable anti-tank missile, which was developed by the United
States. It is able to lock on to potential targets using infrared imaging, which makes it a lot
more effective than the TOW missile system, which militias fighting against IS had been using,
as the TOW is heavier and requires a portable power supply
"Assuming he's not firing from the side of a mountain or on top of a compound, it's definitely
a Javelin," Corporal Thomas Gray, a former Marine Javelin gunner who watched the video told the
Washington Post.
However John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said that he was unable to confirm whether
the image was authentic and that "nothing has changed about our policy of not providing the YPG
with weapons."
"Also, Javelin launchers and missiles are rather expensive. In 2002, a single Javelin command
launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000."
"... Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert program, overseen by the CIA , that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict. ..."
"... If indeed 'buzzfeed" has there story correct then Russia will be continuing the campaign of kicking our fucking asses in new innovative ways that were never thought possible! ..."
"... I happen to believe that like the Seymour Hersh PR psyops stunt of a story about DOD not following orders from the Commander-in-Chief and "going rogue" on him in those Countries they already destroyed is still committing treason no matter how you slice it . ..."
"... In short the CIA is at the head of the MIC always has been and always will be until it's time of death which may be coming sooner than we think! ..."
"... The invisible hand of the market applied to mayhem - US style? ..."
"... The US Doesn't have a Foreign Relations policy, it's Israel's foreign relations policy installed on US soil. ..."
"... But it looks like the YPG in northeast Syria (where the US spec ops where deployed) is the favorite since they seem to have gotten the advanced Javelin anti tank missile while the moderate Jihadists only got the not as effective TOW. Video and photo at RT. ..."
"... Pictures have emerged on social media which appear to show Syrian Kurds with an advanced US-produced anti-tank missile. A video allegedly shows a rocket blowing up an Islamic State truck. Washington has denied "providing the YPG with weapons." ..."
"... The FGM-148 Javelin is a portable anti-tank missile, which was developed by the United States. It is able to lock on to potential targets using infrared imaging, which makes it a lot more effective than the TOW missile system, which militias fighting against IS had been using, as the TOW is heavier and requires a portable power supply ..."
"... "Also, Javelin launchers and missiles are rather expensive. In 2002, a single Javelin command launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000." ..."
Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S.
government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another
arm of the U.S. government.
The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration's
Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.
The confusion is playing out on the battlefield - with the U.S. effectively engaged in a proxy
war with itself.
***
Furqa al-Sultan Murad receives weapons from the U.S. and its allies as part of a covert
program, overseen by the CIA , that aids rebel groups struggling to overthrow the government of
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, according to rebel officials and analysts tracking the conflict.
The Kurdish militants, on the other hand, receive weapons and support from the Pentagon
as part of U.S. efforts to fight ISIS. Known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG,
they are
the centerpiece of the Obama administration's strategy against the extremists in Syria and
coordinate regularly with U.S. airstrikes.
The Daily Beast also
reports that U.S. allies are fighting CIA-backed rebels. The U.S. is supporting the Kurds, who
are the best on-the-ground fighters against ISIS … yet America's close ally Turkey is
trying to wipe out the Kurds . Moreover, the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia are
all
using the Incerlik air base in
Adana, Turkey , on
the border with Syria to launch military operations in Syria. The U.S. is using Incerlik to SUPPORT
the Kurds, but Turkey is using the
EXACT SAME air base to
BOMB the Kurds . In addition, the U.S. is supporting
Shia
Muslims in Iraq … but supporting their arch-enemy –
Sunnis Muslims – in neighboring Syria.
And the U.S. claims to be fighting the war on terror AGAINST the exact same groups – ISIS and
Al Qaeda – that
our
closest allies are SUPPORTING . Absolutely insane …
If indeed 'buzzfeed" has there story correct then Russia will be continuing the campaign
of kicking our fucking asses in new innovative ways that were never thought possible!
I happen to believe that like the Seymour Hersh PR psyops stunt of a story about DOD not
following orders from the Commander-in-Chief and "going rogue" on him in those Countries they
already destroyed is still committing treason no matter how you slice it .... is all simply
a way of attempting to draw Russia in closer to get intel on them while they continue to work
miracles on our "proxies" which is depleting our stable of Mercs R' Us day by day.
The event that took place this past weekend in Homs and Damascus is indicative of just that.
And if Russia did indeed make the mistake of giving too much information out to Uncle Sam, the
U.S. military and Langley won't be enjoying that luxury again!...
I'm pretty certain that "Winter Soldier" Kerry's desire to carve up Syria should the cease
fire aka Plan B not come to fruition... It was always the Only Option on the table for Langley
and the Pentagon!!
In short the CIA is at the head of the MIC always has been and always will be until it's
time of death which may be coming sooner than we think!
The 'insouciant' Goyim remain mesmerized under the spell of entertainment and Political-Correctness
gone mad. Hence, unable are they to mount any sort of opposition to this 'soft takeover' of their
nation.
But it looks like the YPG in northeast Syria (where the US spec ops where deployed) is
the favorite since they seem to have gotten the advanced Javelin anti tank missile while the moderate
Jihadists only got the not as effective TOW. Video and photo at RT.
Pictures have emerged on social media which appear to show Syrian Kurds with an advanced
US-produced anti-tank missile. A video allegedly shows a rocket blowing up an Islamic State truck.
Washington has denied "providing the YPG with weapons."
If the video, believed to have been filmed near the Syrian town of Shaddadi, is authenticated
it would show that Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) forces have been given an upgrade
in technology. The footage shows a truck allegedly belonging to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
on the receiving end of a direct hit from the missile.
The FGM-148 Javelin is a portable anti-tank missile, which was developed by the United
States. It is able to lock on to potential targets using infrared imaging, which makes it a lot
more effective than the TOW missile system, which militias fighting against IS had been using,
as the TOW is heavier and requires a portable power supply
"Assuming he's not firing from the side of a mountain or on top of a compound, it's definitely
a Javelin," Corporal Thomas Gray, a former Marine Javelin gunner who watched the video told the
Washington Post.
However John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said that he was unable to confirm whether
the image was authentic and that "nothing has changed about our policy of not providing the YPG
with weapons."
"Also, Javelin launchers and missiles are rather expensive. In 2002, a single Javelin command
launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000."
While we would be the first
to admit that Jeffrey Sachs was the godfather of "shock therapy" (aka "the economic rape of Russia"
and several other xUSSR republics), he is right as for the ongoing Syria bloodbath which has come to
define the geopolitical situation for the past 3 years. And how this is an event that would "surely
rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment" if the truth were fully known, we
agree 100 percent.
Notable quotes:
"... Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead. ..."
"... As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria. ..."
"... And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists. ..."
"... Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad. ..."
"... When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change. ..."
"... Clinton has been much more than a bit player in the Syrian crisis. Her diplomat Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi was killed as he was running a CIA operation to ship Libyan heavy weapons to Syria. Clinton herself took the lead role in organizing the so-called "Friends of Syria" to back the CIA-led insurgency. ..."
"... This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup d'état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably, a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to be manipulated by U.S. covert operations. ..."
"... And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a bit of this story last month in describing the CIA-Saudi connection , in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped. Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people). ..."
"... Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today. ..."
"... Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster in Syria. ..."
"... She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to serve in any government capacity - EVER. ..."
"... Well said. Hillary is a warmonger neocon just like Bush/McCain/Graham/Cheney. Trump and Bernie are not. ..."
"... Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless. ..."
"... It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency? ..."
"... The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure. How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know. ..."
"... Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want her to be president? Hello? ..."
"... More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that Hillary was not. ..."
"... she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain, and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being. ..."
"... Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world. ..."
"... Where & Why was Obama & Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs & stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed. power & indifference of those before him. ..."
"... The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution, ..."
"... That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US master plan that mainly supports the US's goal. ..."
"... what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie. ..."
"... They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers... ..."
"... years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much for women by their gender alone saving the world. ..."
"... But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary Clinton's at The State Department. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine: ..."
"... Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations ..."
"... Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes! ..."
"... Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care. ..."
"... Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as we had up here! ..."
In the
Milwaukee debate, Hillary Clinton took pride in her role in a recent UN Security Council resolution
on a Syrian ceasefire:
But I would add this. You know, the Security Council finally got around to adopting a resolution.
At the core of that resolution is an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva, which set
forth a cease-fire and moving toward a political resolution, trying to bring the parties at stake
in Syria together.
This is the kind of compulsive misrepresentation that makes Clinton unfit to be President. Clinton's
role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.
In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special
Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence - Clinton's intransigence - that led to the failure of
Annan's peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton's
insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage.
Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10
million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.
As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad,
or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic
and misguided for that reason.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading
Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable
foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel.
Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria.
This idea is incredibly naïve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time--in fact,
for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to "defeat"
Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and
balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and
deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken
view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.
Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing
Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between
Israel and Syria
to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton
pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.
When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front
of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain
a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime
change.
In early 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia leveraged local protests against Assad to try to foment
conditions for his ouster. By the spring of 2011, the CIA and the US allies were organizing an armed
insurrection against the regime. On August 18, 2011, the US Government
made public
its position: "Assad must go."
Since then and until the
recent fragile UN Security Council accord, the US has refused to agree to any ceasefire unless
Assad is first deposed. The US policy--under Clinton and until recently--has been: regime change
first, ceasefire after. After all, it's only Syrians who are dying. Annan's peace efforts were sunk
by the United States' unbending insistence that U.S.-led regime change must precede or at least accompany
a ceasefire. As the
Nation editors
put it in August 2012:
The US demand that Assad be removed and sanctions be imposed before negotiations could seriously
begin, along with the refusal to include Iran in the process, doomed [Annan's] mission.
The U.S. policy was a massive, horrific failure. Assad did not go, and was not defeated. Russia
came to his support. Iran came to his support. The mercenaries sent in to overthrow him were themselves
radical jihadists with their own agendas. The chaos opened the way for the Islamic State, building
on disaffected Iraqi Army leaders (deposed by the US in 2003), on captured U.S. weaponry, and on
the considerable backing by Saudi funds. If the truth were fully known, the multiple scandals
involved would surely rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment.
The hubris of the United States in this approach seems to know no bounds. The tactic of CIA-led
regime change is so deeply enmeshed as a "normal" instrument of U.S. foreign policy that it is hardly
noticed by the U.S. public or media. Overthrowing another government is against the U.N. charter
and international law. But what are such niceties among friends?
This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international
law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup
d'état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably,
a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to
be manipulated by U.S. covert operations.
Removing a leader, even if done "successfully," doesn't solve any underlying geopolitical problems,
much less ecological, social, or economic ones. A coup d'etat invites a civil war, the kind that
now wracks Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It invites a hostile international response, such
as Russia's backing of its Syrian ally in the face of the CIA-led operations. The record of misery
caused by covert CIA operations literally fills volumes at this point. What surprise, then, the Clinton
acknowledges Henry Kissinger as a mentor and guide?
And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a
bit of this story last month in
describing the CIA-Saudi connection, in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations
in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped.
Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver
North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert
operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people).
Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument
of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not
limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War
in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated
insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today.
It takes great presidential leadership to resist CIA misadventures. Presidents get along by going
along with arms contractors, generals, and CIA operatives. They thereby also protect themselves from
political attack by hardline right-wingers. They succeed by exulting in U.S. military might, not
restraining it. Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures
to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in
the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government.
Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down
the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by
supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden
from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster
in Syria.
The people of the United States do not want that woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton to have relations
with the people of the United States. She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary
of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to
serve in any government capacity - EVER.
Simple equation....war=money=power. Perpetual warfare is the post 911 gold rush and every establishment
politician in every country is the snake oil salesman pushing this through. The people on the
top make money and the rest of us get killed and go broke.
Max South
Not only the root cause, but also to-ols are important: now Western media/StateDep try depict
what happens in Syria as sectarian, all while majority of both Syrian army and government are
Sunni (even Assad's wife is Sunni) -- secular ones.
Syrian government is only hope for them, as well as for Christians, Kurds and all other ethnic
and religious minorities that fight against Wahhabi/Salafist jihadists.
Sanders' platform is expansive and IMO he has provided the most detail on how he will get things
done, which anyone can find out with a bit of investigation (http://berniesanders.com/issues/).
But all of it doesn't matter since you can't predict how events will unfold. In this regard, I
trust Sanders more than anyone else to decide what is best for all people in the the country (and
even the world). I personally will do well with anyone but I think Sanders is looking out for
the average person more than anyone else.
Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that
ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that
whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless.
It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind
the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over
and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency?
Bijan Sharifi
as an iranian-american (and veteran), i appreciate sen sanders bringing this up in the debate.
Bijan Sharifi Indeed. The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess
and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure.
How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know.
Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I
al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want
her to be president? Hello?
More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her
disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that
Hillary was not. As soon as she returns to office expect more of her warfare first and diplomacy 'meh'.
Gary Pack
Ignacio, she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain,
and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being.
This is what Trump has been alluding to in re Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to
bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world.
Where & Why was Obama
& Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans
have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs
& stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed.
power & indifference of those before him.
James Elliott cheerleading will not get anything done, I don't think Bernie understands how to
get things done in our system, reality is 40 years of bad will not be fixed in even 4 years.
The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election
and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution,
vote every election you are alive and you will let your children and their children a better
life.
Harvey Riggs
That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world
peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US
master plan that mainly supports the US's goal.
More messes in this world has been started with covert means in order to get what we want and
millions upon milllions are suffering and the rest of the world countries 1'%ers who run those
countries are scared to stand up aguinst the US and lose that under the table support.
what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters
believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie.
They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to
differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers...
Additionally, years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much
for women by their gender alone saving the world.
Sheila Rajan
Looking at the various misguided US excursions over the past 2 decades from outside of America,
this comes as no surprise. Clinton's deep involvement in these venal adventures comes as no surprise
either. Bill Clinton may have been adored in liberal America, but he was NOT, outside of your
borders. To us he appeared as just another one in a long line of Presidents under the sway of
the arms manufacturers, CIA, banks and financiers. Hillary Clinton is just an offshoot.
But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine
with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary
Clinton's at The State Department.
Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine:
Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts
of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations
as an official policy using drones, black ops, spec ops, military "contractors", hired mercenaries,
war lord militias and the like; the illegal and immoral acts of war cloaked in the Israeli framed
rubric of "national defense".
Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the
world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them
for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures
of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes!
Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they
care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care.
Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt
Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as
we had up here!
While we would be the first
to admit that Jeffrey Sachs was the godfather of "shock therapy" (aka "the economic rape of Russia"
and several other xUSSR republics), he is right as for the ongoing Syria bloodbath which has come to
define the geopolitical situation for the past 3 years. And how this is an event that would "surely
rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment" if the truth were fully known, we
agree 100 percent.
Notable quotes:
"... Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead. ..."
"... As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria. ..."
"... And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists. ..."
"... Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad. ..."
"... When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change. ..."
"... Clinton has been much more than a bit player in the Syrian crisis. Her diplomat Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi was killed as he was running a CIA operation to ship Libyan heavy weapons to Syria. Clinton herself took the lead role in organizing the so-called "Friends of Syria" to back the CIA-led insurgency. ..."
"... This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup d'état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably, a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to be manipulated by U.S. covert operations. ..."
"... And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a bit of this story last month in describing the CIA-Saudi connection , in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped. Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people). ..."
"... Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today. ..."
"... Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster in Syria. ..."
"... She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to serve in any government capacity - EVER. ..."
"... Well said. Hillary is a warmonger neocon just like Bush/McCain/Graham/Cheney. Trump and Bernie are not. ..."
"... Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless. ..."
"... It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency? ..."
"... The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure. How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know. ..."
"... Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want her to be president? Hello? ..."
"... More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that Hillary was not. ..."
"... she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain, and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being. ..."
"... Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world. ..."
"... Where & Why was Obama & Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs & stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed. power & indifference of those before him. ..."
"... The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution, ..."
"... That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US master plan that mainly supports the US's goal. ..."
"... what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie. ..."
"... They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers... ..."
"... years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much for women by their gender alone saving the world. ..."
"... But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary Clinton's at The State Department. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine: ..."
"... Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations ..."
"... Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes! ..."
"... Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care. ..."
"... Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as we had up here! ..."
In the
Milwaukee debate, Hillary Clinton took pride in her role in a recent UN Security Council resolution
on a Syrian ceasefire:
But I would add this. You know, the Security Council finally got around to adopting a resolution.
At the core of that resolution is an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva, which set
forth a cease-fire and moving toward a political resolution, trying to bring the parties at stake
in Syria together.
This is the kind of compulsive misrepresentation that makes Clinton unfit to be President. Clinton's
role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.
In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special
Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence - Clinton's intransigence - that led to the failure of
Annan's peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton's
insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage.
Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10
million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.
As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad,
or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic
and misguided for that reason.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading
Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable
foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel.
Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria.
This idea is incredibly naïve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time--in fact,
for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to "defeat"
Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and
balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and
deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken
view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.
Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing
Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between
Israel and Syria
to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton
pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.
When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front
of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain
a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime
change.
In early 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia leveraged local protests against Assad to try to foment
conditions for his ouster. By the spring of 2011, the CIA and the US allies were organizing an armed
insurrection against the regime. On August 18, 2011, the US Government
made public
its position: "Assad must go."
Since then and until the
recent fragile UN Security Council accord, the US has refused to agree to any ceasefire unless
Assad is first deposed. The US policy--under Clinton and until recently--has been: regime change
first, ceasefire after. After all, it's only Syrians who are dying. Annan's peace efforts were sunk
by the United States' unbending insistence that U.S.-led regime change must precede or at least accompany
a ceasefire. As the
Nation editors
put it in August 2012:
The US demand that Assad be removed and sanctions be imposed before negotiations could seriously
begin, along with the refusal to include Iran in the process, doomed [Annan's] mission.
The U.S. policy was a massive, horrific failure. Assad did not go, and was not defeated. Russia
came to his support. Iran came to his support. The mercenaries sent in to overthrow him were themselves
radical jihadists with their own agendas. The chaos opened the way for the Islamic State, building
on disaffected Iraqi Army leaders (deposed by the US in 2003), on captured U.S. weaponry, and on
the considerable backing by Saudi funds. If the truth were fully known, the multiple scandals
involved would surely rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment.
The hubris of the United States in this approach seems to know no bounds. The tactic of CIA-led
regime change is so deeply enmeshed as a "normal" instrument of U.S. foreign policy that it is hardly
noticed by the U.S. public or media. Overthrowing another government is against the U.N. charter
and international law. But what are such niceties among friends?
This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international
law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup
d'état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably,
a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to
be manipulated by U.S. covert operations.
Removing a leader, even if done "successfully," doesn't solve any underlying geopolitical problems,
much less ecological, social, or economic ones. A coup d'etat invites a civil war, the kind that
now wracks Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It invites a hostile international response, such
as Russia's backing of its Syrian ally in the face of the CIA-led operations. The record of misery
caused by covert CIA operations literally fills volumes at this point. What surprise, then, the Clinton
acknowledges Henry Kissinger as a mentor and guide?
And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a
bit of this story last month in
describing the CIA-Saudi connection, in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations
in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped.
Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver
North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert
operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people).
Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument
of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not
limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War
in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated
insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today.
It takes great presidential leadership to resist CIA misadventures. Presidents get along by going
along with arms contractors, generals, and CIA operatives. They thereby also protect themselves from
political attack by hardline right-wingers. They succeed by exulting in U.S. military might, not
restraining it. Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures
to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in
the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government.
Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down
the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by
supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden
from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster
in Syria.
The people of the United States do not want that woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton to have relations
with the people of the United States. She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary
of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to
serve in any government capacity - EVER.
Simple equation....war=money=power. Perpetual warfare is the post 911 gold rush and every establishment
politician in every country is the snake oil salesman pushing this through. The people on the
top make money and the rest of us get killed and go broke.
Max South
Not only the root cause, but also to-ols are important: now Western media/StateDep try depict
what happens in Syria as sectarian, all while majority of both Syrian army and government are
Sunni (even Assad's wife is Sunni) -- secular ones.
Syrian government is only hope for them, as well as for Christians, Kurds and all other ethnic
and religious minorities that fight against Wahhabi/Salafist jihadists.
Sanders' platform is expansive and IMO he has provided the most detail on how he will get things
done, which anyone can find out with a bit of investigation (http://berniesanders.com/issues/).
But all of it doesn't matter since you can't predict how events will unfold. In this regard, I
trust Sanders more than anyone else to decide what is best for all people in the the country (and
even the world). I personally will do well with anyone but I think Sanders is looking out for
the average person more than anyone else.
Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that
ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that
whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless.
It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind
the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over
and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency?
Bijan Sharifi
as an iranian-american (and veteran), i appreciate sen sanders bringing this up in the debate.
Bijan Sharifi Indeed. The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess
and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure.
How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know.
Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I
al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want
her to be president? Hello?
More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her
disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that
Hillary was not. As soon as she returns to office expect more of her warfare first and diplomacy 'meh'.
Gary Pack
Ignacio, she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain,
and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being.
This is what Trump has been alluding to in re Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to
bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world.
Where & Why was Obama
& Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans
have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs
& stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed.
power & indifference of those before him.
James Elliott cheerleading will not get anything done, I don't think Bernie understands how to
get things done in our system, reality is 40 years of bad will not be fixed in even 4 years.
The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election
and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution,
vote every election you are alive and you will let your children and their children a better
life.
Harvey Riggs
That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world
peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US
master plan that mainly supports the US's goal.
More messes in this world has been started with covert means in order to get what we want and
millions upon milllions are suffering and the rest of the world countries 1'%ers who run those
countries are scared to stand up aguinst the US and lose that under the table support.
what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters
believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie.
They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to
differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers...
Additionally, years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much
for women by their gender alone saving the world.
Sheila Rajan
Looking at the various misguided US excursions over the past 2 decades from outside of America,
this comes as no surprise. Clinton's deep involvement in these venal adventures comes as no surprise
either. Bill Clinton may have been adored in liberal America, but he was NOT, outside of your
borders. To us he appeared as just another one in a long line of Presidents under the sway of
the arms manufacturers, CIA, banks and financiers. Hillary Clinton is just an offshoot.
But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine
with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary
Clinton's at The State Department.
Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine:
Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts
of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations
as an official policy using drones, black ops, spec ops, military "contractors", hired mercenaries,
war lord militias and the like; the illegal and immoral acts of war cloaked in the Israeli framed
rubric of "national defense".
Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the
world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them
for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures
of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes!
Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they
care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care.
Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt
Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as
we had up here!
"... The American public has been living under collective Stockholm syndrome. The have secretly been deceived and betrayed while our freedoms, rights and national security has been compromised. The surveillance state was never for our protection. ..."
"... Various rogue agencies have intentionally and illegally subverted our constitution, rights and freedoms while secretly targeting Americans committing various crimes, including murder. ..."
"... When Clapper says "they might" then they are already doing so. ..."
"... Tea party never was. It always was promoted by the media and big business. Financed by the same. Look at the coverage: Occupy was ridiculed by big Media into no existence. Not the same at all. ..."
"... USSR has won! Now we treat our people the same way they did. Soon we can blackmail everyone into compliance. And we can easily plant evidence should we not find any - if they're in they can do anything they want. ..."
"... She is an opportunist, not a feminist. ..."
"... Ban Ki Moon and the Pope saying capitalism is destroying the life AND economy of the entire fricken globe, may be an opportunity for a popular movement, and this Bernie thing has the potential to be part of a wake up moment. ..."
"... I said I wouldn't ever do that again after O'bummer, but as Woodie Guthrie said, Hope is what makes us human and is the driver of evolution. Or something like that. ..."
"... You lost me on "equality is women having all the same opportunities as men". Actually many of us want entirely different "opportunities" and these women who play the patriarch, like Thatcher and Rice, and Shillary, do not represent the diverse and rich culture of "feminism" that is enmeshed in people's real lives. ..."
"... I'm an aussie and I can tell you America Bernie Sanders is what you need to keep you guys from becoming a laughing stock. Hillary, trump is on the same brush as the elitist of your country. Bernie may or not be able to do what he wants to as he will get stonewalled but if everyone is united and keeps fighting with him they will have no choice to implement some of them. ..."
The American public has been living under collective Stockholm syndrome. The have secretly
been deceived and betrayed while our freedoms, rights and national security has been compromised.
The surveillance state was never for our protection.
Various rogue agencies have intentionally and illegally subverted our constitution, rights
and freedoms while secretly targeting Americans committing various crimes, including murder.
I'll say this, if this inevitable surveillance can prevent actual criminals from committing
actual crimes, it might be useful.
And I'll say this: if that is the intention of these devices - and if your bog-standard criminal
is ever caught using them - I'll eat your smart fridge.
Tea party never was. It always was promoted by the media and big business. Financed by the same.
Look at the coverage: Occupy was ridiculed by big Media into no existence. Not the same at all.
USSR has won! Now we treat our people the same way they did. Soon we can blackmail everyone into
compliance. And we can easily plant evidence should we not find any - if they're in they can do
anything they want.
Hear ya, I plan to hold him to the fire. I'm a realist, and married to an uber realist, so not
gonna argue with ya here, but, as this article actually says really well, is that the holistic
embrace of all inequity opens the landscape to the big conversations we do Need to have right
now.
I know i know, the UN is at one hand a weak tool and on the other a NWO franchise, but
Ban Ki Moon and the Pope saying capitalism is destroying the life AND economy of the entire fricken
globe, may be an opportunity for a popular movement, and this Bernie thing has the potential to
be part of a wake up moment.
I have let my Hope thing vibrate a bit, and I said I wouldn't ever
do that again after O'bummer, but as Woodie Guthrie said, Hope is what makes us human and is the
driver of evolution. Or something like that.
You lost me on "equality is women having all the same opportunities as men". Actually many of
us want entirely different "opportunities" and these women who play the patriarch, like Thatcher
and Rice, and Shillary, do not represent the diverse and rich culture of "feminism" that is enmeshed
in people's real lives.
I'm an aussie and I can tell you America Bernie Sanders is what you need to keep you guys from
becoming a laughing stock. Hillary, trump is on the same brush as the elitist of your country.
Bernie may or not be able to do what he wants to as he will get stonewalled but if everyone is
united and keeps fighting with him they will have no choice to implement some of them.
As an Aussie
it is important that his message is heard and implemented as America can then show the world there
is good in the world and that we all can live in a fair, just and equal world. Something America
has stopped showing for a very longtime. This hopefully will filter down to other countries as
America rightly or wrongly leads the world and many countries do follow suit.
"... The American public has been living under collective Stockholm syndrome. The have secretly been deceived and betrayed while our freedoms, rights and national security has been compromised. The surveillance state was never for our protection. ..."
"... Various rogue agencies have intentionally and illegally subverted our constitution, rights and freedoms while secretly targeting Americans committing various crimes, including murder. ..."
"... When Clapper says "they might" then they are already doing so. ..."
"... Tea party never was. It always was promoted by the media and big business. Financed by the same. Look at the coverage: Occupy was ridiculed by big Media into no existence. Not the same at all. ..."
"... USSR has won! Now we treat our people the same way they did. Soon we can blackmail everyone into compliance. And we can easily plant evidence should we not find any - if they're in they can do anything they want. ..."
"... She is an opportunist, not a feminist. ..."
"... Ban Ki Moon and the Pope saying capitalism is destroying the life AND economy of the entire fricken globe, may be an opportunity for a popular movement, and this Bernie thing has the potential to be part of a wake up moment. ..."
"... I said I wouldn't ever do that again after O'bummer, but as Woodie Guthrie said, Hope is what makes us human and is the driver of evolution. Or something like that. ..."
"... You lost me on "equality is women having all the same opportunities as men". Actually many of us want entirely different "opportunities" and these women who play the patriarch, like Thatcher and Rice, and Shillary, do not represent the diverse and rich culture of "feminism" that is enmeshed in people's real lives. ..."
"... I'm an aussie and I can tell you America Bernie Sanders is what you need to keep you guys from becoming a laughing stock. Hillary, trump is on the same brush as the elitist of your country. Bernie may or not be able to do what he wants to as he will get stonewalled but if everyone is united and keeps fighting with him they will have no choice to implement some of them. ..."
The American public has been living under collective Stockholm syndrome. The have secretly
been deceived and betrayed while our freedoms, rights and national security has been compromised.
The surveillance state was never for our protection.
Various rogue agencies have intentionally and illegally subverted our constitution, rights
and freedoms while secretly targeting Americans committing various crimes, including murder.
I'll say this, if this inevitable surveillance can prevent actual criminals from committing
actual crimes, it might be useful.
And I'll say this: if that is the intention of these devices - and if your bog-standard criminal
is ever caught using them - I'll eat your smart fridge.
Tea party never was. It always was promoted by the media and big business. Financed by the same.
Look at the coverage: Occupy was ridiculed by big Media into no existence. Not the same at all.
USSR has won! Now we treat our people the same way they did. Soon we can blackmail everyone into
compliance. And we can easily plant evidence should we not find any - if they're in they can do
anything they want.
Hear ya, I plan to hold him to the fire. I'm a realist, and married to an uber realist, so not
gonna argue with ya here, but, as this article actually says really well, is that the holistic
embrace of all inequity opens the landscape to the big conversations we do Need to have right
now.
I know i know, the UN is at one hand a weak tool and on the other a NWO franchise, but
Ban Ki Moon and the Pope saying capitalism is destroying the life AND economy of the entire fricken
globe, may be an opportunity for a popular movement, and this Bernie thing has the potential to
be part of a wake up moment.
I have let my Hope thing vibrate a bit, and I said I wouldn't ever
do that again after O'bummer, but as Woodie Guthrie said, Hope is what makes us human and is the
driver of evolution. Or something like that.
You lost me on "equality is women having all the same opportunities as men". Actually many of
us want entirely different "opportunities" and these women who play the patriarch, like Thatcher
and Rice, and Shillary, do not represent the diverse and rich culture of "feminism" that is enmeshed
in people's real lives.
I'm an aussie and I can tell you America Bernie Sanders is what you need to keep you guys from
becoming a laughing stock. Hillary, trump is on the same brush as the elitist of your country.
Bernie may or not be able to do what he wants to as he will get stonewalled but if everyone is
united and keeps fighting with him they will have no choice to implement some of them.
As an Aussie
it is important that his message is heard and implemented as America can then show the world there
is good in the world and that we all can live in a fair, just and equal world. Something America
has stopped showing for a very longtime. This hopefully will filter down to other countries as
America rightly or wrongly leads the world and many countries do follow suit.
Actually you should use separate PC for you banking transaction and taxes. this can be older PC
or a cheap laptop bought specifically for this purpose, or at least a VM. But it should be a separate
operating system from OS that you use to browse internet. Doing such
things on Pc you use for regular internet browsing is playing with fire.
Notable quotes:
"... mmmm missed the best security resolution of all: go to 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) for all email financial services accounts: gmail, schwab, paypal, etc, etc - makes 30 character passwords much less important ..."
"... if a financial service provider does not have 2FA, then drop them for incompetence ..."
"... one of the best advise i received is; when doing banking on your PC make sure that is the only page open ..."
"... The main issue with a full Linux system is you need a technical support person to back you up if you're not doing it yourself. Linux had the most CVE vulnerabilities after OS X ..."
"... We really don't need more kooks thinking their messages to Aunt Tillie need strong encryption. ..."
Next up is ditching old, unused or poorly maintained software. Using software is a commitment.
If you don't update it, you are wearing a "hack me" sign on your forehead. So if there are programs
or apps that you don't use, delete them.
This year, I decided to ditch my instant messaging client Adium. I was using it to enable encrypted
chats. But like many cash-strapped open source projects, it is rarely
updated and has been linked to many
security
vulnerabilities.
mmmm missed the best security resolution of all: go to 2-Factor
Authentication (2FA) for all email & financial services accounts:
gmail, schwab, paypal, etc, etc - makes 30 character passwords much
less important
if a financial service provider does not have 2FA,
then drop them for incompetence
one of the best advise i received is; when doing banking on your PC make sure that is the only page
open (actually you should have a separate Pc for such transactions, or at least a VM -- NNB) the only item running on your PC at the time no other software or open web page should be running,
because those other open software can possible view your account info.
The greatest thing I did to upgrade my security was to dump anything
and everything related to apple. Moved on over to open source Linux
Mint and yes, I still use Tor.
The main issue with a full Linux system is you need a technical
support person to back you up if you're not doing it yourself.
Linux had the most CVE vulnerabilities after OS X:
http://www.cvedetails.com/top-...
Jonathan
So for Mr & Ms Average Internet user you are going to suggest they switch to Tor and the
dark web? Before they worry about password security? Perhaps for a journalist anonymity is
paramount but most folks are only going to expose themselves to even more malware down that
path. Better to suggest that users switch to a browser that autoupdates itself and install the
HTTPS Everywhere plugin. We really don't need more kooks thinking their messages to Aunt
Tillie need strong encryption.
Gordon Bartlett
Sorry, but it's not clear what you mean by "updating your software." Try giving specific
examples of, say, what a person running Windows on their PC or Android on their mobile phone
would do on their own to upgrade, assuming, as you do, that the patches we periodically
receive from MSFT, etc. are inadequate.
JSF
I am a retired IT professional from a federal government agency. Most of our users who
needed secure communication were rather techno phobic. Try Explaining public/private keys. I
have tried some programs like signal, PGP etc. They all require the recipient to use the same
software. Signal said "invite your contacts" I am pretty sure any one getting this invite
would consider it spam, pfishing or a virus.
The sender might not know where the recipient is located. If the Corp locks their users
machines it requires IT intervention to install anything which could be days or longer not
really conducive to time sensitive information. We need to develop better technical solutions
for people who are not tech savvy
Actually you should use separate PC for you banking transaction and taxes. this can be older PC
or a cheap laptop bought specifically for this purpose, or at least a VM. But it should be a separate
operating system from OS that you use to browse internet. Doing such
things on Pc you use for regular internet browsing is playing with fire.
Notable quotes:
"... mmmm missed the best security resolution of all: go to 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) for all email financial services accounts: gmail, schwab, paypal, etc, etc - makes 30 character passwords much less important ..."
"... if a financial service provider does not have 2FA, then drop them for incompetence ..."
"... one of the best advise i received is; when doing banking on your PC make sure that is the only page open ..."
"... The main issue with a full Linux system is you need a technical support person to back you up if you're not doing it yourself. Linux had the most CVE vulnerabilities after OS X ..."
"... We really don't need more kooks thinking their messages to Aunt Tillie need strong encryption. ..."
Next up is ditching old, unused or poorly maintained software. Using software is a commitment.
If you don't update it, you are wearing a "hack me" sign on your forehead. So if there are programs
or apps that you don't use, delete them.
This year, I decided to ditch my instant messaging client Adium. I was using it to enable encrypted
chats. But like many cash-strapped open source projects, it is rarely
updated and has been linked to many
security
vulnerabilities.
mmmm missed the best security resolution of all: go to 2-Factor
Authentication (2FA) for all email & financial services accounts:
gmail, schwab, paypal, etc, etc - makes 30 character passwords much
less important
if a financial service provider does not have 2FA,
then drop them for incompetence
one of the best advise i received is; when doing banking on your PC make sure that is the only page
open (actually you should have a separate Pc for such transactions, or at least a VM -- NNB) the only item running on your PC at the time no other software or open web page should be running,
because those other open software can possible view your account info.
The greatest thing I did to upgrade my security was to dump anything
and everything related to apple. Moved on over to open source Linux
Mint and yes, I still use Tor.
The main issue with a full Linux system is you need a technical
support person to back you up if you're not doing it yourself.
Linux had the most CVE vulnerabilities after OS X:
http://www.cvedetails.com/top-...
Jonathan
So for Mr & Ms Average Internet user you are going to suggest they switch to Tor and the
dark web? Before they worry about password security? Perhaps for a journalist anonymity is
paramount but most folks are only going to expose themselves to even more malware down that
path. Better to suggest that users switch to a browser that autoupdates itself and install the
HTTPS Everywhere plugin. We really don't need more kooks thinking their messages to Aunt
Tillie need strong encryption.
Gordon Bartlett
Sorry, but it's not clear what you mean by "updating your software." Try giving specific
examples of, say, what a person running Windows on their PC or Android on their mobile phone
would do on their own to upgrade, assuming, as you do, that the patches we periodically
receive from MSFT, etc. are inadequate.
JSF
I am a retired IT professional from a federal government agency. Most of our users who
needed secure communication were rather techno phobic. Try Explaining public/private keys. I
have tried some programs like signal, PGP etc. They all require the recipient to use the same
software. Signal said "invite your contacts" I am pretty sure any one getting this invite
would consider it spam, pfishing or a virus.
The sender might not know where the recipient is located. If the Corp locks their users
machines it requires IT intervention to install anything which could be days or longer not
really conducive to time sensitive information. We need to develop better technical solutions
for people who are not tech savvy
"... In a presentation titled Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Rosen presented his findings based on a number of computer-based surveys distributed to 1,000 urban adolescents and his 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying. ..."
"... Some of the negative side effects of Facebook use for teens that Rosen cited include: ..."
"... Development of narcissism in teens who often use Facebook; ..."
"... Presence of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies, in teens who have a strong Facebook presence; ..."
"... Increased absence from school and likelihood of developing stomach aches, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression, in teens who overdose in technology on a daily basis, including Facebook and video games; ..."
"... Lower grades for middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period; ..."
"... Lower reading retention rates for students who most frequently had Facebook open on their computers during the 15-minute study period. ..."
We ARE what we THINK - not what we look at, or what we look like, or what we think we look like.
In fact, the visual cortex can be highly deceptive when it comes to the functioning of the brain.
Optical illusions exploit this brain trick.
Most practically, overloading of the visual cortex reduces higher brain function to nearly zero.
It's a very subtle process, not understood by many TV watchers. TV makes you stupid by overloading
your visual cortex, at a certain Hz frequency, which affects your reptilian brain. This is
why you get the munchies when you watch TV, or laugh without reason. Facebook is a lot more
effective at this because the associations are stronger (i.e. your friends) and it's interactive
- making the users feel as if they are controlling their reality.
The fact is that users are not controlling Facebook - Facebook is controlling you. They
have set the stage which is limited, and allow users few useful tools to manage this barrage on your
mind. The only way to really stop this invasive virus from spreading: turn it off!
Reasons to delete your Facebook:
Stop sharing personal details with the US government and a host of other interested groups
Enjoy more time in your life, which can be used to pursue a hobby, write a book, or learn
a foreign language
Fill your brain with something wholesome! Plant a tree!
Lose weight
Increase your IQ
Increase the speed of your computer
Increase the speed of your internet
Discover the thousands of other more interesting sites on the internet - such as Wikipedia!
Learn about Quantum Physics! Did you know that major universities now publish their complete
course videos online? Users can literally get a full college education by attending Stanford
(but without the degree of course) compeltely for free, online. A good start - the Khan
Academy www.khanacademy.org
No one can argue that Facebook has provided families with means of keeping in touch at long distances.
Many grandparents wouldn't otherwise see photos of their growing grandchildren. But there are
hundreds of other social networks, private networks, and other methods, of doing the same thing -
without all the 'crap' that comes with Facebook. Remember the days when we would email photos
to each other? We'd spend time even cropping photos and choosing the best one. Now, users
on Facebook will even snap away photos of their daily dinner, or inform the world that they forgot
to wash their socks. Facebook users who engage in the practice of 'wall scanning' have little
room in their brains for anything else.
Children are also a consideration with Facebook. Web Filters actually block facebook the
same way they block other illicit sites. Parents can probably relate to this article more than
the average user. Average users have accepted spam crap as part of life. It's in our
mailboxes, it's on billboards on our highways, it's everywhere. But really - it's not!
Facebook has been banned in corporate networks, government offices, schools, universities, and
other institutions. Workers at times would literally spend all day posting and reading Facebook.
It's as useless as TV - but much more addicting. From
Psychology Today:
Below we review some research suggesting 7 ways that Facebook may be hurting you.
It can make you feel like your life isn't as cool as everyone else's.
Social psychologist Leon Festinger observed that people are naturally inclined to engage in
social comparison. To answer a question like "Am I doing better or worse than average?" you
need to check out other people like you. Facebook is a quick, effortless way to engage in social
comparison, but with even one glance through your News Feed you might see pictures of your
friends enjoying a mouth-watering dinner at Chez Panisse, or perhaps winning the Professor
of the Year award at Yale University. Indeed, a study by Chou and Edge (2012) found that chronic
Facebook users tend to think that other people lead happier lives than their own, leading them
to feel that life is less fair.
It can lead you to envy your friends' successes. Did cousin Annabelle
announce a nice new promotion last month, a new car last week, and send a photo from her cruise
vacation to Aruba this morning? Not only can Facebook make you feel like you aren't sharing
in your friends'
happiness, but it can also make you feel envious of their happy lives. Buxmann and Krasnova
(2013) have found that seeing others' highlights on your News Feed can make you envious of
friends' travels, successes, and appearances. Additional findings suggest that the negative
psychological impact of passively following others on Facebook is driven by the feelings of
envy that stem from passively skimming your News Feed.
It can lead to a sense of false consensus. Sit next to a friend while
you each search for the same thing on Google. Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble
(2012), can promise you won't see the same search results. Not only have your Internet
searches grown more personalized, so have
social networking
sites. Facebook's sorting function places posts higher in your News Feed if they're from like-minded
friends-which may distort your view of the world (Constine, 2012). This can lead you to believe
that your favorite political candidate is a shoe-in for the upcoming election, even though
many of your friends are saying otherwise…you just won't hear them.
It can keep you in touch with people you'd really rather forget.
Want to know what your ex is up to? You can…and that might not be a good thing.Facebook stalking
has made it harder to let go of past relationships. Does she seem as miserable as I am? Is
that ambiguous post directed at me? Has she started
datingthat guy
from trivia night? These questions might better remain unanswered; indeed, Marshall (2012)
found that Facebook users who reported visiting their former partner's page experienced disrupted
post-breakup emotional recovery and higher levels of distress. Even if you still run into your
ex in daily life, the effects of online surveillance were significantly worse than those of
offline contact.
It can make you jealous of your current partner. Facebook stalking
doesn't only apply to your ex. Who is this Stacy LaRue, and why is she constantly "liking"
my husband's Facebook posts? Krafsky and Krafsky, authors of Facebook and YourMarriage
(2010), address many common concerns in relationships that stem from Facebook use. "Checking
up on" your partner's page can often lead to
jealousy and
even unwarranted suspicion, particularly if your husband's exes frequently come into the picture.
Krafsky and Krafsky recommend talking with your partner about behaviors that you both consider
safe and trustworthy on Facebook, and setting boundaries where you don't feel comfortable.
It can reveal information you might not want to share with potential employers.
Do you really want a potential employer to know about how drunk you got at last week's
kegger…or the interesting wild night that followed with the girl in the blue bikini?
Peluchette and Karl (2010) found that 40% of users mention
alcoholuse on
their Facebook page, and 20% mention sexual activities. We often think these posts are safe
from prying eyes, but that might not be the case. While 89% of jobseekers use social networking
sites, 37% of potential employers do, as well-and are actively looking into their potential
hires (Smith, 2013). If you're on the job market, make sure to check your privacy settings
and restrict any risqué content to "Friends Only", if you don't wish to delete it entirely.
It can become addictive. Think society's most common addictive substances
are coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol? Think again. The DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)
includes a new diagnosis that has stirred controversy: a series of items gauging Internet
Addiction. Since
then, Facebook addiction has gathered attention from both popular media and empirical journals,
leading to the creation of a Facebook addiction scale (Paddock, 2012; see below for items).
To explore the seriousness of this addiction, Hofmann and colleagues (2012) randomly texted
participants over the course of a week to ask what they most desired at that particular moment.
They found that among their participants, social media use was craved even more than tobacco
and alcohol.
Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids
In a presentation titled "Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids"
at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Rosen presented his
findings based on a number of computer-based surveys distributed to 1,000 urban adolescents and
his 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying.
Some of the negative side effects of Facebook use for teens that Rosen cited include:
Development of narcissism in teens who often use Facebook;
Presence of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and
aggressive tendencies, in teens who have a strong Facebook presence;
Increased absence from school and likelihood of developing stomach aches, sleeping
problems, anxiety and depression, in teens who "overdose" in technology on a daily basis, including
Facebook and video games;
Lower grades for middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook
at least once during a 15-minute study period;
Lower reading retention rates for students who most frequently had Facebook open on
their computers during the 15-minute study period.
Facebook will cause lower grades for students, but it's OK for adults? hmm...
Facebook (FB) Investment Advice
It's just a matter of time when this will result in a major scandal, FB stock will crash, and
class action investigations will pile
up. Lawyers will have to hire companies
that automate workflow just to deal with the huge amount of securities class action settlements for
this case. The Facebook (FB) IPO disaster was a telling sign about this issue. Sell
it, block it, delete it, disgard it. Facebook is a bunch of trash. There's no technology
behind it. There are a huge amount of struggling companies that have developed really ground
breaking technology that will change the life of humans on this planet earth. Facebook (FB)
is not one of those companies. Facebook (FB) is a disaster waiting to happen. It's a
liability. And it's unsolveable.
Delete your Facebook account, sell your Facebook stock if you have it - it's guaranteed that by
doing so, you can grow your portfolio, increase your IQ and overall well being. Save your business,
save your family, save your life - and delete this virus!
"... In a presentation titled Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Rosen presented his findings based on a number of computer-based surveys distributed to 1,000 urban adolescents and his 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying. ..."
"... Some of the negative side effects of Facebook use for teens that Rosen cited include: ..."
"... Development of narcissism in teens who often use Facebook; ..."
"... Presence of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies, in teens who have a strong Facebook presence; ..."
"... Increased absence from school and likelihood of developing stomach aches, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression, in teens who overdose in technology on a daily basis, including Facebook and video games; ..."
"... Lower grades for middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period; ..."
"... Lower reading retention rates for students who most frequently had Facebook open on their computers during the 15-minute study period. ..."
We ARE what we THINK - not what we look at, or what we look like, or what we think we look like.
In fact, the visual cortex can be highly deceptive when it comes to the functioning of the brain.
Optical illusions exploit this brain trick.
Most practically, overloading of the visual cortex reduces higher brain function to nearly zero.
It's a very subtle process, not understood by many TV watchers. TV makes you stupid by overloading
your visual cortex, at a certain Hz frequency, which affects your reptilian brain. This is
why you get the munchies when you watch TV, or laugh without reason. Facebook is a lot more
effective at this because the associations are stronger (i.e. your friends) and it's interactive
- making the users feel as if they are controlling their reality.
The fact is that users are not controlling Facebook - Facebook is controlling you. They
have set the stage which is limited, and allow users few useful tools to manage this barrage on your
mind. The only way to really stop this invasive virus from spreading: turn it off!
Reasons to delete your Facebook:
Stop sharing personal details with the US government and a host of other interested groups
Enjoy more time in your life, which can be used to pursue a hobby, write a book, or learn
a foreign language
Fill your brain with something wholesome! Plant a tree!
Lose weight
Increase your IQ
Increase the speed of your computer
Increase the speed of your internet
Discover the thousands of other more interesting sites on the internet - such as Wikipedia!
Learn about Quantum Physics! Did you know that major universities now publish their complete
course videos online? Users can literally get a full college education by attending Stanford
(but without the degree of course) compeltely for free, online. A good start - the Khan
Academy www.khanacademy.org
No one can argue that Facebook has provided families with means of keeping in touch at long distances.
Many grandparents wouldn't otherwise see photos of their growing grandchildren. But there are
hundreds of other social networks, private networks, and other methods, of doing the same thing -
without all the 'crap' that comes with Facebook. Remember the days when we would email photos
to each other? We'd spend time even cropping photos and choosing the best one. Now, users
on Facebook will even snap away photos of their daily dinner, or inform the world that they forgot
to wash their socks. Facebook users who engage in the practice of 'wall scanning' have little
room in their brains for anything else.
Children are also a consideration with Facebook. Web Filters actually block facebook the
same way they block other illicit sites. Parents can probably relate to this article more than
the average user. Average users have accepted spam crap as part of life. It's in our
mailboxes, it's on billboards on our highways, it's everywhere. But really - it's not!
Facebook has been banned in corporate networks, government offices, schools, universities, and
other institutions. Workers at times would literally spend all day posting and reading Facebook.
It's as useless as TV - but much more addicting. From
Psychology Today:
Below we review some research suggesting 7 ways that Facebook may be hurting you.
It can make you feel like your life isn't as cool as everyone else's.
Social psychologist Leon Festinger observed that people are naturally inclined to engage in
social comparison. To answer a question like "Am I doing better or worse than average?" you
need to check out other people like you. Facebook is a quick, effortless way to engage in social
comparison, but with even one glance through your News Feed you might see pictures of your
friends enjoying a mouth-watering dinner at Chez Panisse, or perhaps winning the Professor
of the Year award at Yale University. Indeed, a study by Chou and Edge (2012) found that chronic
Facebook users tend to think that other people lead happier lives than their own, leading them
to feel that life is less fair.
It can lead you to envy your friends' successes. Did cousin Annabelle
announce a nice new promotion last month, a new car last week, and send a photo from her cruise
vacation to Aruba this morning? Not only can Facebook make you feel like you aren't sharing
in your friends'
happiness, but it can also make you feel envious of their happy lives. Buxmann and Krasnova
(2013) have found that seeing others' highlights on your News Feed can make you envious of
friends' travels, successes, and appearances. Additional findings suggest that the negative
psychological impact of passively following others on Facebook is driven by the feelings of
envy that stem from passively skimming your News Feed.
It can lead to a sense of false consensus. Sit next to a friend while
you each search for the same thing on Google. Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble
(2012), can promise you won't see the same search results. Not only have your Internet
searches grown more personalized, so have
social networking
sites. Facebook's sorting function places posts higher in your News Feed if they're from like-minded
friends-which may distort your view of the world (Constine, 2012). This can lead you to believe
that your favorite political candidate is a shoe-in for the upcoming election, even though
many of your friends are saying otherwise…you just won't hear them.
It can keep you in touch with people you'd really rather forget.
Want to know what your ex is up to? You can…and that might not be a good thing.Facebook stalking
has made it harder to let go of past relationships. Does she seem as miserable as I am? Is
that ambiguous post directed at me? Has she started
datingthat guy
from trivia night? These questions might better remain unanswered; indeed, Marshall (2012)
found that Facebook users who reported visiting their former partner's page experienced disrupted
post-breakup emotional recovery and higher levels of distress. Even if you still run into your
ex in daily life, the effects of online surveillance were significantly worse than those of
offline contact.
It can make you jealous of your current partner. Facebook stalking
doesn't only apply to your ex. Who is this Stacy LaRue, and why is she constantly "liking"
my husband's Facebook posts? Krafsky and Krafsky, authors of Facebook and YourMarriage
(2010), address many common concerns in relationships that stem from Facebook use. "Checking
up on" your partner's page can often lead to
jealousy and
even unwarranted suspicion, particularly if your husband's exes frequently come into the picture.
Krafsky and Krafsky recommend talking with your partner about behaviors that you both consider
safe and trustworthy on Facebook, and setting boundaries where you don't feel comfortable.
It can reveal information you might not want to share with potential employers.
Do you really want a potential employer to know about how drunk you got at last week's
kegger…or the interesting wild night that followed with the girl in the blue bikini?
Peluchette and Karl (2010) found that 40% of users mention
alcoholuse on
their Facebook page, and 20% mention sexual activities. We often think these posts are safe
from prying eyes, but that might not be the case. While 89% of jobseekers use social networking
sites, 37% of potential employers do, as well-and are actively looking into their potential
hires (Smith, 2013). If you're on the job market, make sure to check your privacy settings
and restrict any risqué content to "Friends Only", if you don't wish to delete it entirely.
It can become addictive. Think society's most common addictive substances
are coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol? Think again. The DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)
includes a new diagnosis that has stirred controversy: a series of items gauging Internet
Addiction. Since
then, Facebook addiction has gathered attention from both popular media and empirical journals,
leading to the creation of a Facebook addiction scale (Paddock, 2012; see below for items).
To explore the seriousness of this addiction, Hofmann and colleagues (2012) randomly texted
participants over the course of a week to ask what they most desired at that particular moment.
They found that among their participants, social media use was craved even more than tobacco
and alcohol.
Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids
In a presentation titled "Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids"
at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Rosen presented his
findings based on a number of computer-based surveys distributed to 1,000 urban adolescents and
his 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying.
Some of the negative side effects of Facebook use for teens that Rosen cited include:
Development of narcissism in teens who often use Facebook;
Presence of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and
aggressive tendencies, in teens who have a strong Facebook presence;
Increased absence from school and likelihood of developing stomach aches, sleeping
problems, anxiety and depression, in teens who "overdose" in technology on a daily basis, including
Facebook and video games;
Lower grades for middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook
at least once during a 15-minute study period;
Lower reading retention rates for students who most frequently had Facebook open on
their computers during the 15-minute study period.
Facebook will cause lower grades for students, but it's OK for adults? hmm...
Facebook (FB) Investment Advice
It's just a matter of time when this will result in a major scandal, FB stock will crash, and
class action investigations will pile
up. Lawyers will have to hire companies
that automate workflow just to deal with the huge amount of securities class action settlements for
this case. The Facebook (FB) IPO disaster was a telling sign about this issue. Sell
it, block it, delete it, disgard it. Facebook is a bunch of trash. There's no technology
behind it. There are a huge amount of struggling companies that have developed really ground
breaking technology that will change the life of humans on this planet earth. Facebook (FB)
is not one of those companies. Facebook (FB) is a disaster waiting to happen. It's a
liability. And it's unsolveable.
Delete your Facebook account, sell your Facebook stock if you have it - it's guaranteed that by
doing so, you can grow your portfolio, increase your IQ and overall well being. Save your business,
save your family, save your life - and delete this virus!
"... New spy programs launched by the administration will seek to collect and analyze data from social media networks and develop covert operations that allow the government to use the networks for its own counter-radicalization schemes, the US officials said. ..."
"... The events of the past decade-and-a-half have made clear that the entire corporate and political establishment favors an agenda of police-state spying on the American population. ..."
"... The NSA has been privatized. All American institutions are now dedicated to our destruction. ..."
During the tech summit, the White House delegation circulated proposals calling for tech firms to
develop tools to "measure radicalization" levels among different populations ... the White House
announced new programs against "violent extremism" in the United States, including the establishment
of a new Countering Violent Extremism task force
... [which] ... will seek to "integrate and harmonize" the operations of "dozens of federal and
local agencies," ... [which] ... will "coordinate all of the government's domestic counter-radicalization
efforts,"
... The State Department will also create a new Global Engagement Center to coordinate US government
social media work internationally, a White House statement said.
New spy programs launched by the administration will seek to collect and analyze data from
social media networks and develop covert operations that allow the government to use the networks
for its own counter-radicalization schemes, the US officials said.
Media reports this week highlighted one recent contribution, ludicrously titled "ISIS in America:
From Retweets to Raqqa," published in December 2015 by George Washington University's "Program on
Extremism."
The events of the past decade-and-a-half have made clear that the entire corporate and political
establishment favors an agenda of police-state spying on the American population.
He'll get it, too. Google, Facebook, the whole parasitic silicon valley culture is on board
since the passage of the omnibus budget act in the last dark days of December 2015, bearing
DIVISION N-CYBERSECURITY ACT OF 2015
within.
The NSA has been privatized. All American
institutions are now dedicated to our destruction.
I have an email account at
posteo.de
. How
much longer can it be before a similar effort is mounted outside the USA to take over the search
function and social media on the internet? If it's 'free' - you're the product.
This should write the end to American technical dominance of the internet. I hope it will.
American based TNCs, operating under American 'law', now working hand-in-glove with the American
government simply cannot be trusted.
And they wrote the law that granted them immunity for betraying their 'customers and supported
it. They're on board for our betrayal and destruction. Always have been.
"... The USA used to complain about Japan Inc. Of course now it's USA as Neolibraconia Inc. and
it's business is war along all lines : military, economic, environmental, social ... ..."
After 9-11, the United States focused its most aggressive foreign policy on the Middle East –
from Afghanistan to North Africa. But the deal recently worked out with Iran, the current back-door
negotiations over Syria between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, and the decision to subsidize, and now export, U.S. shale oil and gas production in a direct
reversal of U.S. past policy toward Saudi Arabia – together signal a relative shift of U.S. policy
away from the Middle East.
With a Middle East consolidation phase underway, U.S. policy has been shifting since 2013-14 to
the more traditional focus that it had for decades: first, to check and contain China; second, to
prevent Russia from economically integrating more deeply with Europe; and, third, to reassert more
direct U.S. influence once again, as in previous decades, over the economies and governments in Latin
America.
... ... ...
Argentina & Brazil: Harbinger of Neoliberal Things to Come
Should the new pro-U.S., pro-Business Venezuela National Assembly ever prevail over the Maduro
government, the outcome economically would something like that now unfolding with the Mauricio Macri
government in Argentina. Argentina's Macri has already, within days of assuming the presidency, slashed
taxes for big farmers and manufacturers, lifted currency controls and devalued the peso by 30 percent,
allowed inflation to rise overnight by 25 percent, provided US$2 billion in dollar denominated bonds
for Argentine exporters and speculators, re-opened discussions with U.S. hedge funds as a prelude
to paying them excess interest the de Kirchner government previously denied, put thousands of government
workers on notice of imminent layoffs, declared the new government's intent to stack the supreme
court in order to rubber stamp its new Neoliberal programs, and took steps to reverse Argentine's
recent media law. And that's just the beginning.
Politically, the neoliberal vision will mean an overturning and restructuring of the current Supreme
Court, possible changes to the existing Constitution, and attempts to remove the duly-elected president
from office before his term by various means. Apart from plans to stack the judiciary, as in Argentina,
Venezuela's new business controlled National Assembly will likely follow their reactionary class
compatriots in Brazil, and move to impeach Venezuela president, Maduro, and dismantle his popular
government – just as they are attempting the same in Brazil with that country's also recently re-elected
president, Rousseff.
What happens in Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil in the weeks ahead, in 2016, is a harbinger of
the intense economic and political class war in South America that is about to escalate to a higher
stage in 2016.
I'm still unconvinced that 1,000 rapists ran rampant in Cologne on New Years Eve. Where's Penelope
and her fraud analysis when it seems most needed?
2016 will be the year when all this comes to a head. Perhaps Russia and the BRICS should preemptively
repudiate their dollar denominated debts? It all seems to be
going south at this particular
point in time anyway.
Trying to follow nmb's link @1 without actually being shortened and sold myself led me to
Pepe Escobar of 29 Dec
The lame duck Obama administration – whatever rhetorical and/or legalistic contortions –
still sticks to the Cold War 2.0 script on Russia, duly prescribed by Obama mentor Dr. Zbigniew
"Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski.
The key front though is the Russian economy; sooner or later there's got to be a purge of
the Russian Central Bank and the Finance Ministry, but Putin will only act when he has surefire
internal support, and that's far from given.
The fight to the death in Moscow's inner circles is really between the Eurasianists and
the so-called Atlantic integrationists, a.k.a. the Western fifth column. The crux of the battle
is arguably the Russian Central Bank and the Finance Ministry – where some key liberalcon monetarist
players are remote-controlled by the usual suspects, the Masters of the Universe.
The same mechanism applies, geopolitically, to any side, in any latitude, which has linked
its own fiat money to Western central banks. The Masters of the Universe always seek to exercise
hegemony by manipulating usury and fiat money control.
So why President Putin does not fire the head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiulina,
and a great deal of his financial team - as they keep buying U.S. bonds and propping up the
U.S. dollar instead of the ruble? What's really being aggressed here if not Russian interests?
This is the review of the book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government by one of Moon of Alabama readers.
Looks like the course on making The USA imperial power (which was related later in Washington consensus and Wolfowitz doctrine)
was taken directly after WWII. Cold War was just a smoke screen under which the USA tried to establish hegemony over the world. Both
documents could well be written by Alan Dulles himself.
Any president who dare to deviate from this is ostracized , impeached or killed. So the political role of intelligence agencies
since their establishment by Truman was to serve as the brain center if USA imperial beuracracy (as well as the tools for projecting
it abroad)
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that
conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for wars and for expanding the US influence abroad for
multinationals, and that is what they have done for 70 years (Dulles came from Wall Street). Among other things it
deliberately creates small wars just to demonstrate the US military might. Neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative
Michael Ledeen suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it
against the wall, just to show we mean business."
Another book deserves to mentioned here too here too. Prouty book
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control
of the United States and the World (which was suppressed in 1973 when irt was published and did not see shelves before
republishing in 2011) is described like the the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy conducted by CIA has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964,
managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S.
military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in
critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition
and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... We find Dulles attempting to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard
Gehlen, so today there are personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists"
to achieve our goals. ..."
"... Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed by this, but for someone like myself interested
in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately the 1930s through the 1969. ..."
"... the ruling elite of the US was deeply split. ..."
"... A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up ties
with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were so important
that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot makes clear that
in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!). ..."
"... And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. ..."
"... Talbot covers this topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar)
the fact that "fired" and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday
through the hours that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia. ..."
I just finished listening to the audio book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government . It was very good I think.
I'll spare you a full review, but the Dulles era has some very important and interesting similarities with our own (in fact,
the ties are most certainly those first formed during the Dulles brothers tenure at State and CIA). Talbot doesn't delve deeply
into these more recent aspects, but he does acknowledge them. And the similarities are quite clear. We find Dulles attempting
to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard Gehlen, so today there are
personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists" to achieve
our goals.
Initially I had heard that it was a Allen Dulles biography, and though there is a lot of detail about his personal life, his
marriage, and even his kids, I would say it strays from what one might consider a "standard" biography and is more about Dulles
and his times. For instance, there are a couple of chapters devoted just to the Kennedy Assassination, another on Oswald, and
one on the "Generals' putsch" in France in '61. Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed
by this, but for someone like myself interested in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately
the 1930s through the 1969.
Talbot uses Dulles life as the base to build up the important (and to my mind misunderstood and misconstrued) stories in recent
US history. That story is, of course, the following: despite the impression most Americans have of our country fighting the ultimate
"good war" against universally despised enemies - that fact is that the ruling elite of the US was deeply split.
A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up
ties with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were
so important that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot
makes clear that in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!).
And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. And Talbot tracks this key
figure's fascist ties as he rises in the US power structure from his early years as an OSS man wheeling and dealing with Nazi
generals in Bern, Switzerland and on through Dulles' creation and/or support of fascist governments in Latin America, the Middle
East, and Africa during the Cold War. Talbot covers the events surrounding Dulles life excellently. Especially moving was his
chapter on Guatemala - the tragedy of the Arbenz family as a mirror of the tragedy of Guatemala is covered through the eyes of
the grandson of Arbez.
Talbot covers the horror stories of the results of America working closely with dictators like Trujillo, the Shah, Mobutu Sese
Seko, and Batista (he misses Indonesia though, an operation that caused the death of 1,000,000 Indonesians). But of course, as
an American, the most important question to Talbot is that of Dulles role in the Kennedy assassination. Talbot covers this
topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar) the fact that "fired"
and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday through the hours
that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia.
Allen Dulles papers released by CIA to Princeton are now online
Posted on January 23, 2008 by Dan Linke
The Central Intelligence Agency has released to Princeton University some 7,800 documents covering the career of Allen W.
Dulles, the agency's longest-serving director, which now can be viewed online at
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/st74cq497
Dulles (1893-1969), a Princeton alumnus who headed the CIA from 1953 to 1961, was renowned for his role in shaping U.S.
intelligence operations during the Cold War. Last March, the CIA released to Princeton a collection of letters, memoranda,
reports and other papers - some still redacted - that the agency had removed from Dulles' papers after his death and before
their transfer to the University in 1974.
This is the review of the book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government by one of Moon of Alabama readers.
Looks like the course on making The USA imperial power (which was related later in Washington consensus and Wolfowitz doctrine)
was taken directly after WWII. Cold War was just a smoke screen under which the USA tried to establish hegemony over the world. Both
documents could well be written by Alan Dulles himself.
Any president who dare to deviate from this is ostracized , impeached or killed. So the political role of intelligence agencies
since their establishment by Truman was to serve as the brain center if USA imperial beuracracy (as well as the tools for projecting
it abroad)
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that
conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for wars and for expanding the US influence abroad for
multinationals, and that is what they have done for 70 years (Dulles came from Wall Street). Among other things it
deliberately creates small wars just to demonstrate the US military might. Neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative
Michael Ledeen suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it
against the wall, just to show we mean business."
Another book deserves to mentioned here too here too. Prouty book
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control
of the United States and the World (which was suppressed in 1973 when irt was published and did not see shelves before
republishing in 2011) is described like the the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy conducted by CIA has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964,
managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S.
military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in
critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition
and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... We find Dulles attempting to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard
Gehlen, so today there are personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists"
to achieve our goals. ..."
"... Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed by this, but for someone like myself interested
in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately the 1930s through the 1969. ..."
"... the ruling elite of the US was deeply split. ..."
"... A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up ties
with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were so important
that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot makes clear that
in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!). ..."
"... And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. ..."
"... Talbot covers this topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar)
the fact that "fired" and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday
through the hours that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia. ..."
I just finished listening to the audio book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government . It was very good I think.
I'll spare you a full review, but the Dulles era has some very important and interesting similarities with our own (in fact,
the ties are most certainly those first formed during the Dulles brothers tenure at State and CIA). Talbot doesn't delve deeply
into these more recent aspects, but he does acknowledge them. And the similarities are quite clear. We find Dulles attempting
to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard Gehlen, so today there are
personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists" to achieve
our goals.
Initially I had heard that it was a Allen Dulles biography, and though there is a lot of detail about his personal life, his
marriage, and even his kids, I would say it strays from what one might consider a "standard" biography and is more about Dulles
and his times. For instance, there are a couple of chapters devoted just to the Kennedy Assassination, another on Oswald, and
one on the "Generals' putsch" in France in '61. Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed
by this, but for someone like myself interested in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately
the 1930s through the 1969.
Talbot uses Dulles life as the base to build up the important (and to my mind misunderstood and misconstrued) stories in recent
US history. That story is, of course, the following: despite the impression most Americans have of our country fighting the ultimate
"good war" against universally despised enemies - that fact is that the ruling elite of the US was deeply split.
A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up
ties with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were
so important that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot
makes clear that in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!).
And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. And Talbot tracks this key
figure's fascist ties as he rises in the US power structure from his early years as an OSS man wheeling and dealing with Nazi
generals in Bern, Switzerland and on through Dulles' creation and/or support of fascist governments in Latin America, the Middle
East, and Africa during the Cold War. Talbot covers the events surrounding Dulles life excellently. Especially moving was his
chapter on Guatemala - the tragedy of the Arbenz family as a mirror of the tragedy of Guatemala is covered through the eyes of
the grandson of Arbez.
Talbot covers the horror stories of the results of America working closely with dictators like Trujillo, the Shah, Mobutu Sese
Seko, and Batista (he misses Indonesia though, an operation that caused the death of 1,000,000 Indonesians). But of course, as
an American, the most important question to Talbot is that of Dulles role in the Kennedy assassination. Talbot covers this
topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar) the fact that "fired"
and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday through the hours
that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia.
Allen Dulles papers released by CIA to Princeton are now online
Posted on January 23, 2008 by Dan Linke
The Central Intelligence Agency has released to Princeton University some 7,800 documents covering the career of Allen W.
Dulles, the agency's longest-serving director, which now can be viewed online at
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/st74cq497
Dulles (1893-1969), a Princeton alumnus who headed the CIA from 1953 to 1961, was renowned for his role in shaping U.S.
intelligence operations during the Cold War. Last March, the CIA released to Princeton a collection of letters, memoranda,
reports and other papers - some still redacted - that the agency had removed from Dulles' papers after his death and before
their transfer to the University in 1974.
"... The author provides a persuasive argument that America is indeed an empire, albeit not of the
traditional colonial type. Bacevich demontrates rather convincingly that the U.S., since roughly the
Spanish-American War, has pursued a grand strategy of reshaping the world in its image, through free
trade, military dominance, and globalization. ..."
"... Americas imperial quest is meant to overcome problems at home. Although Beard and Williams
are polemic in their view that Americas foreign adventures prologue the inevitable reckoning with domestic
troubles, Mr. Bacevich adopts a more dispassionate view and offers merely a possible explanation: With
Americas national cohesiveness eroding, Mr. Bacevich writes, an ever-expanding pie satisfying ever more
expansive appetites was the only `crusade' likely to command widespread and durable popular enthusiasm.
..."
"... A book whose aim is to show that America's chief purpose is promoting globalization would have
done well to pay heed to dollar diplomacy as much as it has to gunboat diplomacy. Yet this minor objection
could not abate the appeal of an otherwise outstanding book. ..."
The author provides a persuasive argument that America is indeed an empire, albeit not
of the traditional colonial type. Bacevich demontrates rather convincingly that the U.S., since
roughly the Spanish-American War, has pursued a grand strategy of reshaping the world in its image,
through free trade, military dominance, and globalization.
Particularly remarkable is the extent to which succeeding U.S. administrations have
maintained continuity of purpose in achieving these goals. If you think Bill Clinton and GW Bush
are radically different in their approaches to U.S. foreign policy, this book will open your eyes.
In fact, Bacevich amply demonstrates that even presidents subscribing to the realist school
of international relations have been greatly influenced by the idealism espoused by Woodrow Wilson
before the First World War. In sum, if you are a student of U.S. foreign policy, political science,
modern history, or just a concerned citizen of the "global community," this book can only serve
to increase your understanding of how the United States achieved its current status of world dominance
and what the implications of that are.
To many cynics, a book like the "American Empire" might seem like an exercise in futility.
Who could have trouble believing, after all, that America's primary strategic objective is to
create a global marketplace without barriers to the movement of goods, capital, ideas and people?
But what starts as an exposition of this argument soon branches into various themes of diverse
interest yet equal importance.
Andrew Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, takes on conventional wisdom. For those who
are baffled by the complexity of the post Cold War world and are dismayed by America's lack of
a coherent strategy, Mr. Bacevich is reassuring: America's objective, now and in the past, has
been to promote global openness; "this books finds continuity where others see discontinuity,"
he writes, parting ways with those who believe that globalization fundamentally reshaped American
foreign policy priorities.
While this theme is ever-present, Mr. Bacevich covers a lot more ground. Perhaps his most telling
contribution is the resurrection of Charles Beard and William Appleman Williams as trenchant observers
of American foreign policy. Both Beard and Williams offer their own hypotheses about why America
is driven to this ever increasing need for markets abroad. And, after this voyage into intellectual
history comes Mr. Bacevich's own argument about why America is compelled to this strategy of openness.
All three reach the same conclusion: America's imperial quest is meant to overcome problems
at home. Although Beard and Williams are polemic in their view that America's foreign adventures
prologue the inevitable reckoning with domestic troubles, Mr. Bacevich adopts a more dispassionate
view and offers merely a possible explanation: With America's national cohesiveness eroding, Mr.
Bacevich writes, "an ever-expanding pie satisfying ever more expansive appetites was the only
`crusade' likely to command widespread and durable popular enthusiasm."
With this in place, Mr. Bacevich moves on to a different point: American military assets, he
contends, are increasingly used to promote global openness. This heightened willingness to use
coercion has elevated the role of the military in American politics, perhaps even more so than
ever before. And, this increased militarization of American politics is playing a central, if
underappreciated, role in formulating as well as executing foreign policy.
For sure, all this is food for thought. Surprisingly enough, Mr. Bacevich has refrained as
much as possible from judgments; in fact, writing a book on such a topic whilst remaining neutral
is a feat in itself. All the same, Mr. Bacevich's military mind is evident throughout. A book
whose aim is to show that America's chief purpose is promoting globalization would have done well
to pay heed to dollar diplomacy as much as it has to gunboat diplomacy. Yet this minor objection
could not abate the appeal of an otherwise outstanding book.
This work started out strong, beginning with an excellent chapter on 20th century American intellectual
history covering Beard, Williams, and the myth of the Accidental Empire. Beard and Williams questioned
the meaning and motive behind the open door policy, proclaiming it sheep's clothing over an imperialist
agenda. Both historians were stigmatized and largely ignored by later historians for their trouble.
Bacevich then connects the open door to the post cold war world, showing how globalization
as conceived in American foreign policy was 'new bottles for old wine'.
The majority of the book is an extended review of the Clinton years, looking at how Bosnia,
Iraq, and Kosovo reflect continuities with the Open Door.
Some bits I didn't know: The use of private military contractors started back in Bosnia because
Americans wouldn't support a boots on the ground strategy and we weren't supposed to take sides.
Also, the weak State Departments under Bush reflect a structural problem. The theater CINC's
have much greater budgetary power and discretion of action, to a foreign power their words matter
more then any ambassador (or Secretary of State?)
I would avoid the last chapter on George W. Bush, it appears to have been written prior to
the invasion of Iraq and is therefore useless as analysis.
I think Bacevich is too quick to look for continuity between administrations and spends too
little time on constraints. Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all had adversarial relationships with
Congress, and their policies were tailored around what congress would allow. As Bush II demonstrates,
removing that constraint allowed wildly discontinuous policies. If it was so easy for Bush to
push an overtly imperial agenda why can't the next President push an overtly anti-imperial agenda
with equally revolutionary changes?
In American Empire, Andrew Bacevich provides a fine and historically cogent analysis of American
foreign policy. Bacevich writes with clarity, skill, and historical understanding as he argues
that a new Pax American - an American Empire - is at hand. While the definition of empire and
whether United States is in fact an imperial power is debatable, the real value of Bacevich's
analysis is its identification of continuity in American foreign policy and grand strategy throughout
the Twentieth-Century.
American Empire does this by identifying U.S. attempts to promote and preserve "openness" around
the world. While this sometimes leads Bacevich to overemphasize continuity (such as ignoring George
W. Bush's willingness to ignore and alienate allies not just through policy but through diplomatic
tone), it nevertheless reveals a coherent grand strategy organizing U.S. foreign policy.
Bacevich is also sometimes too inclined to describe "globalization" as tantamount to "Americanization,"
but these minor flaws do not mar his overall analysis, which is excellent. Some have argued that
this book is anti-American, but any serious reader will find that it is hardly that. It is, however,
a subtle yet hard nosed analysis of the underlying assumptions and strategy of American foreign
policy.
Comparing even with the British coverage the statement "Bloomberg, (like most US MSM), just wants
to report the f**king news." is very weak.
In foreign events coverage they want to propagate a certain agenda and are very disciplined
in pursuing this goal. That does not exclude that sometimes they report important news with minor
distortions. But to assume that they "just wants to report the f**king news" is extremely naïve
if we are taking about foreign events.
Remember all those fancy dances pretending to be news about Iran sanctions. Truth is the first
victim of war. Unfortunately this war for world dominance now became a permanent business for
the USA. And Iran is considered by US establishment as an enemy.
I would recommend to read AMERICAN EMPIRE by Andrew J. BACEVICH
Harvard University Press, 2002 – 302 pages
In a challenging, provocative book, Andrew Bacevich reconsiders the assumptions and purposes
governing the exercise of American global power. Examining the presidencies of George H. W.
Bush and Bill Clinton–as well as George W. Bush's first year in office–he demolishes the view
that the United States has failed to devise a replacement for containment as a basis for foreign
policy. He finds instead that successive post-Cold War administrations have adhered to a well-defined
"strategy of openness." Motivated by the imperative of economic expansionism, that strategy
aims to foster an open and integrated international order, thereby perpetuating the undisputed
primacy of the world's sole remaining superpower. Moreover, openness is not a new strategy,
but has been an abiding preoccupation of policymakers as far back as Woodrow Wilson.
Although based on expectations that eliminating barriers to the movement of trade, capital,
and ideas nurtures not only affluence but also democracy, the aggressive pursuit of openness
has met considerable resistance. To overcome that resistance, U.S. policymakers have with increasing
frequency resorted to force, and military power has emerged as never before as the preferred
instrument of American statecraft, resulting in the progressive militarization of U.S. foreign
policy.
Neither indictment nor celebration, American Empire sees the drive for openness for what
it is–a breathtakingly ambitious project aimed at erecting a global imperium. Large questions
remain about that project's feasibility and about the human, financial, and moral costs that
it will entail. By penetrating the illusions obscuring the reality of U.S. policy, this book
marks an essential first step toward finding the answers.
"... "[The] CIA particularly represents the views of the Wall Street investment firms and the multinational corporations that they invest in," noted the whistleblower who leaked "The Pentagon Papers." ..."
"... Yet Ellsberg also warns that it is possible to overstate the importance of the U.S. military, because the military, Congress, and the various U.S. national security agencies all serve interests outside a sitting administration. ..."
"... "[The] CIA particularly represents the views of the Wall Street investment firms and the multinational corporations that they invest in, and the law firms that represent those companies," he said. ..."
"... The United States claims to support democracy throughout the world, but, Ellsberg said: "That is false. That is a cover story." ..."
"... If anyone comes to power that opposes U.S. interests, American forces can overthrow them, Ellsberg argues. Washington's relationships with other nations are not democratic, he says, but imperial, as much as they were in the time of Sargon, the world's first emperor, who Ellsberg introduced in Chapter 1 of this series. As a result, U.S. foreign policy has supported torturers and war crimes for over a century. ..."
"... Philip Agee, the CIA's highest ranking defector, always said CIA stands for Capitalism' Invisible Army ..."
"... Ellsberg is exactly right. The US is not a democracy. The US regime is the enforcement wing of multi-national capital. It is a wholly captured government by captialists. ..."
"... There's nothing new about the claim that Eisenhower deleted the reference to Congress just before his far-famed farewell speech. This has been well-known for decades. ..."
"[The] CIA particularly represents the views of the Wall Street investment firms and
the multinational corporations that they invest in," noted the whistleblower who leaked "The Pentagon
Papers."
In
the second chapter of his extended conversation with Arn Menconi, Daniel Ellsberg describes how,
after his trial for leaking the Pentagon Papers, he began to realize that the Vietnam War was not
an "aberration" but a representation of standard U.S. foreign policy.
"The big difference was the Vietnamese resisted us," Ellsberg explained. He says learned more
about the nature of the U.S. military-industrial complex as he dug deeper into the origins of the
conflict.
On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave
a famous farewell address which popularized the term "military-industrial complex," but Ellsberg
says the outgoing president had originally intended to refer to the "military-industrial-congressional
complex," only to drop the reference to Congress at the last minute. The whistleblower explains
that allies of the military and nuclear scientists in Congress blocked Eisenhower's efforts to create
a nuclear test ban treaty with Russia, inspiring Eisenhower's speech, which warned the American public
to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex."
Yet Ellsberg also warns that it is possible to overstate the importance of the U.S. military,
because the military, Congress, and the various U.S. national security agencies all serve interests
outside a sitting administration.
"[The] CIA particularly represents the views of the Wall Street investment firms and the multinational
corporations that they invest in, and the law firms that represent those companies," he said.
The United States claims to support democracy throughout the world, but, Ellsberg said: "That
is false. That is a cover story."
Instead, he explained that the U.S. supports whatever leaders will support the country's covert
foreign policy. In addition to carrying out assassinations and interfering in those countries' elections,
the U.S. forms "close relationships with their military which we achieve through a combination of
training them … promoting the people we like, direct bribery, arms sales, arms grants - giving them
toys in other words - and helping them against dissidents."
If anyone comes to power that opposes U.S. interests, American forces can overthrow them, Ellsberg
argues. Washington's relationships with other nations are not democratic, he says, but imperial,
as much as they were in the time of Sargon, the world's first emperor, who Ellsberg introduced in
Chapter 1 of this series.
As a result, U.S. foreign policy has supported
torturers and war crimes
for over a century.
Key policies the U.S. supports on behalf of Wall Street include "holding down the wages and selling
the local resources at very low value," according to Ellsberg, who added that the governments which
support these policies "could not stay in power in democratic elections, so we are against democracy
in those countries."
Even in places where the U.S. supports democracy, he says, such as Europe, Washington cooperates
with the elite in those countries to discourage candidates that support real change. America's leaders
in the military-industrial complex believe "[w]e run [foreign countries] better than they would run
themselves."
"Can we fix those things while maintaining the military investments …? Even we can't do that,"
he concluded.
Listen to Chapter 2 | Looking beyond Eisenhower's military-industrial complex:
RMDC 2015-12-28 18:04
"[The] CIA particularly represents the views of the Wall Street investment firms and
the multinational corporations that they invest in, and the law firms that represent those
companies,"
Yes, of course. It was wall street tycoons and lawyers who created the OSS and CIA They
all had huge investments in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and they wanted to be sure WW II
was fought with their financial interests foremost. These corporate lawyers were used to
overthrowing government around the world for their wall street clients. Donavan, the Dulles
Brothers, Wisner, and the like were world class cutthroats. They moved into the government and
took it over.
Philip Agee, the CIA's highest ranking defector, always said CIA stands for Capitalism'
Invisible Army. This is important. They CIA scours the earth doing the dirty work of Wall
Street. When needed, the Pentagon is called in.
Ellsberg is exactly right. The US is not a democracy. The US regime is the enforcement wing of
multi-national capital. It is a wholly captured government by captialists.
goodsensecynic 2015-12-29 00:07
There's nothing new about the claim that Eisenhower deleted the reference to Congress
just before his far-famed farewell speech. This has been well-known for decades.
What needs to be added, however, is that the elements of ruling class domination are even more
extensive and far more complex.
We should be discussing the
military-industrial-congressional-financial-commercial-ideological-technological complex (with
the possibility of adding more pieces such as the agricultural, chemical, pharmaceutical and,
perhaps, many, many more).
Although the particular connections among them may be shifting and almost kaleidoscopic, basic
patterns of economic, political and social dominance will always emerge.
By "ideological," of course, I mean the combination of the corporate media, the allegedly
"social" media, "official" education, and whatever passes for religion - especially in its
"fundamentalist " aberrations in the Abrahamic cultures.
And, a final caveat: the above merely identify aspects of the "domestic" power structure. It
is also replicated globally with many of the same "players" shifting natural resources,
information technology, capital and currency around in a way that may be permanently beyond
the reach of the governments of even the most powerful semi-sovereign nations.
anarchteacher 2015-12-29 00:55
What Daniel Ellsberg, Dwight Eisenhower, C. Wright Mills, and numerous others have outlined
is what the incomparable Peter Dale Scott now describes as the deep state:
Nowhere do I see reference to John Perkins, the author of "Confessions of an Economic
Hitman." Perkins lays all of this out clearly and concisely, and includes the World Bank and
The WMF, (The World Monetary Fund).
One of their tactics is to loan an emerging nation huge amounts of money which they can
never pay back. In return they will allow Western bank and oil interests, pharmaceuticals ,
bio-tech, copper, etc. whatever natural resources that Western Capitalists want to exploit.
Perkins is sent in to meet with the leaders. He tells them the money is theirs to do whatever
they like. Use it for their country or for themselves.
Some of the leader are actually honorable and refuse the money. Perkins then pulls out the
big warning: Take the money or die by assassination. Some leaders refused. Within six months
the Capitalists sent in what Perkins calls "the jackals". The honorable leader is
assassinated.
There are people even now, doing what he did.
Activista 2015-12-29 12:51
1 trillion + military waste is corrupting/destroying USA. We need to get rid of this
burden.
Vardoz 2015-12-29 14:57
We are being systematically impoverished and destroyed by corporate interests. Elizabeth
Warren and Bernie Sanders are the only senators who do not vote against our better interests
and want to protect the health, safety and welfare of the 99%. As Biden once called it we the
people are being subjected to economic terrorism.
judithehrlich 2015-12-29 17:27
If you'd like to know more about Daniel Ellsberg please see the website for our
Oscar-nominated film, "The Most Dangerous Man in American, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon
Papers", www.mostdangerousman.org . Edward
Snowden was inspired to act after seeing the film.
"... Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization." ..."
"Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons
arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and
world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from
potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."
Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are
entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth.
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their
nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at
just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most
important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization."
What appears to have happened here is this: Vladimir Putin has
exploited both the fight against ISIS and Iran's need to preserve the
regional balance of power on the way to enhancing Russia's influence over
Mid-East affairs which in turn helps to ensure that Gazprom's interests
are protected going forward.
Thanks to the
awkward position the US has gotten itself in by covertly allying itself
with various Sunni extremist groups, Washington is for all intents and
purposes powerless to stop Putin lest the public should suddenly get wise
to the fact that combating Russia's resurgence and preventing Iran from
expanding its interests are more important than fighting terror.
In short, Washington gambled on a dangerous game of geopolitical chess, lost, and now faces
two rather terrifyingly disastrous outcomes: 1) China establishing a presence in the Mid-East in
concert with Russia and Iran, and 2) seeing Iraq effectively ceded to the Quds Force and
ultimately, to the Russian army.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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© AP Photo/ Christopher Lane
Edward Snowden Not Dead: 'He's Fine' Says Glenn Greenwald After Mysterious
Tweet
On Friday night, famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted out a 64 character
code before quickly deleting the message along with a mysterious warning earlier this
week that "It's Time" which had called on colleagues of the former contractor
to contact him leaving the internet to speculate that the characters could be an
encryption key for a major document leak, it may be a "dead man's switch" set to go
in effect if the whistleblower were killed or captured, or potentially both.
© REUTERS/ Svein Ove Ekornesvaag/NTB Scanpix
'It's Time': Whistleblower Edward Snowden Tweets Mysterious Warning
A really interesting analyses
of the USA foreign policy from the son of Robert Kennedy "They don't hate 'our freedoms.' They hate
that we've betrayed our ideals in their own countries-for oil. " 
just as an additional note: the 28 pages regarding the Saudi involvement in 9/11 were finally released today: http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/declasspart4.pdf
Thanks. A quick visual inspection suggests that they "only" blacked out about 10% of the document. Some pages almost everything is visible, and on a few, almost half of the text is obscured.
A couple of days ago there was a discussion of infantilization by politicians via the use of emojis. I think that preventing people from reading the full report is a far more serious form of infantilization. Only the elite philosopher kings are allowed access to information. The rest of us children might be traumatized if we could read the full report.
Yes. I feel that infantilization should be mocked and discouraged where found.
The information about the dry-run of 1999 on America West flight from Phx to DC Saudi Embassy party was especially interesting to me. I suspect that Saudi Arabia played both sides (al-quaeda and the US) in order to bring about the Sunni alliance we are currently being worked out in Libya and Syria. Iraq was on this analysis definitely an expected casualty of the events of 9/11, which suggests that the Saudis had good reason to believe that US officials were already waiting for any excuse to take over that country.
Sober reading.
There's this sort of hole prior to 9-11-2001 where it sounds like no one knows anything but actually, the Joint Forces intelligence group knew quite a bit. The Joint Inquiry never interviewed anyone from DO-5.
nice catch…short version: Saudis were all over this.
This may amuse readers:
Saudi says hopes release of '28 pages' clears up 9/11 suspicions Jerusalem Post
OK, OK, it's really from Reuters. But still….
Alternatively:
Congress releases long-secret '28 pages' indicating Saudi ties to 9/11 Russia Today
While saudis offer big bux to turkish military to stage a coup to distract the audience…???
a coup..???
in turkey in the 21st century ??
How silly is that ?…
So strange! Why it seems just yesterday Chancellor Merkel and other wise EU leaders were trying to get Turkey admitted to the European Union, enabling Turks to move freely about the Continent, and they were pressing that nice Mr. Erdogan to accept billions of Euros to handle Muslim refugees for them. How could a stable European society like Turkey still be experiencing things like military coups? There must be a more polite explanation for what's really going on over there.