“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government
at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying
the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of
maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on
the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind
eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.”
New American militarism is connected with the desire to establish global neoliberal empire ruled by the USA (the dream of total world
dominance). It became official policy since the collapse of the USSR and involves "heliocentric" view on foreign policy,
when the USA is the center of the world order and other states just rotate around it on various orbits. 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 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.
The "New American militarism" or as it called "Neocon mentality" is not that different
from the early Soviets militarism (of Trotskyite variety), eager to spread the blessings of Scientific Socialism toward other
countries on the tips of bayonets. Here the role of scientific socialism is played by neoliberal ideology. With the slogan
"Transnational elite unite" and Davos style Congresses of the new "Neoliberal International" of comprador elites. While
converting other countries into neoliberal model using color revolution of direct military invasion or combination of both) are disguised
as spread of "democracy".
In this new Crusade for world hegemony the key ideas of Trotsky Permanent Revolution remains intact -- a crusade for establishing
new social system on all counties on the Earth. This is just Great Neoliberal Crusade, instead of Communist Crusade. This new
justification for Crusades has the same problems as two previous. But it does not matter as the key role of democracy here is the same
as in quote "the goal justifies the means"
Professor Andrew Bacevich wrote several short books on the subject. he avoids the term neoliberalism and did not try to explain new
American militarism in terms of the quest for neoliberal empire expansion. But he is a very good observer and the books contain many
insights into US elite thinking and blunders. Among them we can note two:
While all three books are excellent and raise important issues, they overlap. Probably the most original and the most important
on them is Washington Rules, were Bacevich attempts to explain "Permanent War for Permanent Peace" that the USA practice since the end
of WWII. All three books have the same weaknesses: Bacevich does not see connection between Neoliberalism demand for economic expansion
and "New American Militarism" and regime of permanent wars that the USA pursue since WWII.
He provide sharp critique of neocons, but never ask the question: which political forces brought those pathetic second or third rate
thinkers to the forefront of formulation of the US foreign policy and maintain them for more then a decade after Iraq debacle.
He also mistakenly believe that American people (who were completely estranged from any influence on nation's policies) bear some
guilt for the policy which was formulated to benefit the first hundred of the largest US corporations. In other words he does not understand
that the USA is yet another occupied country.
[Neocons] advocate permanent war for permanent peace
Professor Basevich
The foreign policy of the USA since 1945, but especially, after the dissolution of the USSR was and is "open militarism". Recently
John Quiggin tried to define militarism is came to the following definition (crookedtimber.org):
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
This new epidemic of the US militarism started after the dissolution of the USSR was called by Professor Bacevich (who is former
colonel of the US army) it New American Militarism.
global interventionism is used to achieve those ends.
Professor Bacevich had shown that the main driver of the US militarism is neocons domination of the US foreign policy, and, especially,
neocons domination in State Department regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power. They profess that the US that is
uniquely qualified to take on the worldwide foes of peace and democracy, forgetting, revising, or ignoring the painful lessons of World
War II, Vietnam, and Iraq. And that establishing and maintaining the neoliberal empire is worth the price we pay as it will take the
USA into the period of unprecedented peace.
Bacevich scored a direct hit on the foundations of the American national security state with this scathing critique, and demolishes
the unspoken assumptions that he believes have led the United States into a senseless, wasteful, and counter-productive "perpetual
war for perpetual peace".
Bacevich scores a direct hit on the foundations of the American national security state with this scathing critique, and demolishes
the unspoken assumptions that he believes have led the United States into a senseless, wasteful, and counter-productive posture of
nearly perpetual war. These assumptions take the form of the "credo" -- which holds that the United States has the unique responsibility
to intervene wherever it wants, for whatever purpose it wants, by whatever means it wants -- and the supporting "trinity" of
requirements for the U.S. to maintain a global military presence, to configure its military forces for global power projection, and
to counter threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.
Lessons that President Obama is clearly never able to learn. In this sense his book
Washington Rules: America's
Path to Permanent War is an excellent peace of research with sections that some may find very troubling as it suggest that the USA
elite is suicidal and is ready to sacrifice the county for achieving its delusional goal of world domination.
UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper CXXXVII: September 27, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, August
2010).
Thesis
The Washington consensus on national security policy that constitutes convention wisdom in American foreign policy began with
the Cold War and survived, remarkably, the Vietnam War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, no longer serves American interests,
but the failure of the Obama administration to alter it shows that change can only come from the American people.
Introduction: Slow Learner
The author's faith in orthodoxy began to crumble when visiting the BrandenburgGate in Berlin in the winter of 1990-1991(1-4).
In October 1990 a visit to Jenarevealed the backwardness of EastGermany (4-6). During his years in the Army, Bacevich had kept down
doubts; after the end of the Cold War he retired, and his loss of status freed him to educate himself (6-10).
"George W.Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 pushed me fully into opposition" (10). "This book aims to
take stock of conventional wisdom" (11). The past 60 years of American history shows continuity: a symbiotic "credo" (formulated
by Henry Luce in 1941 as the "American Century") and a "sacred trinity" ("the minimum essentials of international peace and order
require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter
existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism") together define "the rules to which Washington
adheres" (11-15).
In this book, "Washington" refers to the upper echelons of the three branches of government, the main agencies of the national
security state, select think tanks and interest groups, "big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major
corporations, television networks and elite publications like the New York Times, even quasi-academic entities like the Council on
Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government" (15).
This book aspires to
(1) trace the history of the Washington rules;
(2) show who wins, who loses, and who pays under them;
(3) explain how itis perpetuated;
(4) show that the rules have lost what utility they might once have had;
and (5) re-legitimate "disreputable (or 'radical') views to our national security debates" (16).
The American Century is ending, and it "has become essential" to devise an "alternative to the reining national security paradigm"
(16-18).
Ch. 1: The Advent of Semiwar.
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).
Ch. 4: Reconstituting the Trinity
The period from 1980 to 2000 saw "notretrenchment but reconfiguration" (147). The new mission was not American defense but
facilitation of a new world order (148-50). After 9/11 this pretense was dropped and "[a]ctivism became the watchword" (150,
emphasis in original;150-52). Resorting to war became "notably more frequent and less controversial" in 1980-2000, finding "its ultimate
expression in the Bush Doctrine of preventive war" (152-53). Americans "passively assented" (154).
Behind the scenes, the shape this took was struggled over by the officer corps and civilian semi-warriors pushing RMA(Revolution
in Military Affairs) (154-64).Initially, U.S. élites held that victory in Iraq demonstrated that speed could be substituted for mass
in military campaigns (165-75). But the experience of the occupation revealed this to be a fantasy (175-81).
Ch. 5: Counterfeit COIN.
Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, replacing "shock and awe" as "the Long War" replaced the "global war on terror," is the latest
doctrinal effort to preserve the Washington rules (182-86). The so-called "surge" implicitly marked a quest for conditions allowing
the U.S. to leave Iraq without admitting defeat (186-91).Gen. David Petraeus emerged as an advocate (and as salesman, through FM3-24,
the manual he revised and which Bacevich insists is in its emphasis on narrative replete with postmodernism) of counterinsurgency
doctrine as "a substitute [for warfare] suited to the exercise of great power politics in the twilight of modernity" (197; 191-97).
Implicitly, the manual argues that "war as such . . . no longer worked" (198; 198-202). Petraeus took credit for progress in Iraq
that he did not achieve (202-04).
The general with a Princeton Ph.D. was lionized with a view to normalizing war and lowering expectations, a view now embraced
by the Obama administration(205-11). Proponents of global counterinsurgency (GCOIN) emerged, like John Nagl and Gen. Benet Sacolick
(211-13). Obama embraced the GCOIN version of the Long War with Gen.Stanley McChrystal to carry it out in Afghanistan, forfeiting
the opportunity to reassess American policy (213-21).
Ch. 6: Cultivating Our Own Garden.
Time-honored no-nonsense American pragmatism has turned into an absurdity-swallowing herd mentality (222-23). The problem set the
U.S. faces has radically changed from the time of the early Cold War, but the "sacred trinity" (cf. 11-15) that proposes to address
them remains essentially the same (224-25).Eisenhower would have been appalled(225-26). The size of the Pentagon budget, the
size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and the extent of overseas military presence cannot be justified(226-27).
These persist because of the interests they serve, not the mission the fulfill, and are likely to do so for sometime (228-30).
Bacevich invokes George Kennan, William Fulbright, and Martin Luther King Jr. in urging that the U.S. needs a new approach, to model
freedom rather than impose it (231-37). First and foremost, America should save not the world but itself (237).
Bacevich proposes a new trinity:
the purpose of the military is to defend the U.S. and its vital interests;
soldiers' primary duty stations are on American soil;
force should be used only as a last resort and in self-defense, in accord with the Just War tradition (238-41).
The American public must shoulder its complicity in what has happened, fostered by an all-volunteer force and debt-financed budgets
(241-47). It is tragic that Barack Obama, elected to institute change, has lacked the courage to alter the Washington rules,
instead "choosing to conform" (247-49). "If change is to come, it must come from the people"(249). The need for education "has
become especially acute" (249; 249-50).
Except from Macmillan
Introduction: Slow Learner Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me. I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable:
He knows what he wants and where he's headed; when it comes to looking back or entertaining heretical thoughts, he has neither the
time nor the inclination. All that counts is that he is going somewhere. Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility.
My own education did not commence until I had reached middle age. I can fix its start date with precision: For me, education began
in Berlin, on a winter's evening, at the Brandenburg Gate, not long after the Berlin Wall had fallen. As an officer in the U.S. Army
I had spent considerable time in Germany. Until that moment, however, my family and I had never had occasion to visit this most famous
of German cities, still littered with artifacts of a deeply repellent history. At the end of a long day of exploration, we found
ourselves in what had, until just months before, been the communist East. It was late and we were hungry, but I insisted on walking
the length of the Unter den Linden, from the River Spree to the gate itself. A cold rain was falling and the pavement glistened.
The buildings lining the avenue, dating from the era of Prussian kings, were dark, dirty, and pitted. Few people were about. It was
hardly a night for sightseeing. For as long as I could remember, the Brandenburg Gate had been the preeminent symbol of the age and
Berlin the epicenter of contemporary history.
Yet by the time I made it to the once and future German capital, history was already moving on. The Cold War had abruptly ended.
A divided city and a divided nation had re united. For Americans who had known Berlin only from a distance, the city existed primarily
as a metaphor. Pick a date— 1933, 1942, 1945, 1948, 1961, 1989—and Berlin becomes an instructive symbol of power, depravity, tragedy,
defiance, endurance, or vindication. For those inclined to view the past as a chronicle of parables, the modern history of Berlin
offered an abundance of material. The greatest of those parables emerged from the events of 1933 to 1945, an epic tale of evil ascendant,
belatedly confronted, then heroically overthrown.
A second narrative, woven from events during the intense period immediately following World War II, saw hopes for peace dashed,
yielding bitter antagonism but also great resolve. The ensuing stand-off—the "long twilight struggle," in John Kennedy's memorable
phrase— formed the centerpiece of the third parable, its central theme stubborn courage in the face of looming peril. Finally came
the exhilarating events of 1989, with freedom ultimately prevailing, not only in Berlin, but throughout Eastern Europe.
.... ... ...
Although commonly depicted as the most advanced and successful component of the Soviet Empire, East Germany more closely resembled
part of the undeveloped world.
... ... ...
Briquettes of soft coal used for home heating made the air all but unbreathable and coated everything with soot. In the German
cities we knew, pastels predominated—houses and apartment blocks painted pale green, muted salmon, and soft yellow. Here everything
was brown and gray
... ... ...
Bit by bit, my worldview started to crumble. That worldview had derived from this conviction: that American power manifested a
commitment to global leadership, and that both together expressed and affirmed the nation's enduring devotion to its founding ideals.
That American power, policies, and purpose were bound together in a neat, internally consistent package, each element drawing strength
from and reinforcing the others, was something I took as a given. That, during my adult life, a penchant for interventionism had
become a signature of U.S. policy did not—to me, at least—in any way contradict America's aspirations for peace. Instead, a willingness
to expend lives and treasure in distant places testified to the seriousness of those aspirations. That, during this same period,
the United States had amassed an arsenal of over thirty-one thousand nuclear weapons, some small number of them assigned to units
in which I had served, was not at odds with our belief in the inalienable right to life and liberty; rather, threats to life and
liberty had compelled the United States to acquire such an arsenal and maintain it in readiness for instant use.2 I was not so naíve
as to believe that the American record had been without flaws. Yet I assured myself that any errors or misjudgments had been committed
in good faith. Furthermore, circumstances permitted little real choice. In Southeast Asia as in Western Europe, in the Persian Gulf
as in the Western Hemisphere, the United States had simply done what needed doing. Viable alternatives did not exist. To consent
to any dilution of American power would be to forfeit global leadership, thereby putting at risk safety, prosperity, and freedom,
not only our own but also that of our friends and allies.
The choices seemed clear enough. On one side was the status quo: the commitments, customs, and habits that defined American globalism,
implemented by the national security apparatus within which I functioned as a small cog. On the other side was the prospect of appeasement,
isolationism, and catastrophe. The only responsible course was the one to which every president since Harry Truman had adhered. For
me, the Cold War had played a crucial role in sustaining that worldview.
Given my age, upbringing, and professional background, it could hardly have been otherwise. Although the great rivalry between
the United States and the Soviet Union had contained moments of considerable anxiety — I remember my father, during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, stocking our basement with water and canned goods — it served primarily to clarify, not to frighten.
The Cold War provided a framework that organized and made sense of contemporary history. It offered a lineup and a scorecard.
That there existed bad Germans and good Germans, their Germans and our Germans, totalitarian Germans and Germans who, like Americans,
passionately loved freedom was, for example, a proposition I accepted as dogma. Seeing the Cold War as a struggle between good and
evil answered many questions, consigned others to the periphery, and rendered still others irrelevant.
Back in the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, more than a few members of my generation had rejected the conception of the Cold War
as a Manichean struggle. Here too, I was admittedly a slow learner. Yet having kept the faith long after others had lost theirs,
the doubts that eventually assailed me were all the more disorienting. Granted, occasional suspicions had appeared long before Jena
and Berlin
My own Vietnam experience had generated its share, which I had done my best to suppress. I was, after all, a serving soldier.
Except in the narrowest of terms, the military profession, in those days at least, did not look kindly on nonconformity. Climbing
the ladder of career success required curbing maverick tendencies. To get ahead, you needed to be a team player. Later, when studying
the history of U.S. foreign relations in graduate school, I was pelted with challenges to orthodoxy, which I vigorously deflected.
When it came to education, graduate school proved a complete waste of time — a period of intense study devoted to the further accumulation
of facts, while I exerted myself to ensuring that they remained inert.
Now, however, my personal circumstances were changing. Shortly after the passing of the Cold War, my military career ended. Education
thereby became not only a possibility, but also a necessity. In measured doses, mortification cleanses the soul. It's the perfect
antidote for excessive self-regard. After twenty-three years spent inside the U.S. Army seemingly going somewhere, I now found myself
on the outside going nowhere in particular. In the self-contained and cloistered universe of regimental life, I had briefly risen
to the status of minor spear carrier. The instant I took off my uniform, that status vanished. I soon came to a proper appreciation
of my own insignificance, a salutary lesson that I ought to have absorbed many years earlier. As I set out on what eventually became
a crablike journey toward a new calling as a teacher and writer—a pilgrimage of sorts—ambition in the commonly accepted meaning of
the term ebbed. This did not happen all at once. Yet gradually, trying to grab one of life's shiny brass rings ceased being a major
preoccupation.
Wealth, power, and celebrity became not aspirations but subjects for critical analysis.
History—especially the familiar narrative of the Cold War—no longer offered answers; instead, it posed perplexing riddles. Easily
the most nagging was this one: How could I have so profoundly misjudged the reality of what lay on the far side of the Iron Curtain?
Had I been insufficiently attentive? Or was it possible that I had been snookered all along? Contemplating such questions, while
simultaneously witnessing the unfolding of the "long 1990s"— the period bookended by two wars with Iraq when American vainglory reached
impressive new heights—prompted the realization that I had grossly misinterpreted the threat posed by America's adversaries. Yet
that was the lesser half of the problem. Far worse than misperceiving "them" was the fact that I had misperceived "us." What I thought
I knew best I actually understood least. Here, the need for education appeared especially acute.
George W. Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 pushed me fully into opposition. Claims that once seemed elementary—above
all, claims relating to the essentially benign purposes of American power— now appeared preposterous. The contradictions that found
an ostensibly peace-loving nation committing itself to a doctrine of preventive war became too great to ignore. The folly and hubris
of the policy makers who heedlessly thrust the nation into an ill-defined and open-ended "global war on terror" without the foggiest
notion of what victory would look like, how it would be won, and what it might cost approached standards hitherto achieved only by
slightly mad German warlords. During the era of containment, the United States had at least maintained the pretense of a principled
strategy; now, the last vestiges of principle gave way to fantasy and opportunism. With that, the worldview to which I had adhered
as a young adult and carried into middle age dissolved completely. *
What should stand in the place of such discarded convictions? Simply inverting the conventional wisdom, substituting a new Manichean
paradigm for the old discredited version—the United States taking the place of the Soviet Union as the source of the world's evil—would
not suffice. Yet arriving at even an approximation of truth would entail subjecting conventional wisdom, both present and past, to
sustained and searching scrutiny. Cautiously at first but with growing confidence, this I vowed to do. Doing so meant shedding habits
of conformity acquired over decades. All of my adult life I had been a company man, only dimly aware of the extent to which institutional
loyalties induce myopia. Asserting independence required first recognizing the extent to which I had been socialized to accept certain
things as unimpeachable. Here then were the preliminary steps essential to making education accessible. Over a period of years, a
considerable store of debris had piled up. Now, it all had to go. Belatedly, I learned that more often than not what passes for conventional
wisdom is simply wrong. Adopting fashionable attitudes to demonstrate one's trustworthiness—the world of politics is flush with such
people hoping thereby to qualify for inclusion in some inner circle—is akin to engaging in prostitution in exchange for promissory
notes. It's not only demeaning but downright foolhardy. This book aims to take stock of conventional wisdom in its most influential
and enduring form, namely the package of assumptions, habits, and precepts that have defined the tradition of statecraft to which
the United States has adhered since the end of World War II— the era of global dominance now drawing to a close. This postwar tradition
combines two components, each one so deeply embedded in the American collective consciousness as to have all but disappeared from
view.
The first component specifies norms according to which the international order ought to work and charges the United States with
responsibility for enforcing those norms. Call this the American credo. In the simplest terms, the credo summons the United States—and
the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world. In a celebrated manifesto issued at the dawn
of what he termed "The American Century," Henry R. Luce made the case for this spacious conception of global leadership. Writing
in Life magazine in early 1941, the influential publisher exhorted his fellow citizens to "accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert
upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." Luce thereby captured
what remains even today the credo's essence.3 Luce's concept of an American Century, an age of unquestioned American global primacy,
resonated, especially in Washington. His evocative phrase found a permanent place in the lexicon of national politics. (Recall that
the neoconservatives who, in the 1990s, lobbied for more militant U.S. policies named their enterprise the Project for a New American
Century.) So, too, did Luce's expansive claim of prerogatives to be exercised by the United States.
Even today, whenever public figures allude to America's responsibility to lead, they signal their fidelity to this creed.
Along with respectful allusions to God and "the troops," adherence to Luce's credo has become a de facto prerequisite for high office.
Question its claims and your prospects of being heard in the hubbub of national politics become nil. Note, however, that the duty
Luce ascribed to Americans has two components. It is not only up to Americans, he wrote, to choose the purposes for which they would
bring their influence to bear, but to choose the means as well. Here we confront the second component of the postwar tradition of
American statecraft. With regard to means, that tradition has emphasized activism over example, hard power over soft, and coercion
(often styled "negotiating from a position of strength") over suasion. Above all, the exercise of global leadership as prescribed
by the credo obliges the United States to maintain military capabilities staggeringly in excess of those required for self-defense.
Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility.
In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. By the midpoint
of the twentieth century, "the Pentagon" had ceased to be merely a gigantic five-sided building.
Like "Wall Street" at the end of the nineteenth century, it had become Leviathan, its actions veiled in secrecy, its reach extending
around the world. Yet while the concentration of power in Wall Street had once evoked deep fear and suspicion, Americans by and large
saw the concentration of power in the Pentagon as benign. Most found it reassuring. A people who had long seen standing armies as
a threat to liberty now came to believe that the preservation of liberty required them to lavish resources on the armed forces. During
the Cold War, Americans worried ceaselessly about falling behind the Russians, even though the Pentagon consistently maintained a
position of overall primacy. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, mere primacy no longer sufficed. With barely a whisper of national
debate, unambiguous and perpetual global military supremacy emerged as an essential predicate to global leadership. Every great military
power has its distinctive signature. For Napoleonic France, it was the levée en masse— the people in arms animated by the ideals
of the Revolution. For Great Britain in the heyday of empire, it was command of the seas, sustained by a dominant fleet and a network
of far-flung outposts from Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope to Singapore and Hong Kong. Germany from the 1860s to the 1940s (and
Israel from 1948 to 1973) took another approach, relying on a potent blend of tactical flexibility and operational audacity to achieve
battlefield superiority.
The abiding signature of American military power since World War II has been of a different order altogether. The United States
has not specialized in any particular type of war. It has not adhered to a fixed tactical style. No single service or weapon has
enjoyed consistent favor. At times, the armed forces have relied on citizen-soldiers to fill their ranks; at other times, long-service
professionals. Yet an examination of the past sixty years of U.S. military policy and practice does reveal important elements of
continuity. Call them the sacred trinity: an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require
the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing
or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism. Together, credo and trinity—the one defining purpose, the
other practice—constitute the essence of the way that Washington has attempted to govern and police the American Century. The relationship
between the two is symbiotic. The trinity lends plausibility to the credo's vast claims. For its part, the credo justifies the trinity's
vast requirements and exertions.
Together they provide the basis for an enduring consensus that imparts a consistency to U.S. policy regardless of which political
party may hold the upper hand or who may be occupying the White House. From the era of Harry Truman to the age of Barack Obama, that
consensus has remained intact. It defines the rules to which Washington adheres; it determines the precepts by which Washington rules.
As used here, Washington is less a geographic expression than a set of interlocking institutions headed by people who, whether acting
officially or unofficially, are able to put a thumb on the helm of state. Washington, in this sense, includes the upper echelons
of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government. It encompasses the principal components of the national
security state— the departments of Defense, State, and, more recently, Homeland Security, along with various agencies comprising
the intelligence and federal law enforcement communities. Its ranks extend to select think tanks and interest groups. Lawyers, lobbyists,
fixers, former officials, and retired military officers who still enjoy access are members in good standing. Yet Washington also
reaches beyond the Beltway to include big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major corporations, television
networks and elite publications like the New York Times, even quasi-academic entities like the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government.
With rare exceptions, acceptance of the Washington rules forms a prerequisite for entry into this world. My purpose in writing
this book is fivefold: first, to trace the origins and evolution of the Washington rules—both the credo that inspires consensus and
the trinity in which it finds expression; second, to subject the resulting consensus to critical inspection, showing who wins and
who loses and also who foots the bill; third, to explain how the Washington rules are perpetuated, with certain views privileged
while others are declared disreputable; fourth, to demonstrate that the rules themselves have lost whatever utility they may once
have possessed, with their implications increasingly pernicious and their costs increasingly unaffordable; and finally, to argue
for readmitting disreputable (or "radical") views to our national security debate, in effect legitimating alternatives to the status
quo. In effect, my aim is to invite readers to share in the process of education on which I embarked two decades ago in Berlin. The
Washington rules were forged at a moment when American influence and power were approaching their acme. That moment has now passed.
The United States has drawn down the stores of authority and goodwill it had acquired by 1945. Words uttered in Washington command
less respect than once was the case. Americans can ill afford to indulge any longer in dreams of saving the world, much less remaking
it in our own image. The curtain is now falling on the American Century. Similarly, the United States no longer possesses sufficient
wherewithal to sustain a national security strategy that relies on global military presence and global power projection to underwrite
a policy of global interventionism. Touted as essential to peace, adherence to that strategy has propelled the United States into
a condition approximating perpetual war, as the military misadventures of the past decade have demonstrated.
To anyone with eyes to see, the shortcomings inherent in the Washington rules have become plainly evident. Although those most
deeply invested in perpetuating its conventions will insist otherwise, the tradition to which Washington remains devoted has begun
to unravel. Attempting to prolong its existence might serve Washington's interests, but it will not serve the interests of the
American people.
Devising an alternative to the reigning national security paradigm will pose a daunting challenge—especially if Americans look
to "Washington" for fresh thinking. Yet doing so has become essential. In one sense, the national security policies to which Washington
so insistently adheres express what has long been the preferred American approach to engaging the world beyond our borders. That
approach plays to America's presumed strong suit—since World War II, and especially since the end of the Cold War, thought to be
military power. In another sense, this reliance on military might creates excuses for the United States to avoid serious engagement:
Confidence in American arms has made it unnecessary to attend to what others might think or to consider how their aspirations might
differ from our own.
In this way, the Washington rules reinforce American provincialism—a national trait for which the United States continues
to pay dearly. The persistence of these rules has also provided an excuse to avoid serious self-engagement. From this perspective,
confidence that the credo and the trinity will oblige others to accommodate themselves to America's needs or desires — whether for
cheap oil, cheap credit, or cheap consumer goods—has allowed Washington to postpone or ignore problems demanding attention here at
home.
Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland and Detroit. Purporting to support the troops in their
crusade to free the world obviates any obligation to assess the implications of how Americans themselves choose to exercise freedom.
When Americans demonstrate a willingness to engage seriously with others, combined with the courage to engage seriously with themselves,
then real education just might begin.
In their article ‘The American Century’ Has Plunged the World Into Crisis. What Happens Now?"
Conn Hallinan and
Leon Wofsy outlined important reasons of the inevitability
of the dominance of chicken hawks and jingoistic foreign policy in the USA political establishment:
U.S. foreign policy is dangerous, undemocratic, and deeply out of sync with real global challenges. Is continuous war inevitable,
or can we change course?
There’s something fundamentally wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
Despite glimmers of hope — a tentative nuclear agreement with Iran,
for one, and a long-overdue thaw with Cuba — we’re locked into seemingly irresolvable conflicts in most regions of the world. They
range from tensions with nuclear-armed powers like Russia and China to actual combat operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and
Africa.
Why? Has a state of perpetual warfare and conflict become inescapable? Or are we in a self-replicating cycle that reflects an
inability — or unwillingness — to see the world as it actually is?
The United States is undergoing a historic transition in our relationship to the rest of the world, but this is neither acknowledged
nor reflected in U.S. foreign policy. We still act as if our enormous military power, imperial alliances, and self-perceived moral
superiority empower us to set the terms of “world order.”
While this illusion goes back to the end of World War II, it was the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union that
signaled the beginning of a self-proclaimed “American Century.” The idea that the United States had “won” the Cold War and now —
as the world’s lone superpower — had the right or responsibility to order the world’s affairs led to a series of military adventures.
It started with President Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Yugoslav civil war, continued on with George W. Bush’s disastrous invasions
of Afghanistan and Iraq, and can still be seen in the Obama administration’s own misadventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and
beyond.
In each case, Washington chose war as the answer to enormously complex issues, ignoring the profound consequences for both foreign
and domestic policy. Yet the world is very different from the assumptions that drive this impulsive interventionism.
It’s this disconnect that defines the current crisis.
Acknowledging New Realities
So what is it about the world that requires a change in our outlook? A few observations come to mind.
First, our preoccupation with conflicts in the Middle East — and to a significant extent, our tensions with Russia in Eastern
Europe and with China in East Asia — distract us from the most compelling crises that threaten the future of humanity. Climate change
and environmental perils have to be dealt with now and demand an unprecedented level of international collective action. That also
holds for the resurgent danger of nuclear war.
Second, superpower military interventionism and far-flung acts of war have only intensified conflict, terror, and human suffering.
There’s no short-term solution — especially by force — to the deep-seated problems that cause chaos, violence, and misery through
much of the world.
Third, while any hope of curbing violence and mitigating the most urgent problems depends on international cooperation, old and
disastrous intrigues over spheres of influence dominate the behavior of the major powers. Our own relentless pursuit of military
advantage on every continent, including through alliances and proxies like NATO, divides the world into “friend” and “foe” according
to our perceived interests. That inevitably inflames aggressive imperial rivalries and overrides common interests in the 21st century.
Fourth, while the United States remains a great economic power, economic and political influence is shifting and giving rise to
national and regional centers no longer controlled by U.S.-dominated global financial structures. Away from Washington, London, and
Berlin, alternative centers of economic power are taking
hold in Beijing, New Delhi, Cape Town, and Brasilia. Independent formations and alliances are springing up: organizations like the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa); the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (representing 2.8 billion people);
the Union of South American Nations; the Latin American trade bloc, Mercosur; and others.
Beyond the problems our delusions of grandeur have caused in the wider world, there are enormous domestic consequences of prolonged
war and interventionism. We shell out
over $1 trillion a year in military-related expenses even as our social safety net frays and our
infrastructure crumbles. Democracy itself has become virtually
dysfunctional.
Short Memories and Persistent Delusions
But instead of letting these changing circumstances and our repeated military failures give us pause, our government continues
to act as if the United States has the power to dominate and dictate to the rest of the world.
The responsibility of those who set us on this course fades into background. Indeed, in light of the ongoing meltdown in the Middle
East, leading presidential candidates are
tapping neoconservatives like John Bolton
and Paul Wolfowitz — who still think the
answer to any foreign policy quandary is military power — for advice. Our leaders seem to forget that following this lot’s advice
was exactly what caused the meltdown in the first place. War still excites them, risks and consequences be damned.
While the Obama administration has sought, with limited success, to end the major wars it inherited, our government makes wide
use of killer drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and has put troops
back into Iraq to confront the
religious fanaticism and brutality of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) — itself a direct consequence of the last U.S. invasion
of Iraq. Reluctant to find common ground in the fight against ISIS with designated “foes” like Iran and Syria, Washington clings
to allies like Saudi Arabia, whose leaders are fueling the crisis of religious fanaticism and internecine barbarity. Elsewhere, the
U.S. also continues to give massive support to the Israeli government, despite its expanding occupation of the West Bank and its
horrific recurring assaults on Gaza.
A “war first” policy in places like Iran and Syria is being strongly pushed by neoconservatives like former Vice President
Dick Cheney and Senate Armed Services Committee
Chairman John McCain. Though it’s attempted
to distance itself from the neocons, the Obama administration adds to tensions with planned military realignments like the “Asia
pivot” aimed at building up U.S. military forces in Asia to confront China. It’s also taken a more aggressive position than even
other NATO partners in fostering a new cold war with Russia.
We seem to have missed the point: There is no such thing as an “American Century.” International order cannot be enforced by a
superpower alone. But never mind centuries — if we don’t learn to take our common interests more seriously than those that divide
nations and breed the chronic danger of war, there may well be no tomorrows.
Unexceptionalism
There’s a powerful ideological delusion that any movement seeking to change U.S. foreign policy must confront: that U.S. culture
is superior to anything else on the planet. Generally going by the name of “American exceptionalism,” it’s the deeply held belief
that American politics (and medicine, technology, education, and so on) are better than those in other countries. Implicit in the
belief is an evangelical urge to impose American ways of doing things on the rest of the world.
Americans, for instance, believe they have the best education system in the world, when in fact they’ve dropped from 1st
place to 14th place in the number of college graduates. We’ve made students of higher education the most indebted section
of our population, while falling to 17th place in international education ratings. According to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation, the average American pays more than twice as much for his or her education than those in the rest of the world.
Health care is an equally compelling example. In the World Health Organization’s ranking of health care systems in 2000, the United
States was ranked 37th. In a more recent
Institute of Medicine report in 2013, the U.S. was ranked the lowest among 17 developed nations studied.
The old anti-war slogan, “It will be a good day when schools get all the money they need and the Navy has to hold a bake sale
to buy an aircraft carrier” is as appropriate today as it was in the 1960s. We prioritize corporate subsidies, tax cuts for the wealthy,
and massive military budgets over education. The result is that Americans are no longer among the most educated in the world.
But challenging the “exceptionalism” myth courts the danger of being labeled “unpatriotic” and “un-American,” two powerful ideological
sanctions that can effectively silence critical or questioning voices.
The fact that Americans consider their culture or ideology “superior” is hardly unique. But no other country in the world has
the same level of economic and military power to enforce its worldview on others.
The United States did not simply support Kosovo’s independence, for example. It bombed Serbia into de facto acceptance. When the
U.S. decided to remove the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi from power, it just did so. No other country is capable of
projecting that kind of force in regions thousands of miles from its borders.
The U.S. currently accounts for anywhere from 45 to 50 percent of the world’s military spending. It has hundreds of overseas bases,
ranging from huge sprawling affairs like Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo and unsinkable aircraft carriers around the islands of Okinawa,
Wake, Diego Garcia, and Guam to tiny bases called “lily
pads” of pre-positioned military supplies. The late political scientist Chalmers Johnson estimated that the U.S. has some
800 bases worldwide, about the same as the British Empire had at its height in 1895.
The United States has long relied on a military arrow in its diplomatic quiver, and Americans have been at war almost continuously
since the end of World War II. Some of these wars were major undertakings: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Kuwait, Afghanistan,
Iraq (twice), Libya. Some were quick “smash and grabs” like Panama and Grenada. Others are “shadow wars” waged by Special Forces,
armed drones, and local proxies. If one defines the term “war” as the application of organized violence, the U.S. has engaged
in close to 80 wars since 1945.
The Home Front
The coin of empire comes dear, as the old expression goes.
According Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the final butcher bill for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars — including
the long-term health problems of veterans — will cost U.S. taxpayers around
$6 trillion.
One can add to that the over $1 trillion the U.S. spends each year on defense-related items. The “official” defense budget of some
half a trillion dollars doesn’t include such items as nuclear weapons, veterans’ benefits or retirement, the CIA and Homeland Security,
nor the billions a year in interest we’ll be paying on the debt from the Afghan-Iraq wars. By 2013 the U.S. had already paid out
$316 billion in interest.
The domestic collateral damage from that set of priorities is numbing.
We spend more on our “official” military budget than we do on Medicare, Medicaid, Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing
and Urban Development combined. Since 9/11,
we’ve spent $70 million an hour
on “security” compared to $62 million an hour on all domestic programs.
As military expenditures dwarf funding for deteriorating social programs, they drive economic inequality. The poor and working
millions are left further and further behind. Meanwhile the chronic problems highlighted at Ferguson, and reflected nationwide, are
a horrific reminder of how deeply racism — the unequal economic and social divide and systemic abuse of black and Latino youth —
continues to plague our homeland.
The state of ceaseless war has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing our surveillance and security state to levels that many
dictators would envy. The Senate torture report, most of
it still classified, shatters the trust we are asked to place in the secret, unaccountable apparatus that runs
the most extensive Big Brother
spy system ever devised.
Bombs and Business
President Calvin Coolidge was said to have remarked that “the business of America is business.” Unsurprisingly, U.S. corporate
interests play a major role in American foreign policy.
Out of the top 10 international arms producers, eight are American. The arms industry spends millions lobbying Congress and state
legislatures, and it defends its turf with an efficiency and vigor that its products don’t always emulate on the battlefield. The
F-35 fighter-bomber, for example — the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history — will cost $1.5 trillion and doesn’t work.
It’s over budget, dangerous to fly, and riddled with defects. And yet few lawmakers dare challenge the powerful corporations who
have shoved this lemon down our throats.
Corporate interests are woven into the fabric of long-term U.S. strategic interests and goals. Both combine to try to control
energy supplies, command strategic choke points through which oil and gas supplies transit, and ensure access to markets.
Many of these goals can be achieved with standard diplomacy or economic pressure, but the U.S. always reserves the right to
use military force. The 1979 “Carter Doctrine” —
a document that mirrors the 1823 Monroe Doctrine about American interests in Latin America — put that strategy in blunt terms vis-à-vis
the Middle East:
“An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital
interests of the United States, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
It’s no less true in East Asia. The U.S. will certainly engage in peaceful economic competition with China. But if push comes
to shove, the Third, Fifth, and Seventh fleets will back up the interests of Washington and its allies — Japan, the Philippines,
South Korea, and Australia.
Trying to change the course of American foreign policy is not only essential for reducing international tensions. It’s critically
important to shift the enormous wealth we expend in war and weapons toward alleviating growing inequality and social crises at home.
As long as competition for markets and accumulation of capital characterize modern society, nations will vie for spheres of influence,
and antagonistic interests will be a fundamental feature of international relations. Chauvinist reaction to incursions real or imagined
— and the impulse to respond by military means — is characteristic to some degree of every significant nation-state. Yet the more
that some governments, including our own, become subordinate to oligarchic control, the greater is the peril.
Finding the Common Interest
These, however, are not the only factors that will shape the future.
There is nothing inevitable that rules out a significant change of direction, even if the demise or transformation of a capitalistic
system of greed and exploitation is not at hand. The potential for change, especially in U.S. foreign policy, resides in how social
movements here and abroad respond to the undeniable reality of: 1) the chronic failure, massive costs, and danger inherent in “American
Century” exceptionalism; and 2) the urgency of international efforts to respond to climate change.
There is, as well, the necessity to respond to health and natural disasters aggravated by poverty, to rising messianic violence,
and above all, to prevent a descent into war. This includes not only the danger of a clash between the major nuclear powers, but
between regional powers. A nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India, for example, would affect the whole world.
Without underestimating the self-interest of forces that thrive on gambling with the future of humanity, historic experience and
current reality elevate a powerful common interest in peace and survival. The need to change course is not something that can be
recognized on only one side of an ideological divide. Nor does that recognition depend on national, ethnic, or religious identity.
Rather, it demands acknowledging the enormous cost of plunging ahead as everything falls apart around us.
After the latest U.S. midterm elections, the political outlook is certainly bleak. But experience shows that elections, important
as they are, are not necessarily indicators of when and how significant change can come about in matters of policy. On issues of
civil rights and social equality, advances have occurred because a dedicated and persistent minority movement helped change public
opinion in a way the political establishment could not defy.
The Vietnam War, for example, came to an end, despite the stubbornness of Democratic and Republican administrations, when a stalemate
on the battlefield and growing international and domestic opposition could no longer be denied. Significant changes can come about
even as the basic character of society is retained. Massive resistance and rejection of colonialism caused the British Empire and
other colonial powers to adjust to a new reality after World War II. McCarthyism was eventually defeated in the United States. President
Nixon was forced to resign. The use of landmines and cluster bombs has been greatly restricted because of the opposition of a small
band of activists whose initial efforts were labeled “quixotic.”
There are diverse and growing political currents in our country that see the folly and danger of the course we’re on. Many Republicans,
Democrats, independents, and libertarians — and much of the public — are beginning to say “enough” to war and military intervention
all over the globe, and the folly of basing foreign policy on dividing countries into “friend or foe.”
This is not to be Pollyannaish about anti-war sentiment, or how quickly people can be stampeded into supporting the use of force.
In early 2014, some 57 percent of Americans
agreed that “over-reliance on military
force creates more hatred leading to increased terrorism.” Only 37 percent believed military force was the way to go. But once the
hysteria around the Islamic State began, those
numbers shifted to pretty much an even split: 47 percent supported the use of military force, 46 percent opposed it.
It will always be necessary in each new crisis to counter those who mislead and browbeat the public into acceptance of another
military intervention. But in spite of the current hysterics about ISIS, disillusionment in war as an answer is probably greater
now among Americans and worldwide than it has ever been. That sentiment may prove strong enough to produce a shift away from perpetual
war, a shift toward some modesty and common-sense realism in U.S. foreign policy.
Making Space for the Unexpected
Given that there is a need for a new approach, how can American foreign policy be changed?
Foremost, there is the need for a real debate on the thrust of a U.S. foreign policy that chooses negotiation, diplomacy, and
international cooperation over the use of force.
However, as we approach another presidential election, there is as yet no strong voice among the candidates to challenge U.S.
foreign policy. Fear and questionable political calculation keep even most progressive politicians from daring to dissent as the
crisis of foreign policy lurches further into perpetual militarism and war. That silence of political acquiescence has to be broken.
Nor is it a matter of concern only on the left. There are many Americans — right, left, or neither — who sense the futility of
the course we’re on. These voices have to be represented or the election process will be even more of a sham than we’ve recently
experienced.
One can’t predict just what initiatives may take hold, but the recent U.S.-China climate agreement suggests that necessity can
override significant obstacles. That accord is an important step forward, although a limited bilateral pact
cannot substitute for an essential
international climate treaty. There is a glimmer of hope also in the U.S.-Russian joint action that
removed chemical weapons from Syria,
and in negotiations with Iran, which continue despite
fierce opposition from U.S. hawks and the Israeli
government. More recently, there is Obama’s bold move — long overdue — to
restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Despite
shifts in political fortunes, the unexpected can happen if there is a need and strong enough pressure to create an opportunity.
We do not claim to have ready-made solutions to the worsening crisis in international relations. We are certain that there is
much we’ve missed or underestimated. But if readers agree that U.S. foreign policy has a national and global impact, and that it
is not carried out in the interests of the majority of the world’s people, including our own, then we ask you to join this conversation.
If we are to expand the ability of the people to influence foreign policy, we need to defend democracy, and encourage dissent
and alternative ideas. The threats to the world and to ourselves are so great that finding common ground trumps any particular interest.
We also know that we won’t all agree with each other, and we believe that is as it should be. There are multiple paths to the future.
No coalition around changing foreign policy will be successful if it tells people to conform to any one pattern of political action.
So how does the call for changing course translate to something politically viable, and how do we consider the problem of power?
The power to make significant changes in policy ranges from the persistence of peace activists to the potential influence of the
general public. In some circumstances, it becomes possible — as well as necessary — to make significant changes in the power structure
itself.
Greece comes to mind. Greek left organizations came together to form Syriza, the political party that was
successfully elected to power on a platform of ending austerity.
Spain’s anti-austerity Podemos Party — now the number-two party in the country — came out of massive demonstrations in 2011 and was
organized from the grassroots up. We do not argue one approach over the over, but the experiences in both countries demonstrate that
there are multiple paths to generating change.
Certainly progressives and leftists grapple with the problems of power. But progress on issues, particularly in matters like war
and peace and climate change, shouldn’t be conceived of as dependent on first achieving general solutions to the problems of society,
however desirable.
... ... ...
Conn Hallinan is a journalist and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. His writings appear online at
Dispatches From the Edge. Leon Wofsy is a retired
biology professor and long-time political activist. His comments on current affairs appear online at
Leon’s OpEd.
"...These rules have pushed the United States to a state of perpetual war. With enemies supposedly everywhere, the pursuit of
security has become open-ended. "
"...One is reminded of John Winthrop,
who, in 1630, told the future residents of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are
upon us." Over subsequent decades, Winthrop's sermon became the American mission, fired by self-righteousness and fueled by self-confidence.
From that mission emerged the idea of Manifest Destiny -- American ideals should spread across the continent and around the globe. Along
the way, Americans lost sight of what Winthrop actually meant. His words were both inspiration and warning: Aspire to greatness, but
remain honorable. Power lies in virtue. Winthrop envisaged a shining beacon, worthy of emulation. He saw no need to come down from the
hill and ram ideals down the throats of the recalcitrant. "
"...Back in 1963, the Kennedy administration was faced with a steadily disintegrating situation in Vietnam. At a turbulent cabinet
meeting, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked: If the situation is so dire, why not withdraw? Arthur Schlesinger, present at the meeting,
noted how "the question hovered for a moment, then died away." It was "a hopelessly alien thought in a field of unexplored assumptions
and entrenched convictions." The Washington rules kept the United States on a steady course toward disaster. "
"...Barack Obama once promised that change was coming, but then quickly adhered to the old rules by escalating an unwinnable and
certainly unaffordable war in Afghanistan. Failures, as Steffens hoped, have been illuminating, but after each flash of light, darkness
has prevailed. "
"We need some great failures," the muckraking journalist
Lincoln Steffens wrote in his autobiography. "Especially
we ever-successful Americans -- conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures." What Steffens meant was that a people confident in
righteousness need occasionally to be reminded of their fallibility. The past 50 years have produced failures aplenty -- the Bay
of Pigs, Vietnam and Iraq among them. Unfortunately, as Andrew Bacevich and John Dower demonstrate, the light of failure has not
penetrated the darkness of delusion. As a result, wars provide a repeating rhythm of folly.
"Washington
Rules" and "Cultures
of War" are two excellent books made better by the coincidence of their publication. In complementary fashion, they provide a
convincing critique of America's conduct of war since 1941. Steffens would have liked these books, specifically for the way they
use past failures to explain the provenance of our current predicament.
Read "Cultures of War" first. It's not an easy book, but it is consistently perceptive. Dower examines Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima,
Sept. 11 and the second Iraq War, drawing disconcerting linkages. Pearl Harbor and Iraq, he feels, demonstrate how otherwise
intelligent leaders are drawn toward strategic imbecility. Both attacks were brilliantly executed in the short term, but neither
paid sufficient attention to the long-term problem of winning a war. More controversially, Dower pairs Hiroshima with Sept. 11, both
acts of terror born of moral certitude. Osama bin Laden and Harry Truman justified wanton killing with essentially the same Manichean
rhetoric. Motives, context and scale might have been different; methods were not. For both leaders, the ability to separate good
from evil made killing easy.
In 1941, Americans drew comfort from the stereotype of the irrational Oriental. They assumed that the Japanese would be easily
defeated because they were illogical -- as their attack upon Pearl Harbor proved. That attack was indeed illogical (given the impossibility
of defeating the United States in a protracted war), but it was not peculiarly Japanese. As Dower reveals, the wishful thinking,
delusion and herd behavior within the court of Emperor Hirohito was a symptom of war, not ethnicity. The same deficiencies,
in 2003, convinced those in the Oval Office that invading Iraq was a good idea.
Since the culture of war encourages patterned behavior, folly proliferates. This is the essence of the Washington rules that Bacevich
elucidates. The rules dictate that protection of the American way of life necessitates a global military presence and a willingness
to intervene anywhere. Power and violence are cleansed by virtue: Because America is "good," her actions are always benign. These
rules have pushed the United States to a state of perpetual war. With enemies supposedly everywhere, the pursuit of security has
become open-ended.
The alternative, according to Bacevich, is not isolationism or appeasement, two politically loaded words frequently used to pummel
those who object to Washington's behavior. He advocates, instead, a more level-headed assessment of danger, advice all the more cogent
since it comes from a former soldier. Iraq and Afghanistan did not threaten America; in fact, those countries and the world have
become more dangerous because of heavy-handed American intervention. Nor does North Korea pose a threat. Nor did Vietnam.
One is reminded of John Winthrop,
who, in 1630, told the future residents of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are
upon us." Over subsequent decades, Winthrop's sermon became the American mission, fired by self-righteousness and fueled by self-confidence.
From that mission emerged the idea of Manifest Destiny -- American ideals should spread across the continent and around the globe.
Along the way, Americans lost sight of what Winthrop actually meant. His words were both inspiration and warning: Aspire to greatness,
but remain honorable. Power lies in virtue. Winthrop envisaged a shining beacon, worthy of emulation. He saw no need to come down
from the hill and ram ideals down the throats of the recalcitrant.
The power of virtue is Bacevich's most profound message. Instead of trying to fix Afghanistan's
Helmand Province, he insists, Americans should fix Detroit
and Cleveland. Instead of attempting to export notions of freedom and democracy to nations that lack experience of either, America
should demonstrate, by her actions, that she is still a free, democratic and humane nation. Her real strength lies in her liberal
tradition, not in her ability to kill.
Back in 1963, the Kennedy administration was faced with a steadily disintegrating situation in Vietnam. At a turbulent cabinet
meeting, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked: If the situation is so dire, why not withdraw? Arthur Schlesinger, present at the
meeting, noted how "the question hovered for a moment, then died away." It was "a hopelessly alien thought in a field of unexplored
assumptions and entrenched convictions." The Washington rules kept the United States on a steady course toward disaster.
Those unexplored assumptions and entrenched convictions have now pushed the United States into a new quagmire. Despite that
predicament, both Dower and Bacevich try to end positively. "If change is to come, it must come from the people," argues Bacevich.
Dower agrees. But these feeble attempts at optimism are the least convincing parts of two otherwise brilliant books. Barack Obama
once promised that change was coming, but then quickly adhered to the old rules by escalating an unwinnable and certainly unaffordable
war in Afghanistan. Failures, as Steffens hoped, have been illuminating, but after each flash of light, darkness has prevailed.
Gerard De Groot is a professor of history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and author of "The Bomb: A Life."
For his first 40 years, Andrew Bacevich lived the conventional life of an army officer. In the military world where success depended
on conformity, he followed the rules and “took comfort in orthodoxy…[finding] assurance in conventional wisdom.” Comfort, that is,
until he had a chance to peer behind the Iron Curtain, and was shocked to find East Germany more third-world shambles than first-rate
threat.
That experience, combined with the introspection that followed his subsequent retirement from the army, led Bacevich to reevaluate
the relationship between truth and power. After having taken his superiors at their word for decades, he slowly came to understand
“that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high…is inherently suspect. The exercise
of power necessarily involves manipulation and is antithetical to candor.”
Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War
is Bacevich’s fourth book on the subject of American exercise of power. This time, he takes up the question of the political calculations
that have produced the basic tenets of American foreign policy since the beginning of the Cold War, examining how and why they came
to exist and to survive all challenges to their supremacy.
Bacevich describes two components that define U.S. foreign policy.
The first is what he dubs the “American credo,” which calls on “the United States — and the United States alone — to lead
save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”
Second is what he calls the “sacred trinity,” which requires that the United States “maintain a global military presence,
to configure its forces for global power projections, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a
policy of global interventionism.”
These rules, Bacevich argues, are no longer vital to the existence of the United States, and have led to actions that threaten
to break the army and bankrupt the treasury. Rather, they are kept in place by individuals who derive personal benefit from their
continuance. Bacevich does not hesitate to blame a Washington class that “clings to its credo and trinity not out of necessity, but
out of parochial self-interest laced with inertia.”
This is a theme that runs throughout the book: that those who make the rules also benefit from them, and thus their demands should
always be regarded skeptically.
While abstaining from questioning the patriotism of past leaders, Bacevich is not reluctant to point out how many policies that
were later widely embraced were originally trumpeted by ambitious men who had as much to gain personally by their acceptance as did
the country:
General Curtis LeMay, who built a massive nuclear arsenal as head of Strategic Air Command;
Allen Dulles, who backed coups across the globe as CIA director;
General Maxwell Taylor, who rode the idea of “flexible response” from retirement to the position of chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The story of foreign policy, then, is not so much different than any government bureaucracy through which vast sums of money
flow, and is driven as much by officials jockeying for status than by genuine concern for policy outcomes. Whether in disputes
between the Army and the Air Force or the Pentagon and the White House, and whether over money or over purpose, different sectors
of the national security establishment propose and promote new doctrines that necessitate increasing their budgets and enhancing
their importance.
But Bacevich is not content to only blame leaders. In contrast to George Washington’s ideal of the citizen who would consider
it his duty to actively serve his country, Bacevich finds today’s Americans “greedy and gullible,” pursuing personal gain in the
stead of collective benefit. Any solution, he argues, must come from an awakened people who demand change from the people they put
in office.
As for what that change should look like, Bacevich proposes a new credo and trinity. As a new mission statement, he offers: “America’s
purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as
reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”
As a new trinity, he suggests that “the purpose of the U.S, military is not to combat evil or remake the world but to defend the
United States and its most vital interests…the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America…consistent with the Just
War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self defense.”
Bacevich writes in the short, clipped style with which he also speaks, presumably a legacy of his West Point education and decades
in the military. His style allows for easy comprehension and neat packaging of his ideas, and readers will not get bogged down in
flowery language.
Parts of Bacevich’s thinking require further scrutiny and remind readers of his self-identification as a conservative (lowercase
“c”). Economically, he is no fan of stimulus spending, and socially he places blame on individual failings and personal flaws, choosing
not to mention an unequal economic system that leaves tens of millions of Americans with barely the resources to take care of their
families, much less have time to be informed and active citizens.
In fact, the emphasis throughout the book is on the fact that expansionism, at this particular moment, is not wrong but impossible.
Bacevich is, after all, a realist when it comes to international relations theory, and though he happens to agree with liberal anti-imperials
on many issues, it is often for different reasons.
However, debates over theory can wait for when the republic is in less immediate peril. This is the second work Bacevich has published
under the auspices of the American Empire Project, a book series documenting America’s imperial adventures and their disastrous consequences.
The contribution of conservative authors to this task is vital. They remind us that opposition to imperialism is hardly just a liberal
cause, and in fact for much of American history was actually a rallying point for conservatives across the country.
Washington Rules is valuable for putting in print what those inside the military establishment don’t dare admit: that,
even aside from moral concerns, U.S. international strategy is neither successful nor sustainable and maintained more by lies than
by actual results. Bacevich can truly be said to be a realist in that he understand that leaders, when faced with the choice of admitting
failure or lying, will almost always choose the latter.
Andrew Feldman is an intern with Foreign Policy In Focus.
This is the bluntest, toughest, most scathing critique of American imperialism as it has become totally unmoored after the demise
of the Soviet Communist empire and taken to a new level by the Bush administration. Even the brevity of this book - 182 pages - gives
it a particular wallop since every page "concentrates the mind".
In the event a reader knows of the prophetic work of the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, you will further appreciate this
book. Bacevich is a Niebuhr scholar and this book essentially channels Niebuhr's prophetic warnings from his 1952 book, "The Irony
of American History". The latter has just been reissued by University of Chicago Press thanks to Andrew Bacevich who also contributed
an introduction.
In essence, American idealism as particularly reflected in Bush's illusory goal to "rid the world of evil" and to bring freedom
and democracy to the Middle East or wherever people are being tyrannized, is doomed to failure by the tides of history. Niebuhr warned
against this and Bacevich updates the history from the Cold War to the present. Now our problems have reached crisis proportions
and Bacevich focuses on the three essential elements of the crisis: American profligacy; the political debasing of government; and
the crisis in the military.
What renders Bacevich's critique particularly stinging, aside from the historical context he gives it (Bush has simply taken an
enduring American exceptionalism to a new level), is that he lays these problems on the doorstep of American citizens. It is we who
have elected the governments that have driven us toward near collapse. It is we who have participated willingly in the consumption
frenzy in which both individual citizens and the government live beyond their means. Credit card debt is undermining both government
and citizenry.
This pathway is unsustainable and this book serves up a direct and meaningful warning to this effect. Niebuhrian "realism" sees
through the illusions that fuel our own individual behavior and that of our government. There are limits to American power and limits
to our own individual living standards and, of course, there are limits to what the globe can sustain as is becoming evident from
climate changes.
American exceptionalism is coming to an end and it will be painful for both individual citizens and our democracy and government
to get beyond it. But we have no choice. Things will get worse before they get better. Bacevich suggests some of the basic ways that
we need to go to reverse the path to folly. He holds out no illusions that one political party or the other, one presidential candidate
or the other, has the will or the leadership qualities to change directions. It is up to American citizens to demand different policies
as well as to govern our own appetites.
While this is a sobering book, it is not warning of doomsday. Our worst problems are essentially of our own making and we can
begin to unmake them. But we first have to come to terms with our own exceptionalism. We cannot manage history and there are no real
global problems that can be solved by military means, or certainly not by military means alone.
Without Exception
By Edwin C. Pauzer VINE VOICE on September 24, 2008
This is one of those books you might find yourself sitting down to read chapter and verse over and over again, only because the
writing is so intelligent and so profound. "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism," by Andrew Bacevich, is one
of those works that will enthrall the reader with its insight and analysis.
According to the author, the US has reached its limit to project its power in the world. His rationale for this conclusion are
three central crises we now face: economic and cultural, political, and military, all of which are our own making.
The first crisis is one of profligacy. Americans want more, whether it is wealth, credit, markets, or oil, without consideration
for cost or how these things are acquired. There is complete apathy in what policies are being produced as long as they provide plenty.
The political crisis was born of our mobilization in World War II to meet the threat of tyranny, and from the Cold War to meet
the challenge of the Soviet Union. Both gave rise to unprecedented presidential power, an ineffectual Congress, and a disastrous
foreign policy. Bacevich contends that our legislature no longer serves their constituents or the common good "but themselves
through gerrymandering, doling out prodigious amounts of political pork, seeing to the protection of certain vested interests" with
the paramount concern of being re-elected. Our presidents have been willing accomplices in keeping the American dream or greed alive
by using our military as part of a coercive diplomatic tool to feed and fuel the first crisis.
Bacevich traces the end of the republic to the start of both wars, which gave rise to the "ideology of national security." The
mission of the new Department of Defense is not defense, but to project power globally where we will view any nation as a threat
that tries to match us in military might. At the same time, the largest intelligence agencies in the world are created to afford
us more security, but after seventy years are unable to defend our cities and buildings in the US while it worries about intrigues
worldwide. Competition and rivalry lead to a lack of cooperation, intelligence, and security when it was needed most.
The third crisis is our military which has been employed to satisfy the neuroses of the first and second crises. The author puts
much of the blame squarely at the feet of inept military leadership, which he believes has confused strategy with operations. Content
with the resilience of the American fighting man or woman, he is scathing in his critique of their leadership finding them "guilty
of flagrant professional malpractice, if not outright fraud." He illustrates how improvised explosive devices that cost no more than
a pizza have checked a military that is designed for speed and maneuver--that was considered invincible.
Andrew Bacevich contends that nothing will change as long as Americans are told to go to Disney World instead of making sacrifices,
as long as the same one half percent of our population continue to populate the military that the president sees as his personal
army, as long as an apathetic public and an ineffectual Congress continue to make periodic, grand gestures of curbing presidential
power, the United States will have reached the limits of its power and exceptionalism.
This book profoundly moved me, and I was impressed by the insight that Professor Bacevich could bring in such few pages. Passages
of this book should be plastered in the halls and offices of Congress, as well as the West Wing.
This book really stands out as a jewel in a sea of mediocre publications by radio and TV personalities who think they know what
they are talking about when it comes to economics or geopolitics. The difference is that Andrew Bacevich does
--without exception.
Also Recommended:
Mayer, Jane, "The Dark Side, The Inside Story How The War on Terror Turned into a War on America's Ideals."
Schlesinger, Arthur, "War and the American Presidency."
Mann, Thomas & Ornstein, Norman, "The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track."
Zinni, Tony (Gen. Ret.), "The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose."
Niebuhr, Reinhold, "The Irony of American History."
For your convenience some of them which I judge to be the most insightful are reproduced below:
Andrew J. Bacevich's The New American Militarism: How Americans Are seduced By War, Oxford University Press, New
York, 2005, ISBN 0-19-517338-4, is the most coherent analysis of how America has come to its present situation in the world that
I have ever read. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston
University, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds a Ph.D. in history from Princeton. And he is retired
military officer. This background makes him almost uniquely qualified to comment on the subject.
Bacevich admits to an outlook of moderate conservatism. But in ascribing fault for our plight to virtually every administration
since W.W. II, he is even handed and clear eyed. Since he served in the military, he understands the natural bureaucratic instincts
of the best of the officer corps and is not blinded by the almost messianic status that they have achieved in the recent past.
His broad brush includes the classic period, the American Revolution - especially the impact of George Washington, but he moves
quickly to the influence of Woodrow Wilson and his direct descendants of our time, the Neoconservatives. The narrative accelerates
and becomes relevant for us in the depths of the despair of Vietnam. At that juncture, neocon intellectuals awakened to the horror
that without a new day for our military and foreign policy, the future of America would be at stake. At almost the same time, Evangelical
Christians abandoned their traditional role in society and came to views not dissimilar to the neocons. America had to get back on
track to both power and goodness. The results of Vietnam on American culture, society, and - especially - values were abhorrent to
both these groups.
The perfect man to idealize and mythologize America's road back was Ronald Reagan. Again, Bacevich does not shrink from seeing
through the surreal qualities brought to the Oval Office by Reagan to the realities beneath them. The Great Communicator transformed
the Vietnam experience into an abandonment of American ideals and reacquainted America with those who fought that horrible war. Pop
culture of the period, including motion pictures such as Top Gun and best selling novels by many, including Tom Clancy completely
rehabilitated the image of the military.
The author describes how Evangelical leaders came to find common cause with the neocons and provided the political muscle for
Reagan and his successors of both parties to discover that the projection of military might become a reason for being for America
as the last century closed.
One of his major points is that the all volunteer force that resulted from the Vietnam experience has been divorced from American
life and that sending this force of ghosts into battle has little impact on our collective psyche. This, too, fit in with the intellectual
throw weight of the neocons and the political power of the Evangelicals.
Separate from but related to the neocons, Bacevich describes the loss of strategic input by the military in favor of a new priesthood
of intellectual elites from institutions such as the RAND Corporation, The University of Chicago and many others. It was these high
priests who saw the potential that technology provided for changing the nature of war itself and how American power might be projected
with `smart weapons' that could be the equivalent of the nuclear force that could never be used.
So it was that when the war we are now embroiled in across the globe - which has its antecedents back more than twenty years -
all of these forces weighed heavily on the military leaders to start using the force we'd bought them. The famed question by Secretary
of State Madeline Albright to General Colin Powell: "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about
if we can't use it?" had to have an answer and the skirmishes and wars since tended to provide it.
Bacevich clearly links our present predicaments both at home and abroad to the ever greater need for natural resources, especially
oil from the Persian Gulf. He demolishes all of the reasons for our bellicosity based on ideals and links it directly to our insatiable
appetite for oil and economic expansion. Naturally, like thousands of writers before him, he points out the need for a national energy
policy based on more effective use of resources and alternative means of production.
It is in his prescriptions that the book tends to drift. The Congress must do its constitutionally mandated jobs or be thrown
out by the people. Some of his ideas on military education are creative and might well close the gap between the officer corps and
civilians that he points to as a great problem.
But it is the clearly written analysis that makes this book shine. It should be a must read for those who wonder how we got to
Iraq and where we might be heading as a society. The nation is in grave danger, and this is a book that that shows how we got to
this juncture. Where we go from here is up to us. If we continue as we are, our options may narrow and be provided by others.
READ THIS BOOK
===This review is from: The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Hardcover)
In his book The New American Militarism (2005), Andrew Bacevich desacralizes our idolatrous infatuation with military might, but
in a way that avoids the partisan cant of both the left and the right that belies so much discourse today. Bacevich's personal experiences
and professional expertise lend his book an air of authenticity that I found compelling. A veteran of Vietnam and subsequently a
career officer, a graduate of West Point and later Princeton where he earned a PhD in history, director of Boston University's Center
for International Relations, he describes himself as a cultural conservative who views mainstream liberalism with skepticism, but
who also is a person whose "disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the present Bush administration
and its groupies, is just about absolute." Finally, he identifies himself as a "conservative Catholic." Idolizing militarism,
Bacevich insists, is far more complex, broader and deeper than scape-goating either political party, accusing people of malicious
intent or dishonorable motives, demonizing ideological fanatics as conspirators, or replacing a given administration. Not merely
the state or the government, but society at large, is enthralled with all things military.
Our military idolatry, Bacevich believes, is now so comprehensive and beguiling that it "pervades our national consciousness
and perverts our national policies." We have normalized war, romanticized military life that formally was deemed degrading and
inhuman, measured our national greatness in terms of military superiority, and harbor naive, unlimited expectations about how waging
war, long considered a tragic last resort that signaled failure, can further our national self-interests. Utilizing a "military metaphysic"
to justify our misguided ambitions to recreate the world in our own image, with ideals that we imagine are universal, has taken about
thirty years to emerge in its present form. It is this marriage between utopians ends and military means that Bacevich wants to annul.
How have we come to idolize military might with such uncritical devotion? He likens it to pollution: "the perhaps unintended,
but foreseeable by-product of prior choices and decisions made without taking fully into account the full range of costs likely to
be incurred" (p. 206). In successive chapters he analyzes six elements of this toxic condition that combined in an incremental and
cumulative fashion.
After the humiliation of Vietnam, an "unmitigated disaster" in his view, the military set about to rehabilitate and reinvent
itself, both in image and substance. With the All Volunteer Force, we moved from a military comprised of citizen-soldiers
that were broadly representative of all society to a professional warrior caste that by design isolated itself from broader society
and that by default employed a disproportionate percentage of enlistees from the lowest socio-economic class. War-making
was thus done for us, by a few of us, not by all of us.
Second, the rise of the neo-conservative movement embraced American Exceptionalism as our national end and superior coercive
force as the means to franchise it around the world.
Myth-making about warfare sentimentalized, sanitized and fictionalized war. The film Top Gun is only one example of "a glittering
new image of warfare."
Fourth, without the wholehearted complicity of conservative evangelicalism, militarism would have been "inconceivable," a
tragic irony when you consider that the most "Christian" nation on earth did far less to question this trend than many ostensibly
"secular" nations.
Fifth, during the years of nuclear proliferation and the fears of mutually assured destruction, a "priesthood" of elite defense
analysts pushed for what became known as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). RMA pushed the idea of "limited" and more humane
war using game theory models and technological advances with euphemisms like "clean" and "smart" bombs. But here too our "exuberance
created expectations that became increasingly uncoupled from reality," as the current Iraq debacle demonstrates.
Finally, despite knowing full well that dependence upon Arab oil made us vulnerable to the geo-political maelstroms of that
region, we have continued to treat the Persian Gulf as a cheap gas station. How to insure our Arab oil supply, protect Saudi Arabia,
and serve as Israel's most important protector has always constituted a squaring of the circle. Sordid and expedient self interest,
our "pursuit of happiness ever more expansively defined," was only later joined by more lofty rhetoric about exporting universal
ideals like democracy and free markets, or, rather, the latter have only been a (misguided) means to secure the former.
Bacevich opens and closes with quotes from our Founding Fathers. In 1795, James Madison warned that "of all the enemies of public
liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." Similarly, late in his
life George Washington warned the country of "those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious
to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hotile to republican liberty."
K. Johnson:
Relevant and Objective, January 3, 2007
Author Andrew Bacevich has superb credentials on military, diplomatic, and historical issues. A Vietnam Veteran, 25+ year career
in the Army and now professor of International Relations, Bacevich is one of the few that has the experience *and* knowledge to
dissect what has been occurring in American socio-political culture and society for the last several decades. Bacevich notes the
current focus on the military to solve the world's problems and to promote America's interests is not the sole work of a President
and Congress, but the combination of culture, mentality, political, and now primarily economic, interests. This book has tons
of footnoting, which allows you to delve further into these issues on your own.
The author astutely reinforces the fact that the Militarist Mentality won't change, regardless of which political party is
in control of the Executive and Houses of Congress in the United States. Here only some examples out of many:
Entry of the U.S. military into the Middle East:
THE CARTER DOCTRINE:
The Carter Doctrine was prescribed at the State of the Union Address in 1980. Another civilian prescription utilizing
the military as medicine to alleviate and even cure, political symptoms. This Doctrine began a new era of U.S. involvement in
the Middle East, specifically using the American military to enforce its economic interests and lifestyle dependence on oil.
The Carter Doctrine was a major shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East. It specifically stated that use of
the military can and will be used to enforce U.S. economic interests.
At his State of the Union Address, Carter stated:
"Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be declared as an assault on the vital
interest of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force"
(p. 181).
Worth noting is that the Carter Doctrine was declared during the Cold War, when there was a adversary to check U.S interests.
Today, that rival is gone.
Some argue the so-called 'War on Terror' is merely a historical continuation of American foreign policy interests in
using its military to promote its geo-political and economic interests.
WAR AS SPECTATOR SPORT:
War has been, and now is presented as a spectacle. No different than a spectator sport. Live reports, video display, and
laymen presentations of new technology, usually via video, to the civilian public at press conferences.
One example of many are current U.S. newspaper reports: they don't use the term "wounded" when reporting about American soldiers
in Iraq. They use the euphemistic term, "injured." "17 Iraqis 'wounded' and 3 American soldiers 'injured.'" Similar to a football
game. Slogans such as "Shock and Awe, Support the Troops," and deck of cards identifying the most wanted Baath party members.
"Freedom is not Free." Many American military personel (and civilians) have internalized this propaganda.
Using Hollywood To Enhance "Honor" and perpetuate myths:
Bacevich carefully details the planned and choreographed footage of George W. Bush dressed as a fighter pilot on the USS Abraham
Lincoln. This was intentionally and specifically lifted from the movie "Top Gun." Immediately after this planned footage, an action
figure doll was created and sold for $39.99. It was called the "Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush: U.S. President and Naval
Aviator" (p. 31).
Well-dressed, handsome, and beautiful anchors report about the war in such series as "The Week in War." More simulation of
the spectator sport of war in our pop culture. One segment in the "Week in War program" is called "The Fallen," where the photo
of a soldier, his name, age, and hometown are presented, and the date of his death. Then the cameramen go to his family's home.
Often a family picture of the "fallen soldier" is shown. Then, an interview with the somber, and at times tearful family in their
living room, sitting on their couch: "He was a good kid. He always wanted to help people."
The "Fallen" is related to a concept that the Germans began about 300 years ago. This concept is called the "Cult of the Fallen
Soldier." When a soldier is killed in war he is elevated to a higher status because of his death. He is placed on a pedestal,
because somehow, and in some enigmatic way, he "sacrificed" for a noble cause that is often abstract or confusing to the public.
To further simplify the confusion and sullenness resulting from the soldier's death, religion is often injected into the deceased
soldiers elevation on a pedestal. You can see this Cult of the Fallen Soldier in Arlington, Virgina today, and in many military
cemeteries around the world.
GLORIFICATION OF THE MILITARY THROUGH MOVIES:
Bacevich notes moves and their role. "Top Gun" had a tremendous impact in many ways. Pop culture, and Navy recruiting sky-rocketing.
As for the flurry of "Vietnam war movies," again the noble concepts of "courage, honor, fear, triumph" are latently and explicitly
reinforced to the public of all ages and socio-economic levels.
It took me a chapter or two to get used to Bacevich's writing style, but I grew to like it.
Chapters: 1) Wilsonians Under Arms 2) The Military Professions at Bay 3) Left, Right, Center 4) California Dreaming 5) Onward
6) War Club 7) Blood for Oil 8) Common Defense
"Support" for the military is often incorrectly linked with one's "patriotism." This faulty thinking is perpetuated by the
electronic and print media in often subtle forms but extremely effective forms, and at times very explicit and in aggressive manners.
The government intentionally steers the publics' focus to the 'Military aspects of war' to avoid attention to the more realistic
and vital 'political aspects.' The latter being at the real heart of the motivation, manner, and outcome of most *political* conflicts.
Bacevich notes journalists: journalist Thomas Friedman complained that a Super Bowl half-time show did not honor the "troops."
He then drove to the Command Center to visit and speak with the "troops." Soon after, he carried on with his own self-centered
interests, like everyone else.
The military in and of itself is not dangerous nor pernicious. The military doesn't formulate foreign policy. The military
just implements it, carrying out the orders and instructions of elitist civilians who have never served in the armed forces. It's
not the military nor the men and women serving in it, we must be wary of. It's the civilians masters with vested interests in
the governmental and corporate world who must be held accountable.
General Creighton Abrams wanted to diminish the influence of civilian control over the military after Vietnam. Civilians and
politicians were making military decisions. It seems the situation is similar in 2007. Chairman of the JCS Peter Pace sounds political.
History will be the judge.
This is a very insightful book for those interested in recent history as well as the current situation the United States is
in. The troops should be supported for what they do. Because unfortunately they are the ones that pay the price for elitist decisions
made by upper-class civilians from the Ivy League cliques that run the U.S. politically and economically.
Highly recommended and relevant to our contemporary times and our future.
Andrew Bacevich did excellent research and writing in this book. I'll think we'll be hearing a lot more of him. Hopefully He'll
get more access to the public. If - the mainstream media allows it.
Robert S. Frey
An Informed, Insightful, and Highly Readable Account of American Foreign Policy Today, December 23, 2006
Andrew J. Bacevich's "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War," should be read and considered carefully
by every member of the national political leadership in the United States as well as by adult Americans in general. Bacevich brings
impeccable credentials to his work in this book--professor of history and international relations at Boston University, West Point
graduate, and veteran of the Vietnam conflict. His writing is engaging, insightful, and historically well anchored. Importantly,
this work is highly accessible and eminently readable. The level of documentation is very valuable as well. Finally, the book
is not about fault-finding and finger-pointing toward any one national figure or group.
What I found most beneficial was that the book presented well-argued alternative historical "meta-narratives" that are much
more closely aligned with post-World War II historical events and processes than the ones currently accepted as "conventional
wisdom." A case in point is the periodization of World War IV beginning with President Carter's pronouncements regarding the Persian
Gulf area in 1980 rather than with the terrorist attacks on America on 9/11. "The New American Militarism" carefully and credibly
brings together the many seemingly disparate actions, decisions, and events of the past 60+ years (e.g., the atomic bombing of
Japan, Vietnam, oil shortages of the 1970s and 80s, the end of the Cold War, the First Gulf War, etc.) and illustrates important
patterns and trends that help to explain why United States' foreign policy is what it is today. Dr. Bacevich's book helps us understand
and appreciate that the global projection of American military power today has deep roots in the national decisions and behaviors
of the second half of the twentieth century.
Robert S. Frey, M.A., MBA, MSM
Adjunct Professor, History
Brenau University
Dr. Lee D. Carlson
Interesting, insightful, and motivating, October 21, 2006
Why is it that some people, including this reviewer, are reluctant to criticize the writings or verbalizations of those Americans
that have been or are currently in the military? This is particularly true for those officers and soldiers who have served in
combat. To be critical of someone is who has faced such horror would be a sacrilege. Their opinions on subjects, especially those
related to war and the military, are given much higher weight than those that have never been in the military. What is the origin
of this extreme bias and does it not thwart attempts to get at the truth in matters of war and politics? If a war is illegal or
immoral, are not the soldiers who participate in it themselves war criminals, deserving the severest condemnation?
The author of this book sheds light on these questions and gives many more interesting opinions on what he has called the 'new
American militarism.' If one examines carefully American history, it is fair to say that Americans have been reluctant to go to
war, preferring instead to settle conflicts via negotiation and trade agreements. Americans have been led to the horrors of war
kicking and screaming, and breath a sigh of relief when they are over. Historically, Americans have applied extreme skepticism
to those politicians, like Woodrow Wilson, who wanted to participate in World War I to make the world "safe for democracy." So
if Americans are "seduced by war", as the author contends they have been in recent decades, an explanation must be found. It is tempting to say that they have been merely "brainwashed", and contemporary neuroscience lends some credence to this claim,
but one must still be open to alternative explanations, and let the evidence determine the proper interpretation. Once
the causes have been identified, it becomes necessary to find methodologies and strategies to counter these causes, lest we find
ourselves in another unnecessary and brutal conflict, initiated by some who do not directly participate in it, and have no intention
ever to do so.
This book is not a scientific study, but instead is a collection of opinions, mostly supported by anecdotal evidence, to support
the author's thesis. On the surface his opinions do seem plausible, but one must still apply to his writings the same level of
skepticism applied to other studies of the same kind. It does seem reasonable to believe for example that current attitudes about
war are governed by the American failure in Vietnam, Carter's supposed ineptitude in dealing with the resulting loss in "self-esteem"
of the American populace, and Reagan's exploitation or correction of this loss. But more evidence is needed to set such a conclusion
in stone.
The author though is intellectually honest enough to admit that he has not obtained the "definitive version of the truth" on
the new American militarism within the pages of his book. His words are more "suggestive than conclusive" he writes, and he welcomes
criticism and alternative interpretations. Vietnam, oil and energy considerations, 9-11, and the media all have a role to play
in the current American attitudes about war he argues. Further analysis though is needed, and cognizance must be made that all
readers, including this reviewer, are embedded in the same culture as the author, and subjected to the same ideological, historical,
and media pressures. We must be extremely cautious in our acceptance of what we find in print and indeed in all information outlets.
And we must learn that soldiers, active duty or otherwise, are not infallible and must be subjected to the same criticism as any
other citizen. This is again, very difficult to do, and this difficulty is perhaps the best evidence for the author's thesis.
R. Albin:
Exceptional Polemic; 4.5 Stars, October 19, 2006
This concise and well written book is the best kind of polemic; clear, well argued, and designed to provoke debate.
Bacevich is definitely interested in persuading readers of the truth of his views but his calm and invective free prose, insistence
on careful documentation, and logical presentation indicate that his primary concern is promote a high level of discussion of
this important issue. Bacevich argues well that a form of militarism based on an exaggerated sense of both American mission and
American power, specifically military power, has infected public life. He views this militarism as both leading to unecessary
and dangerous adventures abroad, epitomized by the Iraq fiasco, and corrupting the quality of domestic debate and policy making.
Beyond documenting the existence of this phenomenon, Bacevich is concerned with explicating how this form of militarism, which
he views as contrary to American traditions, came to be so popular.
Bacevich argues well that the new militarism came about because of a convergence of actions by a number of different
actors including our professional military, neoconservative intellectuals and publicists, evangelical Christians, resurgent Republican
party activists, and so-called defense intellectuals. For a variety of reasons, these sometimes overlapping groups converged
on ideas of the primacy of American military power and the need to use it aggressively abroad. Bacevich devotes a series of chapters
to examining each of these actors, discussing their motivations and actions, often exposing shabby and inconsistent thinking.
Some of these, like the role of neoconservative intellectuals and the Religous Right, are fairly well known.
Others, like the behavior of professional military over the last generation, will be novel to many readers. Bacevich's chapters
have underlying themes. One is the persisent occurrence of ironic events as the actions of many of these groups produced events
counter to their goals. The post-Vietnam professional military attempted to produce a large, vigorous military poised to
fight conventional, WWII-like, combats. This force was intended to be difficult for politicians to use. But as these often
highly competent professionals succeeded to restoring the quality of the American military, the temptation to use it became stronger
and stronger, and control escaped the professionals back into the hands of politicians as varied as Bush II and Clinton.
Another theme is that politicians seized on use military force as an alternative to more difficult and politically unpalatable
alternatives. Jimmy Carter is described correctly as initiating the American preoccupation with control of the Persian Gulf oil
supplies, which has generated a great deal of conflict over the past generation. Bacevich presents Carter as having to act
this way because his efforts to persuade Americans to pursue sacrifice and a rational energy policy were political losers. Ronald
Reagan is presented as the epitome of this unfortunate trend.
Bacevich is generally convincing though, perhaps because this is a short book, there are some issues which are presented onesidely.
For example, its true that Carter began the military preoccupation with the Persian Gulf. But, its true as well that his administration
established the Dept. of Energy, began a significant program of energy related research, moved towards fuel standards for vehicles
and began the regulatory policies that would successfully improve energy efficiency for many household items. No subsequent administration
had done more to lessen dependence on foreign oil.
Bacevich also omits an important point. As he points out, the different actors that sponsored the new militarism tended to
converge in the Republican Party. But, as has been pointed out by a number of analysts, the Republican Party is a highly disparate
and relatively unstable coalition. The existence of some form of powerful enemy, perceived or real, is necessary to maintain
Republican solidarity. The new militarism is an important component of maintaining the internal integrity of the Republican party
and at unconciously appreciated as such by many important Republicans.
An interesting aspect of this book is that Bacevich, a West point grad, former career Army officer, and self-described cultural
conservative, has reproduced many of the criticisms put forward by Leftist critics.
Bacevich concludes with a series of interesting recommendations that are generally rational but bound to be controversial and
probably politically impossible. Again, this is an effort to change the nature of the discussion about these issues.
Adam Bahner
How Permanent Military Deployment Became Congruent With World Peace, June 29, 2006
In The New American Militarism, Andrew J. Bacevich contends that American culture and policy since the end of the Cold War
has merged a militaristic ethos with a utopian global imaginary. He notes that American militarism is a "bipartisan project" with
"deep roots" that even garner support on the political margins, with some leftist activists seeing a humanitarian mission for
U.S. global military hegemony. He traces these roots to the worldview of Woodrow Wilson, who envisioned a globe "remade in America's
image and therefore permanently at peace." Yet Wilson's view was moderated by a public and policy perception of war as an ugly,
costly, brutal, traumatic and unpredictable last resort. This is corroborated by the massive military demobilizations that followed
U.S. involvement in both world wars. Bacevich also points to works of popular culture, from Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On
The Western Front to Oliver Stone's Platoon, that reflect on the inhumanity of war from World War I through Vietnam.
Bacevich sees a massive deviation from these historical trends after the end of the Cold War. While conceding that a permanent
military mobilization was expected during the Cold War (from roughly NSC-68 to the fall of the Berlin Wall)--no significant demobilization
followed. Forces slated for deactivation were quickly mobilized for Operation Desert Storm. No successful popular culture critiques
of that war's brutality would emerge. The author sees the end of the cold war and Desert Storm as framing a period of "new American
militarism" that breaks from historical precedent in several regards. He claims that since the 1988 presidential campaign, the
character of the presidency has emphasized military more than civilian leadership. This contradicts previous presidents of military
stature (e.g. Grant, Eisenhower) who obsessively positioned themselves as civilians. Post-Cold War military budgets have been
dramatically larger despite no global adversary. The public has uncritically accepted a permanent military stance. The perception
of war as ghastly and treacherous has been replaced with war as a clinical and technologically managed spectacle. The link between
the covenant of citizenship and military service has been replaced by a specialized force of volunteers. The numbers of veterans
serving in congress has steadily decreased since World War II. Bacevich correlates this with the shunning of military service
by elites as the military has increasingly drawn from areas of the population that are poor and brown. Because of this, force
is "outsourced" and in turn the stature of soldiers has dramatically increased through an infrastructure of praise by the majority
who are not involved in military operations. Senior military officers have tremendous clout in politics, policy, and spending.
To understand this new militarism, Bacevich notes that it is point-for-point an inversion of Vietnam's military milieu. There,
politicians up through the president framed themselves as civilians, officers felt out of touch with bureaucratic decisions, and
war was perceived as carnal and bumbling. The book traces cultural responses to Vietnam that reformed the American relationship
to militarism. As military leaders like Creighton Abrams sought to mandate broad political investment for military action by creating
interdependence with reserves and to limit the criteria for deployment with the Weinberger doctrine, politicians like Ronald Reagan
rehabilitated an American demoralization that peaked with Carter's failed Operation Eagle Claw by invoking popular culture mythologies
like Rambo.
Bacevich is unabashedly religious. He ultimately couches America's outsourced and technocratic militarism as a departure from
natural Gods in the pursuit of a scientistic idol that more perfectly regulates human affairs. He openly sees in this scientism
the same flaw and outcome as Communism or Fascism. He suggests that affirmation of military service across economic privilege
would raise the stakes of military engagements and help to contradict the cultural illusions that form the basis of American militarism.
(That war is technical, distant, clinical, predictable, outsourced, humane, and everything contrary to what writers like Remarque
tell us.) He meticulously synthesizes a new paradigm that relates the difficult subjects of military policy and popular sanction.
In this regard, The New American Militarism is an exciting contribution to historical scholarship.
M. Ward:
The New American Militarism - A Bipolar Look at Todays State of Affairs, February 4, 2006
Andrew J. Bacevichs', The New American Militarism, gives the reader an important glimpse of his background when he wrote that,
as a Vietnam veteran, the experience baffled him and he wrote this book in an effort to "sift through the wreckage left by the
war." After the Vietnam War, the author stayed in the military because he believed being an American soldier was a "true and honorable"
calling. Bacevich states he is a devoted Catholic and a conservative who became disillusioned with mainstream conservatism. He
also states that he believes the current political system is corrupt and functions in ways inconsistent with genuine democracy.
Bacevich states that he tried to write this book using facts in an unbiased way. However, he cautions the reader that his experiences
have shaped his views and that his views are part of this book. This is a way to tell the reader that although he tried to remain
unbiased, his background and biases find voice in this book. I believe the authors warning are valid; he draws heavily upon his
background and biases to support his thesis.
The book is about American militarism, which Bacevich describes as the "misleading and dangerous conceptions of war, soldiers,
and military institutions" that have become part of the American conscience and have `perverted' US national security policy.
According to Bacevich, American militarism has subordinated the search for the common good to the permanent value of military
effectiveness that will bankrupt the US economically and morally. Bacevich supports this thesis by discussing issues that have
contributed to this state of affairs.
Bacevich believes the current state of American militarism has roots dating back to the Wilson administration. Wilson's vision
was to remake the world in America's image. God Himself willed the universal embrace of liberal democracies and Wilson saw the
US as a `divine agent' to make the world a safe and democratic place. Today, with no serious threat to keep our military forces
in check, we are now, more than ever, free to spread liberal democracy using military force, if necessary.
Considering the military, Bacevich makes the point that the militarism of America is also due, in part, to the officer corps of
the US military trying to rehabilitate the image and profession of the soldier after the Vietnam War. Officers attempted to do
this by reversing the roles of the soldiers and the politicians that was problematic during the Vietnam War. They tried to establish
the primacy of the military over the civilians in decisions as to how to use the military. The Weinberger and Powell doctrines
were the manifestation of this idea by spelling out conditions for the use of the US military in combat.
Neo-conservatives further enhanced the trend of militarism. They see US power as an instrument for good and the time was right
to use the military to achieve the final triumph of Wilson's idea of spreading American liberal democracy around the globe.
Religion also played a role. According to Bacevich, evangelical Protestants see the US as a Christian nation singled out by
God and Americans are His chosen people. These evangelicals believed the Vietnam War was not only a military crisis, but also
a cultural and moral crisis threatening our status. Evangelicals looked to the military to play a pivotal role in saving the US
from internal collapse due to the higher expression of morals and values found in the military. The military would become the
role model to reverse the trend of godlessness and social decay.
Another set of actors that contributed to American militarism were the defense intellectuals whose main contribution was to
bring the military back under civilian control. According to Bacevich, they laid the groundwork of our current policy of `preventative
war' and reinforced American militarism.
Finally, Bacevich accuses politicians of deceiving the American public as to the true nature of American militarism by wrapping
militarism in the comfortable trappings of nationalism. By using labels such as the Global War on Terrorism, politicians are using
a political sleight-of-hand trick to hide our true militaristic nature in patriotic terms. Bacevich concludes his book with a
list of recommendations to mitigate the current trend of American militarism.
Bacevich seems to create a mosaic of conspiracy perpetrated by sinister actors aimed at deceiving an unsuspecting public as
to the true nature of American militarism. Until the last chapter where Bacevich tells the reader that there is no conspiracy,
it is very easy to believe there might be one lurking in the shadows. I was shocked when I reached Bacevich's recommendations.
The contrast between his recommendations and the rest of the book is astounding. I was expecting highly provocative recommendations
that would match the tone of the rest of the book. However, his recommendations were solid and well thought out...delivered in
the calm manner one would expect from a political scientist. Nevertheless, in the end, Bacevich's message leading up to his recommendations
were hard to swallow. I believe he wrote this book not to enlighten but to be provocative in order to sell books and build his
status in academic circles. If Bacevich's aim was to build a convincing argument on a serious subject, he needed to be less provocative
and more clinical.
David Friedman:
What is militarism? What is it, particularly as applied to today's America? West Point educated Andrew Bacevich opens his book
with a concise statement: "Today as never before in their history Amercans are enthralled with military power. The global military
supremacy that the United States presently enjoys . . . has become central to our national identity." This is the basic premise
of The New American Militarism. Anyone who does not accept the accuracy of this statement, or is unconcerned about its implications
should probably not read this book--it will only annoy them. For those, however, who are concerned about how militarism is increasingly
seeping into our core values and sense of national destiny, or who are disturbed by the current glaring disconnect between what
our soldiers endure "over there", and the lack of any sacrifice or inconvenience for the rest of us "over here", this book is
a must-read.
Refreshingly, Bacevich approaches the new American militarism as neither a Democrat nor Republican, from neither the left nor
the right. No doubt, those with a stake in defending the policy of the present Administration no matter how foolish, or in castigating
it as the main source of our current militarism, will see "bias" in this book. The truth though is that Bacevich makes a genuine
effort to approach his subject in a spirit of open and disinterested inquiry. He has earned the right to say, near the end of
his book, that "this account has not sought to assign or impute blame." As a result, he is not stymied by the possibility of embarrassing
one political side or the other by his arguments or conclusions. This leads to a nuanced and highly independent and original treatment
of the subject.
In chronicling the rise of American militarism, Bacevich rightly starts with Wilson's vision of American exceptionalism: an
America leading the world beyond the slaughterhouse of European battlefields to an international order of peaceful democratic
states. But where President Wilson wanted to create such a world for the express purpose of rendering war obsolete, Bacevich notes
that today's "Wilsonians" want to export American democracy through the use of force. He follows this overview with an insider's
thumbnail history of American military thinking from Vietnam to the first Gulf war. He explains how the military in effect re-invented
itself after Vietnam so as to make it far more difficult "to send the Army off to fight while leaving the country behind." Today's
highly professionalized and elite force is largely the result of this thinking. In turn this professional military presented to
the country and its civilian leaders a re-invented model of war: war waged with surgical precision and offering "the prospect
of decision rather than pointing ineluctably toward stalemate and quagmire." Gulf War I was the triumphant culmination of this
model. The unintended and ironic consequence, of course, was that war and the aggressive projection of American military power
throughout the world came to be viewed by some in our nation's leadership as an increasingly attractive policy option.
The body of the book analyzes how the legitimate attempt to recover from the national trauma of Vietnam led ultimately to a
militarism increasingly reflected in crucial aspects of American life. In religion he traces how a "crusade" theory of warfare
has supplanted the more mainstream "just war" theory. In popular culture he discusses the rise of a genre of pop fiction and movies
reflecting a glamorized and uncritical idealization of war (he examines "An Officer and A Gentleman", "Rambo: First Blood Part
II", and "Top Gun" as examples). In politics he identifies the neo-conservative movement as bringing into the mainstream ideas
that "a decade earlier might have seemed reckless or preposterous"; for example the idea that the United States is "the most revolutionary
force on earth" with an "inescapable mission" to spread democracy -- by the sword if necessary. Bacevich calls these ideas "inverted
Trotskyism", and notes that the neo-conservative movement shares with Mao the assumption that revolution springs "from the barrel
of a gun".
Bacevich concludes his book with a pithy ten-point critique offered as a starting point for "a change in consciousness, seeing
war and America's relationship to war in a fundamentally different way." Among his points are greater fidelity to the letter and
the spirit of the Constituional provisions regarding war and the military, and increased strategic self-sufficiency for America.
Perhaps the most important points of his critique are those about ending or at least reducing the current disconnect between er
how we might reduce
Patrick Connor
Careful observers will note the abolute claims that lie under the surface of these criticisms. If you criticize anything about
the United States, you're automatically anti-Bush. If you question the wisdom of viewing the military as a first-option in handling
international problems, you're even worse: a liberal anti-Bush peacenick. History supposedly demonstrates that diplomacy never
works with any "tyrant" (whatever that is), while war allegedly always work. It's just one stark claim after another, with never
any gray area in the middle.
If you read the book, this "you're either with us or with the terrorists, either dream war or hate President Bush" mentality
should remind you of something. It very closely resembles the description Bacevich gives of neoconservatism, which he says engenders
a worldview that is constantly in crisis mode. Things are always so dire for neocons, Bacevich explains, that only two feasible
options present themselves at any given time: doing what the neocons want (usually deploying military force in pursuit of some
lofty but unrealistic goal), or suffering irreversible and potentially fatal setbacks to our national cause.
Is it really surprising that the reviews of this book from a neocon mindset are also the reviews giving one star to a book
that sytematically critiques and upends neoconservatism?
In actuality, as many have pointed out already, Bacevich is "anti-Bush" only insomuch as he is anti-neoconservative. Bacevich
openly states that he throws his full weight behind traditionally conservative issues, like small government and lower taxes.
Indeed, he is a devoutly religious social conservative who himself severed twenty years in the Army officer corps. This is why
his exposee on America's new militarism has so much credibility.
Since he was in the military, he knows that sometimes the military is necessary to handle situations that develop in the world.
However he also understands that the military is often grossly unfit to handle certain situations. This is the main theme of his
book. At its core, the story is about how, in response to Vietnam, military leaders worked frightfully hard to rebuild the military
and to limit the freedom of starry-eyed civilians to use the armed forces inappropriately.
Their most important objective was to ensure that no more Wilsonian misadventures (like Vietnam) would happen. The officer
corps did this by carving out a space of authority for the top brass, from which they could have unprecedented input in policy
decisions, and be able to guide strategy and tactics once the military deployed into action. After ascending to a position of
greater prominence, they implemented the "Weinberger Doctrine," followed by the "Powell Doctrine," both specifically tailored
to avoid Vietnam-style quagmires. The Gulf War, claims Bacevich, saw the fruition of fifteen years of hard work to accomplish
these reforms. And they worked beautifully.
However, the end of the last decade saw the Neo-conservatives challenge the status quo. And with the election of W. Bush, they
were finally in a position where their ideas could again have a disproportionate influence on foreign policy. What we now have
in Iraq is another military quagmire, where the solution must be political, but where military occupation renders political solutions
impossible.
This story is about how the military profession emerged from the post-Vietnam wilderness, dazzled the world during the first
Gulf War, then once again lost its independent ability to craft related policies with the arrival of Rummie and the neocons.
It's a fascinating story, and Bacevich relates it skillfully.
Andrew S. Rogers:
Baedecker on the road to perdition, December 5, 2005
I was sorry to see Andrew J. Bacevich dismiss Chalmers Johnson's 2004
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy,
and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project) quite as quickly as he did (on page 3 of the introduction, in fact),
because I think these two books, taken together, provide probably the best -- and certainly the most historically-informed --
look at the rise and consequences of American empire. I endorse "The New American Militarism" as heartily as I did "The Sorrows
of Empire."
Bacevich's capsule summary of Johnson's work notwithstanding, both these books take the long view of America's international
military presence and are quick to grasp one key point. As Bacevich notes on page 205, "American militarism is not the invention
of a cabal nursing fantasies of global empire and manipulating an unsuspecting people frightened by the events of 9/11. Further,
it is counterproductive to think in these terms -- to assign culpability to a particular president or administration and to imagine
that throwing the bums out will put things right."
In several insightful chapters, Bacevich traces the rise of militarism over the course of several administrations and many
decades. A former Army officer himself, the author is particularly insightful in charting the efforts of the military's officer
corps to recover from the stigma of Vietnam and reshape the *ethos* of the armed services as an elite intentionally separate from,
and morally superior to, the society it exists to defend. But the officers are only one of the strands Bacevich weaves together.
He also looks at the influence of the "defense intellectuals;" the importance of evangelical Christians and how their view of
Biblical prophecy shapes their understanding of politics; the rise of (yes) the neo-conservatives; and even the role of Hollywood
in changing America's understandings of the "lessons of Vietnam" and the re-glamorization of the military in films like "Top Gun."
The author is a sharp-eyed analyst, but also an engaging writer, and he gives the reader a lot to think about. I was intrigued,
for example, by his discussion of how "supporting the troops" has become the *sine qua non* of modern politics and how doing so
has replaced actual military service as an indicator of one's love of country. More fundamentally, his identification and analysis
of "World War III" (already over) and "World War IV" (currently underway, and declared [surprisingly] by Jimmy Carter) struck
me as a remarkably useful lens for interpreting current events.
In tying his threads together, Bacevich is not afraid to make arguments and draw conclusions that may make the reader uncomfortable.
As the passage I quoted above makes clear, for example, someone looking for a straightforward declaration that "It's all Bush's
fault!" will have to go someplace else. As a further implication of the above passage, Bacevich argues that the "defense intellectuals,"
the evangelicals, and even the neocons were and are doing what they believe are most likely to promote peace, freedom, and the
security of the American people. "To the extent that we may find fault with the results of their efforts, that fault is more appropriately
attributable to human fallibility than to malicious intent" (p. 207). Additionally, Bacevich is unashamed of his military service,
holds up several military leaders as heroes, has some choice words for the self-delusions of leftist "peace activists," and even
argues that federal education loans should be made conditional on military service.
This doesn't mean the president and his fellow conservatives get off much easier, though. Bacevich is roundly critical of Bush
and his administration, including Colin Powell; dismisses the Iraq invasion ("this preposterous enterprise" [p. 202]); and in
a move that will probably get him crossed off the Thayer Award nominations list, suggests officer candidates be required to graduate
from civilian universities instead of West Point (his alma mater) or Annapolis -- intellectually-isolated institutions that reinforce
the officer caste's separation from civil society.
So this book isn't one that will blindly reinforce anyone's prejudices. In part for that reason -- but mostly for its trenchant
analysis, readable prose, and broad historical view -- I'm happy to list "The New American Militarism" as one of the best and
most important books I've read in some time. Perhaps even since "The Sorrows of Empire."
Izaak VanGaalen:
Militarism and Public Opinion, August 12, 2005
According to many of the custodians of public opinion, Andrew Bacevich has earned his right to a fair hearing. Not only is
he a graduate of West Point, a Vietnam veteran, and a conservative Catholic, he is a professor of international relations and
a contributor to "The Weekly Standard" and "The National Review." Obviously, if he were a left-leaning anti-war Democrat and a
contributor to, say, "The Nation," he wouldn't be taken seriously as a critic of American militarism - he would be merely another
"blame-America-first" defeatist.
Bacevich sees militarism manifesting itself in some disquieting ways. Traditionally America has always gauged the size of its
military with the magnitude of impending threats. After the Civil War, World War I and II, the military was downsized as threats
receded. Not so after the fall of the Soviet Union. The military budget has continued to grow and the expenditures are greater
- by some measures - than all other countries combined. American military forces are now scaling the globe and the American public
seems quiet comfortable with it. And everyone else is growing uneasy.
The mindset of the current officer corps is dominant control in all areas "whether sea, undersea, land, air, space or cyberspace."
In other words, supremacy in all theaters. Self-restraint has given way to the normalization of using military force as a foreign
policy tool. From 1989 (Operation Just Cause) to 2002 (Operation Iraqi Freedom) there have been nine major military operations
and a number of smaller ones. The end of the Cold War has given the US a preponderance of military strength (the proverbial unipolar
moment) that has enamoured successive administrations with the idea of using military force to solve international problems. In
earlier times, war was always an option of the last resort, now it is a preventative measure.
War, according to Bacevich, has taken on a new aesthetic. During World War I and II, and also Vietnam and Korea the battlefield
was a slaughterhouse of barbarism and brutality. Now, with the advent of the new Wilsonianism in Washington, wars are seen as
moments of national unity to carry out a positive agenda, almost as if it were international social work.
The modern soldier is no longer looked upon as a deadbeat or a grunt, but rather as a skilled professional who is undertaking
socially beneficial work. In fact, in a poll taken in 2003, military personnel consider themselves as being of higher moral standards
than the nation they serve.
In the political classes, the Republicans have traditionallly been staunchly pro-military, but now even Democrats have thrown
off their ant-military inclinations. When Kerry was running for president he did not question Bush's security policies, he was
actually arguing that Bush had not gone far enough. Kerry wanted to invest more in military hardware and training. Even liberal
Michael Ignatieff argues that US military intervention should be used to lessen the plight of the oppressed and that we should
be assisting them in establishing more representative government.
But superpowers are not altruistic; they are only altruistic to the extent that it serves their self-interest. That's probably
why Ignatieff will not get much of a hearing and Bacevich will. This book should give us pause as to why the range of opinion
in the America on the use of military force is so narrow. If there is one voice that stands a chance of being heeded, it is from
this conservative ex-soldier. \
Douglas Doepke:
The US may have been an expansionist and aggressive power as history shows. But unlike European peers, the American public
never really took to the seductions of militarism. That is, until now. This is an important and occasionally brilliant book that
tells a forty-year tale of creeping over-reliance on the military. And a heck-of an important story it is. I like the way Bacevich
refuses to blame the Bush administration, even though they're the ones who've hit the accelerator. Actually the trend has been
in motion for some time, especially since 1980 and Reagan's revival of military glory, contrived though it was.
Each chapter deals with an aspect of this growing militariism movement. How intellectual guru Norman Podhoretz and other elites
got the big engine together, how twenty million evangelical passengers abandoned tradition and got on board, and how a crew of
enthusiastic neo-cons charted a destination -- nothing less than world democracy guaranteed by American military might. All in
all, the ride passes for a brilliant post-cold war move. Who's going to argue with freeing up the Will of the People, except for
maybe a few hundred million Sharia fanatics. Yet, it appears none of the distinguished crew sees any contradiction between dubious
means and noble end, nor do they seem particularly concerned with what anybody else thinks. (Sort of like the old Soviets, eager
to spread the blessings of Scientific Socialism.) However, as Bacevich pounts out, there's a practical problem here the crew is
very alert to. Policing the world means building up the institutions of the military and providing a covering mystique to keep
John Q. Public supportive, especially with tax dollars and blood supply. In short, the mission requires sanitizing the cops on
the beat and all that goes into keeping them there. It also means overcoming a long American tradition of minding-one's-own-business
and letting the virtues of democratic self-governance speak for themselves. But then, that was an older, less "responsible" America.
Bacevich's remedies harken back to those older, quieter traditions -- citizen soldiers, a real Department of Defense, a revived
Department of State, and a much more modest role in international affairs.With this book, Bacevich proves to be one of the few
genuine conservatives around, (a breed disappearing even faster than the ranks of genuine liberals). Much as I like the book,
especially the thoughtful Preface, I wish the author had dealt more with the economic aspects of build-up and conquest. But then
that might require a whole other volume, as globalization and the number of billion-dollar servicing industries expands daily.
At day's end, however, someone needs to inform a CNN- enthralled public that the military express lacks one essential feature.
With all its hypnotizing bells and whistles, history shows the momentum has no brakes. Lessons from the past indicate that, despite
the many seductions, aggressive empires make for some very unexpected and fast-moving train wrecks. Somebody needs to raise the
alarm. Thanks Mr. Bacevich for doing your part.
Still his critique of neocons is a class of its own has value in itself as it comes from professional military officer. Professor
Bacevich argues that the US new militarism which emerged after the dissolution of the USSR is the result of a convergence of actions
by a number of different groups including our professional military, neoconservative intellectuals and publicists, evangelical Christians,
resurgent Republican party activists, and so-called defense intellectuals (see New American
Militarism).
Andrew Bacevich has a wonderful essay, in the form of an open letter to Paul Wolfowitz,
in the current Harper's. You
have to subscribe to read it -- but, hey, you should be
subscribing to any publication whose work
you value. This essay isolates the particular role Wolfowitz had in the cast of characters that led us to war. As a reminder, they
included:
Dick Cheney, who was becoming a comic-book churl by this stage of his public life;
Colin Powell, the loyal soldier, staffer, and diplomat whose "Powell Doctrine" and entire life's work stood in opposition
to the kind of war that he, with misguided loyalty, was to play so central a role in selling;
Tony Blair, the crucial ally who added rhetorical polish and international resolve to the case for war;
Donald Rumsfeld, with his breezy contempt for those who said the effort would be difficult or long;
Paul Bremer, whose sudden, thoughtless dismantling of the Iraqi army proved so disastrous;
Condoleezza Rice, miscast in her role as White House national-security advisor;
George Tenet, the long-time staffer who cooperated with the "slam-dunk!" intelligence assessment despite serious disagreement
within the CIA;
and of course George W. Bush himself, whose combination of limited knowledge and strong desire to be "decisive" made
him so vulnerable to the argument that the "real" response to the 9/11 attacks should be invading a country that had nothing to
do with them.
But Paul Wolfowitz was in a category of his own because he was the one who provided the highest-concept rationale for the
war. As James Galbraith of the University of Texas has put it, "Wolfowitz is the real-life version of Halberstam's caricature of
McNamara" [in The Best and the Brightest].
Bacevich's version of this assessment is to lay out as respectfully as possible the strategic duty that Wolfowitz thought the U.S.
would fulfill by invading Iraq. Back before the war began, I did a much more limited version of this assessment
as an Atlantic article.
As Bacevich puts it now, Wolfowitz was extending precepts from his one-time mentor,
Albert Wohlstetter, toward a model of how the United
States could maximize stability for itself and others.
As with the best argumentative essays, Bacevich takes on Wolfowitz in a strong rather than an oversimplified version of his world-view.
You have to read the whole thing to get the effect, but here is a brief sample (within fair-use limits):
With the passing of the Cold War, global hegemony seemed America's for the taking. What others saw as an option you, Paul, saw
as something much more: an obligation that the nation needed to seize, for its own good as well as for the world's....
Although none of the hijackers were Iraqi, within days of 9/11 you were promoting military action against Iraq. Critics have
chalked this up to your supposed obsession with Saddam. The criticism is misplaced. The scale of your ambitions was vastly greater.
In an instant, you grasped that the attacks provided a fresh opportunity to implement Wohlstetter's Precepts, and Iraq offered
a made-to-order venue....In Iraq the United States would demonstrate the efficacy of preventive war.... The urgency of invading
Iraq stemmed from the need to validate that doctrine before the window of opportunity closed.
Bacevich explains much more about the Wohlstetter / Wolfowitz grand view. And then he poses the challenge that he says Wolfowitz
should now meet:
One of the questions emerging from the Iraq debacle must be this one: Why did liberation at gunpoint yield results that differed
so radically from what the war's advocates had expected? Or, to sharpen the point, How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly
the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?
Not one of your colleagues from the Bush Administration possesses the necessary combination of honesty, courage, and wit to
answer these questions. If you don't believe me, please sample the tediously self-exculpatory memoirs penned by (or on behalf
of) Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Bremer, Feith, and a small squad of eminently forgettable generals...
What would Albert [Wohlstetter] do? I never met the man (he died in 1997), but my guess is that he wouldn't flinch from taking
on these questions, even if the answers threatened to contradict his own long-held beliefs. Neither should you, Paul. To be sure,
whatever you might choose to say, you'll be vilified, as Robert McNamara was vilified when he broke his long silence and admitted
that he'd been "wrong, terribly wrong" about Vietnam. But help us learn the lessons of Iraq so that we might extract from it something
of value in return for all the sacrifices made there. Forgive me for saying so, but you owe it to your country.
Anyone who knows Andrew Bacevich's story will understand the edge behind his final sentence. But you don't have to know that to
respect the challenge he lays down. I hope Paul Wolfowitz will at some point rise to it.
For another very valuable assessment of who was right and wrong, when, please see
John
Judis's piece in The New Republic.
So even in 1971 corporate American understood usefulness of critical race theory and "black
bolshevism" for their needs. Otherwise Bell would never get a tenure in Harvard -- the bastion of
neoliberalism and corporatism.
As the theory is a typical pseudoscience in the best style of Academician Lysenko, it is
natural that " Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents
than from the theorists themselves."
The idea that "struggle for racial equality is worthwhile even though it will never succeed."
remiinds me Eduard Bernstein's "movement toward goal is everything; goal is nothing" see
Eduard Bernstein's
Revisionist Critique of Marxist Theory and Practice Bernstein was a member of the German
Social Democratic party which was a particularly strong and important member of the Second
International conference. Bernstein's thoughts are encapsulated in his book, Evolutionary
Socialism, published in 1899.
Notable quotes:
"... ...Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents than from the theorists themselves. ..."
"... The political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr., whose work focuses on race and inequality, wrote about a conference he attended at Harvard Law School in 1991, where "I heard the late, esteemed legal theorist, Derrick Bell, declare on a panel that blacks had made no progress since 1865. I was startled not least because Bell's own life, as well as the fact that Harvard's black law students' organization put on the conference, so emphatically belied his claim." Mr. Reed dismissed the idea as "more a jeremiad than an analysis." ..."
"... Like the French existentialist Albert Camus, who saw Sisyphus's eternal effort to roll a boulder uphill as a symbol of human endurance in an absurd world, Bell demands "recognition of the futility of action" while insisting "that action must be taken." ..."
"... To the journalist and historian James Traub, who profiled Bell for the New Republic magazine in 1993, this amounted to a recipe for paralysis: "If you convince whites that their racism is ineradicable, what are they supposed to do? And what are blacks to do with their hard-won victim status?" ..."
In their book "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction," Mr. Delgado and Jean Stefancic list
several of its core premises, including the view that "racism is ordinary, not aberrational,"
and that it "serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group,"
that is, for white people. In recent years, these ideas have entered the mainstream thanks to
the advocacy of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was catalyzed by several high-profile
cases of police violence against Black people, as well as the New York Times's 1619 Project and
bestselling books like Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" and Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an
Antiracist." Critical race theory also informs instruction at some schools and other
institutions.
...Far more Americans have learned about critical race theory from its opponents than
from the theorists themselves. That may be inevitable, since their writing was mostly
aimed at other scholars. But at least one major work is more accessible: "Faces at the Bottom
of the Well," the 1992 book by Derrick Bell, who is often described as the founder or godfather
of critical race theory.
Bell died in 2011, but the response to his work foreshadows today's controversies. In
"Faces," he blends the genres of fiction and essay to communicate his powerfully pessimistic
sense of "the permanence of racism" -- the book's subtitle. Bell's thought has been an
important influence on some of today's most influential writers on race, such as Ta-Nehisi
Coates and Michelle Alexander.
Derrick Bell was born in Pittsburgh in 1930, and after serving in the Air Force he went to
work as an attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Eisenhower Justice Department. He left
the job in 1959 after being told that he had to resign his membership in the NAACP to avoid
compromising his objectivity. That experience reflects a major theme in Bell's work: Can
traditional legal standards of objectivity and neutrality lead to justice for Black Americans,
or does fighting racism require a more politically engaged, results-oriented approach to the
law?
In 1971, Bell became the first Black professor to receive tenure at Harvard Law School. As
he writes in "Faces," "When I agreed to become Harvard's first black faculty member I did so on
the express commitment that I was to be the first, but not the last, black hired. I was to be
the pioneer, the trailblazer." But the school was slow to hire more Black faculty, leading Bell
to leave in protest in 1990. He ended up spending the last part of his career at NYU Law
School.
... ... ...
The political scientist Adolph Reed, Jr., whose work focuses on race and inequality,
wrote about a conference he attended at Harvard Law School in 1991, where "I heard the late,
esteemed legal theorist, Derrick Bell, declare on a panel that blacks had made no progress
since 1865. I was startled not least because Bell's own life, as well as the fact that
Harvard's black law students' organization put on the conference, so emphatically belied his
claim." Mr. Reed dismissed the idea as "more a jeremiad than an analysis."
In the conclusion to "Faces," Bell argues that the struggle for racial equality is
worthwhile even though it will never succeed. Like the French existentialist Albert Camus,
who saw Sisyphus's eternal effort to roll a boulder uphill as a symbol of human endurance in an
absurd world, Bell demands "recognition of the futility of action" while insisting "that action
must be taken."
To the journalist and historian James Traub, who profiled Bell for the New Republic
magazine in 1993, this amounted to a recipe for paralysis: "If you convince whites that their
racism is ineradicable, what are they supposed to do? And what are blacks to do with their
hard-won victim status?"
... ... ...
These experiences inform "Faces at the Bottom of the Well," which is made up of nine fables,
some with a science-fiction twist. In one story, a new continent emerges in the Atlantic Ocean,
with an atmosphere that only African-Americans can breathe. In another, the U.S. institutes a
system where whites can pay for permission to discriminate against Blacks -- a kind of
cap-and-trade scheme for bigotry.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of
time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that
glorifies it."
- Frédéric Bastiat, French economist
If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that
the taxpayer always gets ripped off.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke
around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.
Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we're getting swindled,
cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and
fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a
profit at taxpayer expense.
The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian
regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless
surveillance of Americans' private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT
team raids of Americans' homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments
meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies
domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip
searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that
collect and disseminate data on Americans' private transactions; and militarized agencies with
stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the
agencies under their command -- Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice,
Treasury, etc. -- have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable
pursuit of profit at all costs and by any means possible.
By the time you factor in the financial blowback from the COVID-19 pandemic with its
politicized mandates, lockdowns, and payouts, it becomes quickly apparent that we are now ruled
by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly
unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.
As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program,
follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being
surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other
than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them,
and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American
police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
On the roads : Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by
issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and
red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of
corruption,
collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting
drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit
sharing by imposing a vehicle
miles-traveled tax , which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.
In the schools: The security industrial complex with its tracking, spying, and
identification
devices has set its sights on the schools as " a vast, rich market " -- a $20 billion market, no
less -- just waiting to be conquered. In fact, the public schools have become a microcosm of
the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of
surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners,
as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies.
Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and
weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools -- at great
taxpayer expense and personal profit -- into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are
school truancy
laws , which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the
schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school
districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for
"unauthorized" absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making
the schools any safer.
In the endless wars abroad : Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the
government's endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police
forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and
incompetent government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country
dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour . Future wars and
military exercises waged around the globe are expected to
push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053 . Talk about fiscally irresponsible:
the U.S. government is spending money it doesn't have on a military empire it can't afford.
War spending is bankrupting America.
In the form of militarized police : The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands
out six-figure
grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a
veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault
weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has,
according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, "
paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams ." The end result? An explosive
growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency
on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within
police forces that they are at war -- and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000
SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover,
government-funded
military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.
In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture : Under the guise of fighting the war on
drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions
of dollars' worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they "suspect" may be
connected to criminal activity. Then -- and here's the kicker -- whether or not any crime is
actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen's property, often
divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police are actually
being
trained in seminars on how to seize the "goodies" that are on police departments' wish
lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to "pay for
sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car."
By the security industrial complex : We're being spied on by a domestic army of government
snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of "precrime," this government of
Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading
everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend.
Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you
communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used
against you eventually, at a time and place of the government's choosing. This far-reaching
surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for
an
omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government -- the Surveillance State -- that
came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn't even
touch on the government's bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying
and tracking the American people from birth to death.
By a government addicted to power: It's a given that you can always count on the
government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the
citizenry's inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized
one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war
on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes,
school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate
responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the
police state's hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state
powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing
programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., "we the people" may
well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers
to protect us from ourselves.
These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the
name of the national good -- against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our
freedoms -- by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with
megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the
reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And,
as always, it's we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken
for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.
This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.
Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives.
Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority
of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few
Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called
representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and
uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in
the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers,
drones, and cell phone tracking technology.
All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those
are your tax dollars at work.
It's your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls,
your text messages, and your movements. It's your money that allows out-of-control police
officers to burst into innocent people's homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side
of the road. And it's your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted
for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to
speak their truth to their elected officials.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it's a
police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of
school for attending a virtual class while playing with a toy gun, remember that it is your tax
dollars that are paying for these injustices.
There was a time in our history when our forebears said "enough is enough" and stopped
paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground
and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance,
and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people.
Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we've let
bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to
such an extent that we're back where we started.
Once again, we've got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we've got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which
demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we've got to decide whether we'll keep marching or break stride and make a
turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn't just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government's
outrageous demands for more money?
What if we didn't just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection
bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?
What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we
did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we
refuse to support?
As I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , if the government and its emissaries can just
take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can't
claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
What is the fastest way to create lots of DEBT (money)? Wars, civil war, technological
waves, credit bubbles (speculative, housing,...), infrastructures...
What is the real purpose of war? To capture & control more areas for EXPLOITATION? War
is the fastest way to create lots of debt for all parties.
"the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt it creates. You control the
debt, you control everything."
Money Power = Land x Lives x Loans
Putting Afghanistan in further debt, enables it to be exploited... What are its revenue
sources? Who pays for its security and infrastructure? Will NATO leave by September?
Who wants to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt?
Those Uyghur jihadists stuck in Idlib province in Syria and in refugee camps in Turkey are
bound to get a warm welcome from the Taliban when Ankara finally ships them off to Kabul as
part of this proposed "security force" to protect the airport so the CIA can continue to ship
out its heroin.
The US MSM is ablaze with "Taliban against Afghan forces" headlines, conveniently forgetting
that the Taliban are Afghan forces too, in fact they preceded the current "Afghan forces" in
government until the US intervention.
So why do their guys always beat our guys? Because their guys fight for their country and our
guys fight for us.
@ ToivoS, why did the U$A withdraw from Vietnam? There was conscription in the U$A, thereby
the rich were at risk. Also, the U$A was being constrained by money creation due to the gold
standard. Both of these issues have been addressed.
Name a nation that the U$A has WITHDRAWN its military after occupying it, other than
Vietnam. Aren't we still in Germany, Japan, South Korea, ...?
It ain't over 'til it's over.
How much DEBT has the Afghanistan conflict created so far? In trillions? Who got that
money?
@ CJC #10
re: . . . Turkey to retain control of airport after NATO withdraws
It's more than NATO.
The US-Taliban agreement:
The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United
States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel,
private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel within
fourteen (14) months following announcement of this agreement. . .
here
@ Max
re: . . . why did the U$A withdraw from Vietnam?
The US had no choice because the conscription-based US Army was broken, with troops refusing
to obey orders and fragging their superiors etc. . .So Washington pulled out the troops and
ended the draft.
The US "experts" who are crying about a possible, or inevitable, return to Talban
government haven't read the agreement.
The US-Taliban Agreement of Feb 29, 2020 called for all foreign forces to leave Afghanistan
by May 2021, and recognized that the outcome would be a return to a Taliban government. For
example one agreement condition, II-5:: "The Taliban will not provide visas, passports,
travel permits, or other legal documents to those who pose a threat to the security of the
United States and its allies to enter Afghanistan." . .
here
re: Why is the US in Afghanistan?
Decades ago Washington had its own "Silk Road" strategy, to move into the -Stans in Central
Asia after the uSSR breakup. There was a large interest in Kazakhstan up north, as well as
the other -Stands including Afghanistan. It was of course a road to nowhere but as we know
the creeps in Washington ain't too bright. There were no seaports to accommodate this road,
for one thing. There were some other considerations, like an energy pipeline, but it was all
just going nowhere until 9-11 came along, giving the US to do what it does worst, employ its
military.
@ Abe 32
re: This simplistic "views" are as inaccurate as insulting.
You need to get out more.
. . .from Fragging: Why U.S. Soldiers Assaulted Their Officers in Vietnam
During its long withdrawal from South Vietnam, the U.S. military experienced a serious
crisis in morale. Chronic indiscipline, illegal drug use, and racial militancy all
contributed to trouble within the ranks. But most chilling of all was the advent of a new
phenomenon: large numbers of young enlisted men turning their weapons on their superiors.
The practice was known as "fragging," a reference to the fragmentation hand grenades often
used in these assaults. . . here
Glad to hear that Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan is not letting the US use Pakistan
as a base for its continued machinations, in spite of heavy US pressure, and that Pakistan as
a whole was saying #AbsolutelyNot. Kudos Pakistan.
According to M. K. Bhadrakumar:
"Washington is now considering the hiring of Pentagon contractors (mercenaries) to secure
Kabul airport. But that will be a hugely controversial step with grave consequences, as
apparent from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's brusque rejection of the very idea of
American military presence on Pakistani soil in relation to the Afghan situation."
MKB also places all this into the context of "the US' grand project to create rings of
instability in [Russia and China's] adjacent regions -- Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Hong
Kong, Myanmar, Afghanistan."
You forget the ISIS group that magically appeared in Afghanistan a few years ago. The same
group that immediately attacked the Taliban, forcing the Taliban to dedicate its best forces
to countering the threat instead of fighting the puppet child sex slaver Quisling warlord
regime. What's more likely than continuing the occupation in the name of "fighting ISIS"?
Just like Iraq was reinvaded and reoccupied in the name of "fighting ISIS" and continues to
be occupied to this day?
My good friend in Canada says that it seems to be a "BioSecurity Fascist State" forming
also. And it's not against Cuba , it's against the populace of Canada. Worse than anything in
the US. <
>
Google's critics have said for years that it should be treated like a public utility. On
Tuesday, Ohio's attorney general filed a lawsuit asking a judge to rule that the search company
is one.
The case adds to the legal woes confronting the Alphabet Inc. GOOG 0.68% subsidiary, which
also faces antitrust lawsuits from the Justice Department and a separate consortium of states
led by Colorado and Texas. The company is contending with cases in countries around the world
where its dominance as a search provider has sparked a push by regulators to corral its
power.
Amid the array of court challenges, Ohio said that it is the first state in the country to
bring a lawsuit seeking a court declaration that Google is a common carrier subject under state
law to government regulation. The lawsuit, which doesn't seek monetary damages, says that
Google has a duty to provide the same rights for advertisements and product placement for
competitors as it provides for its own services.
"When you own the railroad or the electric company or the cellphone tower, you have to treat
everyone the same and give everybody access," said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a
Republican.
A Google spokesman said that the remedies sought in the Ohio lawsuit would worsen the
company's search results and impair businesses' ability to connect directly with customers.
"Ohioans simply don't want the government to run Google like a gas or electric company," a
spokesman said. "This lawsuit has no basis in fact or law and we'll defend ourselves against it
in court."
US Troops Die for World Domination, Not Freedom May 31, 2021 Save
On Memorial Day, Caitlin Johnstone says it's important to block the propaganda that helps
feed a steady supply of teenagers into the imperial war machine.
Airman placing U.S. flags at military graves, May 27. (Arlington National Cemetery,
Flickr)
V ice President Kamala Harris spent
the weekend under fire from Republicans, which of course means that Kamala Harris spent the
weekend being criticized for the most silly, vapid reason you could possibly criticize Kamala
Harris for.
Apparently the likely future president tweeted "Enjoy the long weekend,"
a reference to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, instead of gushing about fallen troops and
sacrifice.
That's it, that's the whole entire story. That silly, irrelevant offense by one of the
sleaziest
people in the single most corrupt and murderous government on earth is the whole entire
basis for histrionic headlines from conservative media outlets like this :
Harris, the born politician, was quick to course correct.
"Throughout our history our service men and women have risked everything to defend our
freedoms and our country," the veep tweeted . "As we prepare to honor
them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice."
Which is of course complete bullshit. It has been generations since any member of the U.S.
military could be said to have served or sacrificed defending America or its freedoms, and that
has been the case throughout almost the entirety of its history. If you are reading this it is
statistically unlikely that you are of an age where any U.S. military personnel died for any
other reason than corporate profit and global domination, and if you are it's almost certain
you weren't old enough to have had mature thoughts about it at the time.
Whenever you criticize the U.S. war machine online within earshot of anyone who's
sufficiently propagandized, you will invariably be lectured about the second World War and how
we'd all be speaking German or Japanese without the brave men who died for our freedom. This
makes my point for me: the fact that apologists for U.S. imperialism always need to reach all
the way back through history to the cusp of living memory to find even one single example of
the American military being used for purposes that weren't evil proves that it most certainly
is evil.
But this is one of the main reasons there are so very many movies and history documentaries
made about World War II: it's an opportunity to portray U.S. servicemen bravely fighting and
dying for a noble cause without having to bend the truth beyond recognition. The other major
reason is that focusing on the second World War allows members of the U.S. empire to escape
into a time when the Big Bad Guy on the world stage was someone else.
From the end of World War II to the fall of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. military was used to
smash the spread of communism and secure geostrategic interests toward the ultimate end of
engineering the collapse of the Soviet Union. After this was accomplished in 1991, U.S. foreign
policy officially shifted to preserving a unipolar world order by preventing the rise of any
other superpower which could rival its might.
"In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense
Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era
will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or
the territory of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for
weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states
that part of the American mission will be 'convincing potential competitors that they need
not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests.'
The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose
position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter
any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy."
This is all U.S. troops have been fighting and dying for since the Berlin Wall came down.
Not "freedom", not "democracy" and certainly not the American people. Just continual
uncontested domination of this planet at all cost: domination of its resources, its trade
routes, its seas, its air, and its humans, no matter how many lives need to risked and snuffed
out in order to achieve it. The U.S. has
killed millions and
displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century in the reckless pursuit of
that goal.
And, as Smedley Butler spelled out 86 years ago in his still-relevant book War is a Racket , U.S.
military personnel have been dying for profit.
Nothing gets the gears of industry turning like war, and nothing better creates chaotic Wild
West environments of shock and confusion during which more wealth
and power can be grabbed. War profiteers pour immense resources into lobbying ,
think tanks and campaign donations to manipulate and bribe policy makers into making decisions
which promote war and military expansionism,
with astounding success . This is all entirely legal.
It's important to spread awareness that this is all U.S. troops have been dying for, because
the fairy tale that they fight for freedom and for their countrymen is a major propaganda
narrative used in military recruitment. While poverty plays a
significant role in driving up enlistments as predatory recruiters target poor and middle
class youth promising them a future in the nation with the worst income
inequality in the industrialized world, the fact that the aggressively propagandized
glorification of military "service" makes it a more esteemed career path than working at a
restaurant or a grocery store means people are more likely to enlist.
Without all that propaganda deceiving people into believing that military work is something
virtuous, military service would be the most shameful job anyone could possibly have; other
stigmatized jobs like sex work would be regarded as far more noble. You'd be less reluctant to
tell your extended family over Christmas that you're a janitor at a seedy massage parlor than
that you've enlisted in the U.S. military, because instead of congratulating and praising you,
your Uncle Murray would look at you and say, "So you're gonna be killing kids for crude
oil?"
And that's exactly how it should be. Continuing to uphold the lie that U.S. troops fight and
die for a good cause is helping to ensure a steady supply of teenagers to feed into the gears
of the imperial war machine. Stop feeding into the lie that the war machine is worth killing
and being killed for. Not out of disrespect for the dead, but out of reverence for the
living.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
of Consortium News .
Em , June 1, 2021 at 09:52
Instead of annually memorializing those dead youth, who were, in one way or the other,
coerced to go off to foreign lands to kill or be killed, by other youth, in the name of a
piece of dead symbolic cloth, wouldn't it be a better idea to honor them, while alive in the
prime of living (the world over) by affording them the means to learn, leading by example, to
discover for themselves – how to think critically as to what the real options are,
collectively as well as individually, for survival and thriving.
CNfan , June 1, 2021 at 04:06
"Global domination" for the benefit of a predatory financial oligarchy.
Peter Loeb , June 1, 2021 at 09:11
Read William Hartung's "Prophets of War " to understand the dynamics.
Thank you all for speaking your truth in this dystopian human universe so apparently
lacking human reason and understanding. As is so wisely introduced and recognized herein, the
murderous depravity of the "Wolfwitz Doctrine" being and remaining the public policy
formulation of our national governance, both foreign and domestic, is a fact that every U.S.
citizen should consider and understand on this Memorial Day.
As Usual,
EA
Realist , May 31, 2021 at 17:27
Well stated, perfectly logical again on this subject as always, Caitlin. You out the
warmongers for their game to fleece the public and rape the world all so a handful of already
fat, lazyass but enormously wealthy and influential people can acquire, without the slightest
bit of shame, yet more, more and more of everything there is to be had. You and General
Butler.
Will this message get through, this time? Maybe the billionth time is the charm, eh? Can
the scales suddenly fall from the eyes of the 330 million Americans who will then demand an
immediate end to the madness? On the merits, it's the only conclusion that might realise any
actual justice for our country and the rest of the world upon whose throat it keeps a knee
firmly planted.
Sorry, nothing of the sort shall ever happen, not as long as the entire mercenary mass
media obeys its corporate ownership and speaks nothing but false narratives every minute of
every day. Not as long as the educational system is really nothing more than a propaganda
indoctrination experience for every child born in the glorious USA! Not as long as every
politician occupying any given office is just a bought and paid for tool of the Matrix with
great talents for convincing the masses that 2 + 2 = 3, or 5, or whatever is convenient at
the time to benefit the ledgers of their plutocrat masters.
What better illustrates the reality of my last assertion than the occupancy of the White
House by Sleepy/Creepy Joe Biden who, through age alone, has been reduced to nothing more
than a sack of unresponsive meat firmly trussed up with ropes and pulleys that his handlers
pull this way or that to create an animatronic effect apparently perfectly convincing to the
majority of the American public? Or so they say, based upon some putative election
results.
Truly, thanks for the effort, Caitlin. I do appreciate that some have a grasp on the
truth. I look forward to its recapitulation by yourself and many others to no effect on every
Memorial Day in the USA. It would be unrealistic of me to say otherwise.
Rael Nidess, M.D. , May 31, 2021 at 12:54
Kudos for being one of a very few to mention the central driving ethic behind U.S. foreign
policy since the demise of the USSR: The Wolfowitz Doctrine. As central today as it was when
first published.
"... After Epstein's 2019 arrest, it emerged that Epstein had "directed" Bill Gates to donate $2 million to the MIT lab in 2014. Epstein also allegedly secured a $5 million donation from Leon Black for the lab. Ito was forced to resign his post as the lab's director shortly after Epstein's 2019 arrest. ..."
"... Epstein appears to have become involved with Brockman as early as 1995, when he helped to finance and rescue a struggling book project that was managed by Brockman. ..."
"... According to former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe, Bill Clinton had been the main focus of Epstein's sexual blackmail operation in the 1990s, a claim supported by Epstein victim testimony and Epstein's intimate involvement with individuals who were close to the former president at the time. ..."
"... Despite tensions arising from the Clinton administration's pursuit of Microsoft's monopoly in the late 1990s, the Gates and Clinton relationship had thawed by April 2000, when Gates attended the White House " Conference on the New Economy ." Attendees besides Gates included close Epstein associate Lynn Forester (now Lady de Rothschild) and then secretary of the treasury Larry Summers, who has also come under fire for his Epstein ties. ..."
"... Huffington Post ..."
"... Huffington Post ..."
"... Black was deeply tied to Epstein, even having Epstein manage his personal "philanthropic" foundation for several years, even after Epstein's first arrest. ..."
"... Indeed, 2013 was also the year that the Gates mansion systems engineer, Rick Allen Jones, began to be investigated by Seattle police for his child porn and child rape collection, which contained over six thousand images and videos. Despite the gravity of his crime, when Jones was arrested at the Gates mansion a year later, he was not jailed after his arrest but was merely ordered "to stay away from children," according to local media reports. From Melinda's perspective, this scandal, combined with Bill Gates's growing association with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have posed a threat to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's reputation, well before Epstein's 2019 arrest. ..."
"... Evening Standard ..."
"... The likely reason for the continued cover-up of the true extent of Epstein's ties to Gates has much more to do with Gates's company Microsoft than with Bill Gates himself. While it is now permissible to report on ties that discredit Gates's personal reputation, the information that could tie his relationship with Epstein and the Maxwells to Microsoft has been omitted. ..."
"... If, as the Evening Standard ..."
"... This is hardly an isolated incident, as similar efforts have been made to cover up (or memory hole) the ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to other prominent Silicon Valley empires, such as those led by Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk . One key reason for this is that the Epstein network's blackmail operation involved not only sexual blackmail but electronic forms of blackmail ..."
"... That Isabel and Christine Maxwell were able to forge close business ties with Microsoft after having been part of the front company that played a central role in PROMIS-related espionage and after explicitly managing their subsequent companies with the admitted intention to "rebuild" their spy father's work and legacy, strongly points to the probability of at least some Microsoft products having been compromised in some fashion, likely through alliances with Maxwell-run tech companies. The lack of mainstream media concern over the documented ties of the Epstein network to other top Microsoft executives of the past, such as Nathan Myhrvold, Linda Stone, and Steven Sinofsky, makes it clear that, while it may be open season on the relationship between Bill Gates and Epstein, such is not the case for Microsoft and Epstein. ..."
"... The ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to Silicon Valley, not just to Microsoft, are part of a broader attempt to cover up the strong intelligence component in the origin of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies. Much effort has been invested in creating a public perception that these companies are strictly private entities despite their deep, long-standing ties to the intelligence agencies and militaries of the United States and Israel . The true breadth of the Epstein scandal will never be covered by mainstream media because so many news outlets are owned by these same Silicon Valley oligarchs or depend on Silicon Valley for online reader engagement. ..."
"... Perhaps the biggest reason why the military/intelligence origins and links to the current Silicon Valley oligarchy will never be honestly examined, however, is that those very entities are now working with breakneck speed to usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which would make artificial intelligence, automation, mass electronic surveillance, and transhumanism central to human society. One of the architects of this "revolution," Klaus Schwab, said earlier this year that rebuilding and maintaining trust with the public was critical to that project. However, were the true nature of Silicon Valley, including its significant ties to serial child rapist and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and his network, to emerge, the public's trust would be significantly eroded, thus threatening what the global oligarchy views as a project critical to its survival ..."
"... What a menace these philanthropic organizations are to the ordinary and lowly. These billionaire creeps never stop plotting and figuring out even more ways to stomp on people and push their creepy agendas, which remain forever hidden. ..."
It further appears that Bill Gates, then head of Microsoft, made a personal investment in
CommTouch at the behest of Isabel Maxwell. In an October 2000
article published in the Guardian , Isabel "jokes about persuading Bill Gates to
make a personal investment" in CommTouch sometime during this period.
The Guardian article then oddly notes, regarding Isabel Maxwell and Bill Gates:
"In a faux southern belle accent, [Isabel] purrs: 'He's got to spend $375m a year to keep
his tax-free status, why not allow me to help him.' She explodes with laughter."
Given that individuals as wealthy as Gates cannot have "tax-free status" and that this
article was published soon after the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
Isabel's statements suggest that it was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which
manages the foundation's endowment assets, that made this sizable investment in CommTouch.
Furthermore, it is worth highlighting the odd way in which Isabel describes her dealings
with Gates ("purring," speaking in a fake Southern accent), describing her interactions with
him in a way not found in any of her numerous other interviews on a wide variety of topics.
This odd behavior may be related to Isabel's previous interactions with Gates and/or the
mysterious relationship between Gates and Epstein during this time.
Isabel Maxwell as
CommTouch President
After 2000, CommTouch's business and clout expanded rapidly, with Isabel Maxwell
subsequently crediting investments from Microsoft, led by Gates, and Paul Allen for the
company's good fortune and the success of its effort to enter the US market. Maxwell, as quoted
in the 2002 book Fastalliances , states that Microsoft viewed CommTouch as a key "distribution
network," adding that "Microsoft's investment in us put us on the map. It gave us instant
credibility, validated our technology and service in the marketplace." By this time,
Microsoft's ties to CommTouch had deepened with new partnerships, including
CommTouch's hosting of Microsoft Exchange .
Though Isabel Maxwell was able to secure lucrative investments and alliances for CommTouch
and saw its products integrated into key software and hardware components produced and sold by
Microsoft and other tech giants, she was unable to improve the company's dire financial
situation, with CommTouch netting a loss of
$4.4 million in 1998 and similar losses well into the 2000s, with net losses totalling $24 million in 2000 (just one
year after the sizable investments from Microsoft, Paul Allen and Gates). The losses continued
even after Isabel formally left the company and became president emeritus in 2001. By 2006, the
company was over $170 million in debt. Isabel Maxwell left her position at CommTouch in 2001
but for years retained a sizable amount of CommTouch stock valued at the time at around $9.5
million . Today, Isabel Maxwell is, among other things, a " technology pioneer " of the World
Economic Forum.
Another indication of a relationship between Epstein and Gates prior to 2001 is Epstein's
cozy ties with Nathan Myhrvold, who joined Microsoft in the 1980s and became the company's
first chief technology officer in 1996. At the time, Myhrvold was one of Gates's closest
advisers, if not the closest, and cowrote Gates's 1996 book, The Road Ahead , which
sought to explain how emerging technologies would impact life in the years and decades to
come.
In December of the same year that he became Microsoft's CTO, Myhrvold traveled on Epstein's
plane from Kentucky to New Jersey, and then again in January 1997 from New Jersey to Florida.
Other passengers accompanying Myhrvold on these flights included Alan Dershowitz and "GM,"
presumably Ghislaine Maxwell. It is worth keeping in mind that this is the same period when
Gates had a documented relationship with Ghislaine's sister Isabel.
In addition, in the 1990s, Myhrvold traveled with Epstein in Russia alongside Esther Dyson , a digital
technology consultant who has been called "the most influential woman
in all the computer world." She currently has close ties to Google as well as the DNA testing
company 23andme and is a member of and
agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum. Dyson later stated that the meeting with
Epstein had been planned by Myhrvold. The meeting appears to have taken place in 1998, based on
information posted on Dyson's social media accounts.
One photo features Dyson and Epstein, with a time stamp indicating April 28, 1998, posing
with Pavel Oleynikov, who appears to have been
an employee of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center. In that photo, they are standing in front of
the house of the late Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear scientist and dissident, who is
alleged to have had ties to US intelligence.
Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, were supporters of Zionist causes
.
The photos were taken in Sarov, where the Russian Federal Nuclear Center is based. That same
day, another photo was taken that
shows Epstein inside a classroom full of teens, apparently also in Sarov, given the time
stamp.
Another Dyson
image , one without a visible time stamp but with a caption stating the photo was taken "at
Microsoft Russia in Moscow" in April 1998, shows Nathan Myhrvold. Dyson's caption further
states, "This was the beginning of a three-week trip during which Nathan and a variety of
hangers-on (including a bodyguard) explored the state of post-Soviet science." Epstein appears
to be one of the "hangers-on," given the photographs, dates, and the described purpose of the
trip.
Myhrvold and Epstein apparently had more in common than an interest in Russian scientific
advances. When Myhrvold left Microsoft to cofound Intellectual Ventures,
Vanity Fair reported that he had received Epstein at the firm's office with "young
girls" in tow who appeared to be "Russian models." A source close to Myhrvold and cited by
Vanity Fair claimed that Myhrvold spoke openly about borrowing Epstein's jet and
staying at his homes in Florida and New York. Vanity Fair also noted that Myhrvold has
been accused of having sex with minors provided by Epstein by none other than Harvard law
professor Alan Dershowitz, who stands accused of the same crime and who had previously flown
with Myhrvold on Epstein's private plane.
In addition, a former colleague of Myhrvold's at Microsoft later developed her own ties to
Epstein. Linda Stone , who joined
Microsoft in 1993 and worked directly under Myhrvold, eventually became a Microsoft vice
president. She introduced Epstein to Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab after Epstein's first arrest.
"He has a tainted past, but Linda assures me that he's awesome," Ito later said in an email to
three MIT staffers. In Epstein's famous little black book, there are several phone numbers for
Stone, and her emergency contact is listed as Kelly Bovino, a former model and alleged Epstein
coconspirator. After Epstein's 2019 arrest, it emerged that Epstein
had "directed" Bill Gates to donate $2 million to the MIT lab in 2014. Epstein also
allegedly secured a $5 million donation from Leon Black for the lab. Ito was forced to resign
his post as the lab's director shortly after Epstein's 2019 arrest.
Nathan Myhrvold , Linda Stone , Joi Ito, Esther Dyson , and Bill Gates were all members of the Edge
Foundation community (edge.org website), alongside several other Silicon Valley icons. Edge,
which is described as an exclusive organization of intellectuals " redefining who and what we are ," was created by John
Brockman, a self-described "cultural impresario" and noted literary agent. Brockman is best
known for his deep ties to the art world in the late 1960s, though lesser
known are his various "management consulting" gigs for the Pentagon and White House during
that same period. Edge, which
the Guardian once called "the world's smartest website," is an exclusive online
symposium affiliated with what Brockman calls "the Third Culture." Epstein appears to have
become involved with Brockman as early as 1995, when he helped to finance and rescue a
struggling book project that was managed by Brockman.
Edge, however, is more than just a website. For decades, it was also instrumental in
bringing together tech executives, scientists who were often Brockman's clients, and Wall
Street financiers through its Millionaires' Dinner, first held in 1985. In 1999, this event
rebranded as the Billionaires' Dinner, and Epstein became intimately involved in these affairs
and the Edge Foundation itself. Epstein was photographed attending several of the dinners as
was Sarah Kellen, Ghislaine Maxwell's chief "assistant" and coconspirator in the
Epstein/Maxwell-run sex trafficking and blackmail scheme.
Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft and
Jeffrey Epstein at the 2000 Edge Billionaires' Dinner Source: https://www.edge.org/igd/1200
From 2001 to 2017, Epstein
funded $638,000 out of a total of $857,000 raised by Edge. During this period, there were
several years when Epstein was Edge's only donor. Epstein stopped giving in 2015, which was
incidentally the same year that Edge decided to discontinue its annual Billionaires' Dinner
tradition. In addition, the only award Edge has ever given out, the $100,000 Edge of
Computation prize, was awarded in 2005 to Quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch -- it was
funded entirely by Epstein. A year before he began donating heavily to Edge, Epstein had
created the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation to "fund and support cutting edge science around the
world."
Since the Epstein scandal, regular attendees of the Billionaires' Dinner, sometimes called
the Edge annual dinner, have referred to the event as an "influence operation." If one follows
the money, it appears it was an influence operation largely benefitting one man, Jeffrey
Epstein, and his network. The evidence points toward Myhrvold and Gates as being very much a
part of that network, even before Epstein's involvement in Edge increased
significantly.
It is worth exploring the ties between the "philanthropic" endeavors of Bill Gates and Bill
Clinton in the early 2000s, particularly given Epstein's and Ghislaine Maxwell's ties to the
Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative during that period. According to
former Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe, Bill Clinton
had been the main focus of Epstein's sexual blackmail operation in the 1990s,
a claim supported by Epstein victim testimony and Epstein's intimate involvement with
individuals who were close to the former president at the time.
Bill Gates at the White
House Conference on the New Economy in 2000, Source: LA Times
Despite tensions arising from the Clinton administration's pursuit of Microsoft's
monopoly in the late 1990s, the Gates and Clinton relationship had thawed by April 2000, when
Gates attended the White House " Conference on
the New Economy ." Attendees besides
Gates included close Epstein associate Lynn Forester (now Lady de Rothschild) and then
secretary of the treasury Larry Summers, who has also come under fire for his Epstein
ties. Another attendee was White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, whose special
assistant Mark Middleton met with Epstein
at least three times at the Clinton White House. Middleton was fired after press reports
surfaced detailing his ties to illegal donations linked to foreign governments that had been
made to Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. Another participant in the conference was Janet
Yellen, Biden's current Secretary of the Treasury.
Gates spoke at a conference panel entitled "Closing the Global Divide: Health, Education and
Technology." He discussed how the mapping of the human genome would result in a new era of
technological breakthroughs and discussed the need to offer internet access to everyone to
close the digital divide and allow the "new" internet-based economy to take shape. At the time,
Gates was backing a
company , along with American Telecom billionaire Craig McCaw, that hoped to establish a
global internet service provider monopoly through a network of low-orbit satellites. That
company, Teledesic, shut down between 2002 and 2003 and is credited as being the
inspiration for Elon Musk's Starlink.
Bill Clinton and Bill Gates entered the world of philanthropy around the same time, with the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launching in 2000 and the Clinton Foundation, in 2001. Not
only that but Wired described the
two foundations as being "at the forefront of a new era in philanthropy, in which decisions --
often referred to as investments -- are made with the strategic precision demanded of business
and government, then painstakingly tracked to gauge their success."
Other media outlets, however, such as the Huffington
Post , challenged that these foundations engaged in "philanthropy" and asserted that
calling them such was causing "the rapid deconstruction of the accepted term." The
Huffington Post further noted that the Clinton Global Initiative (part of the Clinton
Foundation), the Gates Foundation, and a few similar organizations "all point in the direction
of blurring the boundaries between philanthropy, business and non-profits." It noted that this
model for "philanthropy" has been promoted by the World Economic Forum and the Milken
Institute. It is also worth noting that several of Epstein's own "philanthropic" vehicles were
also created just as this new era in philanthropy was beginning.
The Milken Institute was founded by
Michael Milken , the notorious Wall Street "junk bond king," who was indicted on 98 counts
of racketeering and securities fraud in 1989. He served little prison time and was ultimately
pardoned by Donald Trump. Milken committed his crimes while working alongside Leon Black
and Ron Perelman at Drexel
Burnham Lambert before its scandalous collapse. Black was deeply tied to Epstein, even
having Epstein manage his personal
"philanthropic" foundation for several years, even after Epstein's first arrest.
Perelman was a major Clinton donor whose 1995 fundraiser for the then president was attended by
Epstein and whose companies offered jobs to Webster Hubbell and Monica Lewinsky after their
respective scandals in the Clinton administration. Like Gates, Milken has transformed his
reputation for ruthlessness in the corporate world into one of a "prominent philanthropist."
Much of his "philanthropy" benefits the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlements in
occupied Palestine.
Years after creating their foundations, Gates and Clinton discussed how they have "long
bonded over their shared mission" of normalizing this new model of philanthropy. Gates
spoke to
Wired in 2013 about "their forays into developing regions" and "cites the close
partnerships between their organizations." In that interview, Gates revealed that he had met
Clinton before he had become president, stating, "I knew him before he was president, I knew
him when he was president, and I know him now that he's not president."
Also in that interview, Clinton stated that after he left the White House he sought to focus
on two specific things. The first is the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which he
stated exists "thanks largely to funding from the Gates Foundation," and the second is the
Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), "where I try to build a global network of people to do their
own thing."
The Clinton Health Access Initiative first received an $11
million donation from the Gates Foundation in 2009. Over the last twelve years, the Gates
Foundation has donated more than $497 million to CHAI. CHAI was initially founded in 2002 with
the mission of tackling HIV/AIDS globally through "strong government
relationships" and addressing "market inefficiencies." The Gates Foundation's significant
donations, however, began not long after CHAI's expansion
into malaria diagnostics and treatments. Notably, in 2011, Tachi Yamada, the former president
of the Gates Foundation's Global Health program, joined CHAI's board alongside Chelsea
Clinton.
Bill Gates and Bill Clinton at the annual Clinton Global Initiative in 2010
Regarding the CGI, Epstein's defense lawyers argued in
court in 2007 that Epstein had been "part of the original group that conceived of the
Clinton Global Initiative," which was first launched in 2005. Epstein's lawyers described the
CGI as a project "bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement
innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges." The Gates Foundation
gave the CGI a total of $2.5 million between 2012 and 2013 in addition to its massive donations
to the CHAI and an additional $35 million to the Clinton Foundation itself. In addition to the
Gates Foundation donations, Gates's Microsoft has been intimately involved in other
"philanthropic" projects backed by Clinton.
In addition to these ties,
Hillary Clinton established a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the Gates
Foundation in 2014 as part of the Clintons' No Ceilings initiative. That partnership sought to
"gather and analyze data about the status of women and girls' participation around the world"
and involved the two foundations working "with leading technology partners to collect these
data and compile them." Months before the partnership was announced, Gates and Epstein met for
dinner and discussed the Gates Foundation and philanthropy, according to the
New York Times . During Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful run for president in 2016,
both Bill and Melinda Gates were on her
short list as potential options for vice president.
In addition, Epstein attempted to become involved in the Gates Foundation directly, as seen
by his efforts to convince the Gates Foundation to partner with JP Morgan on
a multibillion-dollar "global health charitable fund" that would have resulted in hefty
fees paid out to Epstein, who was very involved with JP Morgan at the time. Though that fund
never materialized, Epstein and Gates did discuss Epstein becoming involved in Gates's
philanthropic efforts. Some of these contacts were not reported by the mainstream press until
after the Bill and Melinda Gates divorce announcement. Yet, as mentioned, it was known that
Epstein had "directed" Gates to donate to at least one organization -- $2 million in 2014 to
the MIT Media Lab.
Recent revelations about Gates and Epstein meetings that took place between 2013 and 2014
have further underscored the importance Epstein apparently held in the world of billionaire
"philanthropy," with Gates reportedly claiming that Epstein was
his "ticket" to winning a Nobel Prize.
Norwegian media, however, reported in October 2020 that Gates and Epstein had met the Nobel
Committee chair, which failed to make a splash in international media at the time. It is worth
asking if Epstein managed to arrange such meetings with other individuals who also coveted
Nobel Prizes and if any such individuals later received those prizes. If Epstein had such
connections, it is unlikely that he would use them only once in the case of Bill Gates, given
the vastness of his network, particularly in the tech and science worlds.
The year 2013 is also when Bill
and Melinda Gates together met with Epstein at his New York residence, after which Melinda
allegedly began asking her soon-to-be ex-husband to distance himself from Epstein. While the
stated reason for this, in the wake of the Gateses' divorce announcement, was that Melinda was
put off by Epstein's past and his persona, it could potentially be related to other concerns
about Melinda's reputation and that of the foundation that shares her name.
Indeed, 2013 was also the year that the Gates mansion systems engineer, Rick Allen
Jones, began to be investigated by Seattle police for his child porn and child rape collection,
which contained over six thousand images and videos. Despite the gravity of his crime, when
Jones was
arrested at the Gates mansion a year later, he was not jailed after his arrest but was
merely ordered "to stay away from children," according to local media reports. From Melinda's
perspective, this scandal, combined with Bill Gates's growing association with convicted
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have posed a threat to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's
reputation, well before Epstein's 2019 arrest.
2013 was also the year that the Maxwells become involved in the Clinton Foundation. That
year, Ghislaine Maxwell's TerraMar Project, which officially supported UN Sustainable
Development Goals as they relate the world's oceans,
made a $1.25 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of an effort to
form a Sustainable Oceans Alliance. TerraMar shut down shortly after Epstein's 2019
arrest.
Isabel Maxwell and Al Seckel at the World Economic Forum's 2011 Annual Meeting
Notably, Ghislaine's TerraMar Project was in many ways the successor to Isabel Maxwell's
failed Blue World Alliance, which was also ostensibly focused on the world's oceans. Blue World
Alliance was set up by Isabel and her now deceased husband Al Seckel, who had hosted a
"scientific conference" on Epstein's island. The Blue World Alliance also went under the name
Globalsolver Foundation, and Xavier Malina, Christine Maxwell's son, was listed as
Globalsolver's liaison to the Clinton Foundation. He was previously an intern at the Clinton
Global Initiative.
Malina
later work ed in the Obama administration at the Office of White House Personnel. He now
works for Google. It is also worth noting that during this same period, Isabel Maxwell's son,
Alexander Djerassi ,
was chief of staff at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the Hillary Clinton–run State
Department.
While the Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation intermingled, and the latter had ties
to Epstein and Maxwell, it also appears that Epstein had significant influence over two of the
most prominent science advisers to Bill Gates over the last fifteen years -- Melanie Walker and
Boris Nikolic.
A screenshot from a 2019 presentation Melanie Walker gave for Rockefeller
Foundation, where she is a fellow. Source: YouTube
Melanie Walker , now a celebrated neurosurgeon, met Jeffrey Epstein in 1992 soon after she
graduated from college, when he offered her a Victoria's Secret modelling job. Such offers were
often made by Epstein and his accomplices when recruiting women into his operation and it is
unclear if Walker ever actually worked as a model for the Leslie Wexner-owned company. She then
stayed at a New York apartment building associated with Epstein's trafficking operations during
visits to New York, but it is unclear how long she stayed there or at other Epstein-owned
properties. After she graduated from medical school in 1998, she became Epstein's science
adviser for at least a year. By 1999, she had grown so close to Prince Andrew that she
attended
a Windsor Castle birthday celebration hosted by the Queen along with Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell. During this period, Melanie appears on Epstein's flight logs under her birth name , Melanie
Starnes , though it looks like "Starves" on the flight logs.
The close relationship between Prince Andrew and Melanie Walker came under scrutiny after
Epstein's former housekeeper at the Zorro Ranch property, Deidre Stratton,
stated in an interview that Prince Andrew had been "given" a "beautiful young neurosurgeon"
while he stayed at Epstein's New Mexico property. Given that only one neurosurgeon was both
close to Prince Andrew and a part of Epstein's entourage at the time, it seems highly likely
that this woman "gifted" to Andrew was Melanie Walker. According to Stratton, Andrew "kept
company" with this woman for three days. The arrangement was set up by Epstein, who was not at
the property at the time. The exact timing of the stay is uncertain, but it likely took place
between 1999 and 2001.
"At the time, Jeffrey had this, she supposedly was a neurosurgeon, quite young, beautiful,
young and brilliant, and she stayed in the home with him At one point we had all these
different teas and you could pick the teas that you wanted and she asked me to find one that
would make Andrew more horny.
I'm guessing she understood her job was to entertain him because I guess, the fear, I
don't know; the fear would be that Andrew would say, "No I didn't really find her that
attractive." . . . He would tell Jeffrey that and then she would be on the ropes.
I'm guessing that, another theory is, that Jeffrey probably had her on retainer and she
knew what her job would be, should be, to make these people happy. . . . Sex was all they
thought about. I mean, I know for sure that Jeffrey would ideally like three massages a
day."
Sometime later, Walker moved to Seattle and began living with then Microsoft executive
Steven Sinofsky, who now serves as a
board partner at the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz. Andreesen Horowitz notably
backs Carbyne911, the Israel intelligence-linked precrime start-up funded by Epstein and his
close associate, former prime minister of Israel Ehud Barak, as well as another Israeli
intelligence-linked tech company led by Barak,
called Toka . Toka recently won contracts with the governments of Moldova, Nigeria, and
Ghana through the World Bank, where Melanie Walker is currently a director and a former special
adviser to its president. It is unclear when, how and under what circumstances Walker met
Sinofsky.
After moving to Seattle to be with Sinofsky and after a brief stint as a "practitioner in
the developing world" in China with the World Health Organization, Walker was hired as a senior
program officer by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006. Given that the main feature
of Walker's resume at the time was having been a science adviser to another wealthy
"philanthropist," Jeffrey Epstein, her hire by the Gates Foundation for this critical role
further underscores how Bill Gates, at the very least, not only knew who Epstein was but knew
enough about his scientific interests and investments to want to hire Walker. Walker went on to
become deputy director for Global Development as well as a deputy director of Special
Initiatives at the foundation. According to
the Rockefeller Foundation , where she is a fellow, Walker later advised Gates on issues
pertaining to neurotechnology and brain science for Gates's
secretive company bgC3 , which Gates
originally registered as a think tank under the name Carillon Holdings. According to
federal filings,
bgC3's focus areas were "scientific and technological services," "industrial analysis and
research," and "design and development of computer hardware and software."
During her time at the Gates Foundation, Walker introduced Boris Nikolic, Gates's science
adviser, to Epstein. Today, Melanie Walker is the cochair of the World Economic Forum's Global
Future Council on Neurotechnology and Brain Science, having previously been named a WEF Young
Global Leader. She also advises the World Health Organization, which is closely linked to Bill
Gates's "philanthropy."
At the WEF, Walker wrote an article in 2016 entitled "
Healthcare in 2030: Goodbye Hospital, Hello Home-spital ," in which she discusses how
wearable devices, brain-machine interfaces, and injectable/swallowable robotic "medicines" will
be the norm by 2030. Years before COVID-19 and the Great Reset–inspired efforts to change
health care in just this way, Walker wrote that while the dystopian scenario she was painting
"sounds crazy . . . most of these technologies are either almost ready for prime time, or in
development." Of course, a lot of those technologies took shape thanks to the patronage of her
former bosses, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates.
In the case of Boris Nikolic, after being introduced to Epstein through Walker, he
attended
a 2011 meeting with Gates and Epstein where he was photographed alongside James Staley,
then a senior JP Morgan executive, and Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and a
close Epstein associate. Nikolic was chief adviser for science and technology to Bill Gates at
the time, advising both the
Gates Foundation and bgC3. According to the mainstream narrative, this is supposed to be the
first time that Gates and Epstein had ever met. In addition, this may have been when Epstein
pitched the joint Gates Foundation–JP Morgan "global health charitable fund."
The 2011
meeting at Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion attended by James E. Staley, Larry Summers,
Jeffery Epstein, Bill Gates and Boris Nikolic
In 2014, Nikolic " waxed
enthusiastic " about Epstein's supposed penchant for financial advice ahead of a public
offering for a gene-editing company that Nikolic had
a $42 million stake in . Notably, both Nikolic and Epstein were clients of the same group
of bankers at JP Morgan, with Bloomberg later reporting that Epstein regularly helped those
bankers attract wealthy new clients.
In 2016, Nikolic cofounded Biomatics capital, which invests in health-related
companies at "the convergence of genomics and digital data" that are "enabling the development
of superior therapeutics, diagnostics and delivery models." Nikolic founded Biomatics with
Julie Sunderland, formerly the director of the Gates Foundation's Strategic Investment
Fund.
At least three of the companies backed by Biomatics -- Qihan Biotech , eGenesis , and
Editas -- were cofounded by George Church, a Harvard geneticist with deep ties to Epstein
and also closely associated with the Edge Foundation. Biomatics investment in Qihan Biotech is
no longer listed on the
Biomatics website. Church's Qihan Biotech seeks to produce human tissues and organs inside pigs
for transplantation into humans, while eGenesis seeks to genetically modify pig organs for use
in humans. Editas produces CRISPR gene-editing "medicines" and is also backed by the Gates
Foundation as well as Google Ventures.
After Epstein's death in 2019, it was revealed that Nikolic had been named the "successor
executor" of Epstein's estate, further suggesting close ties to Epstein despite Nikolic's
claims to the contrary. After details of Epstein's will were made public, Nikolic did not sign
a form indicating his willingness to be executor and
did not ultimately serve in that role.
Despite the relatively abrupt shift in the mainstream media regarding what is acceptable to
discuss regarding the Jeffrey Epstein–Bill Gates relationship, many of these same media
outlets refuse to acknowledge much of the information contained in this investigative report.
This is particularly true in the case of the Evening Standard article and Bill Gates's
odd relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell's sister Isabel and CommTouch, the company Isabel
previously led.
The likely reason for the continued cover-up of the true extent of Epstein's ties to
Gates has much more to do with Gates's company Microsoft than with Bill Gates himself. While it
is now permissible to report on ties that discredit Gates's personal reputation, the
information that could tie his relationship with Epstein and the Maxwells to Microsoft has been
omitted.
If, as the Evening Standard reported, Epstein did make millions out of his
business ties with Gates prior to 2001 and if Gates's ties to Isabel Maxwell and the Israeli
espionage–linked company CommTouch were to become public knowledge, the result could
easily be a scandal on a par with the PROMIS software affair. Such a disclosure could be very
damaging for Microsoft and its partner the World
Economic Forum , as Microsoft has become a key player in the WEF's Fourth Industrial
Revolution initiatives that range from digital identity and vaccine passports to efforts to
replace human workers with artificial intelligence.
There are clearly powerful actors with a vested interest in keeping the Epstein-Gates
narrative squarely focused on 2011 and later -- not necessarily to protect Gates but more
likely to protect the company itself and other top Microsoft executives who appear to have been
compromised by Epstein and others in the same intelligence-linked network.
This is hardly an isolated incident, as similar efforts have been made to cover up (or
memory hole) the ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to other prominent Silicon Valley empires,
such as those led by
Jeff Bezos and
Elon Musk . One key reason for this is that the Epstein network's blackmail operation
involved not only sexual blackmail but electronic forms of blackmail , something used to
great effect by Robert Maxwell on behalf of Israeli intelligence as part of the PROMIS
operation. Given its nature, electronic forms of blackmail through illegal surveillance or
backdoored software can be used to compromise those in power with something to hide, but who
were uninclined to engage in the exploitation of minors, such as those abused by Epstein.
That Isabel and Christine Maxwell were able to forge close business ties with Microsoft
after having been part of the front company that played a central role in PROMIS-related
espionage and after explicitly managing their subsequent companies with the admitted intention
to "rebuild" their spy father's work and legacy, strongly points to the probability of at least
some Microsoft products having been compromised in some fashion, likely through alliances with
Maxwell-run tech companies. The lack of mainstream media concern over the documented ties of
the Epstein network to other top Microsoft executives of the past, such as Nathan Myhrvold,
Linda Stone, and Steven Sinofsky, makes it clear that, while it may be open season on the
relationship between Bill Gates and Epstein, such is not the case for Microsoft and
Epstein.
The ties of Epstein and the Maxwells to Silicon Valley, not just to Microsoft, are part
of a broader attempt to cover up the strong intelligence component in the origin of Silicon
Valley's most powerful companies. Much effort has been invested in creating a public perception
that these companies are strictly private entities despite their deep, long-standing ties to
the intelligence agencies and militaries of the United
States and
Israel . The true breadth of the Epstein scandal will never be covered by mainstream media
because so many news outlets are owned by these same Silicon Valley oligarchs or depend on
Silicon Valley for online reader engagement.
Perhaps the biggest reason why the military/intelligence origins and links to the
current Silicon Valley oligarchy will never be honestly examined, however, is that those very
entities are now working with breakneck speed to usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,
which would make artificial intelligence, automation, mass electronic surveillance, and
transhumanism central to human society. One of the architects of this "revolution," Klaus
Schwab, said earlier this year that rebuilding and maintaining trust with the public was
critical to that project. However, were the true nature of Silicon Valley, including its
significant ties to serial child rapist and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein and his network, to
emerge, the public's trust would be significantly eroded, thus threatening what the global
oligarchy views as a project critical to its survival .
I'm always impressed with the vigorous detail and documentation in your articles. What
a menace these philanthropic organizations are to the ordinary and lowly. These billionaire
creeps never stop plotting and figuring out even more ways to stomp on people and push their
creepy agendas, which remain forever hidden.
. . . which has caused some GOP leaders to fear alienating female Republican voters, particularly educated suburbanites
who will be key votes in the 2022 elections.
When I first met my wife, she told me women shouldn't have the right to vote. It was instant love.
A Girl In Flyover Country 59 minutes ago
[in case of Cheney] The war monger doesn't fall far from the tree.
Rise21 42 minutes ago remove link
Amazing how the liberal news outlets are now supporting a Cheney. But they know more war equals more rating
yochananmichael 51 seconds ago
its time for the republicans to rid itself of chicken hawk warmongers like Cheney.
He father disbanded there Iraqi Army which was supposed to provide security, causing an insurgency and 5000 dead American boys
and countless maimed.
vic and blood PREMIUM 4 minutes ago
Cheney's benefactors have erected massive billboards all over the state, 'thanking her for defending the Constitution.'
She has an incredible war chest, and sadly, money and advertising decides a lot of elections.
France is was denying any discomfort with Zionism for 52 years. but since yesterday
effect of
Plate tectonics are perceptible.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Sunday of the risk of
"long-lasting apartheid" in Israel. The veteran politician [and high rank French official
for 40 years with solid connection to French weapons trade] made the remarks in an interview
with LCI TV NewsChannel, RTL radio and Le Figaro newspaper [ three major MSM]
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned on Sunday of the risk of "long-lasting
apartheid" in Israel in the event the Palestinians fail to obtain their own state. Le Drian is one of the first senior French officials to use the term "apartheid" in
reference to Israel , which has angrily denied any policy of racial discrimination.
The veteran politician made the remarks in an interview with RTL radio and Le Figaro
newspaper in reference to the clashes between Jews and Arabs that erupted in several
Israeli cities during the latest conflict.
The violence, which revealed simmering anger among Israeli Arabs over the crackdown on
Palestinians in Jerusalem, shattered years of peaceful coexistence within Israel. "It's the first time and it clearly shows that if in the future we had a solution other
than the two-state solution, we would have the ingredients of long-lasting apartheid,"
Le Drian said, using the word for the white supremacist oppression of blacks in South
Africa from 1948 to 1991.
Le Drian said the "risk of apartheid is high" if Israel continued to act "according to a
single-state logic" but also if it maintained the status quo.
"Even the status quo produces that," he said.
He added that the 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel had shown the need to revive the
moribund Middle East peace process. https://guardian.ng/news/france-sees-risk-of-apartheid-in-israel-paris-france/
"We have take one step at a time," he said, expressing satisfaction that US President Joe
Biden had reiterated support for creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israel's latest offensive against Hamas killed 248 people in the Gaza Strip, including 66
children, and wounded over 1,900, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
Meanwhile, rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups into Israel killed 12 and wounded
around 357 others, Israeli police said.
@120 m - "Iron Dome system according to Israeli sources..."
The point is not the numbers taken from the sales brochure of the system. The point is,
what does the penetration of the fantasy shield do to the Israeli psyche?
Israel initiated the ceasefire, without conditions. After 11 days, it could take no
more.
Israel has failed to protect itself from the indigenous population that it was oppressing.
Palestine has won a victory that changes the game and changes the world.
The entire regional Resistance now knows that Palestine alone can hold the enemy in check.
And all the Palestinians everywhere are completely united with only the Resistance as their
leader.
Over at the Saker just now, a speech from Hezbollah acknowledges proudly that Palestine
itself is now the leading edge of the struggle to remove Israel from the Middle East, and
that Hezbollah yearns for the day when it joins side by side with the Palestinians to drive
the oppressor from the land.
Palestine as it says could keep up this barrage against Israel for six months - just
Palestine alone. And the damage from such a thing would not be measured in how few or how
many individual persons were killed by those rockets. The damage would be measured by the
scream of madness and defeat from the Zionist oppressor, thrown down by the indigenous
populace and cast out of the land in abject fear.
As barflies can see, There may be an undefined 'ceasefire' but the 100 year old ethnic
cleansing project in the rest of Palestine continues:
Israel's Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Land
(Compiled by Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Auckland, New Zealand)
18 May 2021 {Main source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group (PMG): http://www.nad.ps/ NB:The period covered by this
newsletter is taken from the PMG's 24-hour sitrep ending 8am the day after the above
date.}
We shall always do our best to verify the accuracy of all items in these IOP
newsletters/reports wherever possible [e.g. we often suspect that names of people and places
that we see in the PMG sitreps could be typos; also frequently the translation into English
seems rather odd ~ but as we do not speak Arabic, we have no alternative but to copy and
paste these names from the PMG sitreps!] – please forgive us for any errors or
omissions – Leslie and Marian.
206 projectiles
launched from Gaza
82 air strikes (157)
Very many
Israeli attacks
158 Israeli
ceasefire violations
21 raids including
home invasions
11 killed – 261 injured
Economic sabotage
43 taken prisoner
Night peace disruption
and/or home invasions
in 6 towns and villages
Home invasions: 09:20, Nazlet al-Sheikh Zaid - 09:20, al-Arqa - 04:00, Anabta - 03:30, Madama
- 03:30, Tel.
Peace disruption raids: 14:40, Beitunya - 16:05, Um Safa village - 03:20, Bir Zeit - dawn,
Bil'in - 17:40, Tura village - 18:55, Ya'bad - 19:45, Zububa - 06:30, Tubas - 18:05, Quffin -
04:00, Tulkarem - 20:00, Aqraba - 13:45, al-Azza UN refugee camp - 13:45, Aida UN refugee
camp - 18:10, al-Khadr - 18:10, Janata - 20:15, Tuqu - 03:00, al-Ubeidiya - dawn, Husan -
dawn, al-Ubeidiya.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until
07:00 the following day 206 projectiles were launched towards the Green Line from Northern
Gaza, Gaza City, Central Gaza and Khan Yunis.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until
07:00 the following day, 206 projectiles were launched towards the Green Line from Northern
Gaza, Gaza City, Central Gaza and Khan Yunis.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Northern Gaza – 53
projectiles launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Gaza – 81 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Central Gaza – 17 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Khan Yunis – 38 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – Palestinian missile attacks: Khan Yunis – 17 projectiles
launched towards the Green Line.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Gaza enclave – from 07:00 until 07:00 the
following day, Israeli warplanes carried out 82 air strikes, launching 157 missiles onto
Gaza. There were 7 killed, 50 injured, 35 homes destroyed and much damage caused.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Northern Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 21
air strikes – 35 missiles: 16 injured and 10 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 17 air
strikes – 27 missiles: 6 killed (including a child), 15 injured (including women and
children) and 7 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Central Gaza – Israeli warplanes launched 14
air strikes – 20 missiles: 11injured and 6 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Khan Yunis – Israeli warplanes launched 13
air strikes – 46 missiles: 1 killed, 14 injured and 10 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – air strikes: Rafah – Israeli warplanes launched 17 air
strikes – 29 missiles. 3 injured and 2 homes destroyed.
Ceasefire violations – Israeli attacks: Gaza enclave: From 07:00 until 07:00 the
following day, the Israeli Army and Navy pounded Central Gaza, Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Israeli Army attacks – 18 wounded: Jerusalem – Israeli Occupation forces opened
fire, with live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters on
protesters in Shuafat, al-Zaim, al-Jib, Beit Ijza, Qalandiya, near the villages of Qatanna
and al-Issawiya, as well as in Abu Dis, al-Eizariya and at the entrances to Hizma,
al-Sawahrah al-Sharqiya, Anata, the al-Ram road junction, Bab al-Amoud area and al-Wad Street
in Jerusalem Old City. 18 protesters were wounded.
Israeli Army attack: Jerusalem – 18:00, Israeli Occupation forces opened fire on
Palestinian motor vehicles in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
Israeli Army attacks – 3 killed – 72 wounded: Ramallah – Israeli forces in
or near al-Bireh, Sinjil, Aboud, Ni'lin, al-Mughayer, Deir Jarir, Kafr Malik, Nabi Salih, Ein
Qiniya, Ras Karkar, Kharbatha Bani Harith, Beit Sira, al-Jalazoun refugee camp, fired live
ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters,
killing 3 people, Muhammad Mahmoud Hamid (24), Adham Fayez Al-Kashef (20) and Islam Wael
Fahmy Barnat, and wounding 72. There were many tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 4 wounded: Jenin – Israeli troops, manning the Jalamah and
Dotan checkpoints and at the southern entrance to Silat al-Dahr, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 4
people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 7 wounded: Tulkarem – Israeli forces, manning the Einav
checkpoint and troops in Tulkarem, Quffin, Zit and at the entrance to Beit Lid, fired live
ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters,
wounding 7 and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 8 wounded: Qalqiliya – Israeli Occupation forces, at the
entrances to Azun, Hajjah, and Kafr Qaddum as well as near Jayus, Hablat and at the Eyal
crossing, fired live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters
towards protesters, wounding 8 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 33 wounded: Nablus – Israeli Army positions, near the
Huwara checkpoint, the intersection of Osirin and Sarra villages and near the entrances to
Qusra, Beta, Jama'in, Naqoura, Deir Sharaf, Burin, Madama, Asirah al-Qibliya, Yutma,
al-Labban al-Sharqiya, Odla, al-Sawiyah and the village of Tal, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 33
people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks: Salfit – Israeli troops, near the entrances to Deir Istiya,
Qarawat Bani Hassan, al-Zawiya and the northern entrance to Salfit, fired live ammunition,
rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters. There were
several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 18 wounded: Bethlehem – Israeli forces, present at Bilal
Bin Rabah Mosque, the Aida refugee camp, northern entrance to Tuqu', western entrance to Beit
Fajar, Um Rakba area of al-Khadr and entrance to Husan, fired live ammunition, rubber-coated
bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 18 people and
causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army attacks – 1 killed: Hebron – morning, Israeli Occupation forces,
positioned in the Old City, opened fire on and killed a resident: Islam Fayyad Zahida
(32).
Israeli Army attacks – 30 wounded: Hebron – the Israeli Army, positioned in the
Bab al-Zawiya area of Hebron and in the Old City, as well as near the entrances to Beit
Ummar, Bani Naim, Tarqumiya, Khurasa village, the al-Aroub refugee camp and on Halhul Bridge,
fired live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards
protesters, wounding 30 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Economic sabotage: Gaza -- the Israeli Navy continues to enforce an arbitrary fishing
limit.
Home invasion: Jenin – 09:20, Israeli Occupation forces raided the villages of Nazlet
al-Sheikh Zaid and al-Arqa, and invaded a house.
Home invasion – boy (aged 15) abducted : Tulkarem – 04:00, Israeli troops raided
Anabta and abducted 15-year-old Muhammad Salam Wajih Rasheed.
Home invasions: Nablus – 03:30, Israeli forces raided Madama and Tel villages and
invaded a number of homes.
Israeli police and settlers' mosque violation: 23:00, Israeli Occupation police invaded the
courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, filming the Mosque and its facilities.
Israeli Army – 7 wounded – rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas
canisters: Tubas – Israeli Occupation forces, manning the Tayasir checkpoint and in the
village of Atouf, fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters towards
protesters, wounding 7 people and causing several tear gas casualties.
Israeli Army – 5 wounded – rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas
canisters: Jericho – Israeli forces, at the northern and southern entrances to Jericho,
as well as outside the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp, fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades
and tear gas canisters towards protesters, wounding 5 people and causing several tear gas
casualties.
Occupation settler violence: Jerusalem – 18:00, Israeli settlers stoned a family home,
on the outskirts of the village of Beit Ijza.
Occupation road casualties: Bethlehem – 16:40, an Israeli settler drove his motor
vehicle over and hospitalised a 19-year-old Abdullah Saqr Saad, near Khalet Iskarya.
Raid: Ramallah – 14:40, Israeli Occupation forces raided and patrolled Beitunya.
Raid: Ramallah – 16:05, Israeli forces raided and patrolled Um Safa village.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Ramallah – 03:20, Israeli troops raided Bir Zeit, taking
prisoner one person.
Raid – 1 taken prisoner: Ramallah – dawn, the Israeli Army raided Bil'in village,
taking prisoner one person.
Raid: Jenin – 17:40, Israeli troops raided and patrolled Tura village.
Raid: Jenin – 18:55, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled Ya'bad.
Raid: Jenin – 19:45, Israeli Occupation forces raided and patrolled Zububa village.
Raid: Tubas – 06:30, Israeli forces raided and patrolled Tubas.
Raid: Tulkarem – 18:05, the Israeli Army raided and patrolled Quffin.
Raid: Tulkarem – 04:0 Israeli troops raided Tulkarem.
Raid: Nablus – 20:00, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled Aqraba.
Raid – UN refugee camps: Bethlehem – 13:45, Israeli Occupation forces raided and
patrolled the al-Azza and Aida UN refugee camps in Bethlehem.
Raid: Bethlehem – 18:10, Israeli forces raided and patrolled al-Khadr and Janata.
Raid – 2 abductions: Bethlehem – 20:15, Israeli troops raided Tuqu and abducted
two 16-year-old youths: Muhammad Khaled Nasrallah and Sind Talal Al-Amor.
Raid: Bethlehem – 03:00, Israeli soldiers raided and patrolled al-Ubeidiya.
Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Bethlehem – dawn, the Israeli Army raided Husan village,
taking prisoner two people.
Raid – 2 taken prisoner: Bethlehem – dawn, Israeli Occupation forces raided
al-Ubeidiya, taking prisoner twopeople.
Restrictions of movement (14): 11:30, entrance to Turmusaya- 11:20, tightened procedures at
Huwara - 12:00, tightened procedures at Kifl Haris - 12:50, entrance to al-Zawiya -
11:25-12:30, al-Nashash road junction - 14:10, entrance to al-Walaja village - midnight,
entrance to Marah Mualla - 09:15, entrance to the Fahs area, south of Hebron - 18:45,
entrance to Sa'ir - Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing closed - al-Mantar-Karni crossing closed -
al-Shujaiyeh crossing (Nahal Oz) closed - Sufa crossing closed - al-Awda Port closed.
[NB: Times indicated in Bold Type contribute to the sleep deprivation suffered by Palestinian
children]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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...
@ Paul, "100 year old ethnic cleansing project in the rest of Palestine continues",
but Tectonic plates still moving, collapse of an edifice of complacency
David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. He previously edited The
Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and The Jerusalem Report (1998-2004).
"It doesn't matter that Hamas is a repressive, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamist terrorist
organization that fires thousands of rockets indiscriminately at innocent civilians all
over the State of Israel...
[...]
It doesn't matter...
[...]
Again, it doesn't matter, because we are no longer avowedly seeking, even in principle, a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- the currently and foreseeably
insoluble Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And since we no longer avowedly aspire to be part
of the solution, we are increasingly perceived as part of the problem, as
rejectionists.
[...]
Israel still has plenty of friends, and plenty of support, including crucially in the US.
Three EU foreign ministers chose to make a solidarity visit to bombed Israeli homes at the
height of the conflict. But the ground is shifting dangerously.
Many of us, this writer emphatically included, regard a two-state solution as essential
if we are not to lose either our Jewish majority, or our democracy, or both, forever
entangled among millions of hostile Palestinians. Many of us, this writer emphatically
included, cannot currently see a safe route to such an accommodation.
For the last time, it doesn't matter. So long as Israel does not place itself firmly and
distinctly on the side of those seeking a viable framework for long-term peace and security
for ourselves and for the Palestinians, we will be regarded as blocking that framework. And
even when facing an enemy so patently cynical, amoral and intransigent as Hamas, militarily
strong Israel will be held responsible for the loss of life on both sides of the
conflict. We may keep on winning the battles, though they will get harder if fighting spreads to
and deepens on other fronts. But we will be gradually losing the war.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The
roots of National Socialism in cultural criticism
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
Written originally in 1961 as part of venerable scholar Fritz Stern's doctoral thesis
The Politics of Cultural Despair is a classic study of the cultural criticism and irrational ideologies of three 19th and
early 20th century German writers that helped pave the way for the rise of the Third Reich and the triumph of national
socialism. The book traces the lives and works of the obscure German writers and scholars Lagarde, Langbehn, and Moeller to
illuminate how ideas conducive to national socialism, including antisemitism, extreme German nationalism (volk movement),
anti-liberalism, anti-intellectualism, the desire for an authoritarian Caesar or "Fuhrer", and the primacy of "the will",
became pervasive in 19th and early 20th century Germany.
All three authors relentlessly attacked liberal democracy, the enlightenment tradition, and the modern industrial society
that had separated the German people from their "spiritual" and "pure" connection with the Germany's ancestral forests and
countryside. They were, as Stern puts it, "Conservatives with nothing left to conserve". They viewed Germany's unification
and the advancement of liberal democracy and modernity as a disastrous development that divided Germany's people and
drained them of their spiritual essence. Their criticism also took on extreme antisemitism that egregiously blamed the
Jewish people and portrayed them as conspiratorial outsiders who promoted capitalism and diluted Germany's ethnic purity.
They also felt that traditional sources of authority, such as religion and the Bismarck nation state, were entirely
inadequate and stale in the age of Nietzsche. Seeing Germany in crisis, and with no traditional political or cultural
forces to turn to, all three authors became their own prophets of change. They expounded vague and irrational theories that
found salvation in nationalists myths and desired a return to a illusory past where the German people lived in unified
harmony and prosperity in their ancestral lands. The authors took on the delusional path from cultural critics to
Nihilistic prophets. Starting from somewhat credible attacks on Germany's political and cultural shortcomings and
transforming them into irrational and delusional political programs with little grasp on reality and dangerous support for
authoritarian policies. Tragically, their works enjoyed a consistent level of support among Germany's population and
influenced many philosophers and political theorists, such as Alfred Rosenberg, that would formulate the National Socialist
ideology. While none of the three were Nazis, all of them clearly proliferated ideas central to the National Socialist
program and advocated for a dangerous and authoritarian cultural regeneration.
Stern's work is classic in the sense that it represents the mid 20th century political and historical scholarly work that
focuses on the impact of political ideologies and political ideas. While this focus on "ideas" is far less emphasized today
in modern political science scholarship, the book reminds us that the rise of National Socialism and Fascism was far more
than a reaction to Germany's disastrous defeat in World War I and the impact of the Versailles Treaty. Instead, the ideas
of national socialism were deeply embedded in German society and represented a dangerous undercurrent acting against the
forces of democratic liberalism, industrialization, and the enlightenment. In advocating a "politics of cultural despair"
all three turned towards delusional, dangerous, and authoritarian solutions that could have only supported a political
program as appalling and devastating as national socialism. As Stern reminds us, "the politics of cultural despair" can
come from any region of the political spectrum where the most unwavering cultural critics can become "nihilistic" prophets
who desire not just cultural change, but cultural and political regeneration based on a mythic and nonexistent past or
promise a millenarian utopia . A statement that applies not only to Germany's lost 19th and 20th century conservatives, but
to idealistic leftist terrorist groups in the 60s and 70s, and Islamic and right wing terrorist groups today. In summary,
Stern reminds us not only that Fascism and National Socialism had deep roots in 19th and 20th century Germany, but also of
the dangers of irrational and delusional political programs that depart from reality.
However, like any good skeptic, one has to wonder how important the cultural and political critiques and ideas of Stern's
three authors really were. Modern political science has mostly moved beyond the focus on political ideas found in Stern's
work and without concrete quantitative data, it is close to impossible to determine the impact of their work. The book also
suffers from a narrow focus that makes it less approachable for the casual reader. Unlike other introductory works on
Fascism and National Socialism, Stern writes for an expert audience that is expected to be well versed in 19th and 20th
century German political, philosophical, and intellectual history. Readers less versed in these subjects may find the book
less enjoyable and insightful. Although this work has probably been superseded by more modern works, it remains a classic
in the field of intellectual and political history and represents classic political and cultural history at its best. I
also recommend George Mosse's 1964 work "The Crisis of the German Ideology" that covers very similar ground, as well as
Zeev Sternhell's "The Birth of Fascist Ideology" on the intellectual origins of Italian Fascism.
>
Paul de Lagarde was a biblical scholar and a master of oriental languages like Aramaic and Persian. He was also a rabid Jew
hater who openly called for extermination. He loathed classical Western liberalism, science, and capitalism. For him, these
were all spiritless abstractions. For Lagarde, Western liberalism, capitalism, science, and the Jews where the monstrous
embodiment of all he hated. He had a romantic notion of a mythical Germanic past, and he believed the Jews and the modern
society of the West were conspiring to pollute and corrupt this pure German spirit. He advocated a Great Leader, a "purge
the Jew" program, and a divinely inspired expansionist foreign policy to rekindle an authentic and noble Germanic way of
life.
Lagarde despised bourgeois 19th century German Christianity, and he called for a "new" German religion that would purge all
the Jewish elements of Christianity and become the unifying spiritual basis and justification for the new German state.
This new religion would fuse the squabbling German factions and sects into a unified people and nation with one single will
.... embodied in the form a "Great Leader."
Lagarde rejected the premise of general education, and instead, he proposed a totally new education system based on social
status and intellectual promise. This new, state-run authoritarian education system would mold the leaders of the new
German nation.
Julius Langbehn wrote a book that extolled the Dutch artist Rembrandt as an authentic "German man". If this sounds
confusing, well ... it is ..., but recall that many years later the Nazis attempted to use Rembrandt as a cultural symbol
to force a Dutch-German alliance after they occupied Holland during the war.
Like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the modern liberal society because of its mechanization, realism, bourgeois lifestyle, and
commercialism. Like Hitler, Langbehn was an "artist"; he was anti-scientific, anti-Western, and anti-rational. He
postulated a "cult of the young" (think Hitler Youth) and a "Hidden Emperor" (think Führer) who would emerge to unite the
German people. Again like Lagarde, Langbehn hated the U.S.A because it was the embodiment of all he despised. He warned
that Jews were destroying the German "Volk" by "worming" their way into German life. For Langbehn, modernity itself was the
ultimate cause of German decay, and the Jews were to blame for bringing this modernity to German society. For Langbehn, the
Jews were "democratically inclined; they have an affinity for the mob," and like Lagarde, Langbehn called for extermination
of the Jews.
I won't go on about Moeller van den Bruck, because it is similar to Lagarde and Langbehn. One important footnote: The
Nazi's got the term "The Third Reich" from one of Moeller's books.
In summary, we find a set of three German intellectual romantics who were alienated by modernism and who abhorred all that
was new. They suffered from "cultural despair." For these three, the "Jews" were the immediate agents of corrupting change,
and it was America that was the colossal embodiment of all they detested. For them, a pure and authentic German way of life
was lost due to the conspiracy and confluence of these horrible forces of modernism. All of the ills and fractiousness and
faithlessness of German society were attributable to Jews and liberal modernism (as exemplified by America).
These three sought to annihilate the bourgeois modern society they found themselves in and they sought to replace it with a
utopian dream. Their utopia was a unified and harmonious German people -- purged of Jews -- who would be orderly,
hierarchical, and authentic. This unified German nation would be led by a strong emperor who would perfectly embody the
unified will of the people. They sought a "New German religion", free of Jewish influence, that would provide a unifying
framework for this new society. They proposed state-controlled education and propaganda, leadership by a small elite,
annexation and conquest of middle Europe, and they called for the extermination of Jews.
In short - these three "culturally despairing" egg heads predicted much of the horror of the Nazis. All three were widely
read in German society at various points in time leading up to the rise of National Socialism.
We know that Hitler emphatically read Lagarde. For more on this, see "Hitler's Forgotten Library" in the May 2003 issue of
The Atlantic Monthly, by Timothy W. Ryback. On p.295, Stern shows how Lagarde, Langbehn, and van den Bruck influenced other
key Nazi ideologists like Alfred Rosenberg.
The book contains extensive footnotes and end notes, a large bibliography, and a good index. I have one gripe with the
book. There are several book titles, quotes, and passages that are in German without English translation. I could not work
them out with my meager German. I wish translations were provided. I also wish pictures or portraits of Lagarde, Langbehn,
and van den Bruck were provided.
Finally, I'd like to add that many of the themes we see having emerged from Lagarde, Langbehn, and van den Bruck are
similar to what is found the more recent work of the influential Islamic radical Sayyid Qutb. I strongly recommend the Paul
Berman book "Terror and Liberalism" for a very readable and enlightening treatment of Qutb.
I'm not sure that it is global private finance that is the key. Although I used to.
Either we consider the Oligarchs (Bezos Zuckerberg) as the newest form of low life, or the
Banking cartels and billionares are even lower.
BUT - There is a third class of Global financiers. That is "Corporations" (as a class).
Corporations are immortal, and like a hydra, with many heads, have more arms than an "image
of a covid-virus" ( Octopussii are simply too limited, although they are a good example of
multi-brained resourceful animals ). They are also "persons" in front of the law, with
all the protections and privilges that offers. On other occasions they are simply above the
law (Twit-Facebook and free speech). The people running them are only occasionally
reprimanded, but the "corporation" itself is never touched. *1*
They pay, sometimes, a bit of taxes, have different laws and have lobbies working in their
favour. Can corrupt Politicians with the offer of directorships or whatever. They can even be
"foundations" and pay no tax at all. They deal across many different National laws, obey what
they will, and are extra terrritorial in scope. They can have a nominal "center", while
decisions are made elsewhere. They are in fact a new type of alien supra-being .
Of course, the "leaders" of Corporations are rich, but they can be replaced by others at the
wishes of "shareholders". Untouchable and unknown.
Very useful for storing wealth and speculating at the same time.
In spite of Musk and others taking all the limelight, it is the corporations that work in
the background that seem to be the real seat of power.
--- *1* One of the last real actions taken against Corporate power was the breaking up of
Rockefellers Standard Oil .
*****
*2* In the case of the "breakup" of either the US or the EU - would the corporations be
touched (eliminated), or hailed as saving civilisation?
This one-to-one replay of Red Guards - Wikipedia but with quite
different sponsors ;-) "Hóng Wèibīng was a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao
Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Notable quotes:
"... there is an on-going effort to create fads/movements in which the public becomes caught-up and distracts the from reality. ..."
"... The more binary and controversial the better. Red/Blue. I used to be a big fan of sports but have the opinion it is a pointless waste of time and my life is better for that realization. ..."
"... Characteristics of the Woke: They always attack, especially with insults, like "paranoia nonsense". They never address the actual point made, instead they reinterpret the point to make it appear pure evil. Which allows them to attribute the worst possible motivations on the person they are attacking. Naturally they invent things the other person hadn't even mentioned, like climate change. ..."
"... Again the whole woke 'identity' culture that cancels dissent and promotes 'minorities' in positions of power is simply woke fascism. Just as military recruitment is about turning violent video games real for young men, so too is CIA recruitment about inviting the 'woke' for murder and mayhem in the name 'freedom' without which the woke could not wake. ..."
I think that there is an on-going effort to create fads/movements in which the public
becomes caught-up and distracts the from reality.
The more binary and controversial the
better. Red/Blue. I used to be a big fan of sports but have the opinion it is a pointless
waste of time and my life is better for that realization.
Additionally/tangentially, I feel there is a habit in the English language in particular
to create new words to describe things these words are not well define and generate a lot of
discussion and heat about things that nobody knows what they are actually talking about and
end up arguing the meaning of the words.
People who don't know the new words must try to catch
up or be left out of the discussion. I don't direct this at your discussion. I just wonder how
we might see things if we were constrained to a limited vocabulary - as I am as a programmer
of sorts.
Characteristics of the Woke: They always attack, especially with insults, like "paranoia
nonsense". They never address the actual point made, instead they reinterpret the point to
make it appear pure evil. Which allows them to attribute the worst possible motivations on
the person they are attacking. Naturally they invent things the other person hadn't even
mentioned, like climate change.
Again the whole woke 'identity' culture that cancels dissent and promotes 'minorities' in
positions of power is simply woke fascism. Just as military recruitment is about turning
violent video games real for young men, so too is CIA recruitment about inviting the 'woke'
for murder and mayhem in the name 'freedom' without which the woke could not wake.
I will believe that any of this is worth a shit when Snowden wades in with his
opinion...until then its just another distraction
The CIA is why we can't have "wokeism" about the right issue like global private/public
finance.....where is Occupy 2.0?
The current wokeism is like the pet rocks of old days.....would want folks to focus that
woke on the inherited class structure of the private property West, would we?
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...
The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978 (FISA).
If you
sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered
for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.
But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding
judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans'
constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations
that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet
officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches,
authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S.
person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles,
computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."
In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by
enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication,
a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court
slammed the FBI for abusing that
database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal
Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct
thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
declared that
an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI
chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new
Office of Integrity and Compliance
as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law."
Be still my beating heart!
The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through
the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed
that the FBI has conducted
warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud,"
and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman
wrote
in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine
criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried
material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit
FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the
New York Times reported ,
an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them
had connections to an investigation."
In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches.
Regardless,
Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet
statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."
At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps
worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately,
the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law.
Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector
General reported that the FBI made "fundamental
errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The
I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians
and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page"
in that dossier, which was later debunked.
A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy
on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal
editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an
email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source'
before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action.
But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy,
noting that Clinesmith
"went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in
government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist
slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding
with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing
matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should
remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been
craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded
upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed
requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed
such investigations drastically," the
Washington Post reported
. So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.
The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically
the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping
new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court
rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans
were "relevant" to a terrorism
investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later
denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates
a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.
The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists
who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law
is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI
agents conducting warrantless searches rely on
the same
harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless
an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI
abuses
ebworthen 39 minutes ago
"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...
JaxPavan 42 minutes ago
All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to
send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch
write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.
Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago
It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because
we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.
Obama's own personal private army.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago
A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips,
in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just
following up on a tip"
wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!
You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago
Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and
someone wanting get off their lazy rear end
takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)
If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged.
"They" have been listening
to you for a long time if they want to.
If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.
"... Don't deny W his agency. As I followed the horrors, from Vietnam to Iraq to Syria to Central America and elsewhere, the full list that was visible anyway, of the W regime, it sure seemed clear to me that W played the bumbling yuk very well. ..."
"... the dumb cluck thing was mostly an act. he was deliberately talking that way not only to paint himself as stupid, but also because those in power assume we must be spoken to as children (they've studied president speeches since JFK have decreased from high school level to 6th grade in complexity, word usage etc). ..."
"... In our kayfabe duoparty system, it also gave the "opposing" side the "W is a Chimp" talking point to harp on (dress rehearsal for the same stuff against tRUMP). ..."
"... Abu Ghraib was not an anomaly, Con Son Island served the same purpose during the Vietnam War. When I was young I was proud to be an American Citizen, we had the Bill of Rights, the Military was controlled by Civilians and their oath was to defend the Constitution from "All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.". I have been horrified, ashamed and deeply saddened by what has happened in the US over the last half Century or so. ..."
"... I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst policies, but instead he cemented them into place forever. ..."
"... Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil ..."
"... you are 40 years off the mark-It was Reagan who's brand of avuncular fascism, celebrating stupidity as a virtue who paved the way. ..."
"... albrt: I agree with your take. Obama campaigned as an anti-war candidate (at least wrt Iraq). He then proceeded to "˜surge' into Afghanistan and added Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to the regime change mix. Never a thought given to prosecuting the war criminals: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Feith, Wolfowitz, Powell, et al; much less even consider a truth and reconciliation commission. ..."
"... Obama was equally complicit in this never ending horror show and, I am hopeful, history will hold him equally accountable. ..."
"... Is it not written that Margaret Thatcher's true legacy was Tony Blair? If that is true, then the true legacy of Dubya is Obama. ..."
"... As far as harm that George W. Bush did and launched (illegal/immoral wars, domestic surveillance, tax cuts for the wealthy"¦.) Bush should take the award. ..."
"... When Obama deliberately and with malice aforethought turned all the admitted (and in fact proudly self-avowed) war-criminals and criminals-against humanity loose, free and clear under "look forward not back", he routinised and permanentized the up-to-that-very-minute irregular and extra-constitutional novel methods of governance and practice which the Cheney-Bush Administration had pioneered. Obama deliberately made torture, aggressive war, etc. "legal" when America does it and "permanent" as long as America is strong enough to keep doing it. ..."
"... The Greatest Disappointment in History. No-one else comes close, in terms of the sheer numbers of people globally who he let down. The Bait and Switch King, The Great Betrayer. After the nightmare of Bush we got him and his "˜eloquence', pulling the wool over the dazzled sheeple's eyes while he entrenched the 1% and the neocon MI complex, his paymasters, and sponsors for his entry into the overclass. ..."
"... Lambert, you forgot this one" Biden presents Liberty Medal to George and Laura Bush Instead of a war crimes trial at the Hague, Biden gave him a (family bloging) medal! ..."
"... A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing the Realm ..."
"... It's really sickening to see George W being "rehabilitated" and made to look like some kind of a senior statesman, when he should be hauled off to the Hague to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. For me, his election in 2000 was mostly the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country. As a result, the U.S. has Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, in addition to all the other events mentioned, and don't forget he tried to privatize Social Security. ..."
"... and welfare "reform", the crime bill. Talk of privatizing SSI made commonplace acceptable. Repeal of Glass Steagall. They were going to do to healthcare what oBLAM succeeded at, 20 years before him but got sidelined by Lewinsky's blue dress stains. Clintoon is a criminal and so is his spouse, and he did his share of damage everywhere. people who think otherwise might be looking back with nostalgia on a simpler (pre 9.11) time. ..."
"... Jeff Wells wrote some interesting essays in the Bush years, though many of his connections were a bit too far out, even for me. He had some striking collateral evidence for his concept of High Weirdness in high places "" sex abuse, torture and magick figuring prominently, juxtaposed with political skulduggery, and financial crimes and misdemeanours. The Gannon/Guckert affair, the Franklin ring and Gary Caradori were the sort of thing that laced his quite penetrating analyses of events. Facts were jumping off points for speculations, but given our lack of facts his imaginings were a nourishment of sorts, though often very troubling indeed. ..."
"... People have been brain washed by the glossed over history of the US they are taught. It gives people a false belief of our past. The phrase American Exceptionalism comes to mind. It is a myth. The real history is out there but you have to search it out. From it's beginning continuing to today our government is responsible for bad behavior. ..."
"... We Americans have this thing called exceptionalism which among other things creates the idea that our government is more virtuous than others. ..."
"... We are not at Hitler/Stalin/Mao standards ""yet"" but who's to say that could never happen here? One of the bafflements of the 20th century was how a civilized people descended into the dark barbarism of Nazi Germany. ..."
"... Noam Chomsky observed some thirty years ago that if the Nuremberg standards were applied to all the post-war American Presidents, then all of them would hang. ..."
"... We have such a dismal record. Little George was the most audacious of all our criminal presidents, but he has plenty of company. My question is now, looking back, why was the USA incapable of organizing a peaceful world after WW2? I start there. 1945. ..."
Bush became President in the year 2000. That was "" let me break out my calculator "" 2021 "" 2000 = 21 years ago. It occurs to
me that our younger readers, born in 2000, or even 1990, may not know how genuinely horrid Bush was, as President.
I was blogging even back then, and I remember how horrid Bush was; certainly worse than Trump, at least for Trump's first three
years in office, until the Covid pandemic. To convey the full horror of the Bush years would not a series of posts, but a book. The
entire experience was wretched and shameful.
Of the many horrors of the Bush years, I will pick three. (I am omitting many, many others, including
Hurricane Katrina , the
Plame Affair
, Medicare Part D, the Cheney Energy Task Force
, that time
Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face ,
Bush's missing
Texas Air National Guard records , Bush gaslighting the 2004 Republican National Convention with terror alerts, and on and on
and on. And I didn't even get to 9/11, "
You've covered your ass ," WMDs, and
the AUMF. Sorry. It's exhausting.) I'm afraid my recounting of these incidents will be sketchy: I lived and blogged in them, and
the memories of the horror well up in such volume and detail that I lose control of the material. Not only that, there was an actual,
functioning blogosphere at that time, which did great work, but unfortunately most of that work has succumbed to link rot. And my
memory of events two decades ago is not as strong as it could be.
The White House Iraq Group
Here I will rely on excerpts from Colonel Sam Gardiner's (PDF) "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence,
Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" (2003), whose introduction
has been saved from link rot by the
National Security Archive and
a full version
by the University of Leeds . I would bet, long forgotten even by many of those who blogged through those times. ("Gulf II" is
what we refer to as the "War in Iraq.") Quoting from the full version:
You will see in my analysis and comments that I do not accept the notion that the first casualty of war is truth. I think we
have to have a higher standard. In the most basic sense, Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies
to come to right decisions. Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage.
Seems familiar. (Gardiner's report can be read as a brilliant media critique; it's really worth sitting down with a cup of coffee
and reading it all.)[2] More:
My research suggests there were over 50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture of Gulf
II for the American and British people . I'll cover most in this report. At the end, I will also describe some stories that
seem as if they were part of the strategic influence campaign although the evidence is only circumstantial.
What becomes important is not each story taken individually. If that were the case, it would probably seem only more of the
same. If you were to look at them one at a time, you could conclude, "Okay we sort of knew that was happening." It is the pattern
that becomes important. It's the summary of everything. To use a phrase often heard during the war, it's the mosaic. Recognizing
I said I wouldn't exaggerate, it would not be an exaggeration to say the people of the United States and UK can find out more
about the contents of a can of soup they buy than the contents of the can of worms they bought with the 2003 war in the Gulf.
The White House was, naturally, at the center of the operation:
One way to view how the US Government was organized to do the strategic communications effort before, during and after the
war is to use the chart that was used by the Assistant Deputy Director for Information Operations. The center is the White House
Office of Global Communications, the organization originally created by Karen Hughes as the Coalition Information Office. The
White House is at the center of the strategic communications process"¦.
Handy chart:
And:
Inside the White House there was an Iraq Group that did policy direction and then the Office of Global Communications itself.
Membership of the White House Iraq Group:
So, in 2020 Bush's write-in vote for President was Condi Rice, the [x] Black [x] woman who helped run a domestic disinformation
campaign for him in 2003, to sell the Iraq War to the American people. Isn't that"¦. sweet?
Of course, I was very naive at that point. I had come up as a Democrat, and my first real political engagement was the Clinton
impeachment. Back in 2003, I was amazed to discover that there was a White House operation that was planting fake stories in the
press "" and that I had been playing whackamole on them. At a higher level, I was disturbed that "Washington and London did not trust
the peoples of their democracies to come to right decisions." Now it all seems perfectly normal, which is sad.
Torture at Abu Ghraib
There are a lot of images of our torture prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib. This one (
via ) is not the
most famous , but to me it is the most shocking:
What kind of country sets dogs on a naked prisoner? Well, my kind of country, apparently. (Later, I remember discussing
politics with somebody who came from a country that might be considered less governed by the rule of law than my own, and they said:
"Abu Ghraib. You have nothing to say." And they were right.)
For those who came in late, here's a snapshot (the detail of the story is in fact overwhelming, and I also have pity for the poor
shlubs the brass tossed into that hellhole[3].) From the Los Angeles Times, "
Few have faced consequences
for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq " (2015):
[A] 44-year-old Al Jazeera reporter named Salah Ejaili, said in a phone interview from Qatar that he was arrested in 2003 while
covering an explosion in the Iraqi province of Diyala. He was held at Abu Ghraib for 48 days after six days in another facility,
he said.
"Most of the pictures that came out in 2004, I saw that firsthand "" the human pyramid where men were stacked up naked on top
of each other, people pulled around on leashes," he said in the interview, with one of his attorneys translating. "I used to hear
loud screams during the torture sessions."
Ejaili says he was beaten, left naked and exposed to the elements for long periods, and left in solitary confinement, among
other acts.
"When people look at others who are naked, they feel like they're animals in a zoo, in addition to being termed as criminals
and as terrorists," he said. "That had a very strong psychological impact."
The plaintiffs also say they suffered electric shocks; deprivation of food, water and oxygen; sexual abuse; threats from dogs;
beatings; and sensory deprivation.
Taha Yaseen Arraq Rashid, a laborer, says he was sexually abused by a woman while he was cuffed and shackled, and also that
he was forced to watch a female prisoner's rape.
Ejaili said that his face was often covered during interrogations, making it difficult for him to identify those involved,
but that he was able to notice that many of the interrogators who entered the facility wore civilian clothing.
His attorneys, citing military investigations into abuses at Abu Ghraib and other evidence, say the contractors took control
of the prison and issued orders to uniformed military.
"Abu Ghraib was pretty chaotic," said Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought suits
against CACI and L-3 Services. "They were involved in a conspiracy with the military police to abuse our clients.""¦. Eleven U.S.
soldiers were convicted in military trials of crimes related to the humiliation and abuse of the prisoners.
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.
If our legal system had the slightest shred of integrity, it would be obvious to the Courts, as it is to a six-old-child, that
what we laughingly call our "personal" computers and cellphones contain "paper," not in the tediously literal sense of a physical
material made from wood fibre, but in the sense of content . Bits and bytes are 20th Century paper, stored on silicon and
hard disk platters. Of course a warrant should be needed to read what's on my phone, ffs.
That Fourth Amendment common sense did not prevail is IMNSHO due in large part to Bush's program of warrantless surveillance,
put in place as part of the Global War on Terror. Here again, the complexity is overwhelming and took several years to unravel. I'm
afraid I have to quote Wikipedia on
this one :
A week after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), which
inaugurated the "War on Terror". It later featured heavily in arguments over the NSA program.
Soon after the 9/11 attacks President Bush established the President's Surveillance Program. As part of the program, the Terrorist
Surveillance Program was established pursuant to an executive order that authorized the NSA to surveil certain telephone calls
without obtaining a warrant (see 50 U.S.C. § 1802 50 U.S.C. § 1809). The complete details of the executive order are not public,
but according to administration statements, the authorization covers communication originating overseas from or to a person suspected
of having links to terrorist organizations or their affiliates even when the other party to the call is within the US.
In October 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which granted the administration broad powers to fight terrorism. The Bush
administration used these powers to bypass the FISC and directed the NSA to spy directly on al-Qaeda via a new NSA electronic
surveillance program. Reports at the time indicate that an "apparently accidental" "glitch" resulted in the interception of communications
that were between two U.S. parties. This act was challenged by multiple groups, including Congress, as unconstitutional.
The precise scope of the program remains secret, but the NSA was provided total, unsupervised access to all fiber-optic
communications between the nation's largest telecommunication companies' major interconnected locations, encompassing phone conversations,
email, Internet activity, text messages and corporate private network traffic .
Of course, all this is perfectly normal today. So much for the Fourth Amendment, good job. (You will note that the telcos had
to be in on it; amusingly, the CEO of Qwest, the only telco that refused to participate, was charged and convicted of insider trading,
good job again.) The legal aspects of all this are insanely complex, but as you see from my introduction, they should be simple.
Conclusion
Here's a video of the Iraqi (now in Parliament) who threw shoes at Bush (who got off lightly, all things considered):
We should all be throwing shoes at Bush, seriously if not literally. We should not be accepting candy from him. We should not
be treating him as an elder statesman. Or a "partner in crime." We should not be admiring his paintings. Bush ran a bad, bad, bad
administration and we are living with the consequences of his badness today. Bush is a bad man. We are ruled by bad people. Tomorrow,
Obama!
NOTES
[1] Indeed.
[2] For example, I vividly remember playing whack-a-mole as a blogger with the following WMD stories: Drones, weapons labs, WMD
cluster bombs, Scuds, nuclear materials from Niger, aluminum tubes, and dirty bombs. They one and all fell apart on close inspection.
And they were only a small part of the operation, as Gardiner shows in detail.
[3] My personal speculation is that Dick Cheney had a direct feed from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers to the White House, and
watched the proceedings live. Some of the soldiers burned images of torture onto CDs as trophies, and the prison also had a server,
whose connectivity was very conveniently not revealed by the judge in a lawsuit I dimly remember being brought in Germany. So it
goes.
Does anyone believe that W, son of H. W. Bush, H. W. son of Senator Prescott Bush, would have been been pres without that familial
lineage and its important govt connections? The pity is W wasn't smart enough to grasp world politics and the US's importance
as an accepted fulcrum in same beyond his momentary wants. imo. Brent Scowcroft and others warned him off his vain pursuits. The
word "squander" come to mind, though I wish it did not.
See for example Kevin Phillips' book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
. ( Kevin Phillips is a great
modernist American historian, imo, who saw the rise of Nixon before anyone else.)
Don't deny W his agency. As I followed the horrors, from Vietnam to Iraq to Syria to Central America and elsewhere, the
full list that was visible anyway, of the W regime, it sure seemed clear to me that W played the bumbling yuk very well.
He did what he set out to do, no doubt with careful guidance from that sh!t of a father (magically turned into a laid-in-state
"statesman") and mother-of-string-of-pearls, and of course Cheney and the rest of the corpo-gov policy gang.
The Consent Manufacturers are whitewashing an evil man and his slicker but equally evil successor and his glamorous spouse.
Helluva job, Georgie! Full marks for kicking the world a long way down a dark road.
the dumb cluck thing was mostly an act. he was deliberately talking that way not only to paint himself as stupid, but also
because those in power assume we must be spoken to as children (they've studied president speeches since JFK have decreased from
high school level to 6th grade in complexity, word usage etc).
see Pelosi's daughter's film of his campaign trail. He's no Angel Merkel, but sly enough for politics in this country
and most third world corruptocracies.
In our kayfabe duoparty system, it also gave the "opposing" side the "W is a Chimp" talking point to harp on (dress rehearsal
for the same stuff against tRUMP).
Abu Ghraib was not an anomaly, Con Son Island served the same purpose during the Vietnam War. When I was young I was proud
to be an American Citizen, we had the Bill of Rights, the Military was controlled by Civilians and their oath was to defend the
Constitution from "All Enemies Foreign and Domestic.". I have been horrified, ashamed and deeply saddened by what has happened
in the US over the last half Century or so.
And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
You actually "˜blogged' back when we had to use punch cards to program our PCs? How oh how did you clamber on up out of "the
Well" so many times a week? I am somewhat convinced that the Hollerith Cards Protocol was the origin of the Twitter 140 character
limit.
I also "lived through" the "˜Reign of "W""˜ and see it as a Time of Prophecy. Most of the things we are now staring down the
barrel of were effectuated then.
I may be foilly, (may be? who am I kidding,) but I view the 2000 election as a major turning point of American history.
I view the 2008 election as the major failing-to-turn-back-when-we-had-the-chance point. Obama could have undone Bush's worst
policies, but instead he cemented them into place forever.
Our elites are both stupid and evil, but Bush is more stupid and Obama is more evil.
All the pomp and circumstance surrounding the personage of the President serves to conceal the people behind the scenes who
vetted and groomed said president, and actively advise him while in office. It's in this way that a Jimmy Carter may be viewed
as a gentle soul so far as presidents go, but he was actually vetted by Brzezinski on behalf of the CFR goons. Once in office
he was then advised by Brzezinski and Volcker, among other assorted lunatics. And he gladly took their advice the entire time.
That's how he came to be president in the first place. And so it goes.
albrt: I agree with your take. Obama campaigned as an anti-war candidate (at least wrt Iraq). He then proceeded to "˜surge'
into Afghanistan and added Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to the regime change mix. Never a thought given to prosecuting the war criminals:
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Feith, Wolfowitz, Powell, et al; much less even consider a truth and reconciliation commission.
Obama was equally complicit in this never ending horror show and, I am hopeful, history will hold him equally accountable.
Could you explain your view that Obama and Trump are "worse than that" (Bush-Cheney).?
As far as harm that George W. Bush did and launched (illegal/immoral wars, domestic surveillance, tax cuts for the wealthy"¦.)
Bush should take the award.
Obama did push for military action in Libya, but at least held back from Syria.
The administrations after Bush "kicked the can down the road" but he initiated the events they simply continued. And Trump
did attempt to pull troops back from Bush initiated wars. How is Trump worse than Bush? What are your metrics?
I am just a commenter here, but I would say that . . .
When Obama deliberately and with malice aforethought turned all the admitted (and in fact proudly self-avowed) war-criminals
and criminals-against humanity loose, free and clear under "look forward not back", he routinised and permanentized the up-to-that-very-minute
irregular and extra-constitutional novel methods of governance and practice which the Cheney-Bush Administration had pioneered.
Obama deliberately made torture, aggressive war, etc. "legal" when America does it and "permanent" as long as America is strong
enough to keep doing it.
He did some other things like that which I don't have time to mention right now. Maybe others will beat me to it.
Most of all, by slickly conning or permitting to self-con numbers of people about "hope and change" to come from an Obama Administration,
he destroyed all hope of hope. He destroyed hope itself. Hope is not a "thing" any more in this country, thanks to Obama.
He may also have destroyed black politicians' dreams of becoming America's " Second Black President" for several decades to
come. Been there, done that. Never Again. But since I am not Black, that is not my problem. That is something Black America can
thank Obama for, if they decide to wake up to the fact of that reality.
Of course , if the Evil Countess Draculamala becomes President after Biden, then I guess I will be proven wrong about that
particular observation.
The Greatest Disappointment in History. No-one else comes close, in terms of the sheer numbers of people globally who he let
down. The Bait and Switch King, The Great Betrayer. After the nightmare of Bush we got him and his "˜eloquence', pulling the wool over the dazzled sheeple's eyes while he entrenched
the 1% and the neocon MI complex, his paymasters, and sponsors for his entry into the overclass.
Last, does any single person with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, bear so much responsibility for the election of
Trump?
Remember that Obama voted in favor of FISAA, the bill that immunized Bush and his flunkies from prosecution for their felony
FISA violations, as a senator, not long before the presidential election. It was impossible to make myself vote for him after
that.
Thanks Lambert. I'd add that the intelligence being sent to the "White House Iraq Group" was being manufactured by the Office
of Special Plans (OSP) which was set up and run by Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. Following Feith's history and connections
alone is a fruitful endeavor for those so inclined.
Among other things, Feith co-authored, along with Richard Perle and David Wurmser, the A Clean Break: A New Strategy For
Securing the Realm paper prepared for the prime minister of a certain foreign country. This is back in 1996. Around the same
time the PNAC boys were formed by Kagan and Kristol and started selling the same policy prescriptions vis a vis Iraq to the pols
and public here.
Feith was also fired from the NSC back in the early 80's for passing classified information to some little country. Fast forward
to his OSP days and, lo and behold, his employee Larry Franklin is convicted of the same thing, along with Steve Rosen and Keith
Weissman of AIPAC.
This stuff has gone on forever. What amount of ventilation is needed to blow this kind of dung out of the Augean stables of
geopolitics? Not much chance of that anyway, given all the incentives and and interests"
Is it luck that Putin and Xi might be a little less monstrous?
It's really sickening to see George W being "rehabilitated" and made to look like some kind of a senior statesman, when he
should be hauled off to the Hague to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. For me, his election in 2000 was mostly
the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country. As a result, the U.S. has Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, in addition
to all the other events mentioned, and don't forget he tried to privatize Social Security.
His eight years as president, for me, was a horror show. What really bothers me is that he got away with all of it "" and now
he's hailed as an eminence gris. I can't help but think that his rehabilitation is to remind us all of how bad Orange Man was
"" Obama was just as bad because he cemented everything W did "" and more.
That is an assignment, which is a violation of our written site Policies. This applies to reader comments when you could easily
find the answer in less than 30 seconds on Google rather than being a jerk and challenging a reader (or even worse, me derivatively)
on bogus grounds.
> For me, [W's] election in 2000 was mostly the beginning of the end of the rule of law in this country.
At this moment I'm writing it is still early days for this thread: there are only 24 comments. In these comments are named
many bad people. However, one name that does not (yet) appear is "˜Clinton'. W was a monster as president (and likely remains
a monster as a human being) but surely Billy Jeff needn't yield to him in his contempt for the rule of law.
Quite right, of course. My comment was specifically in regard to his disdain for and abuse of the rule, and rôle, of law in
the American polity, e.g., his perjury > disbarment. Sort of like the famous photograph of Nelson Rockefeller who, while serving
as VP, was captured giving the finger to a group of protestors; Clinton also oozed that kind of hubristic impunity.
Regarding Clinton, the damage he caused to his own country and the world was substantial. The destruction of Yugoslavia caused
considerable mayhem "" in addition to bombing and breaking apart a sovereign nation, it enabled "liberals" to feel good about
war again, and paved the way for the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.
And the damage done by NAFTA was enormous "" in terms of leading to deaths of despair in both the US and Mexico I suspect NAFTA
has a higher domestic "body count" than any of the subsequent forever wars.
and welfare "reform", the crime bill. Talk of privatizing SSI made commonplace acceptable. Repeal of Glass Steagall.
They were going to do to healthcare what oBLAM succeeded at, 20 years before him but got sidelined by Lewinsky's blue dress
stains. Clintoon is a criminal and so is his spouse, and he did his share of damage everywhere. people who think otherwise might be
looking back with nostalgia on a simpler (pre 9.11) time.
little known covered up crime from his ARK days is the selling of HIV tainted blood (taken from prisoners) to Canada, among
other things.
yet another who had credible rape allegations. which damages our image at home and abroad.
I read that for the very briefest time, somebody or other was selling Total Information Awareness memorabilia with the Total
Information Awareness symbol on it. I wish I had thought to buy a Total Information Awareness mug.
I imagine knockoffs and parodies exist, but I am not sure the real thing is findable any more.
After Dennis Rader, the Wichita serial killer, murdered someone, the cops always found his semen on the floor next to the mutilated
victim. He got sexual pleasure out of gruesome murder. This is how I always pictured Cheney's attitude toward torture. Well. I
tried not to actually picture it.
Talk about your target rich environment. Where do you even start? Where do you begin? A serial business failure, draft dodger,
military deserter, drunk driver "" and all that was before he became President. A man so incurious about the world "" just like
Trump "" that he never even owned a passport until he actually became President and who never knew that Islam (prior to the Iraq
invasion) , for example, was just not one religion but was divided into Sunni and Shia in the same way Christianity is divided
into "" mostly "" Protestant and Catholics. But to me he was always the "Frat Boy President". His family always protected him
from his many flaws and he never had to grow up like his father had to in WW2. Even as President he never grew into the job, again,
just like Trump.
Lambert gives a few good reminders but there were many others and these are just the top of my head. He cared little for the
US Constitution and called it nothing more than a goddamn scrap of paper. He officially made the US a torture nation, not only
by pretending that US laws did not apply in Guantanamo bay but also aboard US Navy ships for which laws definitely did apply.
As part of a movement to make America an oil-fueled hegemony for the 21st century, he invaded Iraq with the firm intention on
invading Iran next so that Washington would have a firm grip on the fuel pump of the world. As he said "" "America is addicted
to oil." He dropped the ball on 9/11 through over-obsessing on Iraq and in the immediate aftermath sent jets around the country
"" when all jets were grounded "" to fly Saudi royalty back to Saudi Arabia before the FBI could interrogate them about all their
knowledge of the attack. All this to hide his very deep connections with the Saudis.
I could go on for several more paragraphs but what would be the point? For the neocons he was a great fronts-man to be followed
by a even greater one. I sometimes think that if Biden was a "˜real' Republican, then he would have been a great vice-president
for Bush. And now the establishment and their trained seals in the media are trying to make him out as "America's Favourite Uncle"
or something so that when he dies, he will have the same sort of funeral as John McCain did. And I predict that tens of thousands
of veterans around the country will then raise their glasses to him "" and then pour the contents on the ground.
W's rehab continues in the UK MSM, not just the Independent. The worst offenders are probably the Grauniad and Channel 4, both
Blairite.
The rehab mirrored the rise of Trump. His lack of interest in war upset these preachy imperialists.
Using Michelle Obama to facilitate the rehab brought id pol into the equation and made it easier. It was remarkable how often
the above photo is used in the neo liberal and neo con media.
Thank you, Colonel. That foto is remarkable and I suspect that the origins for the idea for it may lay on the other side of
the pond as it seemed so familiar-
There is a blog called Rigorous Intuition 2.0. Many of its blogposts are about the Bush period and Bush related subjects and
events. ( Many others are not). The sections on 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina probably have the highest percent of Bush-related blogposts,
in case one is interested.
Jeff Wells wrote some interesting essays in the Bush years, though many of his connections were a bit too far out, even for
me. He had some striking collateral evidence for his concept of High Weirdness in high places "" sex abuse, torture and magick
figuring prominently, juxtaposed with political skulduggery, and financial crimes and misdemeanours. The Gannon/Guckert affair,
the Franklin ring and Gary Caradori were the sort of thing that laced his quite penetrating analyses of events. Facts were jumping
off points for speculations, but given our lack of facts his imaginings were a nourishment of sorts, though often very troubling
indeed.
Who needs to make shit up during those years?
The facts"¦the shit he actually did, was glossed over or simply forgotten.
If shit was made up about his sorry ass i didn't bother checking, Sir.
I just assumed it was true.
Bushies destroyed the country. If there's a country in 100 years they'll be paying for those years.
And then came obama and big Mike
People have been brain washed by the glossed over history of the US they are taught. It gives people a false belief of our
past. The phrase American Exceptionalism comes to mind. It is a myth. The real history is out there but you have to search it out. From
it's beginning continuing to today our government is responsible for bad behavior.
Some scholars like Noam Chomsky write about
our real history. Unfortunately most people don't read this material. They are content with our glossed over shining star version
of US history that unfortunately continues to be taught in our educational system , starting in elementary school continuing through
a 4 year college education. Our system of government is so corrupted , I don't believe it can be fixed.
Nixon was rehabbed so he could open China, Kissinger got to keep his mantle. W portrayed by Josh Brolin pretty good take. Nice
to see dunking on GW, but the cycle of rehabilitation is due. The question is can he do some good or is there too much mud on
his boots. Can't see W as a new Jimmy Carter. Glossing over history begins the moment it's made. Makes me miss LBJ
Between 1998 and 2000, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, about 1000 prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison were executed and buried
in mass graves.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prison
How many Abu Ghraib prisoners did the US army execute?
Tell me again how many Iraqis were killed by the US Army because they were doing their own version of "Red Dawn"? And that
tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive if Saddam was simply left in place. Here is a video to watch
while you have a little think about it-
We Americans have this thing called exceptionalism which among other things creates the idea that our government is more virtuous
than others. It's a useful idea in that it calls us to be different and better than the average nation, and certainly different
and better than a cruel dictatorship. But it's also a dangerous idea because too many of us actually believe it to be true. Our
atrocities are different in kind, but the scale is the same.
We are not at Hitler/Stalin/Mao standards ""yet"" but who's to say
that could never happen here? One of the bafflements of the 20th century was how a civilized people descended into the dark barbarism
of Nazi Germany.
"(I am omitting many, many others, including Hurricane Katrina, the Plame Affair, Medicare Part D, the Cheney Energy Task Force,
that time Dick Cheney shot an old man in the face, Bush's missing Texas Air National Guard records, Bush gaslighting the 2004
Republican National Convention with terror alerts, and on and on and on. An I didn't even get to 9/11, "You've covered your ass,"
WMDs, and the AUMF. Sorry. It's exhausting.)"
Agree with all the criticism of Bush, Cheney, Obama. On a lighter note, my father-in-law is a high tech oil prospector in W
Texas, much of it in Midland, overlapping in time with W. Both members of the Petroleum Club (been there once, very stuffy) and
worked out at the same gym. Naturally, my wife asked if he had ever seen W naked. Her dad wouldn't answer, but did turn beet red.
We take this as confirmation.
Noam Chomsky observed some thirty years ago that if the Nuremberg standards were applied to all the post-war American Presidents,
then all of them would hang. Chomsky could not have imagined the future sequence of presidents from that point forward, but certainly
they did not break the chain of criminality. My point is that Bush is not unique in the type of crimes, just the enormity of them.
But I also believe he set new standards (lower) for shamelessness. Remember his smirk?
But also remember Obama joking about killing people.
Remember the comedy skit in which GWB "looked" for Iraq WMD's in the Oval office as part of the White House Correspondent's
dinner?
Anyone with any sense of decency would have refused to do this skit, but Bush apparently followed his handlers' advice to get
some laughs. That the USA was led by someone of such limited talent for 8 years speaks volumes. Years ago, a New York Times reader wrote that Hillary Clinton is a "well-connected mediocrity".
That comment may be true for ALL of the recent political candidates, from both parties, for a great many years.
LBJ was definitely not mediocre (civil rights/war on poverty), and would be viewed far more favorably, maybe as great, if he
had pulled out of Vietnam rather than escalating. Carter in his post presidency has much to recommend. Post presidency Bush is painting his portraits rather than having any retrospective regrets for the harm he did.
We have such a dismal record. Little George was the most audacious of all our criminal presidents, but he has plenty of company.
My question is now, looking back, why was the USA incapable of organizing a peaceful world after WW2? I start there. 1945. How
did our ideology become so inept? And everything I have read about our failures over the years is contrasted with what might have
been. We have operated under a system that could not function without extraction. There was always a sell-by date on the cover;
one that we tried to ignore. There's no doubt in my mind that it has finally failed completely. Ignominiously. But we have also
learned and come to admit certain realities. The most important one is that there can be no more war; civilization cannot survive
a modern war. So, ironically, our advanced warfare might well bring a peaceful world without world war. And our advances in science
(mostly militarily inspired) will help us now survive.
Lambert, thank you for this piece. I won't repeat what others have opined. I've had a real problem with Michelle Obama being
the rehabilitation cheerleader leader for Dubya. Imho, we lost all of our rights under the odious Patriot Act, which was pre-written.
Russ Feingold was the lone Senate holdout. And I recall Byrd's ire and rant at the tome they had no time to read, but he caved.
It went downhill from there. The links below, (apologies, I don't know how to fashion a hot link..) are about Bush's crimes and
Amnesty International's exhaustive investigation of them.
I don't have the citation anymore, and I've knocked myself out trying to find it. But there exists a UN human rights commission
memo suggesting (?) Obama to do a number of things: hold Bushco accountable for war crimes etc, as well as address what is termed
as "systematic racism" in incarceration (and more). I had printed it out a number of years ago and can't find it.)
I'm not buying that Bush fils is any elder statesman. He and his cronies used torture, extreme rendition, hired mercenaries and
completely destabilized the Middle East. We still don't have our rights back, and I'm betting the Patriot Act will never go away.
(Nor will data mining under the guise of "targeted advertising" and sold to..the military.) The NYT's link is how Obama elected
to rug sweep and just move ahead! I look forward to Lambert's take on the Obama administration..
Finally, someone has the courage to point out the obvious. An excellent article, well researched and nicely nuanced.
I'm disappointed with the remedy proposed, however. Throwing shoes is not enough; it's merely symbolic. The potential crimes
committed here, including lying us into war, the extent of torture committed, and practices that violate international military
norms and intelligence require a transparent and impartial investigation. One possible venue is the International Criminal Courts
in the Hague.
I've been told many times that sunlight can be an effective deterrent against disease.
Ditto. I am sure the CIA will be grinding the generals as we speak. Even the letter in
Politico could well be one of their strategies. I posted a piece in the open thread yesterday
from The HILL that was
pure propaganda.
USA is not alone in losing guerrilla warfare.
Watch for Biden announcing a 'shake up' of the military command in the next few
weeks/months.
The US military 2021 retreat from Kabul will result in a slaughter in the USA.
I see the Pentagon pulling the plug on the opium income for the CIA. Now THAT is the real
war. So the CIA now has to pay its mercenary army to defend the harvest and extraction. That
added cost to the CIA will not be taken lightly.
"... By Tom Engelhardt. Originally published at TomDispatch ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... I supported the rule of law and human rights, not to mention the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. ..."
"... In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began winding down in 1973, the draft was ended and war itself became a “voluntary†activity for Americans. In other words, it became ever easier not only to not protest American war-making, but to pay no attention to it or to the changing military that went with it. And that military was indeed altering and growing in remarkable ways. ..."
"... “The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on armaments†..."
"... “The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on armaments†..."
"... “Large-scale armaments are inseparable from the expansion of the armed forces and the preparation of plans for a war of conquest. They also induce competitive rearmament of other countries.†..."
Yves here. Englehardt describes how US war-making has been a continuing exercise starting
with World War II. It’s important to recognize that before that, US military
budgets were modest both in national and global terms. But with manufacturing less specialized,
the US was able to turn a considerable amount of its productive capacity to armaments in fairly
short order.
A second point is as someone who was in Manhattan on 9/11, I did not experience the attacks
as war. I saw them as very impressive terrorism. However, I was appalled at how quickly
individuals in positions of authority pushed sentiment in that direction. The attack was on a
Tuesday (I had a blood draw and voted before I even realized Something Bad had happened). I was
appalled to see the saber-rattling in Bush’s speech at the National
Cathedral on Friday. On Sunday, I decided to go to the Unitarian Church around the corner. I
was shocked to hear more martial-speak. And because the church was packed, I had to sit in the
front on the floor, which meant I couldn’t duck out.
Here’s the strange thing in an ever-stranger world: I was born in July
1944 in the midst of a devastating world war. That war ended in August 1945 with the atomic
obliteration of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the most devastating bombs in
history up to that moment, given the sweet code names
“Little Boy†and “Fat Man.â€
I was the littlest of boys at the time. More than three-quarters of a century has passed
since, on September 2, 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro
Umezu
signed the Instrument of Surrender on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay,
officially ending World War II. That was V-J (for Victory over Japan) Day, but in a sense for
me, my whole generation, and this country, war never really ended.
The United States has been at war, or at least in armed conflicts of various sorts, often in
distant lands, for more or less my entire life. Yes, for some of those years, that war was
“cold†(which often meant that such carnage, regularly sponsored
by the CIA, happened largely off-screen and out of sight), but war as a way of life never
really ended, not to this very moment.
In fact, as the decades went by, it would become the
“infrastructure†in which Americans increasingly invested their
tax dollars via aircraft
carriers , trillion-dollar jet fighters, drones armed
with Hellfire missiles, and the creation and maintenance of hundreds of military garrisons
around the globe, rather than roads, bridges, or
rail lines (no less the high-speed
version of the same) here at home. During those same years, the Pentagon budget would grab
an ever-larger percentage of
federal discretionary spending and the full-scale annual investment in what has come to be
known as the national security state would rise to a staggering $1.2
trillion or more.
In a sense, future V-J Days became inconceivable. There were no longer moments, even as wars
ended, when some version of peace might descend and America’s vast military
contingents could, as at the end of World War II, be significantly demobilized. The closest
equivalent was undoubtedly the moment when the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the Cold War
officially ended, and the Washington establishment declared itself globally triumphant. But of
course, the promised “peace dividend†would never be paid out as
the first Gulf War with Iraq occurred that very year and the serious downsizing of the U.S.
military (and the CIA) never happened.
Never-Ending War
Consider it typical that, when President Biden recently
announced the official ending of the nearly 20-year-old American conflict in Afghanistan
with the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from that country by 9/11/21, it would functionally
be paired with the news that the
Pentagon budget was about to rise yet again from its record heights in the Trump years.
“Only in America,†as retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and
historian William Astore wrote recently,
“do wars end and war budgets go up.â€
Of course, even the ending of that never-ending Afghan War may prove exaggerated. In fact,
let’s consider Afghanistan apart from the rest of this
country’s war-making history for a moment. After all, if I had told you in
1978 that, of the 42 years to follow, the U.S. would be involved in war in a single country for
30 of them and asked you to identify it, I can guarantee that Afghanistan
wouldn’t have been your pick. And yet so it’s been. From
1979 to 1989, there was the
CIA-backed Islamist extremist war against the Soviet army there (to the tune of billions
and billions of dollars). And yet the obvious lesson the Russians learned from that adventure,
as their military limped home in defeat and the Soviet Union imploded not long after
â€" that Afghanistan is indeed the “graveyard of
empires†â€" clearly had no impact in Washington.
Or how do you explain the 19-plus years of warfare there that followed the 9/11 attacks,
themselves committed by a small Islamist outfit, al-Qaeda, born as an American ally in that
first Afghan War? Only recently, the invaluable Costs of War Project
estimated that America’s second Afghan War has cost this country almost
$2.3 trillion (not including the price of lifetime care for its vets) and has left at least
241,000 people dead, including 2,442 American service members. In 1978, after the disaster of
the Vietnam War, had I assured you that such a never-ending failure of a conflict was in our
future, you would undoubtedly have laughed in my face.
And yet, three decades later, the U.S. military high command still seems not faintly to have
grasped the lesson that we “taught†the Russians and then
experienced ourselves. As a result, according to recent reports, they have uniformly
opposed President Biden’s decision to withdraw all American troops from
that country by the 20th anniversary of 9/11. In fact, it’s not even clear
that, by September 11, 2021, if the president’s proposal goes according to
plan, that war will have truly ended. After all, the same military commanders and intelligence
chiefs seem intent on organizing long-distance versions of that conflict or, as the New
York Timesput
it , are determined to “fight from afar†there. They are
evidently even considering
establishing new bases in neighboring lands to do so.
America’s
“forever wars†â€" once known as the Global War on
Terror and, when the administration of George W. Bush launched it, proudly aimed at 60 countries â€"
do seem to be slowly winding down. Unfortunately, other kinds of potential wars, especially new
cold wars with China and Russia (involving new kinds of
high-tech weaponry) only seem to be gearing up.
War in Our Time
In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began
winding down in 1973, the draft was
ended and war itself became a “voluntary†activity for
Americans. In other words, it became ever easier not only to not protest American war-making,
but to pay no attention to it or to the changing military that went with it. And that military
was indeed altering and growing in remarkable ways.
In the years that followed, for instance, the elite Green Berets of the Vietnam era would be
incorporated into an ever more expansive set of Special Operations forces, up to 70,000 of
them (larger, that is, than the armed forces of many countries). Those special operators would
functionally become a second, more secretive American military embedded inside the larger force
and largely freed from citizen oversight of any sort. In 2020, as Nick Turse reported, they
would be stationed in a staggering 154 countries
around the planet, often involved in semi-secret conflicts “in the
shadows†that Americans would pay remarkably little attention to.
Since the Vietnam War, which roiled the politics of this nation and was protested in the
streets of this country by an antiwar movement that came to include significant numbers of
active-duty soldiers and veterans, war has played a remarkably recessive role in American life.
Yes, there have been the endless thank-yous
offered by citizens and corporations to “the troops.†But
that’s where the attentiveness stops, while both political parties, year
after endless year, remain remarkably
supportive of a growing Pentagon budget and the industrial (that is, weapons-making) part
of the military-industrial complex. War, American-style, may be forever, but â€"
despite, for instance, the militarization
of this country’s police and the way in which those wars came home
to the Capitol last January 6th â€" it remains a remarkably distant reality for most
Americans.
One explanation: though the U.S. has, as I’ve said, been functionally at
war since 1941, there were just two times when this country felt war directly â€" on
December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and on September 11, 2001, when 19
mostly Saudi hijackers in commercial jets struck New York’s World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.
And yet, in another sense, war has been and remains us. Let’s just
consider some of that war-making for a moment. If you’re of a certain age,
you can certainly call to mind the big wars: Korea (1950-1953), Vietnam (1954-1975)
â€" and don’t forget the brutal bloodlettings in neighboring Laos
and Cambodia as well â€" that first Gulf War of 1991, and the disastrous second one,
the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Then, of course, there was that Global War on Terror that began
soon after September 11, 2001, with the invasion of Afghanistan, only to spread to much of the
rest of the Greater Middle East, and to significant parts of Africa. In March, for instance,
the
first 12 American special-ops trainers
arrived in embattled Mozambique, just one more small extension of an already widespread
American anti-Islamist terror role (
now failing ) across much of that continent.
And then, of course, there were the smaller conflicts (though not necessarily so to the
people in the countries involved) that we’ve now generally forgotten about,
the ones that I had to search my fading brain to recall. I mean, who today thinks much about
President John F. Kennedy’s April 1961 CIA disaster at the Bay of Pigs in
Cuba; or President Lyndon Johnson’s sending of 22,000 U.S. troops to the
Dominican Republic in 1965 to “restore orderâ€; or President
Ronald Reagan’s version of “aggressive
self-defense†by U.S. Marines sent to Lebanon who, in October 1983, were attacked
in their barracks by a suicide bomber, killing 241 of them;
or the anti-Cuban invasion of the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada that
same month in which 19 Americans were killed and 116 wounded?
And then, define and categorize them as you will, there were the CIA’s
endless militarized attempts (sometimes with the help of the U.S. military) to intervene in the
affairs of other countries, ranging from taking the nationalist side against Mao
Zedong’s communist forces in China from 1945 to 1949 to stoking a small ongoing
conflict in Tibet in the 1950s and early 1960s, and overthrowing the governments of Guatemala
and Iran, among other places. There were an
estimated 72 such interventions from 1947 to 1989, many warlike in nature. There were, for
instance, the proxy conflicts in Central America, first in Nicaragua against the Sandinistas
and then in El Salvador, bloody events even if few U.S. soldiers or CIA agents died in them.
No, these were hardly “wars,†as traditionally defined, not all
of them, though they did sometimes involve military coups and the like, but they were generally
carnage-producing in the countries they were in. And that only begins to suggest the range of
this country’s militarized interventions in the post-1945 era, as journalist
William Blum’s “
A Brief History of Interventions †makes all too clear.
Whenever you look for the equivalent of a warless American moment, some reality trips you
up. For instance, perhaps you had in mind the brief period between when the Red Army limped
home in defeat from Afghanistan in 1989 and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, that
moment when Washington politicians, initially shocked that the Cold War had ended so
unexpectedly, declared themselves triumphant on Planet Earth. That brief period might almost
have passed for “peace,†American-style, if the U.S. military
under President George H. W. Bush hadn’t, in fact, invaded Panama
(“Operation Just Causeâ€) as 1989 ended to get rid of its
autocratic leader Manuel Noriega (a former CIA asset, by the way). Up to 3,000 Panamanians
(including many civilians) died along with 23 American troops in that episode.
And then, of course, in January 1991 the First Gulf War began . It
would result in perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi deaths and “onlyâ€
a few hundred deaths among the U.S.-led coalition of forces. Air strikes against Iraq would
follow in the years to come. And let’s not forget that even Europe
wasn’t exempt since, in 1999, during the presidency of Bill Clinton, the
U.S. Air Force launched a destructive 10-week bombing
campaign against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.
And all of this remains a distinctly incomplete list, especially in this century when
something like 2
00,000 U.S. troops have regularly been stationed abroad and U.S. Special Operations forces
have deployed to staggering numbers of countries, while American drones regularly attacked
“terrorists†in nation after nation and American presidents
quite literally became assassins-in-chief . To this day,
what scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson called
an American “empire of bases†â€" a historically
unprecedented 800 or more of them â€"
across much of the planet remains untouched and, at any moment, there could be more to come
from the country whose military budget
at least equals those of the next 10 (yes, that’s 10!) countries
combined, including China and Russia.
A Timeline of Carnage
The last three-quarters of this somewhat truncated post-World War II American Century have,
in effect, been a timeline of carnage, though few in this country would notice or acknowledge
that. After all, since 1945, Americans have only once been “at
war†at home, when almost 3,000 civilians died in an attack meant to provoke
â€" well, something like the war on terror that also become a war of terror and a
spreader of terror movements in our world.
As journalist William Arkin recently argued , the U.S. has created a
permanent war state meant to facilitate “endless war.†As he
writes, at this very moment, our nation “is killing or bombing in perhaps 10
different countries,†possibly more, and there’s nothing
remarkably out of the ordinary about that in our recent past.
The question that Americans seldom even think to ask is this: What if the U.S. were to begin
to dismantle its empire of bases,
repurpose so many of those militarized taxpayer dollars to our domestic needs, abandon this
country’s focus on permanent war, and forsake the Pentagon as our holy
church? What if, even briefly, the wars, conflicts, plots, killings, drone assassinations, all
of it stopped?
What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and came home?
Here in Asia, many people think the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was an act of
flaying the dying horse, since Japan was staring at defeat even without the bombs. It was a
totally callous act of the USA to drop the bombs just to “test their
efficacyâ€.
Why then the bombs could not have dropped on Germany that was still waging war at that
time? Asians smirk and say one) the “collateral†damage of
radiation etc., to neighbours like France who were Allies and two) they were (and are)
‘whites’; unlike Japan and its neighbours.
I think that you have the dates mixed up. The war against Germany in Europe ended on May
7th and the testing of the first atom bomb was not until 16th July when the first bomb went
off at Alamogordo in New Mexico. The following month the two remaining atom bombs that the US
had were dropped on Japan. In short, the bombs arrived too late to use in Europe.
The bomb was built with Berlin being the first target, but because the war ended a year
sooner than what everyone thought it would and making the very first bombs took longer than
planned, it was used on Japan. It was probably used as a demonstration for the Soviets, but
considering that sixty-six other large Japanese cities had already been completely destroyed
by “conventional†firebombing, and in
Tokyo’s case, with greater casualties than either nuclear bombing, the
Bomb wasn’t really needed. The descriptions and the personal accounts of
the destruction of Tokyo (or Dresden and Hamburg) are (if that is even possible) worse than
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Honestly, just what new and excitingly horrific ways of killing people the atom bomb used
was not clearly understood. They generally thought of it as a bigger kaboom in a smaller
package. And honestly, being pre-cremated during an entire night with your family and
neighbors in the local bomb-shelter or dying after a few days, weeks, or even a month from
radiation poisoning, is not really a difference is it?
“FOR 20 years after Harry Truman ordered the atomic bomb dropped on
Japan in August 1945, most American scholars and citizens subscribed to the original,
official version of the story: the President had acted to avert a horrendous invasion of
Japan that could have cost 200,000 to 500,000 American lives. Then a young political
economist named Gar Alperovitz published a book of ferocious revisionism,
“Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam†(1965). While
acknowledging the paucity of evidence available at the time, he argued that dropping the
atomic bomb “was not needed to end the war or to save livesâ€
but was Truman’s means of sending a chastening message to the Soviet
Union.â€
If we accept that at face value, then certainly the second bombing was unecessary. The
threat would have been enough. But the US had a second bomb design to
test…
Few things working here. The US needed Japan to surrender quickly before Stalin invaded
(which they asked him to do) so he couldn’t get his forces onto the island
where the Allies couldn’t stop him. Most Japanese feared Stalin and
preferred surrendering to the US but the Japanese government was trying to use talks with the
USSR to get better terms than unconditional surrender (little did they know Stalin was
licking his chops for more territory under his iron curtain).
The first bomb design (little man) was significantly less ambitious, it was so certain to
function they never tested it because a study had proven there was almost no chance it would
fail.
Fat boy was the scientific leap in technology needing to be demonstrated. Building little
man was mostly a matter of enriching Uranium vs Fat boy Plutonium enrichment harder and
detonation mechanism more complicated. However the end result was a bomb that could produce
significantly higher yields with smaller amounts of fissionable material where both the size
of the bomb could be significantly reduced and the yield of the device could be significantly
scaled up at the same time.
Fat boy demonstrated the USA could someday be putting nukes on V2 rockets recently
smuggled out of Germany. Even more important Fat boy is a precursor to the mechanism that
initiates the H bomb fusion devices that Edward Teller would soon be Dr Strangloving.
Even after Trinity Fat boy still had very high odds of failure. They feared looking like
fools if it failed and the USSR ended up with the Plutoniumt. As a result the US Air Force
dropped little man first because it was certain to work. After the 1st bomb dropped, the
Soviets declared war and began their invasion of Japan which forced
Truman’s hand to drop Fat boy too. Even after Fat Boy, war mongers in
Japan still refused to surrender where Emperor Hirohito finally overruled them and although
there was a military coupe attempted, it failed.
Thus ended the most bloody conflict in the history of human kind.
I’m not saying it isn’t true, but is there any
actual evidence that the bombs were dropped as “a message to the Soviet
Union†and not to speed the end of the war?
Also, who exactly wanted to send this “message� The US
generals were against it, I understand.
“What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and
came home?â€
a. All those families whose livelihood is based on waging war would have to find a new
job. These people will fight tooth and nail to avoid change
b. The resource grabs by the rich people behind the Oz-like curtain would fail. Their fate
would be that of the English aristocrats who have to rent out their castles in order to
maintain a roof over their head. These people will fight tooth and nail to avoid change
c. The general public would have a fire-hose of newly-available resources to direct toward
activities which benefit all the rest of the families outside A and B above
d. Fear-based leverage by the few over the many would be diminished. Attention would be
re-directed toward valid problems we all face
=====
There’s an interesting question which I see posed from time to time,
and often ask myself. It runs thus:
“Who decides who our “enemies†are, and
why they are “enemies�
This is a fundamental question which I believe very few of us can currently answer
accurately. Yet this question carries a $1.2T per year consequence. That’s
a lot of money to allocate toward something we know nothing about.
One time I asked an acquaintance â€" who spent a career at CIA â€"
that question. His reply was “Why, Congress decides who our enemies are,
and why. Congress then tells the CIA what to doâ€.
I wasn’t sure if he truly believed that. It’s quite
possible he did, of course, and I’m sure many of the people in group A
above surely do think they’re doing honorable and patriotic work.
Group B above â€" the people who are actually moving the chess pieces of
“the Great Game†â€" they are pretty clear on who
defines our “enemies†and why they are
“enemiesâ€. And they wisely don’t stand in
front of podiums and explain their actions. These people aren’t visible,
or explained, or known because it’s better for them not to be.
The way to combat manipulation by these predators is to:
a. Know them by their actions. Predators predate.
b. Don’t participate. In order for them to predate, they need minions.
Don’t be a minion. Instead…
c. Be the giver, the creator and the constructor of things that are of no use to
predators
It’s not the soldiers but the contractors who live in dumpy overpriced
holes like Northern Virginia.
As to your acquaintance, my godfather was in the CIA in the 60’s and a
bit into the 70’s, and he might not say Congress as much as the
President’s Chief of Staff as threat they choose what the President sees.
You have to remember it’s primarily an organization of boring paper
pushers looking to get promoted which requires political patronage. Imagine getting the
Canada desk. You’ll be at a dead end unless you paint it as a grave
threat. Then there is information overload and just the sheer size of the US. They would file
reports, he mentioned an incident in Africa in the wake of decolonization when y godfather
was stationed there that maybe warranted the President’s attention, but to
get information to the President’s CoS took so long, it was in the
President’s daily newspaper before the report could be handled. By then,
why care, given the size of the US? Who can get to the Chief of Staff? Congress, so everyone
else lobbies them. The CIA director is an appendage of the CoS.
When the President wants something, everyone jumps, but when the President
doesn’t care, everyone is jockeying get for patronage.
The war machine is sustained by plutocrats and their sociopathic flunkies in the national
security state. How this works is clearly depicted in “The
Devil’s Chessboard,†by David Talbot, a deeply depressing
chronicle of how Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles did the dirty work of US
corporations worldwide. The arrogance, impunity, and irresponsibility of these men
established the framework of our secret government, which remains intact to this day.
It would be pleasant to believe that this evil persists because of public ignorance, but
like the good Germans of the Nazi era, Americans accept that deception, torture, and murder
are routinely practiced on our behalf to maintain our high standard of living and to keep us
“safe.†The reverence for the operatives of the US national
security state is evident throughout our popular culture, and that is a damning judgment on
the American people.
Of course the core problems are stationed at the place hardest to get to: right between
our ears. This complicity disease runs deep and wide.
While I often succumb to that same despondency you mentioned, occasionally I interrupt the
doom tape to notice that there’s a lot of people who are paddling hard
toward a new ethos…like the posters here @ NC, for ex.
So today I’m going to indulge in a little happiness. Plant a tree. Do
something good, something durable, something hopeful.
Something that offers no real hope of rent extraction potential.
It was nice being accused of supporting the terrorists because I supported the rule of
law and human rights, not to mention the United States Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
WTF do some people think that the Founders wanted an extremely small army, a large
organized militia, and passed the Bill of Rights? It was a reaction to what the British Army
did to them (using much of the same tactics as the current
“justice†system does today.) The ignorance and lack of
thinking is really annoying.
Much of what the British military did was not good. Even now some of it would not be
allowed in a court of law, but I do not recall them being nearly as violent, brutal, or
deadly in their tactics while enforcing the King’s Law as the current
regime or the local police are. That the milder British tactics caused a civil war with in a
decade, and that the people then had less to fear from an occupying army as we do from
“our†police is disturbing to think on.
But wars always come home, don’t they? Faux toughness on the supposed
baddies here with claims of treason and insurrections on protests and riots now that often
would hardly be in the news fifty years ago, so great was the protests and riots happening
then. The cry to use the same tactics that did not work overseas to be used here at home.
“To keep us safe.â€
There’s truth to this, but once the war was really on, British and
Tory/Loyalist brutality had decisive effects on public opinion, putting lots of people into
the Whig/Patriot camp. Tom Paine makes great efforts to publicize British sexual assaults,
looting, and general thugishness as they chase the Continental Army across New Jersey in
1776; the cruelty of backcountry British cavalry officers and Tory rangers in the Carolinas
was legendary as the war reaches its latter phases.
And there was brutality on the other side, too, especially for Loyalist elites who faced a
kind of “social death.†It was a war, after all, as well as a
social revolution. It wasn’t France in 1789 or Russia in 1917, but it was
rough, especially given the small population size.
Except as Engelhardt just pointed out, the national security state does not
“maintain our high standard of livingâ€.
It’s an immense net drain on our standard of living. The only Americans
made well-to-do or wealthy by it are those who are directly involved in supplying contract
goods and services to the system.
I don’t know if Americans “accept†it as
opposed to taking a dim view of being able to affect change.
The levers the average person has to change the behavior of the state is infinitesimal.
Add to that the scope of action and Overton window mediated by the hypernormalized press
ecosystem just means those in power get to act without restraint.
Hell, Obama literally said “We tortured some
folks†and the media and government barely shrugged. To my knowledge, no one went
to jail, no one was brought up in the Hague, and some of the same ghouls that perpetrated
such crimes got cushy commenter jobs in the media.
Right now, localities can’t even keep their police from regularly
killing citizens.
What does the average person do in the face of such things?
Hell, Obama literally said “We tortured some folks†and
the media and government barely shrugged. To my knowledge, no one went to jail, no one was
brought up in the Hague, and some of the same ghouls that perpetrated such crimes got cushy
commenter jobs in the media.
No one went to jail. Certainly no one went before the Hague. No bankers went to jail
either. Even during the nutty Reagan administration, people went to jail for financial
shenanigans. Some got long sentences. Hell, the Iran-Contra stuff was at least covered and
people were indicted, even if they all got pardoned. Not anymore. These shenanigans are the
norm and happen right out in the open. I’d imagine some of
it’s been given legal cover. It seems like it’s become
the expected behavior within these circles. To act otherwise â€" to attempt to be
honest, in other words â€" is seen as weak and is mocked as fiercely as a weaker
child on the playground might be.
It’s just a continuing regression. And as you note,
it’s an excellent career builder:
“Looking for a job in mainstream media? Research has shown that
reducing your sense of ethics and morality actually helps you get ahead.â€
Doubtless, Ms. Smith and Ms. Engelhardt have provided a key public service here. And I
speak as a veteran, decorated for service in the War Over Oil (a.k.a. the
“Persian Gulf Warâ€).
Between the vast economic inequality currently raging in our country, the social
stratification enabled by access to colleges and universities accepted as
“eliteâ€, the trashing of Constitutional protections (e.g. the
4th Amendment, now thoroughly eviscerated owing to the “PATRIOT
ACTâ€), and the rampaging rule by “intelligence
agencies†over foreign policy, I see no reason why any father should tell his
children that this is a country worth fighting and dying for. [Think: China] Of course, the
Empire â€" just as Rome did in its dying days â€" will be able to find
enough desperately poor who will take the king’s shilling and don the
uniform.
If anyone wishes to prove me wrong, let them work for a substantive
“peace dividend†for a 2-3 years. Then we can sit down and
talk; I’ll buy the ale.
In these years, one key to so much of this is the fact that, as the Vietnam War began
winding down in 1973, the draft was ended and war itself became a
“voluntary†activity for Americans. In other words, it became
ever easier not only to not protest American war-making, but to pay no attention to it or to
the changing military that went with it. And that military was indeed altering and growing in
remarkable ways.
Because, imo,
Since the Vietnam War, which roiled the politics of this nation and was protested in the
streets of this country by an antiwar movement that came to include significant numbers of
active-duty soldiers and veterans, war has played a remarkably recessive role in American
life.
Despite having already ‘pledged’ at my Uncles
Invitation, with the Draft’s End, I had great hope my future would see the
great Peace Dividand rather than 9 more Opportunity Conflicts.
Little did that then 21 year old see the brilliance in that Pentagon Strategy.
I Now firmly support a No Exemption Draft for all post HS.
Military Service being only one, and a restricted one, of many counter-balancing options
available for Public Service for that cohort.
This article reminded me of one of the best Congressional Research Service reports that
I’ve read: Instances of Use of United States
Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2020 . Despite being just a list of dates and locations with a
brief description, it comes in at around 50 pages, which I think is a testament to how
important foreign military engagement has been to the growth of the US even before 1945.
Between these foreign wars and the genocidal war against the indigenous people of the
continent I think it’s fair to say this country has been at war since its
founding.
Correct. Even the so called Louisiana Purchase was not really a purchase of land, but a
faux “option†to engage in land treaties with the native
Americans;.the US chose Indian Wars and relocation treaties that have been violated
repeatedly. (This territory is now known as the Red States.)
The rest of the land extending to the west coast was acquired through conquest with the
new nation of Mexico. I guess the only real honest acquisition would be
Seward’s Icebox.
>>I guess the only real honest acquisition would be Seward’s
Icebox.
Alaska has only been inhabited for a few tens of thousands of years. I would think that
the natives should have some say about who “owns†the land
even though the Russian Empire did say that they did. The reasons sometimes included the use
of guns. As for stealing Mexico’s territory, again that was, and in some
areas still is, inhabited by natives who somehow became under the
“governance†of New Spain or the country of Mexico despite not
being asked about it and often still a majority part of the population in many areas when
Mexico lost control.
Often, Europeans or Americans would show up somewhere, plant a flag, and say that they
claimed or owned the very inhabited land, sometimes with farms and even entire cities. Rather
arrogant, I would say.
I agree. Seward’s Icebox was not empty at time of sale. My
understanding is that Seward thought it was. So faraway, so cold; no one would be living
there, right?
As I’ve commented here many times, it was small pox not small bullets
that allowed the Old World to take the New. There were estimates of 20 million native
Americans living on the land now known as Mexico and the US. 90% were felled by Old World
disease before Custer lost his scalp to the northern Plains Indians. In a fair fight the
Indians would be enforcing the treaties.
It is amazing how the US continues to engage in war and still lose: Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Iraq. . .Ukraine?
For nearly a decade now every time I’ve read about the war in
Afghanistan I’ve thought about Tim Kreider’s mordant
2011 cartoon We
Could’ve Had The Moon, Instead We Get Afghanistan . Ten years later,
that $432 billion has ballooned to $2.3 trillion (and more) and every word he wrote still
stands. :-(
The author has retired from cartooning and now focuses on essay writing.
We are going to have to halt the production lines.
The warehouses are full of bombs already, there is no more room.
Biden to the rescue; he’s started dropping bombs already.
When you have a large defence industry, you need war.
The only purpose is to use up the output from the defence industry.
“The dislike of government spending, whether on public investment
or consumption, is overcome by concentrating government expenditure on
armamentsâ€
“Large-scale armaments are inseparable from the expansion of the
armed forces and the preparation of plans for a war of conquest. They also induce competitive
rearmament of other countries.â€
These were the lessons they learnt from the 1930s.
So now, here we are. And how do we create a peaceful world? Refit the US military for a
sustainable world. It will prove to be very useful. We and other advanced nations still have
the advantage for prosperity but we should not abuse it. The whole idea back in 1945 was for
the world to prosper. So I’ll just suggest my usual hack: Get rid of the
profit motive. It’s pure mercantilism. And totally self defeating in a
world seeking sustainability for everyone.
The Manhattan Project was an enormously expensive enterprise with two components
â€" the development of a uranium bomb (Oak Ridge) and a plutonium bomb (Hanford,
WA).
If no bomb had been used, the project would have been considered a waste of time, and
there would have been a congressional investigation. If only one bomb had been used, half the
cost would have been considered a waste.
I’m not saying these were the only reasons for dropping the bombs. The
event was, as they say, “overdetermined.â€
Biden is privatising the war in Afghanistan. 18,000 private contractors will stay behind
to maintain a landing area for U.S. aircraft should the need arise. According to war monger
Lynn Cheney the "troops will never leave". The U.S. National Guard has been fighting
undeclared wars all over the ME for twenty years and legislation is being proposed at the
state level to end the abuse. I personally know one man who has done three tours in Iraq as a
National Guardsman.
I totally agree with your comments concerning the U.S. government here at home. It is
Bolshevism 2.0.
"... we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents. ..."
"... We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those judgments ..."
"... Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide. ..."
"... You say that Russia thought to manipulate Trump allies and to smear Biden , that Russia and Iran aimed to sway the 2020 election through covert campaigns and that China runs covert operations to influence members of Congress . ..."
"... Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately no soldier got hurt by those rumors. ..."
"... Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things. ..."
"... They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries. ..."
"... Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET. ..."
"... We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments. * ..."
These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is
spilling over the world:
Dear Director of National Intelligence,
we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are
increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our
opponents.
We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful
activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe
to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those
judgments
Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.
Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China
and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately
no soldier got
hurt by those rumors.
Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They
want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things.
They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own
countries.
Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep
telling our that all of it is SECRET.
We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments.
*
Sincerely
The Generals
---- PS: * Either that or shut the fuck up.
The above may well have been a draft for the letter behind
this report :
America’s top spies say they are looking for ways to declassify and
release more intelligence about adversaries’ bad behavior, after a group
of four-star military commanders sent a rare and urgent plea asking for help in the
information war against Russia and China.
The internal memo from nine regional military commanders last year, which was reviewed by
POLITICO and not made public, implored spy agencies to provide more evidence to combat
"pernicious conduct."
Only by "waging the truth in the public domain against America’s 21st
century challengers†can Washington shore up support from American allies, they
said. But efforts to compete in the battle of ideas, they added, are hamstrung by overly
stringent secrecy practices.
“We request this help to better enable the US, and by extension its
allies and partners, to win without fighting, to fight now in so-called gray zones, and to
supply ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives," the commanders who oversee U.S. military
forces in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, as well as special operations troops, wrote to
then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last January.
“Unfortunately, we continue to miss opportunities to clarify truth,
counter distortions, puncture false narratives, and influence events in time to make a
difference," they added.
The generals must have been seriously miffed to write such a letter. There have been a
number of published intelligence judgments where the NSA had expressed
low confidence in conclusions made mainly by the CIA. The NSA is part of the military.
Between two bureaucracies such an accusing letter or internal memo is the equivalent of a
declaration of war. It is doubtful that the intelligence folks would win that fight.
That gives some hope that the Office of the DNI and the agencies below it will now lessen
their production of nonsensical claims.
Posted by b on April 28, 2021 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink
Thanks for that b....is it rubber meets the road time?
I just read that the US is getting all its ambassadorial folk out of Afghanistan....maybe
somebody is believing May 1 is a firmer deadline than the Biden 9/11 myth.
The shit show is about to crash, IMO, but if it is in slow motion, this crazy could go on
for a while....what geo-political straw will break the camel's back?
Lewis Black, a pretty good US comedian, used to have a bit in the mid-2000's where he would
ask the W administration flacks why they didn't just make up evidence about the Iraq WMDs
after they "found out" that there were no weapons in the country. Black would tell them just
make it up; we're used to it. Just give us an excuse to believe in the BS for God's sake;
we'll do it!
I feel it's the same with our satrap nations around the world. At this time, is there
anyone who does not understand that US foreign policy is conducted for and by MICIMATT (look
it up)? So the generals have got nothing to worry about: keep pounding out that BS; there's a
willing, able, and ready corps of salesmen and women in the media who will make enough of the
public believe it for "democracy's" purposes.
General Mackenzie who testified before the US House Armed Services Committee said
Iran’s widespread use of drones means that the US is operating without
complete air superiority for the first time since the Korean War.
Iran has time and again stated that its military capabilities are merely defensive and are
designed to deter foreign threats.
General Flynn had been head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (military).
The CIA was out to get him. It took a while but they eventually hamstrung him good.
"Dear Generals, who haven't won a war in 75 years, so much for the DIA huh? We'd love to
share our intelligence with you, our evidence showing the overwhelming and egregious misdeeds
of our hateful, spiteful disgusting enemies, whose questioning of our Word should be met with
charges of treason, but to give you evidence on top of our own unquestionable and 100%
correct threat estimations, would compromise our Intelligence Gathering Methods which are of
the strictest security and would threaten the ongoing ability of this Agency to gather and
disseminate the unquestionable facts that without fear of contradiction we know is the truth.
In short, dear Generals - work on winning a war, any war, and don't meddle in places that
befuddle your ability to follow orders. Hooah! The CIA."
Intel Wars: DIA, CIA and Flynn’s Battle to Consolidate Spying
The Defense Department wants in on the spying game. But will the CIA block their
efforts?
The CIA essentially absorbed the Pentagon’s only military-wide spying
agency seven years ago [2006]
when the Defense HUMINT Service was dismantled -- and now, the Pentagon wants it back.
The CIA is quietly pushing the Armed Services committees along, hoping that
Flynn’s DCS will be remembered by history as a failed power
grab.
The CIA/FBI/17+ known/unknown agencies are clearly a security apparatus that's gone out of
control when even the USA's "nine regional [four-star general] military commanders" are out
of the loop and pleading to be better informed. Worryingly, though, they ask for "ammunition
in the ongoing war of narratives," which they apparently are ready to go right along
with.
Western news media, of course, has become but a compliant weaponized appendage of that
security apparatus, and democracy, which depends on informed voters, is nowhere in control of
any of this.
I do not see how this is possible. Every major event, from Vietnam, to JFK, to 9-11, and a
myriad of others, had US lies baked into the cake. If the US ceased to lie, it would cease to
function as America functions today. It would be incapable of empire.
The US establishment, from the President on down, is based on lies. They cannot survive on
truth.
b ended his post with: " lessen their production of nonsensical claims."
"Nonsensical" misses the mark. They are *agenda-driven* claims.
I don't believe the Generals care one whit whether the spineless jellyfish pols
in other countries see through our lies. The Generals want the Pentagon to
have more participation in shaping the agenda and it's attendant narrative.
The military used to be that part pf the US government apparatus ("deep state") that
emphasized the value and importance of allies the most.
IMHO what is happening here is that the generals sense the imcreasing cracks in the
US-centered alliance system. They attribute it to the work of the intelligence community,
which is certainly a contributing factor, but thr real cause is the relative decline in US
power and general unreliability due to political instability. The USA is less and less
attractive as a partner. When the generals ask another country for a favour as they had been
used to for decades they increasingly often get just questions and excuses in return.
Is this a sign of a struggle between the CIA and Pentagon as to who is the boss of foreign
and war policy? Anybody remember when CIA supported jihadists were fighting Pentagon
supported groups (were they jihadists?) in Syria. Seems like the Pentagon is the one deciding
on relations with the Syrian Kurds, and not the CIA. Flynn was actively helping the Damascus
with info about the CIA backed jihadists.
I would rather have the Pentagon win as they are not all that hot-to-trot for actual wars.
The CIA should just go back to running US media, law makers, corporation and ruining civil
liberties.
Isn't it safe to assume that *anything* the CIA says publicly, either through direct
channels or their co-opted corporate media, is false? Cue the Mike Pimpeo quote: "We lied, we
cheated, we stole..." and of course the entire history of that useless agency, lol.
I’m racing to get a draft manuscript of The Economic Consequences of
the Pandemic , not helped by the fact that Biden keeps doing pretty much what I think he
should do. More of the fold. Comments greatly appreciated, as always.
Like Keynes’ Londoner in the aftermath of the Great War, we are emerging
from the pandemic into a world where the certitudes of the past have crumbled into dust.
Balanced budgets, free trade, credit ratings, financial markets, above all free markets; these
ideas have ceased to command any belief.
The failure of these ideas evident since the GFC and, in many respects, since the beginning
of the 21st century. It have sunk in gradually as the neoliberal political class formed in the
1980s and 1990s has passed from the scene, replaced by younger people whose experience of
financialised capitalism is almost entirely negative.
But it is only with the shock of the pandemic that the thinking of the past has completely
lost its grip on the great majority. The absence of any serious resistance to
Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure package reflects the fact that hardly
anyone seriously believes the old verities of balanced budgets and free markets
Yet the fundamental realities of economic life remain unchanged. We can collectively consume
or invest what we produce, nothing more and nothing less. And our productive capacity is
constrained by resources and technology, as it always has been. One way or another we need to
decide what goods and services will be produced and who will get to consume them.
What has changed is that the economic system we have used to allocate resources and
investments for the last forty years is no longer fit for purpose. Financial markets are not
repositories of wisdom and market discipline; rather they are, in Keynes words, gambling houses
where ‘enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of
speculation.’ And as Keynes said ‘When the capital
development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely
to be ill-done.’.
Unsurprisingly, the casino economy has delivered huge gains for a small number of winners,
and losses for everyone else, certainly when compared to the broadly shared gains of the mid
20th century. But contrary to the claims of trickle-down advocates, these massive rewards have
not generated increases in productivity. Profits are obtained, not by making a better product
at lower cost, but by securing and holding a monopoly position.
How should we respond? The answer must be a combination of past, present and future. First,
we need to look at the institutions of the 20th century Golden Age, and ask which can be
revived and refurbished to address our current problems. Second, we must consider what elements
of the neoliberal era are worth saving. Finally we must consider our future options in a world
unlike anything that has come before.
The first step must be to look back at the institutions of the postwar Golden Age. Not all
of these will turn out to be useful in our current situation, and some were inappropriate even
at the time they operated. Nevertheless, taken all in all, the mixed economy of the mid-20th
century worked much better than the system of financialised capitalism that prevailed in the
era of neoliberalism.
Most of the policy program announced by the Biden Administration can be understood as a
return to Golden Age policies wound back or abandoned in the neoliberal era. Examples include
explicit support for unions, investment in physical infrastructure, partial repeal of the 2017
tax cuts, and free community college.
Unions, progressive taxes, expanding education â€" the case for all of these is
as strong or stronger as it was in the aftermath of the Great Wars. Similarly, the need for
public investment in physical infrastructure, after years of neglect, is evident.
Biden’s measures so far are steps in the right direction, but much more
remains to be done.
The innovations of the neoliberal era have mostly been negative. But there have been some
positive developments. The movement towards racial and gender equality, which began in the
1960s continued, if slowly and with occasional reversals, through the neoliberal area. And some
more specifically neoliberal policy innovations such as the earned income credit and emissions
taxes have been value. Similarly, while most financial innovations have been harmful, there
have been exceptions such as the rise of venture capital.
Looking to the future, the shift from an industrial to an information economy requires
fundamentally new approaches to economics. We are still at the beginning of understanding what
is needed here; but it is already obvious that the combination of financialized capitalism and
Big Tech is not working out well as a solution.
GM and Google
The archetypal product of the 20th century industrial economy was the motor car, the
archetypal technology was the production line and the archetypal firm was General Motors. Each
car that rolled off GM’s production line embodied a set of physical and
labour inputs; steel for the body, parts supplied by a network of subcontractors, the work of a
large body of skilled and semi-skilled workers. Dealers and finance providers distributed the
cars to buyers, who then owned and uses the products. Our thinking about how an economy works
still reflects this model.
A 20th century firm like General Motors can easily be understood in terms of the economic
categories of mainstream classical and neoclassical economists, beginning with Adam Smith. The
whole apparatus of national accounting, reflected in concepts like GDP, was developed to deal
with such firms.
But consider a firm like Google. Google doesn’t produce a physical good1;
it doesn’t even generate the information that is at the core of its
business. Rather, it indexes the information generated by others, with or without their
permission, then allows users to search those indexes, with advertising attached.
Google
doesn’t fit at all comfortably into the categories of traditional economics.
Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms, nor is there any obvious
price attached to it. This hasn’t stopped Google making massive profits, or
attaining a stratospheric market valuation. On the other hand, it is far from obvious that this
is the best way of making the information resources of the Internet available to everyone.
1 Except for a relatively modest business producing tablet computers that run
Google’s Chrome operating system.
“Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms,
nor is there any obvious price attached to it.â€
This connects with this:
“The whole apparatus of national accounting, reflected in concepts like
GDP,â€
At which point we’ve a certain problem using measures like GDP to
discuss the success and or failure of neoliberalism or even financialised capitalism. Because
we’re already insisting that the archetypal firms of the neoliberal era
aren’t well measured by GDP.
So insistences that growth was faster back in that Golden Age and so on become a little
more difficult. So too insistences that living standards rose faster and all that.
We also end up with difficulties over something like this:
“Unsurprisingly, the casino economy has delivered huge gains for a
small number of winners, and losses for everyone else, certainly when compared to the broadly
shared gains of the mid 20th century. But contrary to the claims of trickle-down advocates,
these massive rewards have not generated increases in productivity. Profits are obtained, not
by making a better product at lower cost, but by securing and holding a monopoly
position.â€
OK, Facebook, monopoly and all that. But increases in productivity? WhatsApp. You can talk
to 1 billion people for free. OK, people might not say very much but still.
There’s nothing of this in GDP â€" there’s
no fee nor even advertising. Last time I asked Facebook about this they said
“couple of hundred engineers†work on this. So,
we’ve the costs of a couple of hundred engineers â€" $100
million including stock awards and office space? â€" in the national accounts.
We’ve no corresponding output. This is a reduction in productivity.
But we’ve 1 billion people getting telecoms for free and this is a
reduction in productivity?
Precisely because you’re saying that GDP doesn;t measure all this new
economy stuff well it becomes very difficult to insist that this new economy stuff hasn;t
worked well if the measure is going to be GDP…..
That’s a problem with posting extracts. I’m well
aware of these points and will deal with them. No time to respond in detail now, as I need to
submit ASAP.
J-D 05.01.21 at 11:15 pm (no link)
Its output can’t be measured in quantitative terms, nor is there any
obvious price attached to it.
So from this point of view Google’s product is already priced in the
price of the stuff that is sold after being advertised through Google (directly or
indirectly).
The people who pay money to Google are the advertisers. What they are paying Google for is
advertising space. So Google’s product is advertising space. They create
advertising space and sell it. Advertising space generally has a price. It is the price paid
by advertisers to whomever it is that provides the advertisers with the advertising space.
That’s not something new. It works for Google the same way it works, for
example, for commercial free-to-air television and radio broadcasters. Their viewers and
listeners are not the people who pay them for their product (just as Google users are not the
people who pay Google); the advertisers are the people who pay them, and they pay them for
the use of the advertising space which they have produced.
likbez 05.02.21 at 3:45 am (no link)
@J-D 05.01.21 at 11:15 pm (5)
So Google’s product is advertising space.
No only. Google was/is an integral part of PRISM. So mass surveillance is probably another
major product and like Facebook it has several “facesâ€. With
one is being a government sponsored surveillance company with Gmail and Android as the major
franchises.
Any site that have Google advertisement can be considered as monitored by Google as Google
essentially replicates Web logs via its advertising inserts. In this sense Google is an
essential part of NSA.
They now try to diversify and get some foothold in the cloud but that’s
also fit surveillance company profile.
All is all the old question “Is Google evil?†is an
interesting one. IMHO it needs to be split into several companies.
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...
The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978 (FISA).
If you
sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered
for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.
But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding
judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans'
constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations
that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet
officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches,
authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S.
person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles,
computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."
In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by
enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication,
a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court
slammed the FBI for abusing that
database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal
Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct
thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
declared that
an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI
chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new
Office of Integrity and Compliance
as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law."
Be still my beating heart!
The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through
the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed
that the FBI has conducted
warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud,"
and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman
wrote
in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine
criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried
material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit
FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the
New York Times reported ,
an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them
had connections to an investigation."
In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches.
Regardless,
Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet
statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."
At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps
worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately,
the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law.
Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector
General reported that the FBI made "fundamental
errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The
I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians
and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page"
in that dossier, which was later debunked.
A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy
on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal
editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an
email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source'
before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action.
But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy,
noting that Clinesmith
"went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in
government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist
slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding
with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing
matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should
remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been
craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded
upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed
requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed
such investigations drastically," the
Washington Post reported
. So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.
The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically
the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping
new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court
rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans
were "relevant" to a terrorism
investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later
denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates
a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.
The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists
who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law
is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI
agents conducting warrantless searches rely on
the same
harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless
an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI
abuses
ebworthen 39 minutes ago
"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...
JaxPavan 42 minutes ago
All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to
send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch
write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.
Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago
It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because
we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.
Obama's own personal private army.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago
A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips,
in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just
following up on a tip"
wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)
Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!
You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago
Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and
someone wanting get off their lazy rear end
takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)
If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged.
"They" have been listening
to you for a long time if they want to.
If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.
The enrollment of corporations in the scheme to vaccinate the population and to require such
vaccinations for social participation should not be considered in terms of the prerogatives of
private organizations but as part of the incursions of the state into private industry. What we
are witnessing, and should be resisting, is a merger into a corporate-government complex,
wherein government can bypass the legislative branch and enforce unpopular mandates by
colluding with corporations and other organizations to make "policy."
Perhaps the most egregious element of this corporate-state stranglehold on the population is
the participation of Big Digital and the mainstream media. Big Digital conglomerates eliminate
media outlets and voices that challenge the official covid narrative, including information
about lockdowns, masking, and vaccinations, although the official narrative has not only
changed willy-nilly but also has been proven factually wrong, as well as socially devastating.
Big Digital and the media serve both the state and Big Pharma by eliminating oppositional views
regarding the lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, and by pushing fear-inducing propaganda about the
virus and its ever-proliferating variants.
As I have written in Google
Archipelago , Big Digital must be considered an agent of a leftist authoritarian state --
as a " governmentality " or state
apparatus functioning on behalf and as part of the state itself. "Governmentality" is a term
that should become well known in the coming days and weeks. I adopted the term from Michel
Foucault and have emended it to refer to corporations and other nonstate actors who actively
undertake state functions. These actors will be doing this in droves with vaccine passports,
which will vastly augment state power under a state-corporate alliance.
Similarly, other major corporations perform state-sanctioned roles by echoing and enforcing
state-approved ideologies, policies, and politics: indoctrinating employees, issuing woke
advertisements, policing the opinions of workers, firing dissidents, and soon demanding vaccine
passports from employees and customers.
The overall tendency, then, is toward corporate-state monopolization over all aspects of
life, with increasing control by approved principals over information and opinion, economic
production, and the political sphere. As the consolidation accelerates, the broad global state
will require the elimination of noncompliant, disaffected, and "untrustworthy" economic and
political actors. In the United States, with the elimination of political opposition, the
tendency is toward uniparty rule, and with it, the merging of the party and state into a
singular organ.
play_arrow
PGR88 2 hours ago (Edited)
The only way the fascist deep state ends is with a currency collapse. That could be
effected immediately - arrest the members of the Federal Reserve. Without a printed, fiat
dollar, and the illusion that $30 Trillion in debt will repaid - the leftist, DC deep state
collapses immediately.
BDB 13 hours ago remove link
The US govt is a corporation.
We as a central banking nation have an economic and political monopoly that is trying
really hard to maintain fascist control.All the big multinationals are owned by the banksters
too.
Psyop covID19 and man's co2 emissions causes climate change are both lies pushing a
political agenda
" Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state
and corporate power." Benito Mussolini
HonorSeeker 11 hours ago (Edited)
Under Fascism, the government wrote the rules. Under our corporatist system, it's the
corporations. At least that's what I would say the difference is.
DesertEagle 9 hours ago
We're under the boot heel of billionaire oligarchs and big corporations that are their
handmaidens. They are toxic and will never take their boot off of our neck unless they are
forced to.
More than most companies today, Google understands that information is power. But how much
does Google know about you? Here, we'll unpack Google's privacy policy, so that you know what
data gets tracked, how Google uses your data, and how to manage your online privacy.
If you use a Google service or product (and you probably do), it's important to educate
yourself about how Google uses your data so you can make smart, informed decisions that keep
you in control of your privacy. Every step you take, every purchase you make -- Google could be
watching you.
The simple answer is yes: Google collects data about how you use its devices, apps, and
services. This ranges from your browsing behavior, Gmail and YouTube activity, location
history, Google searches, online purchases, and more. Basically, anything that's connected to
Google is likely used to collect data on your activity and preferences.
Many people have questions about Google collecting data and how it gathers information. In
particular, people worry about voice-activated products like Google Home and Google Assistant
being used to listen to more than just requests to buy toilet paper or play music in the living
room.
Nearly every company you interact with online uses web tracking technology to mine data about
your online habits and preferences to personalize your experiences and the content you see.
While the security
risks of smart home devices are real, Google using your home assistant to record your
private conversations isn't one of them. You might feel like you're being spied on, but the
reality is that Google sees only the information you have voluntarily entered or allowed them
to access .
It's tempting to cast Google as a villain in this scenario, but Google data collection isn't
unique. Nearly every company you interact with online uses web tracking technology to mine data
about your online habits and preferences to personalize your experiences and the content you
see. Still, it might surprise you how much data Google actually tracks and the less obvious
ways it keeps tabs on you.
Why does Google want my data?
You might be thinking, "Fine, Google knows a lot about me. But what does Google
do with my data?" According to Google, they use all this data to deliver better
services, make improvements, and customize your experience . In other words, all this
information helps Google make its services more useful for you.
Google uses data about your behavior and preferences to deliver better or more
personalized services.
Of course, there's a very thin line between useful and creepy -- and sometimes businesses
make the mistake of taking it too far by hoovering up excessive amounts of data. For many
companies, more data collection means more profit. Here are a few ways in which Google data
collection can impact your digital lifestyle.
Targeted advertising
With all the data Google gathers about you -- across all of its platforms, services,
products, and devices -- it can build a detailed advertising profile, including your gender,
age range, job industry, and interests. This helps them use targeted advertising to serve you
Google ads that align with your personal tastes.
Let's say you search for a place to rent skis. Afterward, you start seeing ads for related
products like ski jackets on other websites you visit around the web -- these are targeted ads
. If you want to see what Google thinks it knows about you, you can go to your Google account settings , click on Data &
personalization in the left navigation panel, and view your advertising profile.
Location
tracking
Where you go, Google goes. Whether you're looking for the quickest way to get to a meeting,
searching for a nearby cafe, or trying to find the closest bus stop, Google uses your location
to offer personalized suggestions that are more relevant to your situation. For instance, maybe
you'd like to see a movie after work. If you search Google for listings, you might see the
showtimes for movies playing at theaters close to your office.
Improving usability
The more data, the better the quality of the service. Google uses all the data it collects
to improve usability -- and your information alone can't do all the work. Google also analyzes
billions of other people's data across different apps to make its services more useful for
everyone.
For example, when you use Google Maps (or Waze -- yes, it's also part of the Google family),
your location is anonymously sent back to Google and combined with data from people around you
to create a picture of current traffic patterns. Have you ever been rerouted around an accident
or a traffic jam while driving? You can thank your data and all the data from the people
driving around you.
Tweaking algorithms
Google's search algorithms -- the rules that determine the results you see and the order
they're listed in -- are continually changing. In 2019, the company reported more than 3,500 improvements
to Google search -- that's an average of nearly 10 every day.
Google uses data about what people search for, what results are relevant, and the quality of
the content and sources to determine the results you see. And their engineers adjust and refine
Google's search algorithms to make searching on Google more useful ,
such as generating useful featured content snippets from relevant third-party websites to
provide quick answers to questions right at the top of the search results
page.
Trendspotting and analysis
Your search results also power Google Trends , a Google website that tracks and
analyzes the top search queries across services like Google Search, YouTube, and more. You can
see the most popular search terms from multiple countries and languages, helping you discover
the latest trends, topics, and stories across different regions and over different time
periods.
To be clear, no one outside of Google (and maybe even no one inside) truly knows how this
data is processed and used. But they don't hide what they collect and how they do
it. Google's privacy
policy is written clearly and easy to understand.
By
Jeff Horwitz
and
Keach Hagey
Updated April 11, 2021 11:41 am ET
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Google for years operated a secret program that used data from past bids in the company's digital advertising exchange to
allegedly give its own ad-buying system an advantage over competitors, according to court documents filed in a Texas antitrust
lawsuit.
The program, known as "Project Bernanke," wasn't disclosed to publishers who sold ads through Google's ad-buying systems. It
generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the company annually, the documents show. In its lawsuit, Texas alleges
that the project gave Google, a unit of
Alphabet
Inc.,
GOOG
0.90%
an
unfair competitive advantage over rivals.
Google's Ad Machine
Online ads are typically sold in auctions that happen in an instant, when a user's webpage is loading. Google
dominates at virtually every step of the process. In an antitrust lawsuit, Texas alleges that Google's secret
"Project Bernanke" allowed the company to use knowledge it gained running its ad exchange to unfairly compete against
rivals. Here's how the digital advertising machine works:
THE SELL SIDE: PUBLISHERS
AD SPACE
FOR SALE
When a
user
visits
a large online
publisher's
website
or app, the publisher uses an
ad
server
to sell ad space on its pages.
The publisher also gives the exchange information about the reader -- their age, income, browsing history and
interests, for example.
In this example, the publisher uses Google's DoubleClick for Publishers, the leading ad-serving tool.
The tool puts the publisher's ad space up for sale on
exchanges
,
marketplaces where transactions happen in real-time between sellers (
publishers
)
and buyers (
advertisers
).
REAL-TIME
AUCTION HOUSES
Google has the largest such marketplace, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, or AdX.
THE BUY SIDE: ADVERTISERS
An advertiser, representing its clients' products, uses sophisticated buying tools to purchase ads.
In this example, an advertiser uses Google's buying tool, DV360, the industry leader.
The advertiser can specify the types of audiences it wants to target -- such as location, gender or age of
user -- and the price of their offer.
To get its ad in front of the user, the advertiser places bids in the auction marketplace -- the highest bidder
wins.
Once a match is made on the exchange, an ad pops up on users' screens.
The documents filed this week were part of Google's initial response to
the
Texas-led antitrust lawsuit
, which was filed in December and accused the search company of running a digital-ad monopoly
that harmed both ad-industry competitors and publishers. This week's filing, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, wasn't
properly redacted when uploaded to the court's public docket. A federal judge let Google refile it under seal.
Some of the unredacted contents of the document were earlier disclosed by MLex, an antitrust-focused news outlet.
The document sheds further light on the state's case against Google, along with the search company's defense.
Much of the lawsuit involves the interplay of Google's roles as both the operator of a major ad exchange -- which Google likens
to the New York Stock Exchange in marketing documents -- and a representative of buyers and sellers on the exchange. Google also
acts as an ad buyer in its own right, selling ads on its own properties such as search and YouTube through these same systems.
Texas alleges that Google used its access to data from publishers' ad servers -- where more than 90% of large publishers use
Google to sell their digital ad space -- to guide advertisers toward the price they would have to bid to secure an ad placement.
Google's use of bidding information, Texas alleges, amounted to insider trading in digital-ad markets. Because Google had
exclusive information about what other ad buyers were willing to pay, the state says, it could unfairly compete against rival
ad-buying tools and pay publishers less on
its
winning bids for ad inventory
.
The unredacted documents show that Texas claims Project Bernanke is a critical part of that effort.
How tech giants are both cooperating while competing in hardware, software and technology services
Google acknowledged the existence of Project Bernanke in its response and said in the filing that "the details of Project
Bernanke's operations are not disclosed to publishers."
Google denied in the documents that there was anything inappropriate about using the exclusive information it possessed to
inform bids, calling it "comparable to data maintained by other buying tools."
Peter Schottenfels, a Google spokesman, said the complaint "misrepresents many aspects of our ad tech business. We look
forward to making our case in court." He referred the Journal to an analysis conducted by a U.K. regulator that concluded that
Google didn't appear to have had an advantage.
The Texas attorney general's office didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Google's outsize role in the digital-ad market is both controversial and at times murky.
In some instances, "we're on both the buy side and the sell side," Google Chief Economist Hal Varian said at a 2019 antitrust
conference held by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Asked how the company managed those roles, Mr. Varian
said the topic was "too detailed for the audience, and me."
The globalists are behaving just like the Bolsheviks of old. It is down right scary to see
this happen in America. We lost the major cities 40 or 50 years ago and now the entire
country (except that 1 percent stealing all the money) is on the verge of going 3rd world
banana republic.
drjd 6 hours ago
If this was truly "communism", would 1% be stealing all the money? Why don't we just call
it what it really is: "globalist crony capitalism."
YuriTheClown 2 hours ago
The internationalists are behaving just like the Bolsheviks of old.
You must not know your history. High powered US bankers prop up the big Bolshevik names in
New York until it was time to loose them on Russia. Then they financed the whole
operation.
And who is financing the Bolsheviks in the USA now???
artless 1 hour ago remove link
The word you are looking for is fascism. This use of "crony this" and "crony that" along
with ANY use of the word capitalism-because their is nothing capitalist about any of this-
needs to stop. It is fascism. Not communism, not socialism...
Even before the targets in Yemen had been "legally" designated as
a Foreign Terrorist Organization Obama used cluster bombs to shred
dozens of women and children in a failed attempt to hit members of
"al Qaida in Yemen (AQY)".
.
The war crime immediately became a dirty Obama secret, covered up
with the help of the MSM, in particular ABC.
.
An enthusiastic White House had leaked to their contacts at ABC that
Obama had escalated the War on Terror, taking it to another country,
Yemen. This was December 17, 2009 only days after Obama had returned
from his ceremony in Oslo where he proudly accepted the Nobel Peace
Prize.
.
ABC was thrilled with their scoop and in manly voices announced
the escalation in the War on Terror.
.
The very next day ABC went silent forever about it, joining the cover up
of a war crime.
.
Hillary Clinton, by the way, committed her own act of cover up.
Covering her butt by backdating a memo.
.
The designation of a organization as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization)
is not official nor legal until it is published in the Federal Register.
An oversight? Obama attacked Yemen before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
had done the paperwork to make the killing legal?
.
The designation was not published until a month later, January 19, 2010.
Hillary Clinton back dated the memo she published in the Register with the date of
December 14, 2009, to somewhat cover her butt.
.
Obama's acceptance speech in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize was December 10th.
.
Yemen leaders agreed to participate in Obama's coverup saying it was their
own Yemen forces that had accidentally shredded dozens of women and children.
.
Obama was grateful to the Yemen leaders. The Yemen leaders were not
honored in Oslo. But, ironically, Obama ended his speech honoring women
and children, days before he ordered their slaughter.
.
Obama in Oslo, December 10, 2009:
.
"Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what
few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she
believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's
dreams.
.
Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will
always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the
intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed,
we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.
We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the
.
hope
.
of all the world; and at this moment of challenge,
that must be our work here on Earth.
.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
.
One week later Obama shredded dozens of women and children in Yemen
and covered it up.
.
Here is ABC's Brian Ross using his most masculine voice to boast about Obama's attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcg3TNSRPs
.
Wikileaks cable corroborates evidence of US airstrikes in Yemen (Amnesty Intl)
https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-corroborates-evidence-us-airstrikes-yemen/
.
Actual cable at Wikileaks: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SANAA4_a.html
.
More at ABC [12/18/2009]: https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236 https://web.archive.org/web/20190624203826/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
">https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236">https://web.archive.org/web/20190624203826/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236 https://web.archive.org/web/20190725171012/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr
">https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr">https://web.archive.org/web/20190725171012/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cr
History doesn't repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes.
The Revolutionary and Civil war was fought against finance capital; where said capital
emanated mostly from London. By 1912 the U.S. was no longer Industrial Capitalist, but had
been usurped by Finance Capitalism, and of course the (((usual suspects))) were pulling
strings in the background.
WW2 was the now finance capitalist allies against the industrial capitalist axis
powers.
The run up to WW2 had the axis "industrial capitalist" powers exit the London based
finance capitalist "sterling" system. Churchill even admitted to the reason why the allies
attacked.
Germany's most unforgivable crime before the Second World War was her attempt to
extricate her economic power from the world's trading system and to create her own exchange
mechanism which would deny (((world finance))) its opportunity to profit.
Finance capital exported jobs from the U.S. and the West toward China; this in order to
take wage arbitrage. China then rope-a-dopes the dummies from the west, and uses its state
credit and industrial capitalist system to acquire intellectual know-how, and climb the
industrial curve.
Finance capitalist are slowly being cut-out of taking wage arbitrage from China and
realize that their "assets" over there, can be taken by the Chinese state at any time. Now
they want war to secure their asset position, and to buy more of China at a war time fire
sale price.
Finance capital runs the same playbook over and over. The bad guys won in WW1 and 2. The
(((international))) finance class works behind the scenes to take sordid gain on humanity,
including mass death.
If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal that
your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital and
its oligarchs.
This time around is different, China and Russia will exit the dollar system, and the
western finance capitalist class can do nothing but make idle threats. Some will argue that
the West will resort to nukes.
Maybe? I'm assuming that our (((friends))) are not completely insane, as they would lose
their capital and asset position. Their greed will stop them from destroying themselves, and
us.
"If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal
that your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital
and its oligarchs. "
You are a wise man Mefobills
If your government is festooned with ne0-con Jews, then that should be strong signal
that your country is not sovereign, but instead is operated by stealth with finance capital
and its oligarchs.
"When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you
– you know your nation is doomed."
Actually, it is the ***American people*** who are fucked. The little people that is.
Fucked on behalf of Israel/Neocons, the MIC, the Neolibs, and the other "owners" of the
country.
The good news is that when the above have thoroughly looted the country, and the rest of
the world sheds the by then worthless US dollar, and the City on the Hill becomes the
Toothless Slum on the Hill,
@Anonymous that a strong American military and national security posture is the best
guarantor of peace and the survival of our values and civilization.
Stavridis has been at the forefront of the mass slaughter known as the implementation of the
Oded Yinon Plan for Eretz Israel:
From 2002 to 2004, Stavridis commanded Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, conducting combat
operations in the Persian Gulf in support of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation
Enduring Freedom.
Stavridis "oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria." In short, this prominent
racketeer is dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of the victims.
One of the favourite tropes of the transparent cabal who have seized power in the US and
other captive nations is that the solution to the Palestine/Israel problem is "the path to
peace is through direct negotiations.'
This proposition requires the occupied bartering away their land and amending their
borders, always for the benefit of the illegal occupier. These 'negotiations' are expressly
forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. Every functioning government in the world knows
this.
The alien invaders are under an obligation to simply get out. Every 'agreement' is null
and void.
The New Zealand government and the NZ superannuation fund has recently decided to divest
their investments in Israeli banks citing international law, the Geneva Conventions and
reputation damage as key factors.
It is sheer hypocrisy for the usual suspects to talk about human rights, rules based
international law, democracy and our values, while advocating the opposite policies in the
middle east.
Is it possible they actually believe their own propaganda and their own lies through
Bernays like repartition?
This does not comport with Article II(Section 2) of the USA constitution.. which says
"The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the usa, and of the
Militia of the serveral states, when into the actual service of the USA,
but no where do I find a private corporation may exercise the power of the Office of the
President ...? What did I mis?
The important fact that emerges is that Antifa is state sponsored group (or at least some
government agencies sponsored group) not unlike NSDAP was in Germany.
Andy Ngo's new book Unmasked: Inside Antifa's
Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy is as important to understanding where we are today
as Ann Coulter's
Adios America! was before Donald Trump election. Ngo
shows that far from being just an "idea," as President Joe Biden
would have us believe , Antifa comprises highly organized groups of dedicated activists
with an extreme political agenda and a commitment to violence. But Ngo also shows, perhaps less
consciously, that Antifa operates with de-facto backing from the Ruling Class, including
Main Stream Media journalists, the principal enforcers of the current order. Ngo suggests
Antifa are a revolutionary threat to the power structure and could overthrow it. But the truth
is much worse -- Antifa are simply the System's militant wing.
What makes Unmasked so remarkable is that Ngo doesn't limit himself to anecdotal
reporting, nor does he retreat to abstract theorizing. Instead, like a great historian, he
seamlessly integrates his experiences and other primary sources with political theory. He
shows, often literally with chapter and verse, what motivates Antifa, how they are organized,
how they are trained, and how this is turned into concrete action:
Where there is no single capital A 'Antifa' organization with one leader, there are indeed
localized cells and groups with formalized structures and memberships. Though officially
leaderless, these are organizations by every definition.
The [
Rose City Antifa ] curriculum is modeled on a university course. Yet it includes training
on how to use guns and do reconnaissance against enemies.
Ngo also helpfully reports on the history the Antifa brand, especially its origins in the
Red Front
Fighters' League of the pre-Hitler German Communist Party. He's especially astute to note
that "the German Communist Party [KPD] and its various offshoots viewed social democrats and
liberals as 'social fascists' no different from Nazis." Needless to say, KPD leader Ernst Thälman 's
strategy of fighting the more moderate Social Democrats ahead of the Nazis was glossed over by
Communist propaganda after World War II.
East German hagiographies of Thälman, like Sohn Seiner Klasse and
Führer Sonne Klasse ("Son of His Class," "Leader of His Class") portray him as
fighting the Nazis above all else.
When Ngo describes the Communist takeovers of East Germany and Vietnam, the latter of which
his family fled, he's warning Americans that we face a
Communist coup . Historically, "anti-fascism" was created by, and has always been a front
for, Communist or Communist-adjacent groups.
(I don't dispute Ngo's characterization of the movement as "anarchist-communist." It sounds
clumsy, but anarcho-communism is a venerable Leftist tradition that goes back to Marx's great
rival Mikhail Bakunin. I was surprised, though, that Ngo didn't mention that the three-arrow "Iron Front" symbol
widely used by Antifa today actually came from the German Social Democratic Party (SPD.) The
SPD opposed the Communists just as much as they did monarchists and the National
Socialists.
He's right, but when looking at what Antifa
prioritize today, it does seem preoccupied with boutique progressive causes like
transgenderism and policing speech. While physical attacks are common, doxing and
complaining to
capitalist employers are what Antifa do best of all.
Indeed, it's hard to imagine East Germany or the USSR tolerating the cultural degeneracy
championed by today's Antifa. The Soviet Bloc was positively social-conservative compared to
2021 post-America.
Ngo's reporting on the specific individuals, curriculum, tactics, and operational plans of
Antifa are a testament to his skill as a researcher (not mention his guts.) However, one thing
jumps out of the book repeatedly. Despite all their emphasis on "OpSec" and paranoia about law
enforcement, Antifa aren't actually especially secret. Like illegal aliens who lecture us on
television about their lives "
in the shadows ," it's not a huge mystery who is in Antifa. We know what groups exist,
where they operate and what they are doing. They openly operate on Twitter, Facebook etc.
In contrast to the Proud Boys or bewildered Boomers who wandered into the Capitol last
month, Antifa can operate openly because it has the tacit approval of law enforcement and
Main Stream Media outlets . Thus Ngo describes in shocking detail Antifa groups' training
workshops, including combat training. Right-wing
activity even at this level would be
shut down by the
government instantly.
It's an obvious point but bears repeating -- how radical are your
opinions when you have police, the military, corporate America, and the media all supporting
you? Antifa violence exists because it is permitted, arguably encouraged, to exist. Despite
President Trump's blustering promises, these Antifa groups were never labeled "terrorists" nor,
inexplicably, was systematic federal law enforcement action ever taken against them.
During
the CHAZ insurrection , Antifa was allowed to more or less claim sovereignty in a major
American city for a period of weeks. If nationalists had tried that, it would have ended in
drone strikes. The glee with which progressives hailed the execution
of Ashli Barrett tells us what they're willing to do. The "Capitol Insurrection" would have
been heralded as another Bastille Day
had it come from the other side .
Ngo points out repeatedly that Antifa conduct themselves to present a certain media image.
Yet this is a two-way relationship. While Antifa are eager to make sure only their narrative
gets out, Regime journalists willingly collaborate. It's a mistake to even speak of journalists
or Antifa as being separate categories of people.
Perhaps she was told such tweets would be career-ending or maybe she figured that out on her
own. She deleted them and joined the winning team.
The rest is history. Lorenz has made a career doxing
random people, notably Pamela Geller's daughters.
This also explains why Regime "journalists" -- make that
Journofa -- seem to
hate Ngo so much. Ngo provides many examples of independent journalists like himself
recording and livestreaming footage that provide "the up-close, raw, and uncensored look into
Antifa's extremism." Such raw footage strips Regime Media reporters of the ability to craft the
Narrative.
Ngo writes that Antifa "have made it a priority to keep out journalists like myself, even
releasing manuals on how to obstruct to the work of unapproved press." However, the critical
point is what he says next:
"[T]hey've [Antifa] made key allies in the media to counter negative coverage,
amplify their propaganda messaging, and discredit their shared opponents. The American public
has been inundated with n onstop propaganda that obfuscates and lies about Antifa ,
simultaneously presenting them as anti-fascists righting racism, and a figment of the
right's imagination ." [Emphases added]
Thus Ngo accuses corporate journalists, quite rightly, of knowingly spreading propaganda or
being "actually members of the militant Antifa movement."
Ngo's guide on how to "identify Antifa press" is important. If you see a reporter freely
videoing protests without being attacked, "that is a good sign the journalist produces
Antifa-approved content."
But I must take issue with Ngo's conclusion that the "movement is made of organized networks
of anarchist-communists who have the goal, training, and determination to overthrow the US
government." Is that what Antifa actually fights for in the real world?
For example, CHAZ didn't end with a heroic last stand. It ended after bored city workers
scattered some riffraff without much effort. It existed as long as Left-wing city politicians
defended it against then-President Donald Trump. It vanished the moment that city authorities
decided to regain control.
Insofar as Antifa have a real impact, it's not in organizing rent strikes or fighting banks.
Instead, they are most effective when calling up oligarchs to get working-class people fired.
Is such a group really a threat to the US government or something of a partner?
As Ngo himself points out early in his book, the United States government is tremendously
powerful. Anarcho-communists hardly seem a credible threat to its legitimacy. Rather than
wanting to crush them, at least some Democrats favor what Antifa are doing -- and certainly
want to downplay it.
Thus the presumptive next Attorney General, Merrick Garland, blithely dismissed an
attack on a
federal courthouse because it happened at
night. If anything, the new administration seems determined to put the power of the state
behind these "anarcho-communists."
And rather than trying to create a Workers' Paradise, what Antifa actually do is make the
world safe for
Woke Capital .
While Antifa violence is real, the danger to ordinary people is not so much that some
rampaging mob will come into their house at four in the morning. The danger is that Antifa will
see a Politically Incorrect tweet and render a person unemployable, with an assist from
"journalist" allies.
Ngo's book is essential reading. However, he may not fully understand the threat. The
problem isn't that Antifa is trying to overthrow the state. The problem is that the state and
Antifa are working together against ordinary Americans.
What we're living under is something far worse than Antifa's imagined "
anarcho-communism ." It's what the late Sam Francis presciently called anarcho-tyranny ,
with the worst features of lawlessness and autocracy combined.
This is why our situation is not as bad as Ngo suggests. It's far, far worse.
Brave buys a search engine, promises no tracking, no profiling – and may even offer
a paid-for, no-ad versionPitches pro-privacy platform with customizable results filter
dubbed GogglesThomas Claburn in San Francisco Wed 3
Mar 2021 // 14:00 UTC SHARE
Brave, maker of the identically named privacy-focused web browser, has acquired its own
search engine to offer as an alternative to Google Search and competing search engines that
exist but aren't all that visible in Google's shadow.
On Wednesday, the company plans to announce that it's taking over Tailcat, a search engine
developed by Cliqz, another privacy-focused browser biz that aspired to compete with Google and
shut down last year . The
deal, terms undisclosed, makes Cliqz owner Hubert Burda Media a Brave shareholder.
Brave intends to make Tailcat the foundation of its own search service, Brave Search . The company hopes that its more than 25
million monthly active Brave customers will, after an initial period of testing and courtship,
choose to make Brave Search their default search engine and will use it alongside other parts
of its privacy-oriented portfolio, which also includes Brave Ads, news reader Brave Today,
Brave Firewall+VPN, and video conferencing system Brave Together.
Brave Search, the company insists, will respect people's privacy by not tracking or
profiling those using the service. And it may even offer a way to end the debate about search
engine bias by turning search result output over to a community-run filtering system called
Goggles.
The service will, eventually, be available as a paid option – for those who want to
pay for search results without ads – though its more common incarnation is likely to be
ad-supported, in conjunction with Brave Ads. The latter offers participants the option to
receive 70 per cent of the payment made by the advertiser in a cryptocurrency called BAT (Brave
Attention Token).
Eich lays out his vision
In an interview with The Register , Brendan Eich, CEO of Brave, argued that the
demand for privacy is real and cannot be ignored. "I think the genie doesn't go back in the
bottle," he said. "Consciousness doesn't revert."
People used to hear about credit card breaches at large retailers like Target, Eich said,
and think that privacy is hopeless but not something that necessarily affects them directly.
But then it became more personal as technologies like ad retargeting did things like spoiling
surprise gifts by showing the ad for the purchased item again to the intended recipient.
I think privacy is here to stay and now the question is how people do it and market it
effectively
Eich sees the dominance of US tech companies contributing to the interest in privacy and
making it a matter of concern for regulators around the world.
"It's not political in the broken US sense – which is kind of a Punch and Judy show
– it's more like there are people of various commitments on all sides of politics who are
aware not only of privacy being violated over time by the big tech players but of the big tech
players being abusive monopolies," he said.
Pointing to how many companies now make privacy claims, Eich said, "I think privacy is here
to stay and now the question is how people do it and market it effectively. If you don't market
it, you can lose to somebody who just puts privacy perfume on a pig and tells you it smells
great and tastes delicious."
Eich's pitch is not that Brave Search aims to take on Google Search directly. He
acknowledges that there's no way to match Google's vast index and ability to return relevant
results for obscure (long tail) search terms. Rather, he sees an opportunity to improve
specific types of search queries, referred to as vertical markets.
"Part of what we're trying to do here is innovate in the area where there's now monopoly,"
he said in reference to Google Search, which has a market share of something like 92 per cent ."...The
innovation through verticals is possible because it avoids having to take on Google's supreme
competence, which is the rare or unique queries the long tail."
"What we're trying to do is different, it's not based on crawling the web," Eich explained.
"...Trying to crawl the whole web, it's not going to work. What Cliqz worked on..that's an
anonymous query log aggregator, and a partial click log aggregator, to see when you don't
convert on the search ad you leave the results page and you find the better results through
some number of clicks."
Gathering that sort of query and click data requires consent, said Eich, and Brave isn't
going to force Brave users to participate. But Cliqz started working on this and has a data set
they called "the Human Web," and that's now the basis of Brave Search.
"The queries and the clicks matter but they are unlinkable," he said. "There has to be a
property called record unlinkability. There's no IP address that gets dropped at the edge.
Timing channels are blinded by adding some delays. And there's no way to say this query was
from the same user as that query."
Brave Search's index there will be informed the activities of participating Brave users, in
terms of the URLs they search for or click on, and adjacent web resources that don't require
extensive crawling.
There's a theoretical risk users could poison the index through repeated visits to
irrelevant or harmful web pages, knowing their activities would inform the index, but Eich
suggests Brave is big and savvy enough to avoid being trolled in this way.
Brave also envisions users taking a more active role in their search results through a
filtering mechanism.
"It allows different groups to run their own sort of Turing incomplete filter rules, sort of
like ad blocking rules in the search service and not in the browser, to have a community
moderated view of the global index," he explained. "It's called 'Goggles.'"
Eich observed with a chuckle that it isn't related to Google Goggles, an image recognition
app that Google maintained from 2009 through 2018 until the arrival of Google
Lens.
Shared search
The Brave Search team has written a paper [ PDF ] explaining its use of the
term, titled "GOGGLES: Democracy dies in darkness, and so does the Web." The browser upstart
aims to replace the tyranny of Google's inscrutable, authoritative index with a multiverse of
indices defined by anyone with the inclination to do so.
Brave's vision of search is based on "an open and collaborative system by which a community,
or a single user, can create sets of rules and filters, called Goggles, to define the space
which a search engine can pull results from," the paper explains.
"Instead of a single ranking algorithm, we could have as many as needed, overcoming the
biases that a single actor (the search engine) embeds into the results."
Goggles has its own Domain Specific Language (DSL) for writing search result filters. Brave
hopes that Goggles will be adopted not only internally but among others search engines,
too.
Brave Search users will be able to, for better or worse, see the world through filters they
agree with or filters they detest. The point is it will be up to them rather than a large ad
company located in Silicon Valley.
The Brave Search team acknowledges that not all filters will show results that are agreeable
to everyone. "There will be Goggles created by creationists, anti-vaccination supporters or
flat-earthers," the paper says. "However, the biases will be explicit, and therefore, the
choice is a conscious one."
The paper contends that censorship will be unnecessary since illegal content should be
caught by the host search engine and removed from the search index so no Goggle can see it in
the first place.
"Brave is bringing back the idea of a user-first thick client, or a muscular client," said
Eich, differentiating his browser from just being "a blind servant of ad tech that runs all the
JavaScript Google throws at it." ®
A classic villain of 1970s and 80s was the evil tycoon. James Bond took on some of them.
Meet Hugo Drax of the Moonraker , or Karl Stromberg of The Spy Who Loved Me ;
these guys were willing to destroy mankind to replace it with a better version. Stromberg
planned to trigger a global nuclear war and survive it underwater. Drax intended to poison
mankind with his deadly gas and repopulate the world with his new chosen ones. Another one was
de Wynter, the super-villain of The Avengers, played by Sean Connery. He controlled the world
weather, and could kill us all off by hurricanes and tsunamis.
Before the tycoons, when the Cold war raged, a villain was a KGB agent or a Chinese
operative. As détente calmed relations between the blocks, the agents went out of
fashion; later, the fantastic villains of Marvel came into a vogue. The evil tycoons were
uncomfortably close to the real thing; and they moved from the cinematic world into our
reality.
The world we live in is the world formed by evil tycoons. They are the modern Demiurges, the
evil creators of the Gnostics, an early sect that confronted the Church. Like the Demiurges,
they are practically omnipotent; stronger than the State. The government needs lot of
permissions and authorisations to spend a penny. If a penny had been misspent, the dark word
'corruption' will sound. 'Corruption' is a silly concept; by applying it, the oligarchs
eliminated state competition, for they can pay whatever they want to whomever they wish. The
State must observe intricate arcane rules, while the tycoons have no such limits. As a result,
they shape our minds and lives, making the State a poor legitimate king among powerful and
wealthy barons.
The Corona crisis is a result of their activity. Now, a group of WHO scientists completed
its four weeks inspection tour of Wuhan trying to find out how the virus found its way to
humans; some of them think (as President Trump did) the virus escaped the Wuhan Lab. Matt
Ridley of The Daily Telegraph concluded
his piece analysing their findings: "A growing number of top experts [he provides the list] say
that a lab leak remains a plausible scientific hypothesis to be investigated". It is rather
unlikely, said the WHO , but other
explanations (pangolins etc) also
border on the improbable . The Chinese are understandably upset. Hua Chunying, the
spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs ministry (the Chinese counterpart for the State
Department's Ned Price)
rejected the idea saying, "The United States should open the biological lab at Fort
Detrick, and invite WHO experts to conduct origin-tracing in the United States". The Guardian
report said she promoted "a conspiracy theory that it came from a US army lab"; while Ms Hua
accused the US of spreading "conspiracy theories and lies" tracing the source to Wuhan.
Whatever we say is a fact-based result of diligent research; whatever you say is a conspiracy
theory – both the US and China representatives subscribe to this mantra.
Our own Ron Unz made an excellent analysis of these accusations and counter-accusations in
his April 2020 piece
. He noted that the virus attack in Wuhan took place at the worst possible time and place for
the Chinese; therefore, an incidental release (or intentional release by the Chinese) is
extremely unlikely. Ron Unz suggested that it was an American biowarfare attack upon China.
Didn't American people suffer from the disease? Yes, the US government is "grotesquely and
manifestly incompetent " and they were likely to expect "a massive coronavirus outbreak
in China would never spread back to America".
Perhaps, but a better explanation is that some evil tycoon(s) played the part of Karl
Stromberg who intended to nuke both Moscow and New York causing war and world-wide devastation,
as in the James Bond movie. It could be somebody like Bill Gates, who is a major investor in
Wuhan Lab. A fact-checking site with its
weasel language admitted that the Lab "has received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, but Bill Gates can hardly be called a "partner" in the laboratory." Sure, not a
partner. Just an investor, and that is more important than a partner. And he is not the only
one; other multi-billionaires also are involved in bioresearch, in vaccine manufacturing, in
Big Pharma. "Glaxo, BlackRock, and Bill Gates are all partners, but not owners of Pfizer", says
another
fact-checker . "In 2015, Anthony Fauci did issue a USD 3.7 million grant to the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, but not to "create the coronavirus" – the
fact-checking site adds. Well, you could not possibly expect Fauci to word the grant in
such a straightforward way, could you?
Perhaps it is too formidable a job even for an evil tycoon like Gates. A plot of several
evil tycoons is more likely. Together, they could try to change the world and mankind to suit
them.
The evil tycoons could poison China on their New Year holiday and take this uppity state
down a ring or two. They could import the virus into the US to undermine and remove Trump whom
they hated. (He was certain to win the elections but for Corona.) They could poison Europe to
weaken it and make it more docile and obedient to their demands – and to buy their assets
on the cheap. Corona and lockdown did not harm them for they are normally withdrawn from the
bustle of the common man's life.
The billionaires control the media; that much we know, and the part media has played in the
Corona crisis was enormous. The media coverage of the crisis has a huge hidden cost. Try to
publish information you consider important on the front page of a newspaper. It will cost you a
lot. Still, all newspapers belonging to the Billionaires' Media block beginning with the New
York Times and ending with Haaretz gave at least a third of its front page to Corona news each
day. The sheer cost of this advertising runs into billions. Will we ever know who paid for
it?
Steven Soderbergh's (2011) film Contagion predicted many features of the Covid-19, notably
the origin of the virus. In the film, the disease originates from bats in China and is spread
through markets where contaminated pork meat is sold. How could Soderbergh (or his script
writer Scott Z. Burns) possibly know eight years before the event that the contagion should
originate in the Chinese bats? Who told him? Wouldn't you expect he knew something? Burns was
instructed by WHO experts, the CNN
site explains. Isn't it interesting that the same Bill Gates is a major donor of WHO? Is it
entirely impossible that already in 2011 Gates' people began to leak some details of the future
virus through their own WHO to Hollywood?
The tycoons could force a weak state to follow their instructions. Scientists do obey
orders: otherwise, no grants, no positions. In April 2020, the German
scientists were ordered , "to instill the fear of Corona". And they did it, as we learned
this week, producing numbers of dead on demand.
It seems that tycoons gained most from the Corona Crisis. Their assets grew by trillions,
while the assets of the middle classes decreased by the same amount. More importantly, all
states suffered from the crisis; they took loans and credit, they were responsible for their
citizens' health, while billionaires just had fun and enjoyed it. For this reason, I tend to
dismiss the case against states, be it the US or China, while (some) billionaires appear the
only possible villains.
These billionaires are able to influence people much better that the state. Consider Pierre
Omidyar. Besides being the owner of eBay, he is the force behind hundreds of NGOs. His
organisations form the 'progressive' agenda and train the foot soldiers of the Green Deal.
Roslyn
Fuller of Spiked-online checked the plethora of NGOs he employs.
She says his NGOs and charities are "engaged in 'social engineering' – that is, using
their resources to artificially change the structure of society to how they think it should be.
If successful this would amount to an extreme circumvention of democracy, utilising money not
just to win elections, but to substitute paid or subsidised content for actual support, and
thereby flip an entire political culture on to a different track by amplifying some voices and
drowning out others."
He is just one of the Masters of Discourse, next to the infamous George Soros. Facebook,
Google, Twitter and Amazon are even more powerful. The billionaires have immense clout and they
decide what we can and can't say and write. Just last week Amazon banned my Cabbala of
Power , a book that was sold by them for some ten years. The estimable The Unz
Review is banned on Facebook and shadow-banned on Google. Twitter switched-off President
Trump, showing who is the real boss of the United States. Probably almost all movements
described as 'leftists' nowadays are engineered by the tycoons like Omidyar or Soros. True left
had been left for dead on the battlefield of ideas.
The tycoons are directly involved in the Corona Crisis, because its results are good for
them. And it means they have us where they want to have us, and they won't let us out. We are
cancelled until we regain the government and cancel them.
SAGE, as British Corona management team rather presumptuously named itself (it included the
ridiculous figure of Neil Ferguson, he of the millions of predicted deaths), already declared that
lockdowns will be a part of British life for years to come, vaccine or no vaccine. The
Guardian , the Voice of the Oligarchs, gently pooh-poohed them, for it is not good to
declare what must happen right away. Let people have some hope, so they run to vaccinate
themselves, and then only afterwards can we reveal that, sorry, it does not help, you still
have to don a mask and observe social distance and, yes, suffer lockdowns. "It's much easier to
follow the rules if we think of them as temporary."
The plotters' plans aren't secret; they were described by Klaus Schwab in his book
The Great Reset .
Schwab is not a great thinker, being merely a weak scientist with just a few publications, and
not a good or even decent writer. He had to collaborate with a journalist Thierry Malleret to
produce the book. He is just a voice for the tycoons. But the question is, will he/they get
what they want?
The Afghans (including the Taliban) do not want the US to leave their country. The flow of
US$ into the country (including the flow of heroin$) is what the Afghans have lived on for
many decades. Its not like the Afghans don't have control of their own country. They have
complete control of all the parts of the country that they want to control. They are
perfectly happy to allow Americans to control small parts of the country as long as the $$$
keep flowing into the whole country.
The US power elite may have figured out that just like every other power that has ever
tried to occupy Afghanistan that it is a black hole that sucks the life out of the power
trying to conq
@76 Tom
Interesting! Been too busy for reviewing the new military appointees until I read your post.
It looks like this is a last ditch attempt by Trump to get troops out of Afghanistan and
Syria...
"withdrawing troops from Afghanistan may well be exactly what TPTB want."
Posted by: jinn | Nov 12 2020 23:34 utc | 81
Well, they have had, what 19 years years to do that and now that President Trump makes
another push for it, all hell breaks loose from the forever war team, you know that team of
Democrats and RINO's who are now vying for a spot on Biden's team of psychopaths for war. The
we came, we saw and aren't leaving team.
"withdrawing troops from Afghanistan may well be exactly what TPTB want."
Anything is possible, but given the pushback that is taking place (quietly of course, lest
the masses get awoken) that is seriously doubtful.
Afghanistan can be likened to one of the central squares on a chessboard...control of
central squares is vital as it reduces the mobility of your opponent and lays ground for
offensive action.
China has a border with Afghanistan, as does Iran...were Afghanistan to free itself from
USA occupation, it would make a great conduit for the BRI.
That is without getting into Afghanistan's role in opium trade and the related black
budget, nor its wealth in rare minerals. One might say for the Hegemon to remain the Hegemon
it needs to control Afghanistan.
The problem for the hegemon is Afghanistan is expensive to hold on to...and this is
without Russia, Iran or China putting any effort in to chase US troops out via arming and
training proxies...that could be done quickly, and I am guessing the groundwork is already in
place.
Well, they have had, what 19 years years to do that
_________________________________________
Well sure but you need to remember the story of why we were there in the first place.
They can't just dump all the BS that they have been feeding us for nineteen years and say
"never mind" like Roseanne Roseannadanna.
As for the warmongers who support attacking Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc that was done to send
a message to any country that does not want to knuckle under to the $$$ hegemony and thinks
about trying to escape it.
That messaging does not apply to the Afghan war. That war sends the exact opposite
message.
There is no such thing as "liberal-fascist." "Liberal" has never meant any sort of
quasi-anarchist commitment to untrammeled individual rights. It has always meant the freedom
of the press. The thing is, the real meaning of freedom of the press for the liberal is the
freedom of the owners of the press to do what they want. The fact that customarily a
free-for-the-owners'-press happen to produce the right kind of news suitable for owners and
the advertisers is seen as the benefit of a free press. As for "fascist," no concept of
fascism that doesn't include legal and illegal restrictions on freedom and government
propaganda mobilizing the citizens to sacrifice for recovery from defeat/further conquest is
not a serious concept of fascism at all. Both liberalism and fascism revere property but will
compromise for necessity, liberalism for a certain degree of class peace, fascism for war,
but if anybody is determined to indoctrinate the masses it is fascism. The implicit notion
here that people daring to think or worse, live, differently than tradition may inspire rage
in mad dog reactionaries. But this is at bottom the same rage that led Catholics and
Protestants to murder each other or for witches to be killed by the thousands (yes, they
were,) or for monarchists to kill republicans or for one ethnic/religious/national group to
murder another. Modern society is not a genuine offense, no matter how bigoted you are. The
keyboard has a hyphen but hitting it between "liberal" and "fascist" is just more
crypto-fascist BS. It doesn't matter how many times you type it, it's not a thing.
It seems to me, they make it sound more difficult than it really is.
Think of thepiratebay. It gets banned, blocked, raided, sued - from 2006 at least - and
yet it lives. It changes from .org to .whatever, it finds registrars and infrastructure
somehow.
And you don't really need google/apple store all that much: a browser will suffice.
And search? paypal, bank - what is this all about? I'm sure thepiratebay works with
advertisers somehow (definitely with VPN companies), and somehow it gets paid. And that's all
there is to it. Imo.
The term liberal-fascist refers to people who consider themselves liberals, but in
reality are not; in fact, these people resemble fascists more and more with each passing day.
A more precise term would be "liberal"-fascist (with the quotes). It's not so much
about SJW witchhunts as about absolute faith in everything the state says and hysterical
demands to censor any dissenting opinion.
...In short, anywhere it deems convenient, liberals support fascists, cannibals and other
charming characters. As it goes for a while, liberals acquire fascistic values and try them
in their home countries. Show trials and corporate censorship for now.
Undermining faith in the North American Terrorist Organization (NATO) is a Thought Crime
of the highest order!
The punishment for this crime is being forced to watch a conga line of Anglo-American
media mouthpieces blather about whatever is their Moral Outrage of the Month--Clockwork
Orange style.
..I suspect that the term "liberal-fascist" derives partly from the term Islamofascist,
meaning a Muslim who does not bow to Washington six times a day, and partly from the term
"social-fascist", a Stalinist term for a socialist who did not bow to Moscow six times a
day.
The liberalism which is referred to here is the economic liberalism which was adopted in
the United Kingdom in the 1840s after the "reform" of the Corn Laws, which permitted free
trade in grain and therefore brought down both the price of wheat and the small farming
community in the UK, as it was intended to do. Later these liberal policies (largely modelled
on the "comparative advantage" economic theory, which had already been refuted by the time it
was developed by David Ricardo) were used to justify the Irish genocide of 1847-9.
This policy was eventually abandoned later in the nineteenth century, except for places
like India, of course. It was restored in the West in the 1970s, under the name of "free
trade", and therefore is called neoliberalism, or new liberalism in the economic sense.
The term is not a compliment.
I suspect that the term "liberal-fascist" derives partly from the term Islamofascist,
meaning a Muslim who does not bow to Washington six times a day, and partly from the term
"social-fascist", a Stalinist term for a socialist who did not bow to Moscow six times a
day.
"... Slobodan's "The Globalists" is a great look at Von Mises and Hayek peddling NeoLiberalism to the last hereditary aristocracy standing in Europe in the interwar years. ..."
"... To my mind, this set up a deracinated pseudo-nazism ..."
The thing is, the UK has long been captured by neoliberalism (arguably, they invented it).
The UK was the Trojan horse for the worst forms of neoliberalism in the EU. Which is why I
thought it was ideal for neoliberals wherever they were based for the UK to be in the EU. I
think one problem is that the UK somehow regressed from neoliberalism to a dream of some form
of old style 19th Century liberalism.
My reading attributes the term (aside from an obscure French usage) and the ideology to
Friedman and Austrian ex-pats Hayek and von MIses. When I think UK in the context of
neoliberalsim, naturally I think Thatcher. So yes, at least since Thatcher neoliberalism has
been the prevailing wind in the UK for which – imho – Brexit is both a symptom
and a solidifier.
Slobodan's "The Globalists" is a great look at Von Mises and Hayek peddling NeoLiberalism
to to the last hereditary aristocracy standing in Europe in the interwar years.
The Charlatan and Saint of NeoLiberalism didn't really get traction until the US set up
the BIS to help the Germans keep the debt cycle of dependence from the Versailles treaty
liquid, with German payments through France and the UK back to the US.
To my mind, this set up a deracinated pseudo-nazism, a comfortableness with exterminatory
exploitation so long as it's exercised though debt contracts, that has persisted to this day
in Western finance, where debt is absolute but lives are fungible.
Slobodan's "The Globalists" is a great look at Von Mises and Hayek peddling
NeoLiberalism to the last hereditary aristocracy standing in Europe in the interwar
years.
It's Slobodian, Quinn.
To my mind, this set up a deracinated pseudo-nazism
So you're on to something.
Hayek is the Grandfather of neoliberalism and the primary influence on Hayek's thought was
the Vienna of his youth: the go-go years after Franz Josef surrendered to the Hungarians,
created the dual monarchy, and there was the great cultural efflorescence of Vienna that
preceded the Austro-Hungarian empire's collapse.
Two ideologies emerged after WWI from Austria in reaction to the traumatic experience of
that collapse -- ideologies formulated by Austrians that then deeply damaged the rest of the
world.
Neoliberalism was one, of course. The other? Well, someone once asked Ernst Hanfstaengl
aka Putzi, Hitler's confidant, what caused Hitler's antiSemitism.
Hanfstaengl replied: 'Anyone who did not know Vienna before 1914 cannot understand.'
Hanfstaengl then explained that before WWI Vienna was full of beautiful people, the soldiers
in their uniforms, the Hapsburg Empire's citizens in their local traditional clothes etc and
'then these strange people came from the East all dressed in black and speaking a strange
kind of German'. These were the Orthodox Jews who came from Silesia, a part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Kaiser Franz Josef had done much to emancipate and help the Jews, so
many crossed over to Vienna to start a new life.
Now, to further put Hitler and Nazism's policies in their historical context, it's
necessary to understand the situation in Germany prior to their appearance.
In 1871, Bismarck had nationalized healthcare, making it available to all Germans, then
provided old-age pensions as public social security. Child labor was abolished and public
schools were provided for all children. The Kaiser implemented worker protection laws in
1890. After WW I, the Social Democrats' influence had remained strong. Germany had an active
union membership. An official "Decree on Collective Agreements, Worker and Employees
Committees and the Settlement of Labor disputes" enabled collective bargaining, legal
enforcement of labor contracts as well as social security for disabled veterans, widows, and
dependents. In 1918, unemployment benefits were given to all German workers.
In the 1932 elections, the Nazi Party didn't have an outright majority. According to the
Nuremberg Trial transcripts, on January 4, 1933, German bankers and industrialists had a
secret backroom deal with then-Chancellor Von Papen to make Hitler the Chancellor of Germany
in a coalition.
"In February 1933, as Chancellor, Hitler met with the leading German industrialists at the
home of Hermann Goring. There were representatives from IG Farben, AG Siemens, BMW, coal
mining magnates, Theissen Corp, AG Krupp, and others bankers, investors, and other Germans
belonging to the top 1%. In this meeting, Hitler said, "Private enterprise cannot be
maintained in the age of democracy.'"
In 1934 the Nazis outlined their plan to revitalize the German economy with the
reprivatization of significant industries: railways, public works project, construction,
steel, and banking. Hitler guaranteed profits for the private sector; many American
industrialists and bankers flocked to Germany to invest.
The Nazis had a thorough plan for deregulation. The Nazi's chief economist stated," The
first thing German business needs is peace and quiet. It must have a feeling of absolute
legal security and must know that work and its return are guaranteed." Likewise, businesses
weren't to be hampered by too much "regulation." On May 2, 1933, Hitler sent his Brown Shirts
to all union headquarters. Union leaders were beaten, and sent to prison or concentration
camps. The Nazi party expropriated union funds -- money workers paid for union membership --
for itself.
On January 20, 1934, the Nazis passed the Law Regulating National Labor, abrogating the
power of the government to set minimum wages and working conditions. Employers lowered wages
and benefits. Workers were banned from striking or engaging in other collective bargaining
rights, and worked longer hours for lower wages. Their conditions so deteriorated that when
the head of the AFL visited Nazi Germany in 1938, he compared an average worker's life to
that of a slave. .
The Nazis also privatized medicine. One of Hitler's economists was the head of a private
insurance company. These private for-profit health insurance companies immediately started to
profit from Anti-Semitism. In 1934, they eliminated reimbursements for Jewish physicians,
which allowed them to profit further.
And so on.
Philip K. Dick once wrote a novel whose particular ontological riff was that the Roman
empire never really ended and in the 20th century people lived in an imposed illusion under
the same elite, or their heirs, that had headed the Roman empire.
That sort of science-fictional novel could be written based on our own reality, riffing on
the theme: The Nazis won.
If you enjoyed the Global War on Terror, you're going to love the new War on Domestic
Terror! It's just like the original Global War on Terror, except that this time the
"Terrorists" are all "Domestic Violent Extremists" ("DVEs"), "Homegrown Violent Extremists"
("HVEs"), "Violent Conspiracy-Theorist Extremists" ("VCTEs"), "Violent Reality Denialist
Extremists" (VRDEs"), "Insurrectionary Micro-Aggressionist Extremists" ("IMAEs"), "People Who
Make Liberals Feel Uncomfortable" ("PWMLFUs"), and anyone else the Department of Homeland
Security wants to label an "extremist" and slap a ridiculous acronym on.
According to a "
National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin " issued by the DHS on January 27, these DCEs,
HVEs, VCTEs, VRDEs, IMAEs, and PWMLFUs are "ideologically-motivated violent extremists with
objections to the exercise of governmental authority" and other "perceived grievances fueled by
false narratives." They are believed to be "motivated by a range of issues, including anger
over Covid-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, police use of force," and other
dangerous "false narratives" (e.g., the existence of the "deep state," "herd immunity,"
"biological sex," "God," and so on).
"Inspired by foreign terrorist groups" and "emboldened by the breach of the US Capitol
Building," this diabolical network of "domestic terrorists" is "plotting attacks against
government facilities," "threatening violence against critical infrastructure" and actively
"citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19." For all we know, they might be
huddled in the "Wolf's Lair" at Mar-a-Lago right now, plotting a devastating terrorist attack
with those WMDs we never found in Iraq, or generating population-adjusted death-rate
charts going back 20 years , or posting pictures of " extremist frogs " on
the Internet.
The Department of Homeland Security is "concerned," as are its counterparts throughout the
global capitalist empire. The (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror isn't just a war on American
"domestic terror." The "domestic terror" threat is international. France has just passed a "
Global Security Law " banning citizens from filming the police beating the living snot out
of people (among other "anti-terrorist" provisions). In Germany, the government is preparing to
install an
anti-terror moat around the Reichstag . In the Netherlands, the police are cracking down on
the VCTEs, VRDEs, and other "
angry citizens who hate the system ," who have been protesting over nightly curfews.
Suddenly, everywhere you look (or at least if you are looking in the corporate media), "
global extremism networks are growing ." It's time for Globocap to take the gloves off
again, root the "terrorists" out of their hidey holes, and roll out a new official
narrative.
Actually, there's not much new about it. When you strip away all the silly new acronyms, the
(New Normal) War on Domestic Terror is basically just a combination of the "War on Terror"
narrative and the "New Normal" narrative, i.e., a militarization of the so-called "New Normal"
and a pathologization of the "War on Terror." Why would GloboCap want to do that, you ask?
I think you know, but I'll go ahead and tell you.
See, the problem with the original "Global War on Terror" was that it wasn't actually all
that global. It was basically just a war on Islamic "terrorism" (i.e., resistance to global
capitalism and its post-ideological ideology), which was fine as long as GloboCap was just
destabilizing and restructuring the Greater Middle East. It was put on hold in 2016 , so that
GloboCap could focus on defeating "populism" (i.e., resistance to global capitalism and its
post-ideological ideology), make an example of Donald Trump, and demonize everyone who voted
for him (or just refused to take part in their free and fair elections ), which
they have just finished doing, in spectacular fashion. So, now it's back to "War on Terror"
business, except with a whole new cast of "terrorists," or, technically, an expanded cast of
"terrorists." (I rattled off a list in my previous column .)
In short, GloboCap has simply expanded, recontextualized, and pathologized the "War on
Terror" (i.e., the war on resistance to global capitalism and its post-ideological ideology).
This was always inevitable, of course. A globally-hegemonic system (e.g., global capitalism)
has no external enemies, as there is no territory "outside" the system. Its only enemies are
within the system, and thus, by definition, are insurgents, also known as "terrorists" and
"extremists." These terms are utterly meaningless, obviously. They are purely strategic,
deployed against anyone who deviates from GloboCap's official ideology which, in case you were
wondering, is called "normality" (or, in our case, currently, "New Normality").
In earlier times, these "terrorists" and "extremists" were known as "heretics," "apostates,"
and "blasphemers." Today, they are also known as "deniers," e.g., "science deniers," "Covid
deniers," and recently, more disturbingly, "reality deniers." This is an essential part of the
pathologization of the "War on Terror" narrative. The new breed of "terrorists" do not just
hate us for our freedom they hate us because they hate "reality." They are no longer our
political or ideological opponents they are suffering from a psychiatric disorder. They no
longer need to be argued with or listened to they need to be "treated," "reeducated," and
"deprogrammed," until they accept "Reality." If you think I'm exaggerating the totalitarian
nature of the "New Normal/War on Terror" narrative, read this op-ed in The New York
Timesexploring
the concept of a "Reality Czar" to deal with our "Reality Crisis."
And this is just the beginning, of course. The consensus (at least in GloboCap circles) is,
the (New Normal) War on Domestic Terror will probably continue for the next 10 to 20 years
, which should provide the global capitalist ruling classes with more than enough time to carry
out the "
Great Reset ," destroy what's left of human society, and condition the public to get used
to living like cringing, neo-feudal peasants who have to ask permission to leave their houses.
We're still in the initial " shock and awe
" phase (which they will have to scale back a bit eventually), but just look at how much
they've already accomplished.
The economic damage is literally incalculable millions have been plunged into desperate
poverty, countless independent businesses crushed, whole industries crippled, developing
countries rendered economically dependent (i.e., compliant) for the foreseeable future, as
billionaires amassed over $1 trillion in wealth and supranational corporate behemoths
consolidated their dominance across the planet.
And that's just the economic damage. The attack on society has been even more dramatic.
GloboCap, in the space of a year, has transformed the majority of the global masses into an
enormous,
paranoid totalitarian cult that is no longer capable of even rudimentary reasoning. (I'm
not going to go on about it here at this point, you either recognize it or you're in it.)
They're actually lining up in parking lots, the double-masked members of this Covidian cult, to
be injected with an experimental "vaccine" that they believe will save the human species from
a virus that causes mild to moderate
symptoms in roughly 95% of those "infected," and that over 99% of the "infected" survive
.
So, it is no big surprise that these same mindless cultists are gung-ho for the (New Normal)
War on Domestic Terror, and the upcoming globally-televised show trial of Donald Trump for
"inciting insurrection," and the ongoing corporate censorship of the Internet, and can't wait
to be issued their " Freedom
Passports ," which will allow them to take part in "New Normal" life -- double-masked and
socially-distanced, naturally -- while having their every movement and transaction, and every
word they write on Facebook, or in an email, or say to someone on their smartphones, or in the
vicinity of their 5G toasters, recorded by GloboCap's Intelligence Services and their corporate
partners, subsidiaries, and assigns. These people have nothing at all to worry about, as they
would never dream of disobeying orders, and could not produce an original thought, much less
one displeasing to GloboCap, if you held a fake apocalyptic plague to their heads.
As for the rest of us "extremists," "domestic terrorists," "heretics," and "reality
deniers," (i.e., anyone criticizing global capitalism, or challenging its official narratives,
and its increasingly totalitarian ideology, regardless of our specific DHS acronyms), I wish I
had something hopeful to tell you, but, the truth is, things aren't looking so good. I guess
I'll see you in a quarantine camp , or in
the psych ward, or an offshore detention facility or, I don't know, maybe I'll see you in the
streets.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing,
Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent
Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Reading Blacks biography of Roosevelt, Hudson's work, Talbot's "The Devil's Chessboard"
and Douglas's "JFK and the Unspeakable" one discerns a clear line between the UK interwar
Foreign Office, military intelligence and rentier class and the Dulles brother's post war
ascent to the pinnacles of back room power.
Before the war the brothers arranged IP shares between the soon to be contending German
and Anglo-sphere industries, during the war they tried to arrange a separate peace with post
Hitler Germany, after Roosevelt's death and particularly in their con job on Truman, they
made the CIA the collective tool of the transatlantic financial elite, David Rockefeller
explicitly included.
These books all rely extensively on previously lightly touched primary sources.
The former head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center has suggested that counterinsurgency
tactics used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan should be applied to 'domestic extremists'
inside the US.
NPR reports that Robert Grenier, who directed the CIA's Counterterrorism program from 2004
to 2006, declared "We may be witnessing the dawn of a sustained wave of violent insurgency
within our own country, perpetrated by our own countrymen."
In an op-ed for
The New York Times last week, Grenier suggested that "extremists who seek a social
apocalypse are capable of producing endemic political violence of a sort not seen in this
country since Reconstruction."
Grenier, also a former CIA station chief in Pakistan and Afghanistan, grouped together "the
Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, 'Christian' national chauvinists, white
supremacists and QAnon fantasists" and claimed they are all "committed to violent
extremism."
Grenier labeled dissenters an "insurgency" and called for them to be "defeated" like an
enemy army.
In further comments to NPR, Grenier stated that "as in any insurgency situation, you have
committed insurgents who are typically a relatively small proportion of the affected
population. But what enables them to carry forward their program is a large number of people
from whom they can draw tacit support."
Grenier also stated that insurgents may emerge from groups who "believe that the election
was stolen," or those "who don't trust NPR or The New York Times ."
"The most violent elements that we are concerned about right now see former President Trump
as a broadly popular and charismatic symbol," the CIA spook added, before comparing Trump to
Saddam Hussein.
"You know, just as I saw in the Middle East that the air went out of violent demonstrations
when [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein was defeated and seen to be defeated, I think the same
situation applies here," he proclaimed.
Grenier suggested that Trump should be convicted at the upcoming impeachment trial as a
'national security imperative' because "So long as he is there and leading the resistance, if
you will, which he shows every sign of intending to do, he is going to be an inspiration to
very violent people."
Grenier then compared Americans to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, noting that in Afghanistan "the
thrust of our campaign there was, yes, to hunt down al-Qaida, but primarily to remove the
supportive environment in which they were able to live and to flourish. And that meant fighting
the Taliban."
"I think that is the heart of what we need to deal with here," he added.
The call to treat Americans as terrorist insurgents comes on the heels of a
Department of Homeland Security warning that those dissatisfied with the election result
may rise up and commit acts of terrorism in the coming weeks.
"Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections
to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other
perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit
violence," stated the bulletin issued last week through the DHS National Terrorist Advisory
System -- or NTAS.
The bulletin added that 'extremists' may be "motivated by a range of issues, including anger
over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and police use of force."
Le Carré feuded with Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses , stating
that "nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion and be published with impunity".
[35]
In January 2003, two months prior to the invasion, The Times published le Carré's essay
"The United States Has Gone Mad" criticising the buildup to the Iraq War and President George W. Bush 's
response to the 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks , calling it "worse than McCarthyism , worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term
potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War " and "beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have
hoped for in his nastiest dreams". [36][37] Le
Carré participated in the London protests against the Iraq War
. He said the war resulted from the "politicisation of intelligence to fit the political
intentions" of governments and "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger
from bin Laden to Saddam
Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history". [38][39]
He was critical of Tony
Blair 's role in taking Britain into the Iraq War, saying "I can't understand that Blair
has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under
false pretences has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept
the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed".
[38]
Le Carré was critical of Western governments' policies towards Iran. He believed
Iran's actions are a response to being "encircled by nuclear powers" and by the way in which
"we ousted Mosaddeq through the CIA and the Secret
Service here across the way and installed the Shah and trained his ghastly secret
police force in all the black arts, the SAVAK ". [38]
In 2017, le Carré expressed concerns over the future of liberal democracy , saying "I think of
all things that were happening across Europe in the 1930s, in Spain, in Japan, obviously in
Germany. To me, these are absolutely comparable signs of the rise of fascism and it's contagious, it's infectious.
Fascism is up and running in Poland and Hungary. There's an encouragement about".
[40] He later wrote
that the end of the Cold War had left the West without a coherent ideology, in contrast to the
"notion of individual
freedom , of inclusiveness, of tolerance – all of that we called anti-communism " prevailing during that
time. [41]
... ... ...
Le Carré was an outspoken advocate of European integration and sharply
criticised Brexit .
[45] Le Carré
criticised Conservative politicians such as
Boris Johnson (whom
he referred to as a "mob orator"), Dominic Cummings , and Nigel Farage in interviews, claiming that
their "task is to fire up the people with nostalgia [and] with anger". He further opined in
interviews that "What really scares me about nostalgia is that it's become a political weapon.
Politicians are creating a nostalgia for an England that never existed, and selling it, really,
as something we could return to", noting that with "the demise of the working class we saw also the demise of an
established social order, based on the stability of ancient class structures". [44][46] On the other
hand, he said that in the Labour Party "they have this Leninist element and they have this
huge appetite to level society."
"... By 2013, the CIA's chief technology officer outlined the agency's mission "to collect everything and hang on to it forever," acknowledging the internet companies, including Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Fitbit and telecom companies, for making it possible. ..."
"... The revolutionary roots of surveillance capitalism are planted in this unwritten political doctrine of surveillance exceptionalism, bypassing democratic oversight, and essentially granting the new internet companies a license to steal human experience and render it as proprietary data. ..."
"... What's been reinvented is no less than the idea of people as property. ..."
"... As an internet executive who has been in the game from the very beginning (1995 and onward), I am still dumbfounded that the overwhelming majority of Google search users have no idea that when they search for a product or a store, for example, the results are not democratically revealed. Using fashion as an example, Google's business model has stores and brands bid on keyword search terms, like "fine lingerie," or "red pumps," or "blue silk robe," to name a few of the billions of search terms. ..."
"... surveillance economies of scale and AI insights of prediction that allow a herd animal, us, to be more profitably managed and the profit more efficiently extracted. ..."
"... Alexa, dim the lights! ... like the hundreds of millions of other herd animals living the same delusion. if we were paid for our data use, we would just become aware of its use. this is a defect in a system designed to make you feel unique and special. that's the kink: at bottom, you like being surveilled and controlled. ..."
We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both.
By Shoshana Zuboff
Dr. Zuboff, a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, is the author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism."
Two decades ago, the American government left democracy's front door open to California's fledgling internet companies, a cozy
fire lit in welcome. In the years that followed, a surveillance society flourished in those rooms, a social vision born in the distinct
but reciprocal needs of public intelligence agencies and private internet companies, both spellbound by a dream of total information
awareness. Twenty years later, the fire has jumped the screen, and on Jan. 6, it threatened to burn down democracy's house.
I have spent exactly 42 years studying the rise of the digital as an economic force driving our transformation into an information
civilization. Over the last two decades, I've observed the consequences of this surprising political-economic fraternity as those
young companies morphed into surveillance empires powered by global architectures of behavioral monitoring, analysis, targeting and
prediction that I have called surveillance capitalism. On the strength of their surveillance capabilities and for the sake of their
surveillance profits, the new empires engineered a fundamentally anti-democratic epistemic coup marked by unprecedented concentrations
of knowledge about us and the unaccountable power that accrues to such knowledge.
In an information civilization, societies are defined by questions of knowledge -- how it is distributed, the authority that governs
its distribution and the power that protects that authority. Who knows? Who decides who knows? Who decides who decides who knows?
Surveillance capitalists now hold the answers to each question, though we never elected them to govern. This is the essence of the
epistemic coup. They claim the authority to decide who knows by asserting ownership rights over our personal information and defend
that authority with
the power to control critical information systems and infrastructures.
... ... ...
The second stage is marked by a sharp rise in
epistemic inequality
, defined as the difference between what I can know and what can be known about me...
The Surveillance Exception
The public tragedy of Sept. 11 dramatically shifted the focus in Washington from debates over federal privacy legislation to a
mania for total information awareness, turning Silicon Valley's innovative surveillance practices into objects of intense interest.
As Jack Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School, observed
, the intelligence community would have to "rely on private enterprise to collect and generate information for it," in order
to reach beyond constitutional, legal, or regulatory constraints, controversies that are central today.
By 2013, the
CIA's chief technology officer outlined the agency's mission
"to collect everything and hang on to it forever," acknowledging the internet companies, including Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,
and Fitbit and telecom companies, for making it possible.
The revolutionary roots of surveillance capitalism are planted in this
unwritten political doctrine of surveillance exceptionalism, bypassing democratic oversight, and essentially granting the new internet
companies a license to steal human experience and render it as proprietary data.
Young entrepreneurs without any democratic mandate landed a windfall of infinite information and unaccountable power. Google's
founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, exercised absolute control over the production, organization and presentation of the world's
information. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has had absolute control over what would become a primary means of global communication and
news consumption, along with all the information concealed in its networks. The group's membership grew, and a swelling population
of global users proceeded unaware of what just happened.
The license to steal came with a price, binding the executives to the continued patronage of elected officials and regulators
as well as the sustained ignorance, or at least learned resignation, of users. The doctrine was, after all, a political doctrine,
and its defense would require a future of political maneuvering, appeasement, engagement and investment.
Google led the way with what would become one of the world's richest lobbying machines. In 2018 nearly half the Senate received
contributions from Facebook, Google and Amazon, and the companies
continue to set spending records .
Most significant, surveillance exceptionalism has meant that the United States and many other liberal democracies chose surveillance
over democracy as the guiding principle of social order. With this forfeit, democratic governments crippled their ability to sustain
the trust of their people, intensifying the rationale for surveillance.
The Economics and Politics of Epistemic Chaos
To understand the economics of epistemic chaos, it's important to know that surveillance capitalism's operations have no formal
interest in facts. All data is welcomed as equivalent, though not all of it is equal. Extraction operations proceed with the discipline
of the Cyclops, voraciously consuming everything it can see and radically indifferent to meaning, facts and truth.
In a
leaked memo , a Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, describes this willful disregard for truth and meaning:
"We connect people.
That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe someone dies
in a terrorist attack. The ugly truth is anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good."
In other words, asking a surveillance extractor to reject content is like asking a coal-mining operation to discard containers
of coal because it's too dirty. This is why content moderation is a last resort, a public-relations operation in the spirit of ExxonMobil's
social responsibility messaging. In Facebook's case, data triage is undertaken either to minimize the risk of user withdrawal or
to avoid political sanctions. Both aim to increase rather than diminish data flows. The extraction imperative combined with radical
indifference to produce systems that ceaselessly escalate the scale of engagement but don't care what engages you.
I'm homing in now on Facebook not because it's the only perpetrator of epistemic chaos but because it's the largest social media
company and its consequences reach farthest.
The economics of surveillance capitalism begot the extractive Cyclops, turning Facebook into an advertising juggernaut and a killing
field for truth. Then an amoral Mr. Trump became president, demanding the right to lie at scale. Destructive economics merged with
political appeasement, and everything became infinitely worse.
Key to this story is that the politics of appeasement required little more than a refusal to mitigate, modify or eliminate the
ugly truth of surveillance economics. Surveillance capitalism's economic imperatives turned Facebook into a societal tinderbox. Mr.
Zuckerberg merely had to stand down and commit himself to the bystander role.
Internal research presented in 2016 and 2017 demonstrated causal links between Facebook's algorithmic targeting mechanisms and
epistemic chaos. One researcher concluded that the algorithms were responsible for the viral spread of divisive content that helped
fuel the growth of German extremist groups. Recommendation tools accounted for 64 percent of "extremist group joins," she found --
dynamics not unique to Germany .
The Cambridge Analytica scandal
in March 2018
riveted the world's attention on Facebook in a new way, offering a window for bold change. The public began to grasp that Facebook's
political advertising business is a way to rent the company's suite of capabilities to microtarget users, manipulate them and sow
epistemic chaos, pivoting the whole machine just a few degrees from commercial to political objectives.
Image
Credit... Pool photo by Graeme Jennings/EPA, via Shutterstock
The company launched some modest initiatives, promising more transparency, a more robust system of third-party fact checkers and
a policy to limit "coordinated inauthentic behavior," but through it all, Mr. Zuckerberg conceded the field to Mr. Trump's demands
for unfettered access to the global information bloodstream.
Mr. Zuckerberg
rejected internal proposals for operational changes that would reduce epistemic chaos. A
political whitelist identified over 100,000 officials and candidates whose accounts were exempted from fact-checking, despite
internal research showing that users tend to believe false information shared by politicians. In September 2019 the company
said that political advertising would
not be subject to fact-checking.
To placate his critics in 2018, Mr. Zuckerberg commissioned a civil rights audit led by Laura Murphy, a former director of the
ACLU's Washington legislative office. The
report published
in 2020 is a cri de coeur expressed in a river of words that bear witness to dashed hopes -- "disheartened," "frustrated," "angry,"
"dismayed," "fearful," "heartbreaking."
The report is consistent with a nearly complete rupture of the
American public's faith in Big Tech. When asked how Facebook would adjust to a political shift toward a possible Biden administration,
a company spokesman, Nick Clegg,
responded, "We'll adapt to the environment in which we're operating." And so it did. On Jan. 7, the day after it became clear
that Democrats would control the Senate,
Facebook announced that it would
indefinitely block Mr. Trump's account.
We are meant to believe that the destructive effects of epistemic chaos are the inevitable cost of cherished rights to freedom
of speech. No. Just as catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere are the consequence of burning fossil fuels,
epistemic chaos is a consequence of surveillance capitalism's bedrock commercial operations, aggravated by political obligations
and set into motion by a 20-year-old dream of total information that slid into nightmare. Then a plague came to America, turning
the antisocial media conflagration into a wildfire.
... ... ...
The Washington Post reported in late March that with
nearly 50 percent
of the content on Facebook's news feed related to Covid-19, a very small number of "influential users" were driving the reading
habits and feeds of a vast number of users. A study released in April by the
Reuters Institute
confirmed that high-level politicians, celebrities and other prominent public figures produced 20 percent of the misinformation
in their sample, but attracted 69 percent of social media engagements in their sample.
... ... ...
In 1966, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann wrote a short book of seminal importance, "The Social Construction of Reality." Its
central observation is that the "everyday life" we experience as "reality" is actively and perpetually constructed by us. This ongoing
miracle of social order rests on "common sense knowledge," which is "the knowledge we share with others in the normal self-evident
routines of everyday life."
Think about traffic: There are not enough police officers in the world to ensure that every car stops at every red light, yet
not every intersection triggers a negotiation or a fight. That's because in orderly societies we all know that red lights have the
authority to make us stop and green lights are authorized to let us go. This common sense means that we each act on what we all know,
while trusting that others will too. We're not just obeying laws; we are creating order together. Our reward is to live in a world
where we mostly get where we are going and home again safely because we can trust one another's common sense. No society is viable
without it.
"All societies are constructions in the face of chaos," write Berger and Luckmann. Because norms are summaries of our
common sense, norm violation is the essence of terrorism -- terrifying because it repudiates the most taken-for-granted social certainties.
"Norm violation creates an attentive audience beyond the target of terror,"
write Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman in "Political Terrorism," a widely cited text on the subject. Everyone experiences
the shock, disorientation, and fear. The legitimacy and continuity of our institutions are essential because they buffer us from
chaos by formalizing our common sense.
... ... ...
For many who hold freedom of speech as a sacred right, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's 1919 dissenting opinion in
Abrams v. United States is
a touchstone. "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas," he wrote. "The best test of truth is the power
of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The corrupt information that dominates the private square
does not rise to the top of a free and fair competition of ideas. It wins in a rigged game. No democracy can survive this game.
Our susceptibility to the destruction of common sense reflects a young information civilization that has not yet found its footing
in democracy. Unless we interrupt surveillance economics and revoke the license to steal that legitimates its antisocial operations,
the other coup will continue to strengthen and produce fresh crises. What must be done now?
... ... ...
Shoshana Zuboff is a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and the author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism."
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity
of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected].
Jaron Lanier has made the same arguments in a more accessible style. "You Are Not A Gadget" and "Ten Arguments For Deleting Your
Social Media Accounts" are highly recommended!
Professor Zuboff is being polite and cautious. What's been reinvented is no less than the idea of people as property. Your data
is owned. Behavior is traded like a commodity. There is limited personal protection. Imagine you live completely off the grid.
One day you come into town to get coffee with an old friend. You don't bring any electronic device because you don't own any.
You pay in cash. You are 'not' surveilled. Your friend is surveilled. She has a phone and lives typically. The bill has two coffees.
A data point is created about you. Scale up to trillions data points and this reflective data gathering spreads like COVID. This
isn't benign information either such as your preferred coffee order. The difference between data 'person favours this political
party' and metadata 'person looked at a website for this many seconds, liked these posts, walks at this pace or was at such and
such location' is merely a mathematical function of utility. With enough data one can be translated to the other and monetized.
When placed into a market outcomes like 'engagement' are really euphemisms for inputs that you may consider private like your
sexual and reproductive history, your love and spiritual beliefs or who you voted for. Like Climate Change there's no individual
'opt out'. Unlike Climate Change, there are relatively near term solutions.
Had a nice dinner with my daughter and nephew. We used Siri to get to the restaurant. My iphone was on the table while we talked.
What came up in conversation was carpet cleaning; something I don't recall e-mailing or texting about. (My place then had hardwood
floors) Next day; boom, e-mails and ads from carpet cleaning places all over my e-mail, phone, texts. So does the internet just
snag the info you voluntarily give to them? Or connect to companies when you mention something in an a-mail or text? It's worse.
Siri actually listens to you while you're chatting over dinner. Try what I've described. Pick a topic you haven't communicated
about recently.
I've got to confess that I gave up on this about page three. It strikes me as paranoid; 2+2=6, maybe seven. These titians of the
internet need to get way better before they are as dangerous as portrayed. It causes me to think of 'how close we are to driverless
cars' - no we aren't.
If you don't care about privacy (which many don't) then the digital world is an Eden. People voluntarily post intimate details
of their lives willingly. You have to really work at it to have any privacy today. It can be done though. The US needs to take
a harder stance towards internet privacy like the EU. Any service that operates in the US needs an opt out clause in their user
agreements towards sharing any of their personal information. Most people would just click on the "I Agree to Share" but the people
who care about their privacy will opt out.
As an internet executive who has been in the game from the very beginning (1995 and onward), I am still dumbfounded that the overwhelming
majority of Google search users have no idea that when they search for a product or a store, for example, the results are not
democratically revealed. Using fashion as an example, Google's business model has stores and brands bid on keyword search terms,
like "fine lingerie," or "red pumps," or "blue silk robe," to name a few of the billions of search terms.
The stores or brands
that bid highest most often appear at the top of the list. As well, above those results sit paid ads, though again, most users
do not know those ads are actually ads, as they consider them to be legitimate results.
Over the years, I've read many a user
survey on Google search, and still--as savvy as we believe we have become in the online space--most users believe the results
at the top of the list must be the best results out there. Talk about a rigged system. Sadly and frighteningly, most of us do
not know, or probably even care, that it is.
i've been an admirer of dr. zuboff's take on technology for many years. but it's useful to reverse this analysis and consider
it from the corporate side: surveillance economies of scale and AI insights of prediction that allow a herd animal, us, to be
more profitably managed and the profit more efficiently extracted.
it's important to see that surveillance fundamentally benefits
command and control capabilities: china uses it to command obedience; corporations use it to control profit extraction, and to
guide your car GPS. we do not mind that we are being commanded and controlled because this brings us home delivery, voice control
systems, GPS navigation, targeted ads, on demand media, vast connectivity and personal media bubbles. these make us feel unique
and almost godlike ... Alexa, dim the lights! ... like the hundreds of millions of other herd animals living the same delusion.
if we were paid for our data use, we would just become aware of its use. this is a defect in a system designed to make you feel
unique and special. that's the kink: at bottom, you like being surveilled and controlled.
you like the commercial and recreational
benefits this brings. you don't care who uses what, provided you get all the consumer satisfaction and none of the dark web blowback. i'm not optimistic about "unprecedented solutions." there is no imminent stampede of the herd to get out of the corral. we like
it in here.
My life has gotten better since I deleted Facebook a few years ago. I get fewer updates from high school acquaintances, but my
real friendships have continued just the same, and my professional life has improved (since I have one fewer distraction). My
anxiety level is also lower. Of course the news over the past year has been a major source of anxiety, but it would have been
worse if I'd spent 2020 doom-scrolling on Facebook. I think a lot of people's lives would be better if a lot of people got off
social media...for these reasons as well as the important issues this essay addresses.
I'm 100% behind the "surveillance society" as long as corporations and lawmakers are surveilled. But when an Assange or a Snowden
proves that the NSA and CIA are criminal enterprises...the dishonest politicians hide behind the Espionage Act to quash the facts.
Right from the beginning I knew this Internet and social media revolution was dubious Right from the start, I tried never to use
my real name on SM or in email addresses...But they figured it out...It's been creepy from day one... Let's regain our old-fashioned
anonymity!
"... "It's so dangerous as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don't have to guess about where this goes or how this ends," Gabbard said. ..."
"... She continued: "When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he's spoken with or heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they've seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians." ..."
"... "What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? Where do you take this" ..."
"... "You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally, " Gabbard said. ..."
After 9/11, the entire country collectively lost its mind in the throes of fear. During that time, all civil and Constitutional
rights were shredded and replaced with the pages of The
USA PATRIOT Act .
Almost 20 years later, the U.S. has again lost its collective mind, this time in fear of a "virus" and it's
"super mutations" and a
"riot" at the capitol. A lot of people called this and
to the surprise of very few, much like after 9/11, Americans are watching what remains of their civil liberties be replaced with
a new bill.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021
The DTPA is essentially the criminalization of speech, expression, and thought . It takes cancel culture a step further and
all but outlaws unpopular opinions . This
act will empower intelligence, law enforcement, and even military wings of the American ruling class to crack down on individuals
adhering to certain belief systems and ideologies.
"The attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month was the latest example of domestic terrorism, but the threat of domestic
terrorism remains very real. We cannot turn a blind eye to it," Upton said. "The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act will equip
our law enforcement leaders with the tools needed to help keep our homes, families, and communities across the country safe.
Congressman Upton's
website gives the following information on DTPA:
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 would strengthen the federal government's efforts to prevent, report on, respond
to, and investigate acts of domestic terrorism by authorizing offices dedicated to combating this threat; requiring these offices
to regularly assess this threat; and providing training and resources to assist state, local, and tribal law enforcement in addressing
it.
DTPA would authorize three offices, one each within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ),
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to monitor, investigate, and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism. The bill also
requires these offices to provide Congress with joint, biannual reports assessing the state of domestic terrorism threats, with
a specific focus on white supremacists. Based on the data collected, DTPA requires these offices to focus their resources on the
most significant threats.
DTPA also codifies the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, which would coordinate with United States Attorneys and other
public safety officials to promote information sharing and ensure an effective, responsive, and organized joint effort to combat
domestic terrorism. The legislation requires DOJ, FBI, and DHS to provide training and resources to assist state, local, and tribal
law enforcement agencies in understanding, detecting, deterring, and investigating acts of domestic terrorism and white supremacy.
Finally, DTPA directs DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Department of Defense to establish an interagency task force to combat white supremacist
infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement.
Those who read the bill aren't so gung ho to shred the Constitution
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
has some serious reservations.
In a recent interview
on Fox News Primetime, Gabbard stated that the bill effectively criminalizes half of the country. (Emphasis ours)
"It's so dangerous as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents,
Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don't have to guess about where this goes or how this
ends," Gabbard said.
She continued: "When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he's spoken with or
heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types
of movements similar to the insurgencies they've seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious
extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians."
Gabbard, stating her concern about how the government will define what qualities they are searching for in potential threats to
the country, went on to ask:
"What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking
about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody
who is pro-life? Where do you take this"
Tulsi said the bill would create a dangerous undermining of our civil liberties and freedoms in our Constitution. She also stated
the DPTA essentially targets nearly half of the United States.
"You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom,
liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally, " Gabbard said.
Tulsi Gabbard is not the only one to criticize the legislation
Even the ACLU , one of the weakest organizations on civil liberties in the United States, has spoken out. While the ACLU was
only concerned with how the bill would affect minorities or "brown people," the organization stated that the legislation, while set
forth under the guise of countering white supremacy, would eventually be used against non-white people.
The ACLU's statement is true.
As with similar bills submitted under the guise of "protecting" Americans against outside threats, this bill will inevitably expand
further. The stated goals of the DPTA are far-reaching and frightening enough. It would amount to an official declaration of the
end to Free Speech.
Soon there will be no rights left for Americans
In the last twenty years, Americans have lost their 4th Amendment rights, and now they are losing their 1st. All that remains
is the 2nd Amendment , and
both the ruling class and increasing numbers of the American people know it.
Due to the immense power of propaganda, normal people who should identify politically as the
"left" are actually supporting these dangerous policies and the erosions of liberty are
accelerating in direct proportion to the level of resistance, such as r/Wallstreetbets and the
immediate crackdown across several platforms to stop them.
I've seen an extraordinary erosion of rights and liberties over the past few years. It
really started with the cover up after the Trump election, which sought to steer the
narrative of public opinion away from the failure of the Clintons and the Democratic machine
with obvious fantastic lies about Russia.
For a myriad of reasons probably understood best by likes of Freud, Jüng, and others,
everyone on the left (who are supposed to be the smart and rational ones in society) bought
these lies and repeated them.
Once this was allowed to happen, once Maddow was allowed to lead the vanguard of libel
with no recourse, the snowball began to roll and now we are seeing the enforcement of that
thought-policing, which is as unconstitutional as the libel itself, especially considering it
is being perpetrated ubiquitously among media owners.
The phenomenon of Donald Trump the villain President has been used as an excuse to destroy
free speech and shoe horn in authoritarian policies. Due to the immense power of propaganda,
normal people who should identify politically as the "left" are actually supporting these
dangerous policies and the erosions of liberty are accelerating in direct proportion to the
level of resistance, such as r/Wallstreetbets and the immediate crackdown across several
platforms to stop them.
This Wall St. favoritism is obvious, but will likely end without bankers taking much
damage besides some short term outrage. They still control all the levers of currency and
trade no matter the President.
The real dangers of the day are the clamping down on speech. Starting with imprisoning
Julian Assange and then migrating to various corners of the Internet. I'll be very interested
to see how things shake out with the stock market, but I imagine it will go back to the firm
grip of those who control the money supply, which it was for a very long time.
In the meantime, shutting down the Reddit forums and Discord servers is a very serious
danger and I hope we can shine a light on it.
It's part & parcel here especially from DUP types who sometimes appear to be living in
a fantasy world – Shinners not so much but I imagine that SF dissidents have similar
extreme positions & all of this comes from some intelligent & professional people not
just the malleable mobs. Meanwhile there is a turf war for the gangster versions of both UVF
& UDA hitting the streets in Belfast.
I recall a few years back reading an account from a British Army general who was familiar
with both Northern Ireland & the former Yugoslavia before they blew up, who in both
instances was shocked by how people who had for the most part lived happily side by side
within a relatively short space of time became sworn enemies. All of that had a religious
background with the latter including ethnicity, but to him both sides in both cases spiraled
down through negative reactions into extremes, becoming in the end each others sworn
enemies.
Politics & Class have I believe caused the same fractures & after all the
successful & presumably intelligent PMC also have their deplorable others that are
largely a construction based on generalisations & stereotypes, while sadly peace &
reconciliation efforts as far as I can tell always appear to arrive as an epilogue to a very
bad book.
Yugoslavia definitely didn't live happily side by side. Its tensions were hidden under
Tito, but existed before (cf WW2 Croats vs Serbs, as most visible example), and blew up
after, to a great extent because they were so supressed before w/o any reasonable outlet. It
might have given a semblance of "happines", but it wasn't really there.
I was only in Yugoslavia once for about a week in 1982, and you could see what a mess it
was in the making. I'm used to Europeans drinking, but Belgrade made em' look like
teetotalers. Add in age old tensions and kaboom!
One of the biggest hyperinflationary episodes came out of their civil war, only to be
eclipsed in the numbers game by Zimbabwe after the turn of the century.
I was going through Yugoslavia by train in 1981 and the one thing that struck me looking
out the windows was flags. You had Yugoslavian flags everywhere you looked to the point that
it was almost a fetish. It was only years later that I wondered if the point of those flags
was to encourage the different groups to think of themselves as Yugoslavians first and
foremost.
> to a great extent because they were so supressed before w/o any reasonable
outlet.
But this seems to excuse the fighting? If everybody was "suppressed" then why did they
kick sideways, rather than up? As I think I said once before, my friend from Serbia would say
"I'd be on "my" side of the street and "they" would be shooting at me, and then I'd cross the
street and "my" people would be shooting at me".
He, like so many nowadays, came to the US not because this was some beacon of hope but
because where he lived, a place he loved for many reasons, was that messed up.
Reading Wikipedia I come across this tiresome sentence: "The Croat quest for independence
led to large Serb communities within Croatia rebelling and trying to secede from the Croat
republic. Serbs in Croatia would not accept a status of a national minority in a sovereign
Croatia, since they would be demoted from the status of a constituent nation of the entirety
of Yugoslavia."
Croats? Serbs? Like they are fundamentally different species? It's as bad as the
Reconstruction South, but per my example above people didn't even have different colored
skin, heck they were physically indistinguishable. They just wanted something they themselves
couldn't even describe without foaming at the mouth.
To be considered above somebody else by birth was what it really was.
Oh, and another head-banging quote: "the "Croatian Spring" protest in the 1970s was backed
by large numbers of Croats who claimed that Yugoslavia remained a Serb hegemony and demanded
that Serbia's powers be reduced .Tito, whose home republic was Croatia,"
An iron-fisted dictator runs the country, he is from Croatia, yet the country is
considered by Croatians to be "Serb hegemony". Ok whatever, hey it does make more sense than
following a normal-height dark-haired dark-eyed man because he says that tall blond-haired
blue eyed people are superior. And that was a short-by-American-standards drive away
We can give the globe a spin and find the same idiocy in Asia, where "they all look alike"
to western eyes but oh boy they slaughter each other just as regularly as we do.
Ok I'm done ranting. What a plague on the planet this species is.
Kicking sideways (or downwards) is always easier than kicking upwards, especially if
people were doing it for years.
Otherwise, you're just accentuating my point – and I agree with you. It was
incredible watching people in pub who were getting on very well until one of them asked where
the other was from, and that has changed the whole atmosphere.
My cousin from Prague came to America in the late 90's to live on a genuine ranch for a
spell and go on a long roadtrip in search of
So he gets pulled over for speeding in a red state and gives the officer his Czech drivers
license, and he told me the officer went into a harangue over all the ethnic cleansing that
was going on in his country, and how sorry he was about it, and let him off.
Cousin was torn between telling the copper, nah that's a few countries over, but went for
the victim card instead.
Hah, do you know the Western press brain-melt induced by having Slovakia and Slovenia
(which, moreover have very similar flags..) in the same World Cup (soccer) 2022 qualification
group?
Croats? Serbs? Like they are fundamentally different species?
Not different species, but different religions; Roman and Orthodox Catholicism,
respectively. Think German-speaking Europe during the Thirty Years War.
The irony of course is that, in 1992, Croats for the most part didn't go to mass, Serbs
did go to Liturgy, and Bosniak Muslims thought beer went well with their pork chops.
Think of it not as a religious war, but a re-hash of WWII.
Diana Johnstones "Fools Crusade" goes into the destabilization efforts made by various EU
and Nato entities to precipitate the break up. It's where the Clintons beta tested the nation
breaking tools Bush/Cheney began deploying around the world.
Karl Von Hapsburg and the Pope were both involved in prying the Catholic portions loose
from the Yugoslav federation and bringing them back into the Mont Pelerin orbit of the former
Habsburg empire.
The Orthodox regions have been left to the Russians with black markets to everyone's
benefit and the Bosnians given the standard settler/colonial treatment of designated
"races."
Vlade – perhaps I should not have used the word happily but basically neighbours
were not killing each other as was also mainly the case in NI, although there were tensions
gradually building up in tandem with the Civil Rights movement based on the MLK. model.
I don't know what the tipping point was in the Balkans, but in NI it was the treatment
received by the marchers & the likes of the Bogside at the hands of the B specials &
RUC in Derry which gradually spread elsewhere in mass battles between mobs from both sides
& the above armed cops. All of this capped off in 72 by the Provos most successful
recruiting campaign courtesy of the Parachute regiment on Bloody Sunday, while about that
time around 10,000 Catholic refugees crossed into the Republic.
If the General thought that people in NI lived happily side by side before the Troubles,
then he was sorely misinformed. Tensions were always very strong, although not just religious
ones. In Dublin growing up I had neighbours who were Belfast protestants but had been driving
out of Belfast because their grandfather was involved in a shipyard trade union and that was
sufficient for him to have been labeled as a communist and Taig lover.
Yes happily was the wrong word but in the North outside of the cities there was mixing
& occasionally mixed marriages.
You are very correct in relation to the troubles in the shipyards, which I read a few
books about in prep for a statue. Funny thing is that during my 2 stints at the Titanic
studios for GoT I was informed by the top man that many of the tradesmen were ex
paramilitaries from both sides who managed to work well together for a decade, but in
separate teams. That was also tjhe case during the yearly Wraps where they all took full
advantage of the free bars but besides a few scuffles, there was never any real trouble.
A lot of the work would have been carried out in the original paint hall.
You have lost me there Vlade ( If you were indeed commenting on my post ) as I don't know
the book, but you have reminded me of one very violent incident on location in Spain between
2 Catholics in a bar. It was due to one of them being a member of another group of savages
that plagued Belfast as the other 2 wound down.
They were called the Hoodies who were part of the huge crime wave that hit Belfast as a
consequence of the Troubles. It was cleaned up in Catholic areas over about 7 years under the
command of Bobby Storey.
quote from an article i am reading on alex ross interview...Alex Ross is the music critic
of The New Yorker, among other things.. its a bit of a controversial comment which i why i am
sharing it..
"America -- people have said this in so many ways -- is in need of the kind of
self-examination that has become widespread in Germany. For all of its problems, the culture
of working through the past is very strong in Germany. Susan Neiman recently wrote a
brilliant book, Learning from the Germans, drawing a line between the German examination of
the Nazi past and the Holocaust and America's, to put it mildly, very incomplete reckoning
with racism, slavery, the Native American genocide, and everything else. As I say in the
book, Germany becomes a sort of alibi for us -- no matter how bad things are here, we're not
that bad. We're not as bad as the Germans. That undertow exists whenever German history and
German culture are discussed in America. Consider the incredible profusion of books on the
Nazi period that you see in bookstores -- there's always an element of wanting to go back
this period when America seemed to be purely on the side of good and the Germans were
absolute evil. It makes us feel better about ourselves. And so we have these Nazi characters
in movies over and over -- good down-to-earth Americans out there battling evil Germans who
are playing Wagner on their Victrolas, which is literally something that happens in one of
the Captain America movies. It's a comforting myth, one that needs to be shaken up a
bit."
Globalists tell the people they are for mankind and Mother Earth, against corporate
exploitation. Once in control after a year of planpanic and the Great Reset, globalists will
operate for the benefit of those in control of the world's largest corporations.
In all three "different" systems, the people begin to wake up too late. The only way for
those who have seized control to stay in control is to suppress the "have nots." This leads
inevitably to totalitarian control and tyranny.
Thus, communism, fascism and globalism differ only in rhetoric. In all things that matter
they are identical. It's all totalitarianism.
A hallmark of totalitarian societies is that there's no escape from politics and the
dominant state ideology. Recent events demonstrate that we've now sadly reached that point in
Britain, the US and other Western countries.
...In the choice between the personal and the political, between listening to the
politician, or romancing (even if only in his imagination), the poet chooses the personal. He
is right to do so. Totalitarian societies come about when people do the opposite. They put
politics before the personal. They betray old friendships for 'the cause', or put 'following
the party line' before family and loved ones.
...Things that used to be apolitical have become completely politicised. There is no
'ring-fencing' any more. I have to say, even as someone who makes my living as a political
commentator, I'm absolutely sick of the way politics has infected every aspect of our lives
...While the US presidential inauguration was being televised, and viewers were no doubt
being told repeatedly what a 'great day for democracy' it was, I was doing a jigsaw puzzle.
Believe me, it was far more rewarding.
Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. His award winning blog
can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs
@NeilClark66
sarcastictruth 17 hours ago 24 Jan, 2021 06:38 AM
Political correctness is the means by which the powers that be/the elite/the globalists
control the masses. Why do people demonstrate political correctness? To show what a "good
person" they and how they are aware of "social issues". That's why people strive to be
politically correct. Its the reason we are in the lockdown situation, people accept the
lockdown because you are deemed politically incorrect (a bad person) if you don't. People
mistake that politically correctness is about fighting racism, whilst racism against black
people is condemned, racism against white people is actively encourage. This shows
political correctness has nothing to do with fighting racism, fighting gender inequality,
or about being a good person. It has everything to do with fostering division amongst
people and controlling the opinion of the masses.
Cl K-berg 13 hours ago 24 Jan, 2021 10:33 AM
100%. Here's a great extract for essay quotation: ''We should turn off television
programmes masquerading as 'drama' or 'comedy' that are really political sermons dolled up
in entertainment's clothing and provide no enjoyment whatsoever.'' Wow! how totally spot
on.
Journalist Andy Ngo, whose parents fled to the US from Vietnam in 1978, has become a
political refugee himself, fleeing to London, saying he received death threats from Antifa over
his coverage of the movement.
"For a number of months now, there's just been increasing threats of violence against me,
promises by Antifa extremists to kill me," the Portland native said Saturday night in a Sky
News interview. Local law enforcement authorities did nothing about the alleged threats, even
when Ngo provided names of the suspects, he said.
"It's pained me a lot, temporarily having to leave the country and home that settled my
parents who came there as political refugees," Ngo added.
Ngo came to increased prominence after he was attacked by a mob of Antifa protesters in
2019. There have been no arrests in connection with that attack – in which Ngo was
beaten, robbed and hospitalized with a brain injury – even though it was caught on camera
from various angles and the journalist's lawyer provided names of suspects to police.
Some Antifa members have condemned Ngo for "enabling fascism" and exposing them to
danger by reporting their names and posting their arrest photos. He was vilified by
Rolling Stone magazine, which branded him as a "right-wing troll" and said he tries
to "demonize" Antifa.
Hatred towards Ngo apparently escalated even further with the upcoming publication of his
book, 'Unmasked', which chronicles Antifa's history of violence and its "radical plan
to destroy democracy."
The protests, which some observers called "modern-day book burning," may have had an
unintended consequence by bringing more attention to 'Unmasked'. The book, which is
scheduled for release on February 2, is already the No. 1 seller in several political
categories on Amazon.com. At one point earlier this month, it was the
overall top seller by the online behemoth.
Ngo said the same Democrat politicians who have condemned and magnified the January 6 US
Capitol riot were silent "at best" when Antifa and Black Lives Matter plagued Portland
with 120 days of riots, including violent attacks on a federal courthouse, last year. He said
some even promoted crowdfunding efforts to get rioters out of jail, while others described
federal law enforcement officers as "Trump's Gestapo and secret police."
Rioting in Portland was so bad on President Joe Biden's Inauguration Day that 15 Antifa
activists were arrested, nearly half of whom had been busted and released for similar crimes
last year, Ngo said. "This is a nightmare version of Groundhog Day," he added.
Reminded that Biden had called Antifa "an idea, not an organization" during last year's
presidential campaign, Ngo pointed out that documents leaked to him show Antifa's
organizational setup, including processes for recruiting, radicalizing and vetting new
members.
"Very sad," author Julia Smith said of Ngo's fleeing to London. "This is not the
America his parents sought."
"... "You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country why in the name of God don't you have any faith in the system of government you're so hell-bent to protect? You want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with -- its Constitution. You ask for a mandate, General, from a ballot box. You don't steal it after midnight, when the country has its back turned." -- Seven Days in May (1964) ..."
"... That January 6 attempt by so-called insurrectionists to overturn the election results was not the real coup, however. Those who answered President Trump's call to march on the Capitol were merely the fall guys, manipulated into creating the perfect crisis for the Deep State -- a.k.a. the Police State a.k.a. the Military Industrial Complex a.k.a. the Techno-Corporate State a.k.a. the Surveillance State -- to swoop in and take control. ..."
"... It took no time at all for the switch to be thrown and the nation's capital to be placed under a military lockdown, online speech forums restricted, and individuals with subversive or controversial viewpoints ferreted out, investigated, shamed and/or shunned . ..."
"... Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America ..."
"... Seven Days in May ..."
"... Seven Days in May ..."
"... domestic right-wing extremism ..."
"... Battlefield America: The War on the American People ..."
"... This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute . ..."
"You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country why in the name
of God don't you have any faith in the system of government you're so hell-bent to protect? You
want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with
-- its Constitution. You ask for a mandate, General, from a ballot box. You don't steal it
after midnight, when the country has its back turned." -- Seven Days in May
(1964)
No doubt about it: the coup d'etat was successful.
That January 6
attempt by so-called insurrectionists to overturn the election results was not the real
coup, however. Those who answered
President Trump's call to march on the Capitol were merely the fall guys, manipulated into
creating the perfect crisis for the Deep State -- a.k.a. the Police State a.k.a. the Military
Industrial Complex a.k.a. the Techno-Corporate State a.k.a. the Surveillance State -- to swoop
in and take control.
It took no time at all for the switch to be thrown and the nation's capital to be placed
under a military lockdown, online speech forums restricted, and individuals with subversive or
controversial viewpoints
ferreted out, investigated, shamed and/or shunned .
This new order didn't emerge into being this week, or this month, or even this year,
however.
Indeed, the real coup happened when our government "of the people, by the people, for the
people" was overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, techno-corporate state that is in
cahoots with a government "of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations."
We've been mired in this swamp for decades now.
Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought lock, stock
and barrel and made to dance to the Deep State's tune.
Writing in 1980, Gross predicted a future in which he saw:
a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of
a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to
enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended
or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these
consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment,
the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our
constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread
intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or
military invasion
This stealthy, creeping, silent coup that Gross prophesied is the same danger that writer
Rod Serling envisioned in the 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May ,
a clear warning to beware of martial law packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for
the nation's security.
Incredibly enough, almost 60 years later, we find ourselves hostages to a government run
more by military doctrine and corporate greed than by the rule of law established in the
Constitution. Indeed, proving once again that fact and fiction are not dissimilar, today's
current events could well have been lifted straight out of Seven Days in May , which
takes viewers into eerily familiar terrain.
With the Cold War at its height, an unpopular U.S. President signs a momentous nuclear
disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. Believing that the treaty constitutes an unacceptable
threat to the security of the United States and certain that he knows what is best for the
nation, General James Mattoon Scott (played by Burt Lancaster), the head of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and presidential hopeful, plans a military takeover of the national government. When Gen.
Scott's aide, Col. Casey (Kirk Douglas), discovers the planned military coup, he goes to the
President with the information. The race for command of the U.S. government begins, with the
clock ticking off the hours until the military plotters plan to overthrow the President.
Needless to say, while on the big screen, the military coup is foiled and the republic is
saved in a matter of hours, in the real world, the plot thickens and spreads out over the past
half century.
We've been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long -- sold to us in the name of
national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and
order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined
to maintain their powers at all costs -- that it's hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started
going downhill, but we've been on that fast-moving, downward trajectory for some time now.
The question is no longer whether the U.S. government will be preyed upon and taken over by
the military industrial complex. That's a done deal, but martial law disguised as national
security is only one small part of the greater deception we've been fooled into believing is
for our own good.
How do you get a nation to docilely accept a police state? How do you persuade a populace to
accept metal detectors and pat downs in their schools, bag searches in their train stations,
tanks and military weaponry used by their small town police forces, surveillance cameras in
their traffic lights, police strip searches on their public roads, unwarranted blood draws at
drunk driving checkpoints, whole body scanners in their airports, and government agents
monitoring their communications?
Try to ram such a state of affairs down the throats of the populace, and you might find
yourself with a rebellion on your hands. Instead, you bombard them with constant color-coded
alerts, terrorize them with shootings and bomb threats in malls, schools, and sports arenas,
desensitize them with a steady diet of police violence, and sell the whole package to them as
being for their best interests.
This is not the language of a free people. This is the language of force.
Still, you can't say we weren't warned.
Back in 2008, an Army
War College report revealed that "widespread civil violence inside the United States would
force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic
order and human security." The 44-page report went on to warn that potential causes for such
civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, "unforeseen economic collapse, loss of
functioning political and legal order , purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency,
pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters."
In 2009, reports by the Department of Homeland Security surfaced that labelled right-wing
and left-wing activists and military veterans as extremists (a.k.a. terrorists) and called
on the government to subject such targeted individuals to full-fledged pre-crime surveillance.
Almost a decade later, after spending billions to fight terrorism, the DHS concluded that the
greater threat is not ISIS but domestic right-wing extremism .
Meanwhile, the police have been transformed into extensions of the military while the nation
itself has been transformed into a battlefield. This is what a state of undeclared martial law
looks like, when you can be arrested, tasered, shot, brutalized and in some cases killed merely
for not complying with a government agent's order or not complying fast enough. This hasn't
just been happening in crime-ridden inner cities. It's been happening all across the
country.
Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants
(and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that has been colluding with the
government to create a Big Brother that is all-knowing, all-seeing
and inescapable . It's not just the drones,
fusion centers , license plate readers, stingray devices and the NSA that you have to worry
about. You're also being tracked by the black boxes in your
cars , your cell phone, smart devices in your home, grocery loyalty cards, social media
accounts, credit cards, streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and e-book reader
accounts.
So you see, January 6 and its aftermath provided the government and its corporate
technocrats the perfect excuse to show off all of the powers they've been amassing so
assiduously over the years.
Mind you, by "government," I'm not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy
of the Republicans and Democrats.
I'm referring to "government" with a capital "G," the entrenched Deep State that is
unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach
of the law.
I'm referring to the corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully
operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and
calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.
This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its
citizenry.
Brace yourself.
There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it
doesn't bode well for the future of this country.
Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class
that they are oblivious to all else, you'd better beware.
Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force,
and rules by fiat, you'd better beware.
And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are
never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you'd better beware.
All of those dastardly seeds we have allowed the government to sow under the guise of
national security are bearing demon fruit.
The gravest threat facing us as a nation is not extremism but despotism, exercised by a
ruling class whose only allegiance is to power and money.
*
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It should be shocking to Republicans and Democrats alike that the Commander-in-Chief of the
United States is banished from all of the main social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook
and YouTube – denying him the ability to communicate with his 75 million constituents, or
one half of the electorate. This is real and unprecedented violence being committed against the
body politic and far more worrisome than any breach of federal property, as loathsome as such
an act may be.
The Capitol building is, after all, ultimately a mere symbol of our freedoms and liberties,
whereas the rights laid down in the U.S. Constitution –the First Amendment not least of
all – are fragile and coming under sustained assault every single day. Why does the left
refuse to show the same concern for an aging piece of parchment, arguably the greatest
political document ever written, as it does for a piece of architecture? The answer to that
riddle is becoming increasingly obvious.
Big Tech began its slide towards marked fascist tendencies thanks to one of the greatest
hoaxes ever foisted upon the American public, known as Russiagate. One after another, Silicon
Valley overlords were called before Congressional committees to
explain "how and why Russian operatives were given free rein to tamper with 2016 U.S.
election," in favor of the populist Donald Trump, no less.
After this made for television 'dressing down', the Big Tech executives at Google, Facebook,
Twitter and others got busy reconfiguring their software algorithms in such a way that
thousands of internet creators suddenly lost not only a lifetime of hard work and their
sustenance, but their voice as well. This is the moment that Big Tech and the Democrats began
to really march in lockstep. A new dark age of 'McCarthyism' had settled upon the nation,
which gave the left unlimited powers for blocking user accounts they deemed "suspicious," which
meant anyone on the right. Now, getting 'shadow banned,' demonetized and outright banned from
these platforms has become the new dystopian reality for those with a conservative message to
convey. And the fact that the story of 'Russian collusion' was finally exposed as a dirty
little lie did nothing to loosen the corporate screws.
Incidentally, as a very large footnote to this story, Big Tech and Big Business have not
dished out the same amount of medieval-style punishment to other violators of the public peace.
The most obvious example comes courtesy of Black Lives Matter, the Soros-funded social-justice
movement that has wreaked havoc across a broad swath of the heartland following the death of
George Floyd during an arrest by a white police officer.
Both BLM and Trump supporters believe they have a very large grudge to bear. The former
believes they are being unfairly targeted by police due to the color of their skin, while the
latter believes they are not getting fair treatment by the mainstream media due to 'Trump
Derangement Syndrome', and possibly also due in part to their skin color. But at this point the
similarities between BLM and Trump voters come to a screeching halt.
Taking it as gospel that America suffers from 'systemic racism' (it doesn't, although that
is not to say that pockets of racism against all colors and creeds doesn't exist), dozens of
corporations jumped on the woke bandwagon to express their support for Black Lives Matter at
the very same time the latter's members were looting and burning neighborhoods across the
nation. Strangely, violence has never shocked the progressive left, so long as the violence
supported its agenda.
Here are just some of the ways the corporate world responded to charges that America was a
racist cauldron ready to blow, as reported by The Washington Post: "Jamie Dimon, chief
executive of JPMorgan Chase, knelt
alongside employees during his visit to a Chase branch. Bank of America
pledged $1 billion to fight racial inequality in America. Tech companies have
invested big dollars in Black Lives Matter, the Center for Policing Equity, Colin
Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp and other entities engaged in racial justice efforts " And
the list goes on and on.
Of course, private corporations are free to express their solidarity with whatever group
they wish. The problem, however, is that these monopolistic monstrosities have an overwhelming
tendency to pledge allegiance to liberal, progressive values, as opposed to maybe steering
clear of politics altogether. Nowhere was Corporate America's political agenda more obvious
than in the aftermath of the siege of the Capitol building on January 6, which led to the death
of five people.
Corporate America missed a very good opportunity to keep quiet and remain neutral with
regards to an issue of incredible partisan significance. Instead, it unleashed a salvo of
attacks on Trump supporters, even denying them access to basic services.
Aside from the most obvious and alarming 'disappearing act,' that of POTUS being removed
from the major social media platforms, were countless lesser names caught up in the
'purge.'
One such person is conservative commentator and former baseball star Curt Schilling, who
says that AIG terminated his insurance policy over his "social media profile," which was
sympathetic to Donald Trump,
according to Summit News. "We will be just fine, but wanted to let Americans know that
@AIGinsurance canceled our insurance due to my "Social Media profile," tweeted Schilling.
"The agent told us it was a decision made by and with their PR department in conjunction
with management," he added.
While all forms of 'cancel culture' (which seems to be part of a move to build American
society along the lines of the Chinese 'social credit system,' which rewards those who toe the
party line, and punishes those who fall out of favor) are egregious and counterintuitive to
American values, perhaps the most astonishing was the cancellation of Republican Senator Josh
Hawley's book deal with Simon and Shuster.
"We did not come to this decision lightly," Simon & Schuster said in a statement over
Twitter. "As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and
viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens,
and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat."
The so-called "threat" was a photograph of Hawley raising a fist to the crowd that had
assembled outside of the Capitol building before it had breached the security perimeter. It
seems that corporations may now serve as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to how
Americans behave in public. Is it a crime that Hawley acknowledged a crowd of supporters who
were at the time behind the gates of the Capitol building? Apparently it is.
By the way, the name of the Hawley's book? 'The Tyranny of Big Tech'. How's that for
irony?
In conclusion, it would be a huge mistake for the Democrats to believe that they are safe
from the same sort of corporate and government behavior that has now dramatically silenced the
conservative voice across the nation. The United States has entered dangerous unchartered
waters, and by all indications it would appear that the American people have inherited a 'soft'
form of fascism.
Although there may not be troops and tanks on the streets and a dictator inciting crowds
from his bully pulpit, the end result has been pretty much the same: the brutal elimination of
one half of the American population from all of the due protections provided by the U.S.
Constitution due to an unholy alliance between corporate and government power, which is the
very definition of fascism. Democrats, you may very well be next, so enjoy your victory while
you still can.
Fascism is opposed to usury and the power of the international banking cartel. Whether
Italy, Spain, or Portugal, the bankers were squeezed. The US "fascism" is a product of the
banks, not an opponent.
For many years, a handful of people have postulated that those who control industry, finance
and governments are essentially the same people – a cabal of sorts that have, over
generations, solidified their relationships in order to gain greater wealth and power, whilst
systematically making things ever more difficult for the free market to exist.
But why should this be? Surely, corporate leaders are more ardently capitalist than anyone
else?
Well, on the surface, that might appear to make sense, but once a significant position of
power has been achieved, those who have achieved it recognize that, since they've already
reached the top, the primary concern changes. From then on, the primary concern becomes the
assurance that no others are able to climb so high as they have.
At that point, they realise that their foremost effort needs to be a push toward corporatism
– the merger of power between government and business. This is a natural marriage. The
political world is a parasitic one. It relies on a continual flow of funding. The world of big
business is a study in exclusivity – the ability to make it impossible for pretenders to
the throne to arise. So, big business provides the cash; government provides protective
legislation that ensures preference for those at the top.
In most cases, this second half of the equation does not mean a monopoly for just one
corporation, but a monopoly for a cabal – an elite group of corporations.
This corporatist relationship has deep roots in the US, going back over one hundred years.
To this day, those elite families who took control of oil, steel, banking, motor vehicles and
other industries a century ago, soon created a takeover of higher learning (universities),
health (Big Pharma) and "Defense" (the military-industrial complex).
Through legislation, the US was then transformed to ensure that all these interests would be
catered to, creating generations of both control and profit.
Of course, "profit" should not be an evil word, but under crony capitalism, it becomes an
abomination – a distortion of the free market and the death of laissez faire
economics.
Certainly, this sort of collectivism is not what Karl Marx had in mind when he daydreamed
about a workers' paradise in which business leaders retained all the risk and responsibility of
creating and building businesses, whilst the workers had the final word as to how the revenue
would be distributed to the workers themselves.
Mister Marx failed in being objective enough to understand that if the business creator took
all the risk and responsibility but gave up the ability to decide what happened to the revenue,
he'd never bother to open a business. Even a shoeshine boy would reject such a notion and elect
to go on the dole, rather than work.
Mister Marx sought more to bring down those who were successful than to raise up those who
were not, yet he unwittingly created a new idea – corporate collectivism – in which
the very people he sought to debase used the appeal of collectivist rhetoric to diminish both
the freedoms and wealth of the average worker.
On the surface, this might appear to be a hard sell – to get the hoi polloi into the
net – but in fact, it's quite easy and has perennially been effective.
Hitler's New Order was such a construct – the promise to return Germany to greatness
and the German people to prosperity through increasingly draconian laws, warfare and an
economic revolving door between government and industry.
Of course, a major influx of capital was required – billions of dollars – and
this was eagerly provided by US industry and banks. Heads of New York banks not only funded
Nazi industry; families such as the Fords, Rockefellers, Morgans, etc., sat on the boards of
German corporations.
The Nazi effort failed, as they underestimated the Russian will to fight to the death.
(Eighty percent of all German Army deaths were due to the Russian campaign.)
But those in New York were able to regroup and be first in the queue for the restructuring
of German industry after the war and, ultimately, profited handsomely.
But most significantly, the idea of corporatist collectivism did not die. Even before the
war, the same group of families and corporations had drawn up the plan for Franklin Roosevelt's
New Deal.
Mister Roosevelt was a dyed-in-the-wool Wall Street man and a director of New York banks. In
the 1930s and early 1940s, he created, as president, a revolving door that favoured large
corporations, whilst the average American was consciously kept at the subsistence level through
government entitlements.
The scam worked. Shortsighted Americans not only were grateful; they deified him for it.
Likewise, John Kennedy's New Frontier sought to revitalize the concept, as did Lyndon
Johnson's Great Society: Give the little people entitlements that keep them little. Tax smaller
businesses and create a flow of tax dollars to the elite industries, who, in turn, provide
monetary favours to the political class.
The Green New Deal is merely the latest corporate collectivist scheme on the list.
Corporate collectivism can be defined as a system in which the few who hold the legal
monopolies of finance and industry gain an overriding control over all others, and in so doing,
systematically extract wealth from them.
Today, this system has become so refined that, although the average American has a flat
screen TV and an expensive smartphone, he cannot raise $400 to cover an emergency that occurs
in his life. He is, for all practical purposes, continually bankrupt, but still functioning in
a zombie-like existence of continual dependency.
This, on the surface, may not seem all that dangerous, but those who cannot buy their way
out of a small emergency are easily controlled. Just create an emergency such as an uber-virus
and that fact will be illuminated quickly.
In order to maximise compliance in a population, maximise their dependence.
As stated above, this effort has been in play for generations. But it is now reaching a
crescendo. It's now up to speed in most of the former Free World and those who hold the strings
are ready for a major step forward in corporate collectivism.
In the coming year, we shall see dramatic changes appearing at a dizzying rate. Capital
controls , migration controls, internal movement controls, tax increases, confiscation of
assets and the removal of "inalienable" rights will all be coming into effect – so
quickly that before the populace can even grasp the latest restrictions, new ones will be
heaped on.
As this unfolds, we shall witness the erosion of the nation-state. Controls will come from
global authorities, such as the UN, the IMF and the WEF. Organisations that have no formal
authority over nations will increasingly be calling the shots and people will wonder how this
is possible. Elected officials will increasingly become mere bagmen, doing the bidding of an
unelected ruling class.
The changes that take place will be not unlike a blanket that is thrown over humanity.
The question then will be whether to, a) give in to this force, b) to fight it and most
likely fall victim to it, or c) seek a means to fall outside the perimeter of the blanket.
* * *
Unfortunately most people have no idea what really happens when a government goes out of
control, let alone how to prepare The coming economic and political crisis is going to be much
worse, much longer, and very different than what we've seen in the past. That's exactly why New
York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video.
Click
here to watch it now .
Caitlin Johnstone is wrong. It not about the danger of neofascism or "white supremasism" (BTW
can Zionism be classified as a brand of White Supremacism and suppressed ?) per se. And not even
about the new incarnation of the National Security State, which is definitely coming. Even in the
current form the National Security State is able to crush any some movement in no time as there
is not way one can organize such a movement without getting into crosshairs of FBI and other
agencies.
This is actually about the level of fear of neoliberal elite and financial oligarchy
instilled by Dec 6 events, which due to the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 got into "
The king is
naked " situation in 2021. Neoliberal elite lost the legitimacy (aka "mandate from Heavens"
in Chinese terminology) much like Soviet nomenklatura before the dissolution of the USSR.
Neoliberal was unable to raise the standard of living of the population. Instead it provided the
redistribution of wealth up ("accumulation by dispossession") and the decline of the standard of
living for the majority of population (aka "deplorables"). That created the crisis of legitimacy
and Dec 6 events should probably be viewed mainly under this angle. It looks like the majority of
the crowd were from lower middle class (small business owners and such)
A new viral video calling on liberals to form "an army of citizen detectives" to gather
information on Trump supporters and report their activities to the authorities has racked up
thousands of shares and millions of views in just a few hours.
The hashtag #TrumpsNewArmy is trending on Twitter as of this
writing due to the release of a horrifying video with that
title from successful author and virulent Russiagater Don Winslow. As of this writing it has
some 20 thousand shares and 2.6 million views, and the comments and quote-retweets are
predominantly supportive.
"On or before January 20th, Donald Trump will no longer be the Commander-in-Chief: he will
lose control of the Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, Special Forces and America's nuclear
arsenal," Winslow's voice begins ominously. "On January 20th Donald Trump will become
Commander-in-Chief of a different army: this army."
Viewers are then shown footage from Trump rallies while being told that they are looking at
"radical extreme conservatives, also known as domestic terrorists".
"They are hidden among us, disguised behind regular jobs," Winslow warns.
"They are your children's teachers. They work at supermarkets, malls, doctor's offices,
and many are police officers and soldiers."
Winslow talks about white supremacists and the Capitol riot, warning that Trump will
continue escalating violence and fomenting a civil war in America.
"We have to fight back," Winslow declares.
"In this new war, the battlefield has changes. Computers can be more valuable than guns.
And this is what we need now more than ever: an army of citizen detectives. I'm proposing we
form a citizen army. Our weapons will be computers and cellphones. We, who are monitoring
extremists on the internet and reporting our findings to authorities. Remember, before the
Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden, he had to be found. He was found by a CIA analyst working
on a computer thousands of miles away. It's up to you."
The viral video is being loudly amplified by popular #Resistance accounts like Majid M
Padellan (better known as Brooklyn Dad Defiant) with frighteningly paranoid and HUAC-like
rhetoric.
"#TrumpsNewArmy is VILE," one of Padellan's Twitter shares of the
video reads. "And we KNOW who they are. They are our teachers. They are our neighbors. They are
our police officers. They are EVERYWHERE. EXPOSE THEIR TREASON."
"Good riddance. But his 'army' is still here, hiding amongst us. They are traitors. They
are evil. And they MUST be rooted OUT."
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," reads yet another . "But
SOME people they pledged their allegiance ONLY to trump. These are dangerous traitors."
"After 9/11, we were told: If you see something, say something," reads still another .
"We have TERRORISTS in our midst. Some of us KNOW these people. It is our patriotic DUTY
to expose them."
So if you were hoping that maybe liberals would chill out and get a little less crazy with
Trump out of the White House, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
This is as insane and scary as I have ever seen these people get, and I was in the thick of
peak Russiagate hysteria. An aggressively manufactured push to get an army of citizens spying
on each other calls to mind the
Stasi informants of East Germany , the patriotism-fueled digital "digging" of the QAnon
psyop, and the NatSec LARPing of Louise Mensch Twitter, all rolled into one great big ball of
crazy.
This comes out as we are being bombarded with mass media punditry from literal CIA veterans
like Sue
Gordon and Elissa Slotkin forcefully
hammering home the message that domestic terror is the new frontier for combating violent
extremism, meaning of course that new Patriot
Act-like solutions will be needed .
Winslow himself spent six years traveling and doing
research for a novel about a former CIA operative ,
and if some government agency didn't recruit him during that period they clearly should
have.
This will get frightening if it keeps up. Just as a relatively low-profile lefty blogger I
routinely get liberals online falsely claiming I'm a Russian agent and saying they'll report me
to the FBI, and that's without an aggressive campaign urging them to join a powerful digital
army. The fact that Winslow stays very vague about what he means by "Trump's new army" and
constantly conflates rank-and-file Trump supporters with white supremacist terrorists means
people are effectively being pointed at all Trump supporters, especially when normal Trump
rallies are what he points to in the video. If this takes off it can very quickly lead to a
volunteer army of power-worshipping snitches against literally anyone who is critical of US
foreign policy or the Democratic Party, whether they actually support Trump or not.
In fact just following the trending hashtag I'm noticing Twitter users saying this
means targeting all Trump supporters, so clearly that is the message that's being absorbed.
"Trumpers are pushing back so hard against this video because so many of them live in the
dark, cloaked behind normal jobs and seemingly normal lives," Winslow tweeted in
promotion of his project.
Well maybe that's because they are half the voting public, Don?
Winslow mixes in these generic comments about "Trumpers" with comments about "white
supremacists" , about whom he tweets "1. We expose
them. 2. We identify them. 3. We notify law enforcement. 4. We notify their employers."
Their employers.
This is just liberals being pushed toward targeting anyone who isn't ideologically aligned
with them for destruction. I really, really hope it doesn't take off, because it is profoundly
ugly. Please don't let the manipulators trick you into ripping each other to pieces, America.
They're only pointing you at each other so you don't look at them.
* * *
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Hopefully things will settle down after the inauguration. There are a lot of normal people
in the US who just want to get on with fixing their lives after all the economic damage done
by the lock downs. This extreme political crap is getting really exhausting for everyone in
the center. The number of people who are centrists well exceed the the polar extremes.
Unfortunately the extremists get the lion's share of news coverage, so it makes it appear the
country is filled with lunatics. If Biden is smart he won't alienate the center or he will
lose a lot of support going into the mid-terms. A quiet period where people can actually
start rebuilding their lives and the economy is desperately needed. I remain cautiously
hopeful that once the political circus dies down, that could actually happen.
cankles' server 35 minutes ago
As Greenwald said, it's easy for the neocons to switch because the D's are now the party
of "militarism, imperialism, and corporatism."
On the massive military buildup = another drift towards fascism under the democrats, they
have the media, military, police on top of congress, house and president. GOP will be so weak
coming years, and they have themselves to blame for being so passive past years, in fact any
dissent will not be heard coming years with Biden.
The first such hurdle was the longstanding American- exceptionalist conceit that, in the
ironic title of Sinclair Lewis's dystopian 1935 novel, "It Can't Happen Here." The "it" in
Lewis's title was authoritarian fascism, falsely deemed impossible in the United States during
and since Lewis' time because of the supposedly strong hold here of democratic and
constitutional principles and institutions. Such authoritarianism has long been falsely
portrayed as beyond the pale of possibility in a nation whose media and political authorities
regularly and absurdly call the "world's greatest democracy."
Apathy/Demobilization/"Inverted Totalitarianism"
A third barrier was a critical ingredient of what the late left political scientist Sheldon
Wolin considered to be America's distinctive authoritarian "inverted totalitarianism" –
the atomized demobilization of the populace. While what Wolin called the "classical
totalitarian regimes" of fascist German and Soviet Russia aimed at the constant political
mobilization of the populace, "inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the populace to be
in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or
desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an
indication that the bulk of the populace has given up hope that the government will ever
significantly help them." The second most common response to pleas to join popular movements
against Trumpism-fascism (after "I'll vote/I voted against him") in my experience was a
shrugging indifference to and/or disgust with any and all politics often combined with a sense
that American political life is too ugly, boring, and/or impenetrable to merit attention.
No Real Left
Eighth, the continuing and longtime absence of any sophisticated, powerful, and relevant,
many-sided Left of significance in late Neoliberal America is a significant part of the tragic
equation. No such movement would have met the rise of Trump and Trumpism-fascism with four
years of avoidance, denial, passivity, and diversion. There are many factors in play behind
this pathetic portside weakness but two that have struck this writer and activist as
particularly relevant alongside excessive localism and excessive identitarianism in the last
four years are (i) the crippling holds of sectarianism (an almost pathological refusal to reach
across tribal-ideological and organizational lines to form a united anti-fascist front) and
(ii) single-issue silo politics whereby group A cares about the climate, group B cares about
reproductive rights, group C cares about a higher minimum wages, group D cares about teachers'
working conditions and so on.
My title may appear to be over the top, but hear me out. There was a time when the CIA,
despite deep flaws and sloppy tradecraft, could be counted on to tell the President, regardless
of political party, the truth. No longer. It is corrupt to the very top and now should be
viewed as an enemy of the Republic.
The latest revelations from the
Intelligence Community's Analytic Ombudsman described in a memo from DNI John Ratcliffe is
beyond shocking. Rather than tell the truth about Chinese interference in the 2020 Presidential
election, the CIA opted to quash intelligence that would have proven Donald Trump's claim that
the Chinese not only interfered in the 2020 election, but played a hand in throwing the
election to Joe Biden.
Here are the salient points of the DNI's memo:
The IC's Analytic Ombudsman issued a report . . . that includes concerning revelations
about the politicization of China election influence reporting and of undue pressure being
brought to bear on analysts who offered an alternative view based on the intelligence. . .
.
Analytic Standard B requires the IC to maintain "independence of political
considerations." This is particularly important during times when the country is, as the
Ombudsman wrote, "in a hyper partisan state." However, the Ombudsman found that:
"China analysts were hesitant to assess Chinese actions as undue influence or
interference. These analysts appeared reluctant to have their analysis on China brought
forward because they tend to disagree with the administration's policies, saying in effect, I
don't want our intelligence used to support those policies. This behavior would constitute a
violation of Analytic Standard B: Independence of Political Considerations (IRTPA Section
1019).". . . .
"There were strong efforts to suppress analysis of alternatives (AOA) in the August
[National intelligence Council Assessment on foreign election influence], and associated IC
products, which is a violation ofTradecraft Standard 4 and IRTPA Section 1017.
National Intelligence Council (NIC) officials reported that Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) officials rejected NIC coordination comments and tried to downplay alternative analyses
in their own production during the drafting of the NICA." . . . .
Additionally, the Ombudsman found that CIA Management took actions "pressuring [analysts]
to withdraw their support" from the alternative viewpoint on China "in an attempt to suppress
it. This was seen by National Intelligence Officers (NIO) as politicization,"
"There were strong efforts to suppress analysis of alternatives (AOA) in the August
[National intelligence Council Assessment on foreign election influence], and associated IC
products, which is a violation ofTradecraft Standard 4 and IRTPA Section 1017.
National Intelligence Council (NIC) officials reported that Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) officials rejected NIC coordination comments and tried to downplay alternative analyses
in their own production during the drafting of the NICA."
Let me make this very simple--the CIA cooked the books because they did not want to produce
the evidence that proved what the President has been saying since the election was true.
This is not a mistake. This is treason of the highest order.
"... Although there may not be tanks on the streets and a dictator inciting crowds from his bully pulpit, the end result has been pretty much the same. ..."
"... it is important to put aside the notion that fascism is a purely right-wing phenomenon, complete with a chauvinistic demagogue haranguing a frenzied crowd. The new dictator on the block is not some fanatical Fuhrer, but rather Silicon Valley, the fountainhead of technological advancement and the formidable fortress of liberal ideology. In other words, fascism is an ideology that moves fluidly along the political spectrum, although some say the ideology grew out of European progressivism. ..."
"... Liberal Fascism ..."
"... Many years earlier, the late political theorist Hannah Arendt described the Nazi Party (which stands for, lest we forget, the 'National SOCIALIST German Workers' Party') as nothing more than "the breakdown of all German and European traditions, the good as well as the bad basing itself on the intoxication of destruction as an actual experience." That sounds like a pretty accurate description of the cancel culture mentality that has now gripped the 'progressive' left with an almost demonic possession. ..."
"... We are living Orwell's 1984. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what's left is only there for a chosen few. ..."
"... Big Tech began its slide towards marked fascist tendencies thanks to one of the greatest hoaxes ever foisted upon the American public, known as Russiagate. One after another, Silicon Valley overlords were called before Congressional committees to explain "how and why Russian operatives were given free rein to tamper with 2016 U.S. election," in favor of the populist Donald Trump, no less. ..."
"... Strangely, violence has never shocked the progressive left, so long as the violence supported its agenda. ..."
"... While all forms of 'cancel culture' (which seems to be part of a move to build American society along the lines of the Chinese 'social credit system,' which rewards those who toe the party line, and punishes those who fall out of favor) are egregious and counterintuitive to American values, perhaps the most astonishing was the cancellation of Republican Senator Josh Hawley's book deal with Simon and Shuster. ..."
"... In conclusion, it would be a huge mistake for the Democrats to believe that they are safe from the same sort of corporate and government behavior that has now dramatically silenced the conservative voice across the nation. The United States has entered dangerous unchartered waters, and by all indications it would appear that the American people have inherited a 'soft' form of fascism. ..."
Although there may not be tanks on the streets and a dictator inciting crowds from his
bully pulpit, the end result has been pretty much the same.
Most Americans can probably still remember a time when U.S. companies were in business with
one goal in mind – providing a product or service for profit. It was a noble idea, the
bedrock of capitalism, in which everyone stood to gain in the process.
Today, the monopolistic powers now enjoyed by a handful of mighty corporations, which are no
longer shy about declaring their political bent, have tempted them to wade into the deep end of
the political pool with deleterious effects on democracy. Indeed, corporate power wedded to
government is nothing less than fascism.
In presenting such a case, it is important to put aside the notion that fascism is a
purely right-wing phenomenon, complete with a chauvinistic demagogue haranguing a frenzied
crowd. The new dictator on the block is not some fanatical Fuhrer, but rather Silicon Valley,
the fountainhead of technological advancement and the formidable fortress of liberal ideology.
In other words, fascism is an ideology that moves fluidly along the political spectrum,
although some say the ideology grew out of European progressivism.
Jonah Goldberg argued in his 2008 book, Liberal Fascism , that even before World
War II "fascism was widely viewed as a progressive social movement with many liberal and
left-wing adherents in Europe and the United States." Many years earlier, the late
political theorist Hannah Arendt described the Nazi Party (which stands for, lest we forget,
the 'National SOCIALIST German Workers' Party') as nothing more than "the breakdown of all
German and European traditions, the good as well as the bad basing itself on the intoxication
of destruction as an actual experience." That sounds like a pretty accurate description of the
cancel culture mentality that has now gripped the 'progressive' left with an almost demonic
possession.
It should be shocking to Republicans and Democrats alike that the Commander-in-Chief of the
United States is banished from all of the main social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook
and YouTube – denying him the ability to communicate with his 75 million constituents, or
one half of the electorate. This is real and unprecedented violence being committed against the
body politic and far more worrisome than any breach of federal property, as loathsome as such
an act may be.
The Capitol building is, after all, ultimately a mere symbol of our freedoms and liberties,
whereas the rights laid down in the U.S. Constitution – the First Amendment not least of
all – are fragile and coming under sustained assault every single day. Why does the left
refuse to show the same concern for an aging piece of parchment, arguably the greatest
political document ever written, as it does for a piece of architecture? The answer to that
riddle is becoming increasingly obvious.
We are living Orwell's 1984. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big
tech and what's left is only there for a chosen few.
Big Tech began its slide towards marked fascist tendencies thanks to one of the greatest
hoaxes ever foisted upon the American public, known as Russiagate. One after another, Silicon
Valley overlords were called before Congressional committees to
explain "how and why Russian operatives were given free rein to tamper with 2016 U.S.
election," in favor of the populist Donald Trump, no less.
After this made for television 'dressing down', the Big Tech executives at Google, Facebook,
Twitter and others got busy reconfiguring their software algorithms in such a way that
thousands of internet creators suddenly lost not only a lifetime of hard work and their
sustenance, but their voice as well. This is the moment that Big Tech and the Democrats began
to really march in lockstep. A new dark age of 'McCarthyism' had settled upon the nation, which
gave the left unlimited powers for blocking user accounts they deemed "suspicious," which meant
anyone on the right. Now, getting 'shadow banned,' demonetized and outright banned from these
platforms has become the new dystopian reality for those with a conservative message to convey.
And the fact that the story of 'Russian collusion' was finally exposed as a dirty little lie
did nothing to loosen the corporate screws.
Incidentally, as a very large footnote to this story, Big Tech and Big Business have not
dished out the same amount of medieval-style punishment to other violators of the public peace.
The most obvious example comes courtesy of Black Lives Matter, the Soros-funded social-justice
movement that has wreaked havoc across a broad swath of the heartland following the death of
George Floyd during an arrest by a white police officer.
Both BLM and Trump supporters believe they have a very large grudge to bear. The former
believes they are being unfairly targeted by police due to the color of their skin, while the
latter believes they are not getting fair treatment by the mainstream media due to 'Trump
Derangement Syndrome', and possibly also due in part to their skin color. But at this point the
similarities between BLM and Trump voters come to a screeching halt.
Taking it as gospel that America suffers from 'systemic racism' (it doesn't, although that
is not to say that pockets of racism against all colors and creeds doesn't exist), dozens of
corporations jumped on the woke bandwagon to express their support for Black Lives Matter at
the very same time the latter's members were looting and burning neighborhoods across the
nation. Strangely, violence has never shocked the progressive left, so long as the violence
supported its agenda.
Here are just some of the ways the corporate world responded to charges that America was a
racist cauldron ready to blow, as reported by The Washington Post: "Jamie Dimon, chief
executive of JPMorgan Chase, knelt
alongside employees during his visit to a Chase branch. Bank of America
pledged $1 billion to fight racial inequality in America. Tech companies have
invested big dollars in Black Lives Matter, the Center for Policing Equity, Colin
Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp and other entities engaged in racial justice efforts " And
the list goes on and on.
Of course, private corporations are free to express their solidarity with whatever group
they wish. The problem, however, is that these monopolistic monstrosities have an overwhelming
tendency to pledge allegiance to liberal, progressive values, as opposed to maybe steering
clear of politics altogether. Nowhere was Corporate America's political agenda more obvious
than in the aftermath of the siege of the Capitol building on January 6, which led to the death
of five people.
Corporate America missed a very good opportunity to keep quiet and remain neutral with
regards to an issue of incredible partisan significance. Instead, it unleashed a salvo of
attacks on Trump supporters, even denying them access to basic services.
Aside from the most obvious and alarming 'disappearing act,' that of POTUS being removed
from the major social media platforms, were countless lesser names caught up in the
'purge.'
One such person is conservative commentator and former baseball star Curt Schilling, who
says that AIG terminated his insurance policy over his "social media profile," which was
sympathetic to Donald Trump,
according to Summit News.
"We will be just fine, but wanted to let Americans know that @AIGinsurance canceled our
insurance due to my "Social Media profile," tweeted Schilling.
"The agent told us it was a decision made by and with their PR department in conjunction
with management," he added.
While all forms of 'cancel culture' (which seems to be part of a move to build American
society along the lines of the Chinese 'social credit system,' which rewards those who toe the
party line, and punishes those who fall out of favor) are egregious and counterintuitive to
American values, perhaps the most astonishing was the cancellation of Republican Senator Josh
Hawley's book deal with Simon and Shuster.
"We did not come to this decision lightly," Simon & Schuster said in a statement over
Twitter. "As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and
viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens,
and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat."
The so-called "threat" was a photograph of Hawley raising a fist to the crowd that had
assembled outside of the Capitol building before it had breached the security perimeter. It
seems that corporations may now serve as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to how
Americans behave in public. Is it a crime that Hawley acknowledged a crowd of supporters who
were at the time behind the gates of the Capitol building? Apparently it is.
By the way, the name of the Hawley's book? 'The Tyranny of Big Tech'. How's that for
irony?
In conclusion, it would be a huge mistake for the Democrats to believe that they are
safe from the same sort of corporate and government behavior that has now dramatically silenced
the conservative voice across the nation. The United States has entered dangerous unchartered
waters, and by all indications it would appear that the American people have inherited a 'soft'
form of fascism.
Although there may not be troops and tanks on the streets and a dictator inciting crowds
from his bully pulpit, the end result has been pretty much the same: the brutal elimination of
one half of the American population from all of the due protections provided by the U.S.
Constitution due to an unholy alliance between corporate and government power, which is the
very definition of fascism. Democrats, you may very well be next, so enjoy your victory while
you still can.
"... Since you like Hitler analogies so much, dear Steven, why don't you contemplate the 'reactionary' aspect of those Germans who resisted, in the 1930s, the 'progress' of the National-Socialist movement. ..."
"... 'Reactionary' simply means 'opposing the change', and the changes instituted by global finance, aided by their faithful servants, your liberal comrades, -- those changes should be opposed by all decent citizens. ..."
Since you like Hitler analogies so much, dear Steven, why don't you contemplate the
'reactionary' aspect of those Germans who resisted, in the 1930s, the 'progress' of the
National-Socialist movement.
'Reactionary' simply means 'opposing the change', and the changes instituted by global
finance, aided by their faithful servants, your liberal comrades, -- those changes should be
opposed by all decent citizens.
And they are opposed by all decent citizens, and especially by the American working
class, which is why your liberal comrades have to resort to fascist methods: goebbelsian
propaganda, censorship, blacklisting, police repression.
"... In the case of this Ukrainian nazi – of course they knew. They just hoped no one would notice. The reason she was given this appointment was because she is who she is. Ukraine is to be the anti-Russian state with an indoctrinated population – people like this young woman are part of that policy. ..."
"Yale historian Timothy Snyder" In light of his opinions the appellation "historian" to this person can only be considered satire.
"The term 'fascist' is far too easily abused."
It is today used – like the term anti-semite, white supremacist, racist – to smear and or discredit anybody from the left or right
one disagrees with or tries to disempower.
Jonathan Cook lays out how this works with regards to the left:
I have no problem arguing conservatives, if they actually clearly define what they mean by this term and find some points I agree
with someone like Peter Hitchens:
"His view is that conservatism should embody a Burkean sense of public duty, conscience and the rule of law, which he sees as
the best guarantee of liberty. Furthermore, this view holds a general hostility to hasty reforms and adventurism .
Hitchens takes a critical stance on many wars. He was opposed to the Kosovo and 2003 Iraq War, on the grounds that neither was
in the interests of either Britain or the United States,[66] and opposes the war in Afghanistan.[67] He believes that the UK should
never have joined in World War I, and is very critical of the view that World War II was "The Good War".
Synchronization. Just beforehand, Rachel Maddow propped Snyder's book on fascism.
Dmitry Babich made an excellent point about how the Biden crowd cheered the storming of the Ukrainian parliament which include
some folks who qualify as fascists. In comparison, last week's DC protesting MAGA group didn't appear to be so fascist. I saw
an Israeli flag among these protestors as well as some African-Americans.
A related great shot at establishment politico Ian Bremmer:
Mark Sleboda @MarkSleboda1 ·
Jan 10 "Calling for an insurrection
to overthrow the legitimate outcome of a free and fair election is crime against the nation." - Unless the nation in question
is #Ukraine in 2014 or some other state
& govt not aligned with US hegemony. Then calling for an insurrection is kosher.
Quote Tweet ian bremmer @ianbremmer · Jan 10
Calling for an insurrection to overthrow the legitimate outcome of a free and fair election is crime against the nation.
Yes, Trump only has another week in office. But he should still be impeached and convicted.
There are plenty of poseurs, blow-hards about. To be dangerous, there must be a leadership, an apparatus, discipline, and a
substantial rank and file. And most importantly, all motivated by a creed, common beliefs that weld all into a force. Nothing
like that exists.
But the good news is that behind the shrill loud-mouths of the Woke censorship bullies, fake news media, liberals, Democrats,
burned out 'progressives – the On Duty paid for apparatchiks. Behind them is – nothing. No Party, no organizers, no apparatus
at all. No store fronts for meetings, no stand by printers, no trained marshals. No seething masses burning with righteous fury
ready to hit the streets. Nothing.
Sure, people are mad. But when you're mad at everything then that power is dissipated. And when you're not united by being
For something then you don't amount to a hill of beans. The liberals are afraid that when their 'lockdown pandemic racket' runs
out of gas, the public will turn on them with a vengeance. And they can expect no organized part of population to defend them.
For a while, folks will be united on venting their fury at those that ride high now. Wait till the wheel turns. Grigory MatyuninJANUARY 11, 2021 AT
9:51 PM
It's like the misuse of the term 'conspiracy theorist' by people like Snyder, Harding and Applebaum. Anyone who merely points
to the impropriety of Nuland/McCain's actions on the Maidan is pre-emptively dismissed by them as a conspiracy theorist. Yet the
notion that Russia controls Trump through a pee tape, bewitched the Brits into voting for Brexit and was the sole force behind
the Catalan independence movement is now axiomatic for worshippers of received wisdom. GuestJANUARY 12, 2021 AT
12:51 AM
In the case of this Ukrainian nazi – of course they knew. They just hoped no one would notice.
The reason she was given this appointment was because she is who she is.
Ukraine is to be the anti-Russian state with an indoctrinated population – people like this young woman are part of that policy.
Look around the world!
We have seen that the west has no problem funding and supporting all sorts of disgusting groups and individuals if it meets their
objectives.
Nice job, Professor! It's always good to see somebody point out these hacks egregious double standards.
I want people to start scientifically as possible defining their terms for political ideologies. Like, there is actually a
legitimate use for the word "fascist". From what I understand, fascism is an actual political ideology and movement and should
not be used simply as a derogatory. From what I understand, fascism does not necessarily include a racialist component, although
it usually does (being based on nationalism).
Mussolini was a fascist. Hitler was a fascist too. (Nazism being a subset of the broader movement fascism?)
Franco was a fascist.
That Ukrainian lady you mentioned is an ideological fascist, more specifically a fucking Nazi.
Donald Trump -- is NOT a fascist. He is just a right-wing conservative, Murican-style!
I have for years tried to find a concise definition of "Fascism", but only found a lot of disagreement.
Fascism is by some defined as a corporatism where the state and the industrial and financial capitalist elite have come to
a complete nexus where the state protects within a framework of "ultra" nationalism those elites who in return follow and as well
directly influence the policies. By this definition the USA could be called not a fascist state, but one with fascists tendencies
as the nexus has been established to a great extend.
Some conservatives and libertarians find intellectual solace in pointing out that especially in Germany fascism developed as
a "national socialism". A version that opposed the internationalism of the Marxist version espoused the German Communist party,
and propagated an economic based antisemitism.
They are not wrong there, as socialism is not just the socialism or communism as defined by Marx, but as Marx himself pointed
out in his critiques there are various kind of socialisms. (
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
)
What they however ignore is Hitlers move under the guise of "socialism" to establish close ties with the German financial and
Industrial leadership and the attempt of a "true" National Socialism came to an end with the Strasser Brothers breaking away and
one being murdered in the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler destroyed any leftwing faction within the NSDAP.
Fascism is not the only ideology which lacks clear definition. Try looking at the literature on liberalism – it's a mess (with
good reason – many modern day 'liberals' are entirely at odds with classical liberals, neoliberals, etc, but they're all called
liberal). The best recent scholarship can come up with is the idea that liberalism is a 'family of resemblances' or even that
it's just whatever people who call themselves liberal happen to say it is at any given time and place. Conservatism is similarly
poorly defined.
"I have for years tried to find a concise definition of "Fascism", but only found a lot of disagreement."
There's still definition provided by G. Dimitrov:
"Fascism is an open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, most imperialist elements of the
finance capital
Fascism is not a supra-class power and not the power of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen proletariat over finance
capital. Fascism*is* the rule of finance capital itself .
This is the organization of terrorist reprisals against the working class and the revolutionary part of the peasantry
and intelligentsia. Fascism in foreign policy is chauvinism in its crudest form, cultivating zoological hatred of other peoples."
Defenders of Google, Twitter, Amazon et al saying "they CAN do that – they are PrIVaTe CoMpaNIeS!" – ha-ha!
Absolutely, Paul. Comparing the neoconservative and paleoconservative traditions, for instance, reveals extraordinary divergences
in conservative intellectual thought. Your recent book presents plenty of such contradictions.
Yet the lack of definitional clarity does not mean that any particular term can be thrown around as a polemical device or a
catch-all form of abuse. Fascist ideologies differ between themselves, but they do have a relatively ubiquitous common denominator
in being mass movements set upon utopian mass transformation relying upon extreme violence, as per the scholarship of Roger Griffin.
It's like right-of-centre political commentators who misuse the term 'Marxist' to describe modern identity politics, notwithstanding
how clearly inappropriate that label is when analyzing a movement which has little commitment to class struggle.
Equally, while we may lack a one-size-fits-all definition of any given ideology, we can usually say with some confidence what
it is not. In other words, while the fascism of OUN-B may differ remarkably from the fascism of Mussolini, it is sufficiently
clear that these movements lack any ideological likeness with modern Russia.
From what I understand, one common denominator of genuine fascist movements is a cult of a national leader (Hitler, Mussolini,
Franco, Bandera). However, I am not sure that this factor is REQUIRED in order to be fascist. I imagine it is theoretically possible
to have a fascist nation run by a committee or collegial leadership.
And the "Leader" factor is also not definitive in and of itself, because the Stalin period in the Soviet Union was also defined
by a cult of a leader; and yet the Soviet Union was definitely not fascist, it was socialist.
In this case, I would say, two different systems (capitalistic fascism and Soviet-style socialism) showed, what evolutionary
biologists call "convergent" traits.
For example, in the natural world, fishes and whales both have fins and live in the water; yet these two types of animals are
not related to each other genetically (except going way back). This is "convergent" evolution.
Which leads me to another thought: Perhaps ideological movements can be classified by their historical genetics rather than
a static "structuralist" definition. The difference between a Darwinian vs a Linnaeus approach? I think this method is also used
to categorize religions, so might be appropriate also for political ideologies.
"Outside of a particular time period (1920s to 1940s), I don't think that the term 'fascism' has a lot of meaning. "
What about:
– Spain under Franko.
– Greece under "black colonels"
– Genuine, NATO approved fascist parties working diligently and openly in the "Western democracies" throughout the period?
Remember VICE's breathless coverage of the "Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity" that propelled certain Ostrovsky to the upper
echelons of the journalism and punditry? From their linked article:
"She also addressed a photo that was circulated of her online, showing her as one of a group of four women holding a flag
emblazoned with a swastika while giving a Nazi salute. She claimed the image was an ironic Halloween photo, mocking the Kremlin
narrative that Ukrainian nationalists were neo-Nazis."
No surprise to see PC Bulgarian Ivan Kravtsev involved with that establishment org accepting her. At the Brit based openDemocracy
venue, Kravtsev felt compelled to write an article on why China (in his opinion) is freer than Russia. Tom de Waal is a Kravstev
fan.
There're better academics posting at this threads. By academic, I'm referring to those who intellectually and knowledge wise
aren't inferior to the aforementioned folks getting the accolades.
If she says it was just a Halloween costume, that means she is disowning or denying having Nazi views? That seems cowardly
to me. I personally have more respect for Nazis who just come out and admit, "Yeah, I'm a Nazi." Of course, in that case, they
would have to be willing to sacrifice the money and income from "respectable" bourgeois institutions.
Yale historian Timothy Snyder – more like Yale historian – propagandist Timothy Snyder.. i figured this out on my own without
having to be an academic to know this, but thank you paul for this article and confirming my viewpoint
Snyder is such a fraud. His book Bloodlands is utter drivel filled with complete falsities – none of which substantiated with
sources. "Yale historian" is clearly a meaningless title. But of course he gets called on for propaganda hit pieces like this or
that ridiculous Agents of Chaos series on HBO.
A major scandal is unfolding in the US naval community. It turned out that a whole class
of ships, on which America had pinned great hopes a couple of decades ago, turned out to be
utterly incapable of combat. What exactly are the problems with these ships? Why did they
only show up now? What does the massive corruption in the United States have to do with what
is happening?
Political events in the United States have overshadowed everything that happens in this
country. Including one event related to the Navy, which would indeed have exploded.
We are talking about a whole type of warships, both already delivered to the US Navy, and
those still under construction – the so-called Littoral combat ship (LCS) of the
Freedom type. And it's not that they're useless. And not at the prohibitive cost. And not
even that the gearboxes of the ship's main power plant (GEM) do not withstand the maximum
stroke, and with the speed of 47 knots, which was the ridge of this project, he will never be
able to walk – they also resigned themselves to this.
But at the end of 2020, it turned out that they generally cannot move faster than a dry
cargo ship for more or less a long time. That is, it is not just scrapping metal; it is also
almost stationary scrap metal.
@anarchyst hen made
public utilities available for all (obviously without compensation to the owners). No more of
the sad "private company" excuse, and no more billions into the pockets of criminals who hate
us.
Also, make Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Pichai et al. serve serious jail time for election
tampering if nothing else. Both to send out a clear warning to others, and for the simple
decency to see justice served.
Of course this will not happen short of a French Revolution-style regime shift. But since
(sadly) the same is equally true even for your extremely generous and modest proposal, I see
no harm in dreaming a little bigger.
Hi Ah,
That the US deep state has been terrorising parts of the world for many years my reaction
before the election was to hope that Biden would win as I believed that would be the quickest
destruction of the terrorist deep state rather than with Trump where I believed it would
survive some time longer. It is inconceivable that any political party can survive in the US
without the backing of the 'deep state'.
Of course this makes the nuclear option more likely yet democrats are more attached to
their lives than many others since the profit motive looms larger.
Secondly the US owes the pension and social security systems so much money they do not
have unless they print, print and more print and hope someone will buy their bonds (over 100
trillion for the next 'x' years). That is not going to happen. That is why both political
parties will not endorse medicare for all or any further social security programmes. Those
with money insurance industries et al will run away to Australia that has more gold than it
knows what to do with the Chinese are now trying to buy Aussie gold mines. Wonder why?
To sum up the US population will experience some of the same terrorism tacticts the deep
state exported to the rest of the world while the same population will wonder why it is
happening to them just like some of the middle east countries wondered the same for the last
20 years. That the deep state and the army offer pensions and heathcare will not matter if
the funds are not there.
What are the options for the citizens that always believed in capitalism and Jesus and were
the single moral compass for the rest of humanity? After living in a Buddist country for many
years I am not so certain.
"... The military would support whomever pays their salary and their pensions, i.e. the Establishment. However, as Iraq and Afghanistan has shown, the U.S. military, while possessing remarkable firepower when taken on directly and openly, is quite vulnerable. The U.S. military is essentially mercenaries. Mercenaries work for pay. Mercenaries are not willing to die for a cause. You can't spend money if you're dead. ..."
As a person who grew up in the glorious aftermath of World War II, it never occurred to me
that in my later years I would be pondering whether the United States would end in civil war or
a police state. In the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, it seems a 50-50 toss
up.
There is abundant evidence of a police state. One feature of a police state is controlled
explanations and the suppression of dissent. We certainly have that in abundance.
Experts are not permitted forums in which to challenge the official position on Covid.
Teachers are suspended for giving offense by using gender pronouns.
Recording stars are dropped by their recording studios for attending the Trump rally.
Parents ratted on by their own children are fired from their jobs for attending the Trump
rally. https://www.rt.com/usa/512048-capitol-riot-employees-fired/
Antifa is free to riot, loot, intimidate and hassle, but Trump supporters are
insurrectionists.
White people are racists who use hateful words and concepts, but those who demonize whites
are righting wrongs.
Suppression of dissent and controlling behavior are police state characteristics. It might
be less clear to some why dictating permissible use of language is police state control. Think
about it this way. If your use of pronouns can be controlled, so can your use of all other
words. As concepts involve words, they also can be controlled. In this way inconvenient
thoughts and expressions along with accurate descriptions find their way into the Memory
Hole.
With the First Amendment gone, or restricted to the demonization of targeted persons, such
as "the Trump Deplorables," "white supremacists," "Southern racists," the Second Amendment
can't have much life left. As guns are associated with red states, that is, with Trump
supporters, outlawing guns is a way to criminalize the red half of the American population that
the Establishment considers "deplorable." Those who stand on their Constitutional right will be
imprisoned and become cheap prison labor for America's global corporations.
Could all this lead to a civil war or are Americans too beat down to effectively resist?
That we won't know until it is put to the test.
Are there clear frontlines? Identity Politics has divided the people across the entire
country. The red states are only majority red. It is tempting to see the frontiers as the red
center against the blue Northeast and West coasts, but that is misleading. Georgia is a red
state with a red governor and legislature, but there were enough Democrats in power locally to
steal the presidential and US senate elections.
Another problem for reds is that large cities -- the distribution centers -- such as
Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los
Angeles -- are in blue hands as are ports and international airports. Effectively, this cuts
reds off from outside resources.
What would the US military do? Clearly, the Joint Chiefs and the military/security complex
are establishment and not anti-establishment Trumpers. With the soldiers themselves now a
racial and gender mix, the soldiers would be as divided as the country. Those not with the
Establishment would lack upper level support.
Where are the youth and younger adults? They are in both camps depending on their education.
Many of the whites who went to university have been brainwashed against themselves, and regard
white Americans as "systemic racists" or "white supremacists" and feel guilt. Those who did not
go to university for the most part have experienced to their disadvantage the favoritism given
to people of color and have resentment.
What about weapons? How can the reds lose when guns are a household item and blues would
never dirty themselves by owning one? The answer is that unlike the War of Northern Aggression
in the 1860s, today the weapons in the hands of the military are devastating compared to those
in the hands of the public. Unlike in the past, it is impossible for a citizens' militia to
stand against the weapons and body armor that the military has. So, unless the military splits,
the reds are outgunned. Never believe that the Establishment would not release chemical and
biological agents against red forces. Or for that matter nuclear weapons.
What about communications? We know for an absolute fact that the tech monopolies are aligned
with the Establishment against the people. So much so that President Trump, in the process of
being set-up for prosecution, has been cut off from communicating with his supporters both in
social media and email.
The American Establishment is doing to President Trump exactly what it did to Ukrainian
President Yanukovych in Washington's orchestrated "Maidan Revolution," called "the Revolution
of Dignity" by the liars at Wikipedia, and precisely what it did to Chavez, Maduro, and would
like to do to Putin.
Suppose an American civil war occurs. How is it likely to play out? Before investigating
this, first consider how the Establishment could prevent it by bringing the red states to its
defense. The Trump supporters are the only patriots in the American population. They tend to
wear the flag on their sleeve. In contrast, blue state denizens define patriotism as
acknowledging America's evils and taking retribution on those white racists/imperialists who
committed the evils. In blue states, riots against the "racist system" result in defunding the
police. If the Antifa and Black Lives Matter militias were sicced on the Biden regime, red
state patriots might see "their country" under attack. It is possible that the "Proud Boys"
would come to Biden's defense, not because they believe in Biden but because America is under
attack and he is "our president." Alternatively, an Antifa attack on the Biden regime could be
portrayed as an unpatriotic attack on America and be used to discourage red state opposition to
the police state, just as "Insurrection" has resulted in many Trump supporters declaring their
opposition to violence. In other words, it is entirely possible that the patriotism of the
"Trump Deplorables" would split the red state opposition and lead to defeat.
Assuming that the Establishment is too arrogant and sure of itself or too stupid to think of
this ploy, how would a civil war play out? The Establishment would do everything possible to
discredit the case of the "rebels." The true rebels, of course, would be the Establishment
which has overthrown the Constitutional order, but no media would make that point. Controlling
the media, the Establishment, knowing of the patriotism of its opponents, would portray the
"rebels" as foreign agents seeking to overthrow American Democracy.
The "foreign threat" always captures the patriot's attention. We see it right now with Trump
supporters falling for the disinformation that Switzerland and Italy are behind the stolen
election. Previously, it was Dominion servers in Germany and Serbia that did the deed.
On whose head will the Establishment place the blame for "the War Against America"? There
are three candidates: Iran, China, and Russia. Which will the Establishment choose?
To give Iran credit conveys too much power to a relatively small country over America. To
blame Iran for our civil war would be belittling.
To blame China won't work, because Trump blamed China for economically undermining America
and Trump supporters are generally anti-China. So accusing the red opposition with being China
agents would not work.
The blame will be placed on Russia.
This is the easy one. Russia has been the black hat ever since Churchill's Iron Curtain
speech in 1946. Americans are accustomed to this enemy. The Cold War reigned from the end of
World War II until the Soviet Collapse in 1991. Many, including retired American generals,
maintain that the Soviet collapse was faked to put us off guard for conquest.
When the Establishment decided to frame President Trump, the Establishment chose Russia as
Trump's co-conspirator against American Democracy. Russiagate, orchestrated by the CIA and FBI,
ensured for three years that Trump was accused in the Western media of being in cahoots with
Russia. Despite the lack of any evidence, a large percentage of the American and world
population was convinced that Trump was put into office by Putin somehow manipulating the
vote.
The brainwashing was so successful that three years of Trump sanctions against Russia could
not shake the Western peoples back into factual reality.
With Russia as the historic and orchestrated enemy, whatever happens in the United States
that can be blamed elsewhere will be blamed on Russia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former US
Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes
have already associated "Trump's insurrection" with Russia. https://www.rt.com/russia/512071-capitol-violence-consequences-fear/
Suppose that an American civil war becomes intense. Suppose that the Establishment's
propaganda against Russia becomes the reigning belief as propaganda almost always becomes, how
can the Establishment not finish the insurrection threat by attacking the country responsible?
The Establishment would be trapped in its own propaganda. Emotions would run away. Russia would
hear threats that would have to be taken seriously.
You can bet that Biden's neocon government will be egging this on. American exceptionalism.
American hegemony. Russia's fifth column, the Atlanticist Integrationists, who wish absorption
into the degenerate and failing Western World, will echo the charges against Russia. This would
make the situation a serious international incident with Russia as the threatened villain.
What would the Kremlin do? Would Russia's leaders accept yet another humiliation and false
accusation? Or will the anger of the Russian people forever accused and never stood up for by
their own government force the Kremlin into awareness that Russia could be attacked at any
moment.
Even if the Kremlin is reluctant to acknowledge the threat of war, what if another of the
numerous false warnings of incoming ICBMs is received. Unlike the past, is it believed this
time?
The stolen election in America, the emerging American Police State, more vicious and better
armed than any in the past, could result in American chaos that could be a dire threat to the
Russian Federation.
What Trump and his supporters, and perhaps the Kremlin, do not understand is that real
evidence no longer counts . The Establishment makes up the evidence that it needs for its
agendas. Consider how easy it was for the Capitol Police to remove barriers and allow some
Antifa mixed in with Trump supporters into the Capitol. This was all that was required to
create a "Trump led insurrection" that terminated the presentation of evidence of electoral
fraud and turned the massive rally of support for Trump into a liability. Trump now leaves the
presidency as an "insurrectionist" and is set up for continued harassment and prosecution.
As I previously wrote, the stolen election and its acceptance abroad signifies the failure
of Western democracy. The collapse of the Western world and its values will affect the entire
world.
No member of the State wants to be picked off one by one, be it military, cops, leadership
or functionaries.
What has been overlooked in the debate over the combat potential of violent extremists
is the diffusion of something much more rudimentary and potentially more lethal: basic
infantry skills. These include coordinated small-team tactical maneuvers supported by
elementary marksmanship. The diffusion of such tactics seems to be underway, and it may
generate serious concerns for U.S. security policy in the future if ignored.
Imagine if fuel pipe lines to urban areas were hit, railroad tracks hit, water processing
facilities hit; the vision of an easy victory over Red America would quickly come home to the
city dwellers.
Elections in the US are not about picking winners. They are about making voters complicit
in governance by their having voted. The most recent election failed to make the Red voters
"complict" because there was no transparency and everyone believes there was fraud. No
election with mail in voting in the US will every work because everyone will assume
fraud.
In a nation as large as the US with as much concentrated city living, logistics are a
nightmare. The next time the lights go out, you may wonder. When your grocery chain runs out
of meat, you may wonder. When sewers in your city keep breaking, you may wonder. Thus truly
scares me.
today the weapons in the hands of the military are devastating compared to those in the
hands of the public
True enough. However, the weapons and the ammunition don't magically appear; they need to
be manufactured somewhere, and those places (and/or their suppliers) can be destroyed.
I must disagree. There will be no "civil war" in the United States. The establishment
controls the levers of power and all communications and all organized structures. There may
be a bunch of disaffected citizens, but they will remain a disorganized mob. Any apparent
emergent rival for power will be ruthlessly suppressed, deplatformed, villified, or co-opted.
The working class has been effectively divided and will waste its energy fighting itself over
crumbs ('diversity').
Disorganized mobs do not fight civil wars.
No, the fate of the United States will be the sort of chaotic autocracy we see in places
like Mexico and Brazil. Verging on being a failed state, the rich will nonetheless live lives
of great luxury secure in their walled estates. Meanwhile the average person will be crushed
into poverty, criminal gangs will flourish, and there will be a tension between the central
police and local gangs, but gangs are rarely organized enough to truly challenge centralized
states, and life will muddle on. There will be little social cohesion and no real trust of
central authorities, but that only matters if you want a strong and unified society. The rich
will do fine.
On the other hand, the overall national power will decline, and other powers like China
(which for all its flaws has not declared war on the working class, nor does it routinely
excuse or celebrate incompetence in leadership) will rise and take its place both on the
world stage and as the cutting edge of science and culture.
to me the biggest outcome of this faux coup/insurrection is the splintering of the
republican party. with this schism the trump "populists" have been cleanly pared off of the
party and thrown overboard and the remaining party will meekly do the bidding of the neocon
deep state that now totally controls both of these sock puppet parties. we will now see both
parties calling for a unification of our "indispensable nation". more than likely some false
flag will provide the necessary impetus to bury the hatchet and focus us all on our new/old
enemy. the only hope i see is an outside chance that so many republicans have been redpilled
that the party becomes the new whigs and fades into obscurity, leaving room for new parties
to rise from the ash. the dems are ripe for a schism themselves with aoc champing at the bit
to kick the boomers to the curb and the bernie bros finally realizing that three card monty
is a rigged game. i would love to see the destruction of both of these hopelessly corrupt
parties but the deep state cthulhu has its tentacles thoroughly wrapped around our poor
planet and anything emerging out of this toxic mess would most likely be even worse. the
situation reminds me of voltaire's candide and his sage advice to cultivate your garden.
I'd advise the young to develop a "plan B". Pick another country you find bearable amd
study it. Find out what jobs are in demand there. Develop those skills in your spare time
(computers, electricians, mechanics, etc.). Practice their language an hour or two per week
with online resources/dvd's/books. Research their immigration laws and perhaps contact their
embassy.
If it gets really awful for whites here, you may be able to take your family some place
more hospitable. Hopefully none of this will be neccessary and the rhetoric will tone down.
Trump personally really got under the left's skin. Don't umderestimate Hillary's supporters
influence here. They were ticked off. The Obama's too. Perhaps they will calm down a notch
now. Have a plan B though young whites.
Another insightful article by PCR. However, I must somewhat disagree on some points.
What would the US military do?
The military would support whomever pays their salary and their pensions, i.e. the
Establishment. However, as Iraq and Afghanistan has shown, the U.S. military, while
possessing remarkable firepower when taken on directly and openly, is quite vulnerable. The
U.S. military is essentially mercenaries. Mercenaries work for pay. Mercenaries are not
willing to die for a cause. You can't spend money if you're dead.
Think of the Troubles in Ireland.
The Establishment absolutely can deliver a punch to an identifiable opponent, but it can't
take a punch. Low level violence directed at officers and politicians would bring them to
their knees.
Controlling the media, the Establishment, knowing of the patriotism of its opponents,
would portray the "rebels" as foreign agents seeking to overthrow American Democracy.
I agree that they will try. However, I suspect that PCR is underestimating how little
faith many whites have in the media.
The Establishment will never be more powerful than it is today. They have inherited
institutions, the people to man those institutions and a generally functioning economy.
Basically, they stole the keys to car that they didn't create. But the Establishment run
those institutions and economy into ground. They will slowly start to show cracks.
Whites need to stay low, start forming small groups and begin preparing for the openings
that will come.
The racial right has been fantasizing about a civil war since forever, but I can't see it.
Too many people have too much to lose, there's no real desire for blood, and the people are
anyway too soft to initiate or withstand the violence real war would unleash upon them.
Further, and in stark contrast to the SJWs and antifa, the few racially conscious whites who
fantasize about this are mostly too old to make good soldiers. Also, just like the "God
emperor" himself, Trumpers are some of the stupidest people on the face of the earth, largely
down with their own enslavement, nauseatingly fond of "law and order", sporting "Blue Lives
Matter" badges, etc. Despite being preyed upon by blacks and browns for decades now, they
still refuse to become racist. Most of them are Bible thumpers who really believe that race
is just skin color, that all are equal before their imaginary friend called God, and that
Israel is America's greatest ally. Then too, vast numbers of whites work for the government
or its many offshoots such as education, law enforcement, the military, and the defense
industry. Civil war would mean they'd be revolting against themselves.
Will America become a police state? In case you haven't noticed, Americans already
live in a police state, and have for decades. PCR should know this as well as anyone, as he
was part of it during the Reagan years. America is an open-air prison Americans built
themselves, and they rat each other out and betray each other to keep themselves
ideologically in line. When someone white is doxxed and fired for having bad thoughts, who do
you think does the enforcing? For the most part, it's other white people. Fake president and
China asset Biden is just the new warden.
As a person who grew up in the glorious aftermath of World War II, it never occurred to
me that in my later years I would be pondering whether the United States would end in civil
war or a police state. In the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, it seems a
50-50 toss up.
In a very meaningful sense we already have a "police state." Why do we have a police
state? Because our masters realize that they can't run the whole world from anything
resembling a constitutional republic (as the Founders and Framers envisioned it). It's the
agenda for complete world domination and control that's driving the domestic oppression. As
they continue to squander everything of value on the agenda and take more risks, etc., while
the corruption and rot continue to take a toll and the country crumbles, the boot will need
to come down ever harder on the neck.
And please stop kidding yourself about Trump. It wasn't for the benefit of Joe and Jill
Sixpack that he seized Syrian oilfields, tried to start a war with Iran, tried to overthrow
the Maduro government in Venezuela, tried to stop Nord Stream 2, started a trade war with
China, pulled out of all the nuclear treaties, etc. Trump wasn't just fully onboard with the
agenda, he pursued it enthusiastically.
If Trump's nuclear brinkmanship and aggressive foreign policies aren't promptly reversed,
the U.S. may end as a pile of nuclear ash. Comments coming out of Moscow recently seem to
suggest that Russia is finally losing its patience with interminable U.S. hostility and may
soon start responding more forcefully to U.S./NATO provocations (and Biden's tough talk on
Russia isn't helping matters any).
Neither Russia, China nor Iran are going to surrender to the USraeli empire and start
taking orders, so either the U.S. "government" must back off and accept a multipolar world or
WW3 is still on the table, even by accident.
From Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.
The Civil War in Corcyra
"So savage was the progress of this revolution, and it seemed all the more so because it
was one of the first which had broken out. Later, of course, practically the whole of the
Hellenic world was convulsed, with rival parties in every state – democratic leaders
trying to bring in the Athenians, and oligarchs trying to bring in the Spartans. In peacetime
there would have been no excuse and no desire for calling them in, but in time of war, when
each party could always count upon an alliance which would do harm to its opponents and at
the same time strengthen its own position, it became a natural thing for anyone who wanted a
change of government to call in help from outside.
So revolutions broke out in city after city, and in places where the revolutions occurred
late the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new
extravagances of revolutionary zeal, expressed by an elaboration in the methods of seizing
power and by unheard-of atrocities in revenge. To fit in with the change of events, words,
too, had to change their usual meanings . What used to be described as a thoughtless act
of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to
think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea
of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character ; ability to
understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action.
Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back
was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be
trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of
intelligence, but it was still cleverer to see that a plot was hatching. If one attempted to
provide against having to do either, one was disrupting the unity of the party and acting out
of fear of the opposition. In short, it was equally praiseworthy to get one's blow in first
against someone who was going to do wrong, and to denounce someone who had no intention of
doing any wrong at all. Family relations were a weaker tie than party membership ,
since party members were more ready to go to any extreme for any reason whatever. These
parties were not formed to enjoy the benefits of the established laws, but to acquire power
by overthrowing the existing regime ; and the members of these parties felt confidence in
each other not because of any fellowship in a religious communion, but because they were
partners in crime. If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the party in power, so far from
giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical
effect.
As the result of these revolutions, there was a general deterioration of character
throughout the Greek world . The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the
mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist.
Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps , and each side viewed
the other with suspicion. As for ending this state of affairs, no guarantee could be given
that would be trusted, no oath sworn that people would fear to break; everyone had come to
the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect a permanent settlement and so, instead
of being able to feel confident in others, they devoted their energies to providing against
being injured themselves."
Whether civil war as we may imagine it, or something equally unappealing to our every day
lives, something bad is about to happen.
I'm curious though, regarding what I do believe was unprecedented election fraud. How is
it possible, after watching the Georgia State Farm arena video, that the President of the
United States, with all the power that office should hold, could not force the woman
identified in that video, one Ruby Freeman, to answer questions about what we saw? Ruby
Freeman was never questioned as far as I can find. How is this possible? Nothing makes sense.
Before we begin killing one another, can we do two things; 1. Interrogate Ruby Freeman and 2.
Interrogate the killer of Ashli Babbit?
Little bit feverish article. And I do have to say no.
Civil war can happen only after hyperinflation accompanied with lawlessness.
And that will happen only if US looses its international position.
Everything depend now on Germany.
If Germany joins China Russia camp than US as a world leader will not mean anything
anymore.
China now is courting Europe intensively. Particularly is courting Germany.
Nothing is set yet.
So everybody can relax.
.
Biden is out of his mind. In his speech he said that he wants to increase minimum wage and
reestablish unions. That could be a little help also.
People living in the core areas of Ziocorporate globalism, like the US/EU, remain mostly
oblivious about the nature of their ruling regime than those living in the direct periphery
of globalist power. Take Colombia for an example, like Mexico's, all its presidents are
subservient to US Ziocorporate power. Last one, a Nobel peace prize winner under whose
pre-presidential stint as "Defense" minister oversaw the US-serving Colombian military's
systematic massacre of tens of thousands of lower class Colombian youths who were then
disguised as guerrillas to cash in rewards paid US Plan Colombia dollars, proceeded, now as
president, to negotiate the disarmament of the actual guerrillas under the Obama/Biden
regime's orders. Massmurder and massacres maintained an average level.
Then, in 2018, right after the Trumpet, a shamelessly pro-US regime, even for Colombian
standards, took over and massacres and massmurder picked right up again, to an average of 2
or 3 per week, with exploding cocaine production even for Colombia standards as well, and
extreme political polarisation, and all the while the Ziocorporate mother ship in Washington,
with its Qtard and MAGA bullshit, looked the other way except to accuse Venezuela of being
undemocratic and of human rights violations.
If Americans weren't so stupid and daydreaming like fucktards that they live in "muh
democracy/republic" instead of the Ziocorporate conglomerate regime that rules over them,
they could take a clue or two from their own regime's foreign policy, not only did Trumpet do
things like transferring $400 billion in weapons to ISIS/al-Qaeda royal Salafi patrons in
Ziodi Wahhabia, he doubled-down on the Obama/Biden policy of Venezuela "is a national
security threat to muh democracy and freedom"; to start pondering about the kind of
manipulation and radicalisation Ziocorporate agents Trump/Republicans and Biden/Democrats
have in store for them. Cointelpro certainly mutates far faster than Covid-1984.
What do Qtarts and the like need to realise this simple, evident facts? That the Trumpet
himself comes on national TV telling you all "I and the Democrats have been playing divide
and conquer with you dumbfucks for 4 years"?
The American Establishment is doing to President Trump exactly what it did to Ukrainian
President Yanukovych in Washington's orchestrated "Maidan Revolution," called "the
Revolution of Dignity" by the liars at Wikipedia, and precisely what it did to Chavez,
Maduro, and would like to do to Putin.
What Trump and his supporters, and perhaps the Kremlin, do not understand is that
real evidence no longer counts . The Establishment makes up the evidence that it
needs for its agendas.
Their playbook "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul D.
Alinsky, makes it clear that it's necessary to play dirty. This covers all aspects of their
Regime Change projects and the current US project surely isn't any different.
It's a cocktail of lies, fabrications, subversion, threats, blackmail, false friendships
– in fact any means to advance themselves.
For example: From Alinsky – "Means and Ends" His take on morality:
Rule 10) You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
Rule 11) Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", "Of
the Common Welfare, "Pursuit of Happiness" or "Bread and Peace".
So yes, this is why the most unpatriotic Patriot Act is called the Patriot Act and they
operate from patriotic sounding places like the American Enterprise Institute.
If traditional America is going to get anywhere in the upcoming conflict they have to get
used to playing by the same rules – difficult for them – but they have to do it.
It's inevitably going to be a dirty war.
Point of order- Russia is not the historic enemy, but the orchestrated one, rather it was
the Soviet Union which is the historic enemy, as the sponsors of the destruction of Russia
are behind the destruction of America.
We are already in a police state and you can kiss goodbye to the 1st and 2nd amendment
soon as free speech becomes hate speech just like they did in Europe.
So this site and many others in the alt news universe will soon be gone.
There's not going to be a civil war as the current generation of young people are too weak
and distracted and have been brainwashed into hating themselves.
There's a big elephant in the room and wild card that's been missed too and that's the new
covid vaccines who's long term effects on health are unknown.
Vaccines need to be studied for about 10 years before their safety can be guaranteed.
If tens / hundreds of millions are willing to be injected with a new untested genetic
engineered substance that could make them disabled or kill them in 5 years to save them
against something with a 99% survival rate what does that tell you about the mental state of
the Population?
The US as you once knew it is finished it's just that many are still in denial or haven't
realized it yet.
I see no civil war in the USA. I see no organisation amongst the people in order to carry
it out. They have no leader, they have no Hannibal, Boadicea or Adolf to rally them together
for a major insurrection against The Beast Empire. Unless of course something is brewing
secretly.
A French style form of resistance, as previously mentioned in these comments, also takes a
lot of planning and organisational skills, and I see no inkling of that taking place amongst
American patriots.
I also believe many do not realise how serious the matter is, they still, being bogged
down in irrelevant party politics.
If however a large swathe of the police and US Military including officers were to desert
their corrupt masters, things would look very different and a civil war could happen.
The civil was has been on since Crossfire Hurricane, the usurpers of the constitution
simply kept it cold because they thought they could enforce their tyranny silently.
And if Trump surrenders then they would have been proven right, at least for the
leadership fight.
Biden will likely launch a war because he already has his bay of pigs with his graft, and
will need a moonshot for the misdirection.
I don't think they can fight half the nation (and the military will split), and Russia at
the same time, so the only question is on whom the war will be launched. I still think the
odds are higher that it will be a civil war, but the Russia option looms strong for sure.
The US military is the most "woke" diverse incompetent organization in America.
Remember- contractors do all the heavy lifting "in theater"- from cooking to plumbing to
firefighting to IT to combat.
This knowledge is hidden from view- kept on the down low.I only know because my brother
has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan for KBR for the past 15 years. I have seen him accumulate
well over Half a million in cash. What does he do? He makes sure the troops have water and
food. He is in logistics. For the past decade I have heard hundreds if not thousands of
stories of the jaw dropping incompetence, insouciance and laziness of the American
military.
Rank-and-file Americans, indeed no one, talks about this very real infrastructure that
props up every dumb, overweight enlisted. About 4 contractors to every enlisted.
Most of the contractors in theater are from Eastern Europe and sub Sahara Africa. If they
were given orders to release biological or chemical weapons on the American populace, as long
as the huge checks were hitting their account they would do it in a heartbeat
More than the military- fear the shadow military that knows the systems, does the work ..
And will do whatever it is asked as long as they are paid.
Their mother doesn't live here.
Everywhere we turn, diversity and hiring people from the "other" never works out.
*** Side note: My brother revealed that when blacks came back from their R&R after the
George Floyd insanity, most of them became more aggressive and entitled. Unable to do their
work because they could not stop going to report others for incidence of racism.
This includes the American black contractors and enlisted.
These are dumb young black men and women who are making $92,000 a year to move pallets
around. If they were asked to stop calling in sick every day, they would run to report their
supervisor for-
Racism.
Many whites have lost their lucrative positions or been subject to discipline for having
the audacity to ask blacks to come to work.
We are about to participate in "The Great Experiment V. 2.0" in my opinion. This decides
which of the Georges, Washington and Orwell, is right. My money is on Orwell for a reason I
will tell you later.
...The checks and balances have been replaced with (Bank) checks and (Bank) balances. The
richest men in the world are overseeing this experiment which is going global quicker than you
can say"Google". They are enabled by the University academics who as Raymond Asquith once
observed are always prepared to provide an intellectual justification for vile acts if the
price is right and journalists will laud said acts to the heavens as decent, moral doings if
they want a paycheck next week from their masters.
The Legislature is bought. The Executive is bought. The Supreme Court are ninnies...
... And you enabled all this yourselves. When you applauded the Patriot Act. When you
cheered at the vilification of muslims, "sand niggers", "rag heads". When you justified the use
of torture. When you masturbated watching targeting videos of drone strikes on Afghans. When
you credulously watched fantasies on television about "Irans nuclear threat". When you listened
and watched uncritically (or perhaps with secret pleasure) as the media lied to you
breathlessly about the President disporting himself on a urine soaked bed with Russian hookers.
Where was your sense of outrage then? Every time you deny the humanity and human rights of
anyone, no matter how vile they be, you are destroying your own rights.
Georgi Dimitrov. The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the
Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism
Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the
Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the
most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.
...
Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty
bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist
Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the
petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of
finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working
class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy,
fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.
When neoliberal ideology is crumbling and the US neoliberal empire is in trouble, more tight
censorship is logical step for neoliberal elite, who does not care and never believed in
democracy for prols in any case. They are Trotskyites and their ideology is neoliberalism aka
"Trotskyism for the rich". Which like was the case with Bolshevism in the USSR means that it is
neo-feudalism for everybody else.
I never heard that feudal were concerned about freedom of speech for "deplorable". Only for
their own narrow circle.
Also the stability of the society is often more important then individual freedoms. That's
why in time of war, the press is forced to publish only official propaganda. So it is naive to
expect that in crisis, and the US society is currently in crisis, freedom of speech would be
respected. It will not. And Trump ban while cynical and illogical makes perfect sence for
neoliberal oligarchy.
The problem is that the US elite has not plan other the kicking the neoliberal can down the
road. And they intentionally polarized the society by promoting identity politics as a way to
preserve thier power and split masses into warring ethic or other groups.
Tech companies were once the primary tools of US "soft power" used to overthrow
authoritarian regimes by exporting 'digital democracy'. Now they employ the same tactics of
suppression as those regimes to silence dissent at home.
The permanent suspension of President Trump's Twitter account, carried out unilaterally and
devoid of any pretense of due process or appreciation of the First Amendment rights of Donald
Trump, represents a low moment in American history. Trump's ban was followed by a decision by
Google to de-platform Parler.com, a social media alternative to Twitter favored by many of
Trump's supporters. Apple also gave Parler a "24 hour warning" asking it to provide a
detailed moderation plan. Twitter, Google, Facebook (who also banned Trump) and the political
supporters of President-elect Joe Biden cite concerns that the content of the president's
Twitter account, along with exchanges among pro-Trump users of Parler, constituted an
"incitement of violence" risk that justified the actions taken.
In the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol by protesters seemingly motivated by the
words of President Trump, there is legitimate justification for concern over the link between
political violence and social media. But if history has taught us anything, the cure can be
worse than the disease, especially when it comes to the issue of constitutionally protected
freedom of speech.
This danger is illustrated by the actions of the former First Lady Michelle Obama who
has
publicly called for tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to permanently ban Trump from
their platforms and enact policies designed "to prevent their technology from being used by the
nation's leaders to fuel insurrection." The irony of the wife of the last American President
Barack Obama, who weaponized so-called digital democracy to export "Western democratic values"
in the struggle against authoritarian regimes, to turn to Twitter to release her message of
internet suppression, is striking. The fact that neither Michelle Obama nor those who extoll
her message see this irony is disturbing.
The Obama administration first sought to use 'digital democracy', the name given to policies
which aim to use web-based social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter as vehicles to
enhance the organization and activism of young people in repressive regimes to achieve American
policy objectives of regime change, during the 2009 Iranian presidential election. US 'digital
democracy' efforts anchored a carefully orchestrated campaign to promote the candidacy of Mir
Hossein Mousavi. These efforts included a phone call from a US State Department official, Jared
Cohen, to executives at Twitter to forgo a scheduled maintenance period and keep the lines in
and out of Iran open, under the premise that it was essential to make sure that digital
messages sent by Iranian dissidents got out to an international audience. Digital democracy
became privatized when its primary architect, Jared Cohen, left the State Department in
September 2010 to take a new position with internet giant Google as the head of 'Google Ideas'
now known as 'Jigsaw'. Jigsaw is a global initiative 'think tank' intended to "spearhead
initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world." This
was the same job Cohen was doing while at the State Department.
Cohen promoted the notion of a "digital democracy contagion" based upon his belief that
the "young people in the Middle East are just a mouse click away, they're just a Facebook
connection away, they're just an instant message away, they're just a text message away" from
sufficiently organizing to effect regime change. Cohen and Google were heavily involved the
January 2011 demonstrations in Egypt, using social networking sites to call for demonstrations
and political reform; the "Egyptian contagion" version of 'digital democracy' phenomena was
fueled by social networking internet sites run by Egyptian youth groups which took a very
public stance opposing the Mubarak regime and calling for political reform.
The Iranian and Egyptian experiences in digital democracy-inspired regime change represent
the nexus of the weaponization of social media by tech giants such as Twitter and Google, and
the US government, which at the time was under the stewardship of Barack Obama and then-Vice
President Joe Biden. The fact that both the Iranian and Egyptian efforts failed only
underscores the nefarious nature of this relationship. The very tools and methodologies used by
Iranian and Egyptian authorities to counter US-sponsored "digital democracy" –
suppression through de-platforming – have now been taken up by Twitter, Google, and the
political allies of Joe Biden to silence Donald Trump and his supporters from protesting an
election they believe was every bit as "stolen" as the 2009 Iranian presidential election that
gave birth to 'digital democracy' in the first place.
In a recently published
report addressing the issue of internet freedom, Freedom House, a US government-funded
non-profit, non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy,
political freedom, and human rights, observed that internet connectivity "is not a
convenience, but a necessity." Virtually all human activities, including political
socialization, have moved online. This new 'digital world', the report noted, "presents
distinct challenges for human rights and democratic governance" with "State and nonstate
actors shape online narratives, censor critical speech, and build new technological systems of
social control."
Freedom House was one of the supporters of 'digital democracy' in Iran and has been highly critical of
the actions by Iranian authorities to shut down and otherwise control internet connectivity
inside Iran. It noted that such tactics are indicative of a system that is "fearful of their
own people and worr[ies] that they cannot control the information space." In its report,
Freedom House wrote that "when civic organizing and political dissent overflow from the
realm of social media onto the streets dictators shut down networks to choke off any calls for
greater democracy and human rights."
In July 2019, the US 2nd District Court of Appeals ruling on Knight
First Amendment Institute v. Trump determined that President Trump's Twitter account
"bear[s] all the trappings of an official, state-run account," meaning that the First Amendment
governed the conduct of the account. As such, "the First Amendment does not permit a public
official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the
official disagrees."
By banning Trump from their platform, the unelected employees of Twitter have done to the
president of the United States what he was accused of doing in Knight First Amendment Institute
v. Trump. If it was a violation of First Amendment-protected free speech for Trump to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue, then the converse is obviously also
true.
The notion that Trump's tweets somehow represented a "clear and present danger" that
required suppression is not supported by the law. In 1919 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
wrote the majority opinion in Schenck v. United
States , a case which examined the limits of free speech protections under the First
Amendment, and famously observed that "The most stringent protection of free speech would
not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic [t]he question in
every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as
to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that
Congress has a right to prevent."
Holmes' opinion in Schenck was later limited by the Supreme Court in its 1969 decision in
Brandenburg v. Ohio ,
which replaced the "clear and present danger" standard with what is known as
"imminent lawless action," which holds that speech is not protected if it is likely to
cause violation of the law "more quickly than an officer of the law reasonably can be
summoned." By suppressing the social media expressions of Donald Trump and his supporters,
Twitter, Facebook, and Google – egged on by the political supporters of Joe Biden –
appear to have unilaterally adopted the "clear and present danger" standard which
deviates from the constitutionally-mandated norms, as established by Supreme Court precedent,
that govern the protection of speech in America.
Political speech is not just a human right – in America, it is an essential
constitutionally guaranteed freedom. When the political supporters of Joe Biden, along with the
unelected heads of media giants such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, actively collaborate to
silence the ability of Donald Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who support him to
express themselves on social media, they become no better than the authoritarian regimes they
once sought to remove from power.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of '
SCORPION
KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the
Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during
the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
"... It is difficult to know or to ensure that the ballots are actual ballots from registered voters. For example in the early hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped out Trump's lead. State officials have reported that people not registered -- probably illegals -- were permitted to vote. Postal service workers have reported being ordered to backdate ballots that suddenly appeared in the middle of the night after the deadline. These techniques were used to erase Trump's substantial leads in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. ..."
"... Digital technology has also made it easy to alter vote counts. US Air Force General Thomas McInerney is familiar with this technology. He says it was developed by the National Security Agency in order to interfere in foreign elections, but now is in the hands of the CIA and was used to defeat Trump. Trump is considered to be an enemy of the military/security complex because of his wish to normalize relations with Russia, thus taking away the enemy that justifies the CIA's budget and power. ..."
"... The military/security complex favors the disunity that the Democrat Party and media have fostered with their ideology of Identity Politics. ..."
"... I would take it a little further and say that voting by mail is a method of vote fraud. The supposed safeguards are easily circumvented, as some whistleblowers have illustrated with ballots being brought forth in large numbers after election day without postmarks and postal workers being ordered to stamp them with acceptable postmarks. ..."
"... Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate. ..."
"... the most likely source of fraud that is hard to detect, is ballot harvesting. This should be outlawed as it violates the idea of a secret ballot. Somebody comes to the home of a disinterested voter and makes sure he votes (of course they will never admit to hounding the person) and "helps" them with the ballot. If the voter cannot be cajoled into voting the correct way, you merely throw his ballot in the trash. ..."
"... Living in an urban setting I often had to visit apartment buildings. Without fail, there was always a pile of undeliverable mail in the lobby under the mailboxes. ..."
"... His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy. ..."
"... As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism, the European and US media speak with one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies. ..."
"... inventive creative new ways to deceive.. first it was election machines, then mail in votes. ..."
"... The phrase "there's no evidence" is just a public commitment to ignore any evidence, no matter how blatant or obvious. ..."
"... Paper ballots as ascribed by Tulsi Gabbard legislation is the only safe option for elections. Kudos to Tulsi! ..."
"... Everyone knew about the potential for voter fraud to occur, but the entire system is corrupt, including Trump who has allowed the massive corruption within the system that was present when he entered office to persist and grow because he is a wimpy, spineless, coward, that was too afraid to make any waves and take the heat that he promised his voters. ..."
"... Why anyone voted for Trump in 2020 confounds me. I voted for him in 2016 and he has turned out to be one of the worst presidents in history. ..."
"... Trump in his cowardess and dishonesty knew that the ailing economy would harm his chances of being re-elected, so he allowed the health scare scamdemic to occur and destroy the livelihoods, lives, and businesses of hundreds of millions of Americans because he is a psychopath. Trump did not do what he promised. Trump made America worse than it has ever been since the end of slavery. ..."
"... Trump has also demanded the extradition of Assange after telling his voters that he loved wikileaks. Trump is a two-faced, lying, fraud. It has been his pattern. He consistently supports various groups and people like Wikileaks, Proud Boys, and others and panders to them and voters and tells people that he loves them, and then every time without fail when the heat is on, Trump says," I really don't know anything about them." ..."
"... "I know nothing." Trump saying "I know nothing." defines his presidency and who he is as a person, a spineless, pandering, corrupt, two-faced, narcissist, loser, and wimp! ..."
A few months ago it looked like the re-election of Trump was almost certain, but now there was a close race between Trump
and Biden? What happen during the last months?
In the months before the election, the Democrats used the "Covid pandemic" to put in place voting by mail. The argument was used
that people who safely go to supermarkets and restaurants could catch Covid if they stood in voting lines. Never before used on a
large scale, voting by mail is subject to massive vote fraud.
There are many credible reports of organized vote fraud committed by Democrats. The only question is whether the Republican establishment
will support challenging the documented fraud or whether Trump will be pressured to concede in order to protect the reputation of
American Democracy.
It is difficult to know or to ensure that the ballots are actual ballots from registered voters. For example in the early
hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped out Trump's lead. State officials
have reported that people not registered -- probably illegals -- were permitted to vote. Postal service workers have reported being
ordered to backdate ballots that suddenly appeared in the middle of the night after the deadline. These techniques were used to erase
Trump's substantial leads in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.
Digital technology has also made it easy to alter vote counts. US Air Force General Thomas McInerney is familiar with this
technology. He says it was developed by the National Security Agency in order to interfere in foreign elections, but now is in the
hands of the CIA and was used to defeat Trump. Trump is considered to be an enemy of the military/security complex because of his
wish to normalize relations with Russia, thus taking away the enemy that justifies the CIA's budget and power.
People do not understand. They think an election has been held when in fact what has occurred is that massive vote fraud has been
used to effect a revolution against red state white America. Leaders of the revolution, such as Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
are demanding a list of Trump supporters who are "to be held accountable." Calls are being made for the arrest of Tucker Carlson,
the only mainstream journalist who supported President Trump.
In a recent column I wrote:
"Think what it means that the entirety of the US media, allegedly the 'watchdogs of democracy,' are openly involved in participating
in the theft of a presidential election.
"Think what it means that a large number of Democrat public and election officials are openly involved in the theft of a presidential
election.
"It means that the United States is split irredeemably. The hatred for white people that has been cultivated for many years,
portraying white Americans as "systemic racists," together with the Democrats' lust for power and money, has destroyed national
unity. The consequence will be the replacement of rules with force."
Mainstream media in Europe claim, that Trump had "divided" the United States. But isn`t it actually the other way around,
that his opponents have divided the country?
As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism , the European and US media speak with
one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies. Russiagate
was a CIA/FBI successful effort to block Trump from reducing tensions with Russia. In 1961 in his last address to the American people
President Dwight Eisenhower warned that the growing power of the military/industrial complex was a threat to American democracy.
We ignored his warning and now have security agencies more powerful than the President.
The military/security complex favors the disunity that the Democrat Party and media have fostered with their ideology of Identity
Politics. Identity politics replaced Marxist class war with race and gender war. White people, and especially white heterosexual
males, are the new oppressor class. This ideology causes race and gender disunity and prevents any unified opposition to the security
agencies ability to impose its agendas by controlling explanations. Opposition to Trump cemented the alliance between Democrats,
media, and the Deep State.
It is possible that the courts will decide who will be sworn into office at January 20, 2021. Do you except a phase of uncertainty
or even a constitutional crisis?
There is no doubt that numerous irregularities indicate that the election was stolen and that the ground was well laid in advance.
Trump intends to challenge the obvious theft. However, his challenges will be rejected in Democrat ruled states, as they were part
of the theft and will not indict themselves. This means Trump and his attorneys will have to have constitutional grounds for taking
their cases to the federal Supreme Court. The Republicans have a majority on the Court, but the Court is not always partisan.
Republicans tend to be more patriotic than Democrats, who denounce America as racist, fascist, sexist, imperialist. This patriotism
makes Republicans impotent when it comes to political warfare that could adversely affect America's reputation. The inclination of
Republicans is for Trump to protect America's reputation by conceding the election. Republicans fear the impact on America's reputation
of having it revealed that America's other major party plotted to steal a presidental election.
Red state Americans, on the other hand, have no such fear. They understand that they are the targets of the Democrats, having
been defined by Democrats as "racist white supremacist Trump deplorables."
The introduction of a report of the Heritage Foundation states that "the United States has a long and unfortunate history
of election fraud". Are the 2020 presidential elections another inglorious chapter in this long history?
This time the fraud is not local as in the past. It is the result of a well organized national effort to get rid of a president
that the Establishment does not accept.
Somehow you get the impression that in the USA – as in many European countries democracy is just a facade – or am I wrong?
You are correct. Trump is the first non-establishment president who became President without being vetted by the Establishment
since Ronald Reagan. Trump was able to be elected only because the Establishment thought he had no chance and took no measures to
prevent his election. A number of studies have concluded that in the US the people, despite democracy and voting, have zero input
into public policy.
Democracy cannot work in America because the money of the elite prevails. American democracy is organized in order to prevent
the people from having a voice. A political campaign is expensive. The money for candidates comes from interest groups, such as defense
contractors, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the Israel Lobby. Consequently, the winning candidate is indebted to his funders,
and these are the people whom he serves.
European mainstream media are portraying Biden as a luminous figure. Should Biden become president, what can be expected
in terms of foreign and security policy, especially in regard to China, Russia and the Middle East? I mean, the deep state and the
military-industrial complex remain surely nearly unchanged.
Biden will be a puppet, one unlikely to be long in office. His obvious mental confusion will be used either to rule through him
or to remove him on grounds of mental incompetence. No one wants the nuclear button in the hands of a president who doesn't know
which day of the week it is or where he is.
The military/security complex needs enemies for its power and profit and will be certain to retain the list of desirable foreign
enemies -- Russia, Iran, China, and any independent-inclined country in Latin America. Being at war is also a way of distracting
the people of the war against their liberties.
What the military/security complex might not appreciate is that among its Democrat allies there are some, such as Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are ideological revolutionaries. Having demonized red state America and got rid of Trump (assuming
the electoral fraud is not overturned by the courts), Ocasio-Cortez and her allies intend to revolutionize the Democrat Party and
make it a non-establishment force. In her mind white people are the Establishment, which we already see from her demands for a list
of Trump supporters to be punished.
I think I'm not wrong in assuming that a Biden-presidency would mean more identity politics, more political correctness
etc. for the USA. How do you see this?
Identity politics turns races and genders against one another. As white people -- "systemic racists" -- are defined as the oppressor
class, white people are not protected from hate speech and hate crimes. Anything can be said or done to a white American and it is
not considered politically incorrect.
With Trump and his supporters demonized, under Democrat rule the transition of white Americans into second or third class citizens
will be completed.
How do you access Trump's first term in office? Where was he successful and where he failed?
Trump spent his entire term in office fighting off fake accusations -- Russiagate, Impeachgate, failure to bomb Russia for paying
Taliban to kill American occupiers of Afghanistan, causing Covid by not wearing a mask, and so on and on.
That Trump survived all the false charges shows that he is a real person, a powerful character. Who else could have survived what
Trump has been subjected to by the Establishment and their media prostitutes. In the United States the media is known as "presstitutes"
-- press prostitutes. That is what Udo Ulfkotte says they are in Europe. As a former Wall Street Journal editor, I say with complete
confidence that there is no one in the American media today I would have hired. The total absence of integrity in the Western media
is sufficient indication that the West is doomed.
Never before used on a large scale, voting by mail is subject to massive vote fraud.
I would take it a little further and say that voting by mail is a method of vote fraud. The supposed safeguards are easily
circumvented, as some whistleblowers have illustrated with ballots being brought forth in large numbers after election day without
postmarks and postal workers being ordered to stamp them with acceptable postmarks.
It really seems to me that there would be no democrat majorities in Congress or in so many state legislatures without vote
fraud.
Worse than the fraud available with vote by mail is the voting of people normally who don't bother to vote. Think of how stupid
and uninformed that average American voter is. Now realize how much more stupid and uninformed the non-voter is, only now he votes.
However, the most likely source of fraud that is hard to detect, is ballot harvesting. This should be outlawed as it violates
the idea of a secret ballot. Somebody comes to the home of a disinterested voter and makes sure he votes (of course they will
never admit to hounding the person) and "helps" them with the ballot. If the voter cannot be cajoled into voting the correct way,
you merely throw his ballot in the trash.
I have little doubt that there have been massive "irregularities", particularly in the so-called battleground states, that
are at play in "stealing" the election.
...The favourite phrase these days is "no evidence of wide spread voter fraud". Let's break that down. Only 6 states have been
challenged for vote fraud. In the big scheme of things, 6 states is not wide spread, even if there is massive vote fraud within
those 6 states. That the vote fraud is not widespread, implies that some vote fraud is acceptable, and that the listener should
ignore it. Last and most importantly, in the narrowest of legalistic terms, testimony or affidavits are not evidence. Testimony
and affidavits become evidence when supported by physical evidence. An affidavit with a photograph demonstrating the statement
would be evidence.
Another phrase is something like "election officials say they have seen no evidence of voter fraud". I have yet to hear a reporter
challenge the "seen no evidence of " part of the statement, regardless of the subject, by asking if the speaker had looked for
any evidence. They won't, because they know damn well no one has.
That is how the liars operate. Not so different from Rumsfeld's "plausible deniability".
Living in an urban setting I often had to visit apartment buildings. Without fail, there was always a pile of undeliverable
mail in the lobby under the mailboxes.
The envelopes were mostly addressed to people who had moved out or died. If ballots were sent to these people based on incorrect
voter rolls, then these too would likely have been left sitting on the floor or on a ledge for anyone to take.
It doesn't take a leap of faith to know what a Trump-hating leftist would do when no one is looking. This moral hazard was
intentionally created by Dems, who know that urban dwellers are transient and lean left politically.
Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some
position to mitigate.
Ike's a mystery. Why did he NOT question Harry Truman's commitments to NATO, the UN, and all that rubbish? Ike was a WWII guy.
He knew Americans hated the UN in 1953 as much as they hated the League of Nations after WWI. But he let it all slide and get
bigger.
His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading
tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy.
Well, agree on your points however, on the other side of the ledger, he never understood the stupidity of the Korean war (that
he could have ended) and majorly up-ramped CIA activities in all manner of regime change (bay of pigs anyone?). Almost a direct
path to our foreign policy now (and now domestic policy)
He did deploy the military assistance advisory group to Vietnam in 1955. This is considered the beginning of U.S. involvement
in the war. This allowed the French to moonwalk out the back door leaving us holding the bag. In fairness this was Johnson's war
however. Eisenhower did cut the military budget as a peace dividend to fund interstate system and other domestic projects. In
today political spectrum he would be considered a flaming liberal.
As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism, the European and US media speak
with one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies.
What intrigues me is the ultimate political goal of the UN and the WEF when they anticipate a single global government centered
at the UN and the absence of nation-states.
So what is the MIC going to do when there are no existential threats of competing nation-states? Or will the MIC re-engineer
religious wars between the various religious groups, secular and theological? It seems the aspirations of the WEF and its fellow
travellers preclude the occurrence of future armed conflicts.
Of course one needs capitalistic economies to produce the ordnance and materiels for the engineered social factions to war
with each other. Yet if the Greens have their way, there will be no mining period.
More likely is the possibility that none of them actually understand what they are doing. As Nassim Taleb is alleged to have
remarked, 99% of humans are stupid.
The total absence of integrity in the Western media is sufficient indication that the West is doomed.
It's because Western media is completely under the control of Jews, the world's foremost End Justifies Means people. The Fourth
Estate has become the world's most powerful Bully Pulpit. There are still a few good ones though, brave souls they are: Kim Strassel
of WSJ, Daniel Larison of The American Conservative , Neil Munro of Breitbart.
The rest are more or less lying scums, including everyone on NYTimes, WSJ, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, Fox News (minus
Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo), The Economist , and let's not forget the new media: Google, Facebook, Twitter. The
world would be a much better place without any of them.
@Beavertales
-- with either vote flipping on machines or having the totals that paper ballot scanners tabulate adjust via a pre-programmed
algorithm. Many elections have already been stolen this way.
Nancy Pelosi claims that Biden's victory gives the Democrats a "MANDATE" to alter the economy as they see fit with 50.5%.
This proves that Biden will NOT represent everyone – only the left! I have warned that this has been their agenda from day one.
Now, three whistleblowers from the Democratic software company Dominion Voting Systems, alleging that the company's software stole
38 million votes from Trump. There are people claiming that Dominion Voting Systems is linked to Soros, Dianae Finesteing, Clintons,
and Pelosi's husband. I cannot verify any of these allegations so far.
We are at the Rubicon. Civil War is on the other side. There should NEVER be this type of drastic change to the economy
from Capitalism to Marxism on 50.5% of the popular vote. NOBODY should be able to restructure the government and the economy on
less than 2/3rds of the majority. That would be a mandate. Trying to change everything with a claim of 50.5% of the vote will
only signal, like the Dread Scot decision, that there is no solution by rule of law. This is the end of civilization and it will
turn ugly from here because there is no middle ground anymore. As I have warned, historically the left will never tolerate opposition.
Yes, the theft is blatant. But what are you, us, going to do about it? We really can't do much as the Office of the President
Elect requires us to wear masks. For our safety.
"in the narrowest of legalistic terms, testimony or affidavits are not evidence. Testimony and affidavits become evidence when
supported by physical evidence. " Correct – but they also can become evidence by verbal testimony. ie "I saw the defendant hit
the victim with a rock"
Not only have they stolen the election but when Joe Biden and other democrats claim that President Trump caused the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Americans because of his handling of Covid 19, they are in sane. No world leader could stop the spread
of this respiratory virus. However, Joe Biden and democrats have caused the deaths of hundreds of white people, while whipping
up weak minded people to kill many whites. Biden and the democrats are criminals. Any one who is white, man or woman, that supports
the democratic party is enabling a criminal organization to perpetrate violence on white people, including murder.
Since the article was from a German magazine it's understandable that there is no mention of "the one who shall not be named".
No mention of the people behind the Lawfare group, the same people behind the impeachment, the same people providing financial
and ideological support for the BLM/Antifa, the same people that own the media that spewed lies for 5 years and censored any mention
of the Biden family corruption, no mention of the people behind this Color Revolution, the same people who promoted the mail in
voting and those that managed the narrative for the media on election night to stop Trump's momentum.
For the public consumption the election will be described in vague terms, like this article, blaming special interests and
institutions like the FBI, CIA and MIC without naming names as if an institution, not the oligarchs and chosen pulling the strings,
are somehow Marxist, anti-white or anti-Christian.
The interviewer quotes the Heritage Foundation does anyone even care what they say? The English Tavistock Institute by way
of the CIA which the British molded from the OSS created programs for the Heritage Foundation as well as the Hoover Institute,
MIT, Stanford University, Wharton, Rand etc. These "rightwing think tanks" were created to counter the CIA's "leftwing think tanks"
at Columbia, Berkeley etc. Thank you British Intelligence.
Steve Bannon was just interviewing someone (can't remember his name). Apparently there are about 200 to 300 IT professionals/engineers
working on these so-called "glitches" (not glitches at all) which mysteriously "disappeared" thousands of Trump votes. Then they'd
dump phony Biden votes into the mix. These IT professionals are going to follow the trail.
I've also heard that Dominion Voting Systems played a big part in this scam by using algorithms. One Trump lawyer said that
big revelations are coming.
We're going to have to be patient and just wait.
"The inclination of Republicans is for Trump to protect America's reputation by conceding the election."
I honestly think it's more like the old established Republicans (corporate bought) want Trump to lose because that is what
their campaign donors want (Big Pharma, Wall Street, etc.) They are part of the elite, and the elite (both the Democrats AND Republicans)
want Trump gone so they can continue their crony capitalist looting. They've got to appear like they're behind Trump, but I don't
think they are. Of course, that's not all Republican representatives.
Sounds like they've been rigging elections for awhile now. I bet they just messed up with Hillary. I think that's why she was
so upset. She had it, but they screwed up and didn't supply enough ballots.
@KenHinventive creative new ways to deceive.. first it was election machines, then mail in votes. next it will be magic carpet
voting. But the votes don't count, cause it is the electoral college that elects the President.
Trump also lost a significant number who did not understand Trump was an Israeli at heart, they thought he was a uncoothed
NYC red blooded American.
As far as white, black or pokadot color or any of the religions ganging up against Trump I don't think that happened, the fall
out into statistically discoverable categories is just that, fall out, not those categories conspiring to vote or not vote one
way or the other.
PCR seems to have trouble seeing a difference between the counting of perfectly proper votes which Pres Trump's post office
delivered late which may or may not be allowed by law which can be determined in court, and fraud like the dead voting or votes
being forged.
The fraud is all so transparent but no one in the power elite seems to give a crap whether the public catches on or not these
days. They know that the entire media which creates the false matrix of contrived "truth" that we all live in will back them to
the hilt because they are actually just one more working part in the grand conspiracy. We all know that when "O'Brian" says 2
+ 2 equals 5 we must all believe it, or at least say we do. We interface with "O'Brian's" minions on a daily basis but we don't
know the ultimate identity of "O'Brian" (in the singular or multiple). Many guesses are made, but they hide that from us fairly
well with the aid of their militaries and "intelligence" agencies (aka secret police in other times and places).
For example in the early hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped
out Trump's lead.
In a very similar vein, it is the same thing that happened to Bernie Sanders during the primary's. Joe was down and out, and
Bernie was enjoying the lead and then "Bam!" Overnight Joe is back on top.
Well, fool me once,,,,,, .,and blah, blah whatever Bush said .
Dr Roberts has referenced in the interview a UR article that goes into considerable detail about the massive electoral fraud
by the Democrats and their partners. You've obviously not bothered to read it.
You're like one of those MSM hacks who denies electoral fraud without making any attempt to look at the evidence.
@Begemot
And it's almost always a closer race than anyone would have guessed beforehand -- which I also find suspicious. How likely is
it that the majority of presidential elections over the last century were decided by more or less even numbers of voters from
each party, between more or less evenly matched candidates?
Really seems like they've perfected the art of putting on rigged political shows that you can't quite believe in, but don't
have anything really solid to back up your suspicions. It's like the "no evidence of fraud" canard -- anything solid enough to
show obvious manipulation is explained away as the exception, rather than the tip of a very deep iceberg
Like the false accusations about Russia, delegitimizing the presidential election as fraud is turning out to be much ado
about nothing.
Let's review. The Democrats perpetrated the phony 2016 Russian influence fraud, and now the Democrats are perpetrating the
phony 2020 election victory.
The common elements are Democrats perpetrate fraud.
IMO this is a simple remedy to settle the election fraud mess or we will be arguing about this 20 years from now .from the
American Thinker.
The candidates on the ballot must have an opportunity to have observers whom they choose to oversee the entire process so
the candidates are satisfied that they won or lost a free and fair election.
That is not what happened in the 2020 election. That is the single most important and simple fact that needs to be understood
and communicated. The 2020 election was not a free and fair election, because poll-watchers were not allowed to do their essential
job. The 2020 election can still be a free and fair election with a clear winner, whoever that may be, but time is running
out.
In every instance where poll-watchers were not allowed to observe the process, those votes must be recounted. They must
be recounted with poll-watchers from both sides present. If there are votes that cannot be recounted because the envelops were
discarded, those votes must be discarded. Put the blame for this on the officials who decided to count the votes in secret.
Consider it a way to discourage secret vote counts in the future.
The pandemic has not been fearful enough to close liquor stores, and it in should not be used as excuse to remove the poll-watchers
who are essential to a free and fair election. If we must have social distancing, then use cameras.
Certainly, there are other issues with the 2020 election. There may be problems with software, and there are issues like
signature verification and dead people voting. Everything should be considered and examined, but no other issue should distract
from the simple fact that both sides must be able to view the entire process. If one side is not allowed to view the vote-counting,
then that side should be calling it a fraud. We should all be calling it a fraud.
...Trump had control of the Senate, the House and of course the Executive between his inauguration in January of 2017 and the
Midterm Elections of 2018, a total time period of 1 year and 10 months. What did he do during this time? He deregulated financial
services and passed corporate tax cuts.
At the end of the day, being emotionally invested in US elections is no different to being emotionally invested in Keeping
up with the Kardashians , that is to say your life wouldn't be that different if your don't follow either.
The Democrats Have Stolen the Presidential Election
The Deep State Has Stolen the Presidential Election. FIFY. But they have been in control for decades they just don't care who
knows now. They are taking final steps to make their control impervious to attack.
This is the reason that the establishment latched on to the Eisenhowerian bon mot but entirely memory hole Trumman's
far more explicit warning a freaking month after a sitting president is shot like a turkey in Dallas: it white washes CIA and
NSC .
The place to begin, and it's mind-blowing when you think about it this way, is that nothing was resolved on election night.
Not who will take the oath on January 20th. Nor which party will control the Senate. Nor even who will be Speaker and which party
will control the House.
Suffice it to say, a still raging factional struggle has simply moved to a greater degree behind the curtain.
I noted this movie reference on another thread here:
If your father dies, you'll make the deal, Sonny.
-- "The Godfather"
My point being, you're foolish if you ascribe certainty as to outcome at this point.
Being rid of Trump has been as close to a dues ex machina for the establishment as imaginable since he took the oath. This
ineluctable observation elicits no end of foot-stomping by those who assume it necessarily says anything positive about the man.
With every persistent revision of the script they wrote for him, all ending with his political demise at least, Trump has not
just survived but grown stronger. While the Democrats turned our elections into something only seen in a third-world shit hole,
Trump legitimately drew 71M votes from Americans.
That's a lot of air in the balloon. Believe me, filth like Russian mole Brennan may think everything is finished once they
get rid of terrible, awful Trump, but those above his pay grade know better.
Like him or hate him, Trump is the only principal not wholly or largely discredited. He was saved from destruction during his
first term by the Republican base moving to protect him. That was the import of his 90-95% approval among them, destroy him and
you destroy the Republican Party.
Now, despite -- or perhaps, because of -- everything they've done, that base now includes a significant number of Democrats
and independents. Trump is merely a vessel for an American majority attached to this constitutional republic thingie we've got
going.
Don't get lost in the details. This isn't a puzzle you can solve by internet sleuthing. The plan they executed -- to steal
sufficiently to make the outcome inevitable by the morning after the election at the latest -- failed. This was evident early
on Election Day (e.g. fake water main breaks in Atlanta) and necessitated their playing their Fox/AZ card and shutting down the
count at least until they had removed Republican monitors.
"In 22 states, Republicans will hold unified control over the governor's office and both houses of the legislature, giving
the party wide political latitude -- including in states like Florida and Georgia."
"Eleven states will have divided governments in 2021, unchanged from this year: Democratic governors will need to work with
Republican legislators in eight states, and Republican governors will contend with Democratic lawmakers in three."
The Democrats have: Joe Biden, and a slim majority in the House of Representatives which they are almost certain to lose in
two years.
What the Republicans are going to do is everything we hate, but they will pretend they were "forced" to do it by the Democrats
– the Democrats being the minority party.
Who else could have survived what Trump has been subjected to by the Establishment and their media prostitutes. In the United
States the media is known as "presstitutes" -- press prostitutes. That is what Udo Ulfkotte says they are in Europe.
Left and right.
(What you small brains do not understand is this.)
Democrats enabling the elite to invest in far east (lower wage costs, higher profits) did abandon the working class in America.
Democrats by this act did throw away the working class as a dirty rug.
Democrats with their TPP exporting most of the production to far east would totally destroy working class in USA. Trump's first
act was to cancel this insanity. Democrats are insanely delusional.
Democrats were left. Left is a party that supports the working people.
So here switch occurred. Democratic party now represent the elite, and Republicans now represent the working people.
(The irony of the fate)
The headline for PCR's article is a prediction, not yet established, and incomplete.
There is an ongoing massive attempt to steal the Presidential election as well as to steal an unknown number of House and Senate
seats, and who knows what else.
The 'game' is still on. Many tens of millions of citizens – actual total unknown but possibly in numbers unprecedented in American
history – voted for Trump. Republican candidates for office generally had strong support, but again, the actual percentage of
support is unknown but presumably larger than now 'recorded'.
There are also the many millions who ardently supported Trump, know that Biden is illegitimate, deeply corrupt, and the precursor
to perils unknown. Their determination and backbone and intelligence will now be tested.
There is the electoral college process; there are the state legislators that have a say in the process; there is the Supreme
Court.
There is also the possibility of pertinent executive orders that mandate transparent processes in the face of, say, apprehended
insurrection via fraudulent voting processes.
There is also the matter of how millions of 'deplorables' with trucks and tractors and firearms and other means to make their
point will react to obvious massive election travesty.
The conjunction of the COVID global scamdemic/plandemic, with crazed Bill Gates and kin lurking in the background with needles,
'peaceful' protesters in many cities setting fires and looting with near impunity, and a mass media that is clearly comprehensively
committed to a demonic degree of dishonesty and manipulation, and lunatic levels of 'identity politics' ideology, are among the
elements setting the stage for what may be an historical watershed.
The American Revolution in the 18th century, against the British Crown's authority, came about after years of simmering anger
and sporadic resistance against British injustice. At some point there was a 'tipping point'. When Germany invaded and occupied
Norway early in the 2nd WW, an effective resistance quickly formed in reaction, where death and torture were the known willing
risk. Two years before, those forming the resistance would have been just going on with their lives.
Who's Afraid of an Open Debate? The Truth About the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD is a duopoly which allows the
major party candidates to draft secret agreements about debate arrangements including moderators, debate format and even participants.
Ben Swann explains how the new coalition of EndPartisanship org is working to break the 2 party hold on primary elections,
which currently lock around 50% of voters out of the process.
I am currently watching an interview with SD Governor Kristi Noem, who went on ABC to challenge George Stenopolosus' claim
that there is no fraud in this election. She pointed out that there has been many allegations, including dead people voting in
PA and GA, she says we don't know how widespread this is, but we owe it to the 70+ million people who voted for Trump to investigate
and ensure a clean and fair election. She said we gave Al Gore 37 days to investigate the result in 2000, why aren't we giving
the same to Trump?
She is extremely articulate and sounds intelligent and honest, and what's more courageous to come forward like this. I hope
she runs for president in 2024, I'd vote for her.
Am I the only one who sees something profoundly spiritual happening in front of our eyes?
Yes. In reality, 5% of White men sent Trump packing. That doesn't match the GOP negrophile narrative where "based" Hindustanis
join the emerging conservative coalition to make sure White people can't get affordable healthcare in their own countries, though.
So we'll have to watch you parasites spool up this pedantic "fraud" nonsense until the fat orange zioclown gracelessly gets dragged
out.
Good post. You will gain more insight from this background on the speech and drafting.
Jan 19, 2011 Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech Origins and Significance US National Archives
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address, known for its warnings about the growing power of the "military-industrial
complex," was nearly two years in the making. This Inside the Vaults video short follows newly discovered papers revealing that
Eisenhower was deeply involved in crafting the speech.
Great article. Thanks. Agree with you about the big stealing being electronic. Trump tweeted out yesterday that over 2 million
votes were stolen this way. For him to say this, they must have evidence.
Dinesh D'Souza said he hopes that when this matter comes before the Supreme Court that they will tackle once and for all what
constitutes a legal vote.
Some pretty big names are involved with this Dominion Voting. It will be interesting to see what Trump's team of IT experts
discover re the use of algorithms to swing the vote.
Why (Oh, why) did Trump had to go? Because Trump is an enema to the Deep State. He was threatening to expose the biggest lie
of the last 100 years – the supposed "liberalism" of US...
The author refers to a body of overwhelmingly persuasive evidence of voter fraud that can be specified and quantified to provide
proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, not to mention hands down proof in civil cases requiring only a preponderance
of the evidence to establish guilt. Furthermore, the Democrats' easily documented, elaborate efforts at concealing the vote counting
process by shutting down the counting prior to sneaking truckloads of ballots in the back door is by itself powerful circumstantial
evidence of their guilt. You have no idea what "evidence" means, either in general usage or in its strictly legal sense.
The election cannot be trusted at all, just based on the insane entitled emotional state of the Globalist establishment alone.
The system as-a-whole cannot be trusted, for the same reason. They are actively corrupting it in every way they can, and fully
believe (as a matter of religious conviction) that they are right to do so.
That's one of the Jew/Anglo Puritan Establishment's new catch-phrases. There's also "no evidence" that Joe Biden acted in a
corrupt manner in Ukraine, even though he admitted to it on tape. There's "no evidence" that Big Tech is biased against conservative
plebians, despite their removing conservative plebians' published content arbitrarily and with no State compulsion to do so.
The phrase "there's no evidence" is just a public commitment to ignore any evidence, no matter how blatant or obvious.
This newly discovered legal standard goes beyond "preponderance of the evidence" or even "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt"
to establish absolute certainty as the standard.
Just the obvious and necessary complement of the Bob Mueller standard for Russian collusion, don't you think -- "could not
(quite) exonerate"? /s
They went for a softer approach in KY in 2019. The first-term Repub Gov had a Yankee's forthrightness so they just latched
onto comments he made regarding the underfunded teachers pension program and amped-it to high heaven getting teachers all in a
frightful frenzy.
In that solidly Red state, with all other prominent offices on the ballot (AG, SoS, etc.) going overwhelmingly Repub
, somehow the Repub Gov loses to the Dem by around 5000 votes. The "teachers pension" narrative was rolled-out as the reason.
(Btw, it seems that Dominion, or another type, software was used to switch the votes in that race. I've seen video about it.)
@Orville
H. Larson out how the winds are blowing. There is nothing good about it.
Why not this:
-- ONLY in-person voting over a 2-day period, a Sat and Sun, with polls being open from 6AM to 9PM both days.
-- Exceptions are the traditional requested absentee ballot where the voter can be authenticated.
-- Paper ballots must be used at the polls and no single box of 'Straight Vote by Party' is offered.
-- Some kind of SIMPLE scanning tabulator could be used of the ballots and with it NOT being connected to the internet.
There is far too much cheating opportunity built into our current system. That's intended, of course. It needs to end!
Because you don't get it. You are missing the big picture. It was well known that these systems had the ability to be hacked
as soon as they were implemented. It is also a well known fact that massive mail in ballots increases the likelihood that corrupt
individuals are more likely to get away with election fraud.
Everyone knew about the potential for voter fraud to occur, but the entire system is corrupt, including Trump who has allowed
the massive corruption within the system that was present when he entered office to persist and grow because he is a wimpy, spineless,
coward, that was too afraid to make any waves and take the heat that he promised his voters.
Why anyone voted for Trump in 2020 confounds me. I voted for him in 2016 and he has turned out to be one of the worst presidents
in history.
Trump in his cowardess and dishonesty knew that the ailing economy would harm his chances of being re-elected, so he allowed
the health scare scamdemic to occur and destroy the livelihoods, lives, and businesses of hundreds of millions of Americans
because he is a psychopath. Trump did not do what he promised. Trump made America worse than it has ever been since the end of
slavery. Jeremy Powell said today that the economy is dead and will never recover.
The only injustices that Trump gave a damn about were the injustices against himself and his family, and has committed countless
injustices against the entire country and world during his term. Trump is a corrupt narcissist. The facts prove it. Trump is such
a corrupt narcissist that he was willing to destroy the entire economy based on scientific fraud, high crimes, and treason to
use as political cover for his own incompetency which is the most offensive and disgusting diabolical act ever perpetrated on
the entire country.
Trump has also demanded the extradition of Assange after telling his voters that he loved wikileaks. Trump is a two-faced,
lying, fraud. It has been his pattern. He consistently supports various groups and people like Wikileaks, Proud Boys, and others
and panders to them and voters and tells people that he loves them, and then every time without fail when the heat is on, Trump
says," I really don't know anything about them."
"I know nothing." Trump saying "I know nothing." defines his presidency and who he is as a person, a spineless, pandering,
corrupt, two-faced, narcissist, loser, and wimp!
Why would anyone vote for him the second time around after a record of pathological incompetency and pathological corruption?
What's to approve of about him? Go ahead, investigate voter fraud it if is permitted, and if it isn't then ask yourselves why
it is that a system that enables election fraud is in place, and ask yourselves who had the ability to change it and, who had
the ability to benefit from it!
The current term "globalization" was originated by Ted Levitt in an article in the Harvard
Business Review in the 80s and taken up by the Reaganites to push for offshoring of factories
to countries with fewer workers rights and environmental concerns. He edited the magazine and
was a professor at Harvard Business School. Those "weirdos" who championed the term were the
corporate and financial behemoths that preferred it as a euphemism for "economic
imperialism"
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 4 2021 1:07 utc | 56
Our nation, right now, is on the cusp of a great earthquake which will change its
arrangement so that the interior will not be beholden to the coastal elites much longer,
who have themselves thrown off the mantle of nationhood in favor of the globalist paradigm
which values nihilistic individualism over all.
So, in short, you're describing capitalism. A capitalist economy favors individualism,
profits over morality, and is mostly centered around the idea of private property as
described by John Locke. This worked wonders in the vast uncharted territories of America in
the 18th and 19th century, when the population of the United States was below 20 million and
they needed to compete, FAST, against agressive european civilizations who looked at them
with envy.
Now that they are 332 millions and counting, that their natural resources are slowly
depleting and that other civilizations have adapted to the previously unknown phenomenon of
the American empire, USans are faced with a crisis in all sectors, including faith. How come
a system that worked so well for you these past 300 years suddenly fails? well, not suddenly,
but realizing that took a while.
Oh, I know!! It must be because of all those treacherous businessmen who traded their
souls and their country for a quick buck! but we need to condemn them without condemning the
whole system, and saying "capitalism sucks" makes us sound like Ivan the Red Commie. What a
pickle. Let's call them "globalists"! so we can rally the nationalists as a bonus and say
it's all because of evil foreigners.
On certain sites, it goes as far as calling "globalists" ... communists. Or Chinese. Or
Russian. Sure, why not, everyone needs their Emmanuel Goldstein.
"Globalism" is a funny name some weirdos invented since the first Wall Street crashes
happened to justify the worst excesses of the current capitalist economic system without
pointing the finger at the real culprits. I say it's funny because it looks like nationalist
clickbait for the 2 minutes of hate everyone in the West is prescribed each day in this
hyper-social Internet.
Sad fact is, "globalists" are run-of-the-mill bosses who decided it was better for their
end-of-year bonuses if they outsourced some or all of their production to cheap chinese
companies, and not have to pay US salaries anymore. That's not globalist, that's called
looking to make a profit in the short term.
Tell me a better term than "globalist" for nationals who are titans of industry who
betray their fellow nationals in the labor force by looking outside their own nation?
A term of rather recent vintage is Labour arbitrage that is substituting less
costly labour for higher costing labour. The driving motive for all offshoring or
externalising labour resources from the home marketplace. Walmart made billions doing this as
does Amazon.
I agree with Lemming's position on this. And I think Nemesis Calling is wrong about what
the term "Globalist" implies. If a "nationalist" is someone who's loyal to a nation, then
isn't a "globalist" someone who is loyal to the whole globe? Humanity today has many massive
problems that are extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to deal with on a purely
national basis. Nuclear weapons, global climate change, pandemic diseases, the potential
threats and benefits of real artificial intelligence, the extinction of so many species,
controlling multinational corporations, the threat of mass starvation, global inequality...
these are all problems which seem to many people to need the whole human species, or the
whole globe, working together to address them.
I think the major reason why many capitalists started calling themselves "globalists" back
in the 1980's was because they saw this was an idea which was becoming increasingly popular,
and they wanted to try and coopt it for their own benefit.
The trouble was that the CEO's who decided it would be personally profitable for them to
ship their companies jobs to low wage countries were not "real" globalists. If they had
really understood what the decisions they were making would do to their countries, or even to
the corporations they were responsible to their shareholders for managing, they might be
accused of being frauds or even traitors. But they probably didn't understand, so it's
probably more accurate to just call them parts of a greedy and shortsighted elite, which was
far too arrogant to realize how countries like China would be able to exploit their
shortsighted folly. They thought they were being so clever about their plans to exploit the
Chinese. But the irony is that a major reason why they underestimated the Chinese is that
they didn't understand that the fact that the Chinese were Marxists meant that the Chinese
had a different and in some ways better understanding of how Capitalism worked than they did.
They never dreamed that the Chinese would be able to make Lenin's prediction that capitalists
would sell them the rope they needed to hang capitalism come true.
Veterans For Peace members in Asheville, North Carolina participated in a Reject Raytheon
Demonstration on Dec. 9th.
"Prior to the county vote on the incentives, a spokesperson for the company said it made $21
billion in sales last year. More than half came from the manufacturing of commercial engines
used for passengers and cargo. He said military engines made up about 20-30 percent of
sales.
"So much of our military hardware gets made here and is sent overseas and used in proxy wars
and in purposes that don't really serve the security of the United States itself," Veterans for
Peace's Gerry Werhan said."
Michael Kellogg The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National
Socialism, 1917–1945
Cambridge University Press, 2005
With the near-universal demonization of the Third Reich, historians have developed a blind
spot for the genesis of German anti-Semitism. Michael Kellogg, in his 2005 work The Russian
Roots of Nazism, sheds a sharp light on this topic and points our attention eastward. He
reveals how the post-World War I atrocities of the Soviet Union along with the presence of a
large, vengeful, and politically active White émigré population in Weimar Germany
played a critical role in developing National Socialist attitudes on Jews and Bolshevism. And
in making this argument, he not only addresses the errors of other historians, but he also
makes an indirect case for much of Nazism itself.
Kellogg's work is crucial for several reasons, most prominent being the facts themselves.
The interwar period in Germany, the Baltic states, and Ukraine were roiled in conflict,
intrigue, revolution, and, most of all, uncertainty. It was an interesting time. More
importantly, it was consequential. Any history that discloses previously unknown or overlooked
events from that time and place will have value.
Kellogg also exhibits remarkable academic discipline by not taking sides in the political
drama he unfolds. There is nothing tendentious about The Russian Roots of Nazism aside
from its pointed historiography. This is good since it lets the facts speak for themselves. On
the other hand, Kellogg's avoidance of a broader political schema makes the book a bit of a
slog. It's not biased, but it's not sexy, either. But Kellogg's prose is tight and serviceable,
and he offers concise summaries at the end of each chapter and at the end of the book for those
who wish to skim.
The Russian Roots of Nazism can also be viewed as a strike against the anti-German
racism of Jewish writers such as Daniel Goldhagen. In his 1996 work, Hitler's Willing
Executioners , Goldhagen accuses the Germans of being inherently racist, anti-Semitic, and
"eliminationist." This takes the extreme form of what's known as the Sonderweg (special
path) thesis, which posits the inevitability of the Third Reich, given the weakness of the
German bourgeoisie. Kellogg demolishes this idea by uncovering the foreign influences of
National Socialism during its formative years and also by portraying Adolf Hitler in his
mid-thirties and other early-period Nazis as three-dimensional human beings rather than comic
book villains.
Most importantly, Kellogg demonstrates how the Nazis may have had excellent reasons for
their anti-Semitism and their anti-Bolshevism, thereby justifying much of what they did during
the interwar period. This may not have been Kellogg's intention. Regardless, by eschewing a
political agenda and by relying so heavily upon National Socialist primary sources (rather than
the mountain of secondary sources that condemn the Nazis), Kellogg leaves the door open for a
revisionist, and much more positive, interpretation of National Socialism.
Our story may as well begin in German-occupied Ukraine in 1918. After Soviet Russia's
capitulation in the war, many disaffected Russian and Ukrainian officers began cooperating with
their German counterparts, bonding over their shared sense of nationalism and their mutual
hatred for the Bolsheviks. When the Germans abandoned Ukraine the following year, they took
thousands of these so-called "White" officers with them, including some, such as Vladimir
Biskupsky, Ivan Poltavets-Ostranitsa, Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, Fedor Vinberg, and Piotr
Shabelsky-Bork, who would work closely with the Nazis in years to come. Shabelsky-Bork deserves
special mention because he was the first to transfer the forgery The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion to the West, thereby unleashing one of the most famous conspiracy theories upon the
world.
As the Ukrainian Biskupsky became a leader among the 600,000 White émigrés in
Weimar Germany, he also became one of two de facto leaders of a secret, conspiratorial
organization known as Aufbau (or, Reconstruction) which promoted a particularly urgent strain
of apocalyptic anti-Semitism. Max von Scheubner-Richter, a Baltic German émigré
from Latvia, was the other, and soon this organization had had great influence upon the nascent
Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler himself. In fact, Scheubner-Richter grew quite close to Hitler and
marched arm-in-arm with him during the failed 1923 Putsch in Munich where he was shot and
killed. Thereafter, Hitler considered him a martyr for National Socialism.
Two other White émigrés, Alfred Rosenberg, another Baltic German, and the
Russian Fedor Vinberg, became leading theorists of National Socialism, with Rosenberg
ultimately gaining the most stature in the Nazi Party. Publisher and early Hitler mentor
Dietrich Eckart introduced Rosenberg to Hitler, and the men quickly grew to admire each other.
When Hitler was imprisoned after the Munich Putsch, he appointed Rosenberg as his successor. By
World War II, this émigré was so embedded in high-level Nazi operations that the
Allies rewarded him at Nuremburg with a sentence of hanging.
Bavaria in the early 1920s was a unique petri dish of nationalist and anti-Semitic ideas and
action. Stirred into the mix were the völkisch Germans. These were Aryan
identitarians, Teutonic traditionalists, and Thule Society people who drew racialist ideas from
the likes of Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Many of
these people were still smarting over the revolution of 1918, which forced the Kaiser to
abdicate, and shared a distrust of Jews for their materialistic and "world-affirming" (that is,
non-heroic, non-transcendent) behavior.
Add to this the White émigrés who brought with them not only The
Protocols but the hyper-nationalist ideas of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Solovev. A
militaristic form of Christianity played into this as well, with the great Jew-Gentile struggle
often being portrayed in Biblical terms. These were people who had witnessed firsthand Red
atrocities during the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War and had experience in
the Tsar's army or in the reactionary organization, the Black Hundreds. It's no wonder they
blamed the Jews for upending their world. Their world had been upended, and they
couldn't help but notice how a disproportionate number of Bolsheviks were Jews, especially at
the top.
The result was an explosive burst of national and anti-Jewish sentiment which culminated in
1933 when Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. Kellogg repeatedly stresses that
without the Whites who were more anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik than the Germans after
World War I, the National Socialists would likely not have been as successful as they were. No
so-called "far-Right" organization in Germany before the Nazis had garnered popular support.
This does away with the notion that the Germans were somehow inherently anti-Semitic. Where
Goldhagen insists that "German antisemitism was sui generis, " Kellogg demonstrates that
it was the powerful gestalt of the German völkisch movement and the White fear and
fascination with Jewish Bolshevism which was sui generis .
Hitler harbored standard socialist views well into 1919. Hitler's former immediate
commander on the Western Front in World War I, Aide-de-Camp Hans Mend, asserted that his
earlier underling had exclaimed towards the end of 1918 in Munich, "Thank God that the kings'
crowns have fallen from the tree. Now we proletarians have something to say". . .
Hitler only began to develop a detailed anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic ideology beginning in
the second half of 1919 through his collaboration with Eckart and Rosenberg, who served as
his early mentors. Mend confirmed Hitler's rapid political lurch from the far left to the far
right in postwar Munich. When he heard Hitler speak publicly at the beginning of 1920, he
thought, "Adi has changed his colors, the red lad!" In addition to borrowing anti-Bolshevik,
anti-Semitic ideas from Eckart and Rosenberg, Hitler soon learned far-right concepts that
castigated "Jewish Bolshevism" from the Aufbau ideologues Scheubner-Richter and Vinberg as
well.
The White émigrés from 1918 to 1923 lent a sense of Manichean urgency to the
postwar German zeitgeist. It was, in effect, good versus evil, Christ versus Anti-Christ, and
the slew of conspiracy theories emanating from the Aufbau circle painted this struggle in the
starkest black and white. For example, one theory posited that Leon Trotsky was a Satanist who
practiced Black Mass rituals in the Kremlin and prayed to the Devil for the defeat of the
Whites. But this alliance was also practical. If the v ölkisch Germans and the
émigré Whites didn't have the exact same enemies, their shared
ethnocentrism gave them similar goals. Whereas the Whites aimed to conquer the Soviet Union and
remove the Jewish yoke from the Slavic peoples, the Germans needed to defy the Entente and
overthrow the socialist, pro-Soviet Weimar government. There was quite of bit of overlap here,
and Hitler's Nazi Party approved of the White plan to invade the Soviet Union and liberate
independent republics such as Russia and Ukraine. Hitler indeed had a great interest in
Nazifying Ukraine, which Kellogg believes was the deciding factor behind his disastrous order
for the Wehrmacht to strike south in August 1941 when it was a mere 200 miles from
Moscow.Hitler only began to develop a detailed anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic ideology beginning
in the second half of 1919 through his collaboration with Eckart and Rosenberg, who served as
his early mentors. Mend confirmed Hitler's rapid political lurch from the far left to the far
right in postwar Munich. When he heard Hitler speak publicly at the beginning of 1920, he
thought, "Adi has changed his colors, the red lad!" In addition to borrowing anti-Bolshevik,
anti-Semitic ideas from Eckart and Rosenberg, Hitler soon learned far-right concepts that
castigated "Jewish Bolshevism" from the Aufbau ideologues Scheubner-Richter and Vinberg as
well.
The Whites contributed more than energy and ideas to the National Socialist cause before
1923. It also provided money and manpower. Many who marched during the doomed Munich Putsch
were Whites, as were many of the soldiers who fought alongside the Germans against the
Bolsheviks during the Latvian Intervention of 1919. Boris Brazol, a white émigré
in the United States funneled much-needed funds from industrialist Henry Ford and worked
closely with Scheubner-Richter. Brazol, notably, was a contributor to Ford's anti-Semitic
newspaper The Dearborn Independent and also translated Dostoevsky's Diary of a
Writer into English. More importantly, Kirill Romanov, exiled heir apparent to Tsardom in
Russia, gave tremendous sums to the White-Nazi alliance. Many Whites supported his bid for
power, and so did Hitler.
Sadly, many White émigrés opposed Kirill in favor of his cousin Nikolai who
also aspired to Tsardom. The Nikolai faction, led by the émigré Nikolai Markov
II, was Russian imperialist in nature and supported restoring Russia to its pre-1917 borders.
Hitler and the Aufbau contingent preferred the more ethnocentric solution of petty nationalism
in the defeated Soviet Union, with Russia, Ukraine, and other republics becoming independent
entities. This impasse festered into acrimony and hatred among the Whites, and effectively
prevented the invasion of the Soviet Union that they all so desperately wanted.
After the failed Putsch in 1923, White influence began to wane. Regardless, it never went
away and, in some ways, enjoyed a resurgence in the 1930s with Alfred Rosenberg's success in
the Nazi Party. However, if there is a flaw to The Russian Roots of Nazism , in my mind,
it's that Kellogg fails to adequately address the issue of Lebensraum , or living space.
He gives it minimal attention and quotes the famous passage in Mein Kampf Volume II
(1926) in which Hitler insists the Germans " . . . shift to the soil policy of the future" and
"have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states." Lebensraum, with its all
imperial implications, clearly violates Aufbau 's ethnocentric notions of Nazifying
Ukraine for the sake of the Ukrainians.
Kellogg seems to think it adequate to demonstrate that Hitler fully developed his
Lebensraum ideas only after the 1923 Putsch. Thus, Kellogg abides by his thesis
of the Russian roots of Nazism, that is, of how White émigré thought
influenced early -- and not middle or late -- National Socialism. But this is too easy. If
Aufbau ideas were truly the roots of Nazism, then why did Hitler reverse some of these ideas by
the late 1920s? Kellogg doesn't quite tell us.
Overshadowing this, however, is Kellogg's assertion that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in
1941 after his 1939 non-aggression pact with Stalin in part because of the feverish
anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism of the pre-Putsch White émigrés. The pact had
devastated the Whites that were still living in Germany at that time. However,
[T]he cooperation between Hitler and Stalin that so discomfited Germany's White
émigré community did not last long. Hitler soon returned to his intense
anti-Bolshevik roots, which he had largely developed during his close interaction with Aufbau
in the early 1920s. Even while German armed forces were still engaged in the French campaign in
June 1940, Hitler expressed his intention "to take action against the menace of the Soviet
Union the moment our military position makes it at all possible." He issued the first directive
for the invasion of the Soviet Union in August 1940 under the telling name Aufbau Ost
(Reconstruction East). In titling his planned Soviet campaign Aufbau Ost, Hitler demonstrated
the lasting impression that Aufbau's warnings against "Jewish Bolshevism" had made on his
thinking.
Adding to this was how Rosenberg himself had urged Hitler to invade the Soviet Union as
well.
Kellogg's most valuable and revolutionary contribution to our understanding of this time
involves his admirable academic restraint. Rarely does he pass judgment on his subjects, and
certainly never during the 1918-1923 period on which his book mostly focuses -- except in the
few cases in which certain émigrés committed crimes such as embezzlement. Yes, in
the last few pages, Kellogg rightly deplores the mass murder and extermination of Jews at the
hand of Hitler -- although, interestingly, he very rarely uses the term "Holocaust." Rosenberg,
who served as the State Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories during the war, greatly
facilitated these horrific actions. But note how Kellogg insists on placing these actions
within the larger context of Soviet atrocities from decades prior:
Rosenberg viewed his genocidal anti-Semitic actions in the occupied East as retaliation
for the depredations of "Jewish Bolshevism." The November 18, 1941 press release dealing with
Rosenberg's public assumption of the State Minister post stressed that the White
émigré had entered politics since "he wanted to protect the German people from
the same fate that he had lived through in Moscow."
And what were these depredations?
In Mein Kampf , Hitler again treated the "Jewish Bolshevik" annihilation of the
nationalist Russian intelligentsia. He drew upon Aufbau and Eckartian thought to describe a
ruthless Jewish drive for world domination. With the stage set for the "last great
revolution," Hitler argued:
The democratic people's Jew becomes the blood-Jew and tyrant over people. In a few years
he tries to exterminate the national intelligentsia and by robbing the peoples of their
natural intellectual leadership makes them ripe for the slave's lot of permanent
subjugation.
He further asserted, "The most frightful example of this kind is offered by Russia, where
[the Jew] killed or starved about thirty million people with positively fanatical savagery,
in part amid inhuman tortures."
Kellogg later quotes Mein Kampf , demonstrating how Hitler "combined
völkisch German and anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic White émigré
beliefs" when stating of "the Jew" that
[H]is ultimate goal is denationalization, the muddled half-breeding of the other peoples,
the lowering of the racial level of the most superior, as well as the domination of this
racial mush through the extermination of the völkisch intelligentsias and their
replacement by the members of his own people.
Now, is any of this true? Kellogg doesn't say -- indeed, it's not his job to say. And we
should be thankful for that. A Goldhagian approach, however, would be to dismiss it all as
anti-Semitic lies and canards (just like The Protocols! ) and smear anyone swayed by
them as being irredeemably racist and anti-Semitic.
But with enough research under our belt from historians such as Robert Conquest, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Kevin MacDonald, and others, we now know that Hitler and the White
émigrés were much closer to the truth than not. Tens of millions were starved or
murdered in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s, and millions more died in the Great
Terror and the Gulag Archipelago. From such authors, we have also learned that a
disproportionate amount of the Soviet leadership in all facets of its military and government
was indeed Jewish. Soviet Jews as a bloc remained enthusiastic for the Soviet Union even when
it was committing its greatest atrocities. Lenin himself (as reported by Yuri Slezkine in
The Jewish Century ) attributed much of the success of the October Revolution to the
Jews:
The fact that there were many Jewish intelligentsia members in the Russian cities was of
great importance to the revolution. They put an end to the general sabotage that we were
confronted with after the October Revolution. . . . The Jewish elements were mobilized . . .
and thus saved the revolution at a difficult time. It was only thanks to this pool of a
rational and literate labor force that we succeeded in taking over the state apparatus.
The Whites and the Nazis may have somewhat exaggerated Soviet crimes and often entertained
fanciful conspiracy theories, but they were not wrong in linking Bolshevism to Jews and
believing that the Soviet Union posed a dire threat to the West. By not shutting the door on
such an interpretation of history, Kellogg indirectly allows the reader to develop a
revisionist view of the Nazis as protectors rather than destroyers of civilization. Of course,
it's extremely difficult to justify Nazi atrocities during World War II (and Kellogg does no
such thing), but after we read The Russian Roots of Nazism we learn that it was even
more difficult to justify the Soviet atrocities which were greater, took place beforehand, and
caused millions of Whites to emigrate westward to begin with.
The Whites knew this and they made sure the Nazi knew this. And thanks to Michael Kellogg,
we know it too.
As an ethnic German of Russia and (against all reason perhaps) a Tsarist, I agree that
this White influence on Nazis is an important story to tell. But there is a glaring gap in
the chain of logic in this article. "they were not wrong in linking Bolshevism to Jews and
believing that the Soviet Union". "Linked" is a very vague word. Yes, many Old Bolsheviks
were jews, many of whom were precisely the ones purged and killed in the Great Terror. I'm
sure there are those who claim Stalin was a jew, but come on. The famines we ordered
personally by this non-Jewish Georgian dictator who surrounded himself with a
disproportionate number of other Georgians/Transcaucasians in the halls of power. The famines
were arranged/permitted as you like by confiscating grain to export and fund rapid
industrialization in preparation for war, and, to discipline the peasantry as a class from
Ukraine to Kazakhstan whatever their ethnic makeup. Jews were overrepresented earlier on
largely because they didn't have any other options, they were banned from academia and
various professions. Don't under-estimate the proportion of really poor jews in the Russian
Empire up to this time who had no schemes but getting by. The biases of a bunch of pogromists
shouldn't be taken as gospel truth. It's always easy to blame someone else for your defeat.
In the same way, my fiercly anti-soviet orthodox co-religionists need to consider how the
conduct of the pre-revolutionary church establishment allowed it's virtual abolishment to be
broadly accepted. The church has always been flawed because it is made up of human beings,
but people were truly sick of everything establishmentarian by 1917 and were, as a Tsarist
one must admit, broadly apathetic or even happy when the last Emperor abdicated. Also
remember that there are other far more intellectually interesting movements within the whites
like the Eurasianists.
When there are Ghosts in the Closet, one has to be very very careful about keeping them
there. When other people know about those ghosts – they can use them – against
you. I've hinted to a few Russian friends concerning the fact that Germany had been under the
Jewish yoke and that Germany was under the impression that the Bolsheviks, that murdered and
tortured millions, were in fact Jews – and some were from the US and helped fund the
Revolution. I stopped my conversation after saying Hitler was very afraid of this Bolshevik
Jewish – Soviet Union. I've never gotten a response from my friends , so I dropped it.
Maybe, the Russian people are aware of these facts , but don't wish to bring up the past .
Afterall, I'm a Gringo in Russia – what do I know look at all the skeletons in
Washington's closet .
It doesn't really matter where the concept of Nazism started. What matters was/is the idea
worked until the bankers/Jews started WW2 and we didn't get to see the outcome of how
Hitler's revolution would have worked. I my own mind, it would he worked well and the Jews
couldn't allow that because their game would have been up. That's why all these years later
after the end of WW2, the anti Nazi/Hitler propaganda is still so intense.
In WW I Germany was not anti-Semitic to any significant degree. Jews had full rights in
Germany which was in marked contrast to Tsarist Russia. East European Jews tended to regard
the Germans as liberators when they advanced into parts of the Russian Empire.
Lloyd George later admitted one of the reasons for the Balfour Declaration was to secure
support among east European Jews for the allies and prevent them supporting Germany.
Russia is starting to recover from over 70 years of Bolshevik looting of her wealth, then
anudda 112+ or so years of organized looting by Wall Street financial sharpies that helped
those 'Russian' oligarchs steal hundreds of billions more.
Damn near everyone was a Jew, but we can't speak truths like that in the USA anymore, why
that would be anti-Semitic!
The Silence of the Jews
After the collapse of the Soviet empire, a group of Zionists in Russia seemingly steeped
in 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', lied, cheated, stole, and murdered, their way
into virtually all positions of power throughout the country. They used gangs (some of
which probably included mossad agents) to intimidate and murder their opponents in order to
gain control of between 70-85% of Russia's industries including most of its natural
resources. They also took control of Russia's media which they then used to elect Boris
Yeltsin as President of Russia despite the fact that he was a brain-dead, vodka soaked,
alcoholic.
Within a matter of years these Russian traitors had become billionaires having stolen
vast quantities of Russian assets. They exported as much as possible of their ill-gotten
wealth to the Zionist state in Palestine just in case the Russians might ask for their
money back.
As for me, I'm still trying to figure out how one gets NAZI from the term National
Socialist?
But you can get NAZI from this term, Ashke nazi.
While Russia's infrastructure has vastly improved over the last decade, the USA's has went
to hell, since we spend that on propping up those Wall Street Casinos–owned by
whom?–and fighting endless wars for the glory of Apartheid Israel.
@stozi
mp; similar cultures). This segment is very influential (or has become) & it is incurable
in its hatred towards the Western historical identity (under West, I include all European
Christendom, east & west, as well as their descendants).
There is no grand plan for anything. It's just that tribal Jewish activists, when they
acquire power, tend to be bad news & they may form a hostile elite or sub-elite. Some
Jewish persons have noticed that, too: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/american-jewrys-disgraceful-hypocrisy/
The Russian Roots of Nazism perhaps would be more about the millions of Deaths caused by
the Bolsheviks and inflicted on a seemingly passive population(much like US YTs now) from
1917 to 1935.R.J. Rummel, researched 'Democide' or 'the murder of a people by their own
government' has the Bolseviks Communists murdering over 16 million of their own people.
Perhaps Hitler had a reason to fear the Communists and invade the Bolshevik Bloodlands.
Hitler wanted to prevent the Communist takeover of Germany and the ensuing Democide of
Germans. Thus the real Russian roots of Nazism.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM
Chapter 2. 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period 1917 to 1922 Figure 2.1. Range in Civil
War Democide EstimatesTable 2.1. Civil War Period Democide and Other KilledFigure 2.2.
Democide Components and Soviet War/RebellionKilled 1917-1922Appendix 2.1Table 2.A. 3,284,000
Victims: SourcesChapter 3. 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928Figure 3.1. Range in
NEP Democide EstimatesTable 3.1. NEP Period DemocideFigure 3.2. Democide Components for Civil
War andNEP PeriodsFigure 3.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by PeriodAppendix 3.1Table 3.A.
2,200,000 Victims During the NEP Period: Sources, Calculations, and EstimatesChapter 4.
11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period 1928-1935 Figure 4.1. Range of
Collectivization Democide EstimatesTable 4.1. Collectivization Period DemocideFigure 4.2.
Democide Components for Three PeriodsFigure 4.3. Soviet Democide and Annual Rate by
Period
The ideas that formed the German National Socialist Worker's Party were all in place long
before WW! started, which means that even if all (rather than a small minority of)
Russian emigres had gone to Germany and had done so by 1918, the Russian impact on the
formation of the Nazis would have been minimal.
The roots of Hitler are also in: Hegel, Bismarck, Frederick the Great, Luther, the late
19th century German 'back to nature/nudist/proto-hippie' movement, Germanic romanticizing of
Germanic paganism.
The roots of Hitler also are set firmly in his Germanic adoration of the Anglo-Saxon
empire, his desire to have a Continental Germanic version.
This writer recasts Slezkine's "many Jewish intelligentsia members" as "the Jews", which
is typical for Hitler-worshiping genocide inciters.
They will never write an honest word about the origins of Russian socialism, both
intellectual and activist, which trace back to the 1850's and earlier, even before Marxism
emerged. The members of these radical literary clubs were gentile blue-bloods; they came from
army families and large landowning families, and had the best religious educations. They were
disgusted by the misery of the peasants in the face of the opulence of manor and church.
Decades later, with the empire continuing to decline, some secular Jews politicized,
joining many anti-tsarist liberal and socialist movements. Around the time of the revolution,
some threw in with Lenin's Bolsheviks, while others, such as Lenin's would-be assassin, did
not. After the revolution, being literate and good at logistics, they filled important roles.
In a context of civil war, with much savagery on both sides, not to mention experience of
pogroms and predations of such as the Black Hundreds, some of these Jews became terrible
butchers.
But what of "the Jews"? Both before and after the revolution, they were fleeing by the
hundred thousand. (A rapid influx of often dishevelled and not sweet-smelling Jews into
Germany in the inter-war years created problems.)
This is not what people do when they feel their co-ethnics are assuming prominence,
bringing hopes of good treatment and opportunity.
The "Judeo-Bolshevism" lie is deployed by those with dreams of personal advancement
through butchery and piracy, in order to mesmerize the frustrated, disenchanted and
ignorant.
@Carlton
Meyer t even in 1915 (during the World War I anti-Germanism), 16 of the 53 top officials
in the Minindel [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] had German names" In the 1880s, the Russian
Germans (1.4 percent of the population) made up 62 percent of the high officials in the
Ministry of Posts and Commerce and 46 percent in the War Ministry.
Germans were, occupationally and conceptually, the Jews of ethnic Russia (as well as much
of Eastern Europe). Or rather, the Russian Germans were to Russia what the German Jews were
to Germany -- only much more so.
The Russian Revolution, according to Slezkine, essentially served to replace the German
elite by a Jewish one.
The war in Afghanistan, now in its 19th year, is the longest and most intractable of America's forever wars. There are now
American
soldiers fighting in Afghanistan
who were born after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the ostensible
casus
belli
. The American public has long ago grown tired of the war. A
YouGov
poll
conducted in July of 2020 showed that 46 percent of Americans strongly supported withdrawing troops from Afghanistan,
with another 30 percent saying they "somewhat" approved of troop withdrawal.
But this 76 percent majority is deceptive. Given the fact that America has a volunteer army and American casualties in
Afghanistan remain sporadic, this is not an issue that the public is passionate about. An inchoate dissatisfaction is compatible
either with disengagement or just a lack of interest. Conversely, those in the national security establishment who do
passionately support the war are able to thwart political leaders who want a drawdown. Under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump,
presidential efforts to disengage from Afghanistan and the larger Middle East were met with resistance from a foreign policy
elite that sees any withdrawal as a humiliating defeat.
Trump tried to resolve the contradiction between his desire to remove troops and the foreign policy elite's commitment to the
Afghan war by
loosening
the rules of war
. The thinking of the Trump administration was that by unleashing the military and intelligence agencies, it
could subdue the Taliban -- thus preparing the way for a drawdown of troops. Special priority was given to CIA-run covert operations
using Afghan paramilitaries, with the belief that this would lead to a more sustainable war that didn't require American soldiers
to participate in fighting.
A report in
The Intercept
, written by reporter Andrew Quilty,
documents
the horrifying consequences
of this policy: Afghan paramilitary units, known as 01 and 02, have acted as death squads,
launching raids against civilians that have turned into massacres. Many of these raids have attacked religious schools, the
famous madrassas, leading to the death of children as young as 8 years old.
According to Quilty, "Residents from four districts in Wardak -- Nerkh, Chak, Sayedabad, and Daymirdad -- spoke of a string of
massacres, executions, mutilation, forced disappearances, attacks on medical facilities, and airstrikes targeting structures
known to house civilians. The victims, according to these residents, were rarely Taliban. Yet the Afghan unit and its American
masters have never been publicly held accountable by either the Afghan or U.S. governments."
These raids all involve Afghan paramilitaries who are outside the control of the Afghan government and working in conjunction
with American handlers who provide high-tech aid and direction, Quilty reports.
The units' American CIA advisers go by pseudonyms or call signs rather than
names.They not only train Afghan unit members, but also choose their targets, which the Americans call "jackpots"; issue
detailed pre-mission briefings; and accompany Afghan paramilitaries on the ground during raids. The Afghans and Americans are
ferried to remote villages at night by American helicopters, and American assault aircraft hover overhead while they conduct
their raids, providing lethal firepower that is sometimes directed at health clinics, madrassa dormitories, or civilian homes.
Despite providing detailed accounts of American-led war crimes,
The
Intercept
's report has been met with near-silence from the American media. Jake Tapper of CNN
retweeted
the article
, but otherwise there is little indication that the American media cares.
As
Intercept
reporter Ryan Grim
notes
,
"It's been two days since this story was published, and the mainstream media has been largely silent on it. Imagine if the media
treated the My Lai massacre this way." (In fact, the mainstream press sat on whistleblower Ron Ridenhour's warnings about My Lai
for a year before Seymour Hersh and the scruffy Dispatch News Service finally broke the silence.)
Grim also suggested that the Biden administration might want to bring justice to the perpetrators of these alleged war crimes.
"One of the most outspoken proponents of bringing a fine legal eye to war has been Avril Haines, who will be Joe Biden's Director
of National Intelligence," Grim observes. "She'll have the authority and the ability to discover who in the CIA was involved in
these operations, and bring them to justice."
This is a forlorn hope given the Obama administration's
failure
to go after war crimes
committed by the CIA under George W. Bush. Further, Biden himself is ambiguous on Afghanistan in a way
that calls to mind Trump himself.
As Quincy Institute president Andrew Bacevich
noted
in
The
Nation
earlier this month, Biden "wants to have it both ways" on the Afghan war. Biden will occasionally say, "These
'forever wars' have to end," but he will also say that America needs to keep a contingent of forces in Afghanistan. As Bacevich
observes, "Biden proposes to declare that the longest war in US history has ended, while simultaneously underwriting its
perpetuation." Biden's support for a light military footprint could very easily lead him to the same position as Trump: using
covert CIA operations to maintain American power in Afghanistan with minimal use of uniformed troops. This is a recipe for more
massacres.
Writing in
The Washington Post
last month, veteran Afghanistan
analyst Carter Malkasian
made
a compelling case
that the United States is facing a "stark choice" between "complete withdrawal by May or keeping 2,500
troops in place indefinitely to conduct counterterrorism operations and to try to prevent the collapse of the Afghan government.
There's no doubt that withdrawal will spell the end of the Afghan government that the United States has supported for 19 years."
Malkasian makes clear that the counterterrorism operations would merely be an exercise of staving off defeat, with no prospect of
an end to the war. Given the enormous moral costs of this counterterrorism, unflinchingly described by
The
Intercept
, the argument for complete withdrawal becomes stronger.
It's likely that Biden will continue the policy of previous presidents of kicking the can down the road by using covert CIA
operators to fend off defeat. But Americans should have no illusions: That means perpetuation of horrific war crimes in a
conflict that cannot be won.
"... USAID led at that time by someone named Rajiv Khan, I think it was, and directed by Hill, comandeered the few landing spots at the airport for themselves preventing planes carrying Actual Aid -- you know, food, clothing, meds -- from landing and unloading. ..."
"... I have friends who lived in Haiti at the time and years after the disaster only 6 new residences had been built and the promised factories? As far as I know, never did get built. ..."
"... USAID seems to be about anything but AID. ..."
"... When pressed about the lack of progress made in the (housing) rebuilding efforts, including inabilities to provide shelter, Secretary of State Clinton said "Those who expect progress immediately are unrealistic and doing a disservice to the many people who are working so hard. ..."
USAID led at that time by someone named Rajiv Khan, I think it was, and directed by Hill,
comandeered the few landing spots at the airport for themselves preventing planes carrying
Actual Aid -- you know, food, clothing, meds -- from landing and unloading.
Then Bill was named "Ambassador to Haiti" and the situation Never improved.
I have friends who lived in Haiti at the time and years after the disaster only 6 new
residences had been built and the promised factories? As far as I know, never did get
built.
good example! I vote Power and Sunstein to head USAID! i was a bit more than surprised
that ann garrison never mentioned it's a CIA cut-out, to say the truth.
on edit: ach; you'd meant Bill Fuck over haiti Clinton!
' F*cking the Haitian 99%: Another Clinton Family Project ', October
27, 2015 by wendyedavis (longish, but this key excerpt)
"Sure, Bill and Hill love sweatshop industrial complexes (from nacla.org) more than houses
for Haiti, and love HELP™ (comically ironic acronym):
"On September 20, Haitian prime minister Jean-Marc Bellerive, U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation announced their
partnership with the South Korean garment firm Sae-A Trading Company to establish an
industrial park that will create 10,000 garment assembly jobs in Haiti. Without a doubt,
earthquake-ravaged Haiti needs jobs, mainly to provide the country's 1.3 million homeless
with the means necessary to rebuild their destroyed homes.
While little progress has been made on Haiti's immense housing needs since the January 12
earthquake, Clinton assured the investing public that factory development was moving full
steam ahead. These 10,000 jobs, she assured critics "are not just any jobs. These are good
jobs with fair pay that adhere to international labor standards, . . . Haiti is open for
business again."
Well, sure; at a $3.09 daily minimum wage (upped later to $5, but almost no one actually
gets paid at that rate), what's not to love?
"When pressed about the lack of progress made in the (housing) rebuilding efforts,
including inabilities to provide shelter, Secretary of State Clinton said "Those who expect
progress immediately are unrealistic and doing a disservice to the many people who are
working so hard."
Bill Clinton, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, has been equally optimistic about Haiti's cheap
labor prospects, especially since the passing of the Haitian Economic Lift Program (HELP) in
May. The bill would increase the amount of Haitian assembled goods that could be imported
into the United States duty free. "This important step," Clinton said, "responds to the needs
of the Haitian people for more tools to lift themselves from poverty, while standing to
benefit U.S. consumers."
But my, oh, my; the Big Dog loves high-end resort tourism, too. The Marriott opening was
well-attended by toffs, including Senn Penn, as I remember it.
"... I don't disagree with the idea that Trump should go (he is clearly incompetent for this position), but to think that Biden (personally also completely incompetent due to his health condition, and even before that; can you imagine this second rate politician summit with Macron, Merkel, or Putin even if we ignore his current health problems ), in some ways, will be an improvement is pretty optimistic. ..."
"... Biden administration will be especially dangerous in foreign policy where Russiagaters mafia clearly returned to power, (and chickenhawks like Nuland are in demand again; as well several other flavors of "national security parasites".) ..."
"... Both are puppets of approximately the same social force -- the union on neoliberal oligarchy and MIC (aka Uniparty.) Biden mafia simply will be slightly more polished, and less "in your face." But both are brutal gangsters, both domestically and on foreign arena. And that's pretty depressing. And one great service of Trump administration was that it exposed what is behind the fake facade. Biden will try to rebuild this fake facade, this Potemkin village again. that's all the difference. ..."
When left becomes right, progressive become regressive, and fascist becomes anti-fascist,
then we have to invent whole new vocabularies just to discuss the problems that humanity is
facing. What is worse though is that upending the language of political society in this
manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present. I suppose
that is the point though.
This is pretty interesting thought, thank you very much. Kind of Orwellian ""War
is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength," on a new, more sinister level as in
"this manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present."
But is reality Henry Ford quote "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he
wants so long as it is black." is perfectly applicable to any US elections and political life
in general.
Some commentators here for some reason think that Biden (yes, this semi-senile Biden, a
marionette from the very beginning; senator from credit card companies; the worst enemy of
working class in Congress ) is somehow preferable to Trump (yes, this Trump, a marionette of
Zionists, the President who completely betrayed his electorate, best friend of billionaires
and Pentagon; kind of Bush III replicating both intellectual level of Bush II and his
policies, including a tax cut for the rich).
I don't disagree with the idea that Trump should go (he is clearly incompetent for
this position), but to think that Biden (personally also completely incompetent due to his
health condition, and even before that; can you imagine this second rate politician summit
with Macron, Merkel, or Putin even if we ignore his current health problems ), in some ways,
will be an improvement is pretty optimistic.
Biden administration will be especially dangerous in foreign policy where Russiagaters
mafia clearly returned to power, (and chickenhawks like Nuland are in demand again; as well
several other flavors of "national security parasites".)
Both are puppets of approximately the same social force -- the union on neoliberal
oligarchy and MIC (aka Uniparty.) Biden mafia simply will be slightly more polished, and less
"in your face." But both are brutal gangsters, both domestically and on foreign arena. And
that's pretty depressing. And one great service of Trump administration was that it exposed
what is behind the fake facade. Biden will try to rebuild this fake facade, this Potemkin
village again. that's all the difference.
"When left becomes right, progressive become regressive, and fascist becomes
anti-fascist, then we have to invent whole new vocabularies just to discuss the problems that
humanity is facing. What is worse though is that upending the language of political society
in this manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present. I
suppose that is the point though."
Yes, that's what the gaslighing is all about, but the problem - as our self-designated
betters are finding out now - is that you cannot run a sucessful competitive modern society
that way, banana republics do not get to rule the world.
Even ... Henry Ford understood he had to take good care of his employees.
Biden is going to have his hands full without looking for any more trouble.
"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and
so devastating, that Civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive
their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay
the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captives to the judgement of law, is one of
the most significant tributes that Power ever paid to reason."
-Justice Robert Jackson, Nov. 21, 1945
It is often forgotten what sort of a battle occurred after WWII to establish the Nuremberg
Trials which gave the world a revolutionary code of law which even today offers many of the
remedies to the Gordian Knots blocking our way to a peaceful future. By the end of the war,
many European leaders of the allied nations wished to simply put leading Nazis against a wall
to face a firing squad and return to "business as usual".
As I've outlined
in many recent writings , it was only through the intensive efforts of U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt, and his leading allies in both the USA and Russia that a different course
of action was decided upon and an official international tribunal was sanctioned that generated
a total legal paradigm shift in international law that has been too easily taken for granted
(due largely to the lack of effect these laws have had on post-WWII practice).
Among those revolutionary reforms included the unprecedented mandate that wars of aggression
would henceforth be illegal in the eyes of the law. The tendency for those higher officials
carrying out inhuman orders to escape responsibility for their actions or omissions of correct
action were deemed insufficient defenses under the higher moral principle of "known or should
have known".
The underlying assumption of these Nuremberg laws are: 1) "might does not make right"
despite what generations of Hobbesians and Niescheans have chosen to believe and 2) that every
individual is responsible for their decisions based not on the arbitrary standards of whatever
degenerate society they live in but rather upon the belief in the intrinsic powers of reason
and conscience which all humans have access to and are obliged to guide our actions in
life.
Nazi philosophers and crown jurists like Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmidt whose thoughts
have penetrated the western zeitgeist over the past 70 years would obviously find such concepts
repugnant and deplorable.
The fact that the "free world" has ignored these foundations of international law has not
changed the fact that they are still true.
Today, many of those powerful unipolar ideologues who managed the disastrous Cold War and
post-Cold War geopolitical environment have attempted to erase the precedents of Nuremburg with
such atrocities as Soros' International Criminal Court, and the "Responsibility to Protect"
doctrine (R2P) in defense of "humanitarian wars" as seen in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,
and Syria in recent years. The disturbing rise of unipolar R2P advocacy rampant among the
British ruling class like
Lord Mark Malloch Brown , Tony Blair and all of the Obama-era globalists surrounding Biden
make Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov's recent remarks at the 75 Anniversary Moscow conference
celebrating the commencement of the Nuremberg Trials that much more important.
Putin and Lavrov Celebrate the 75 th Anniversary of Nuremberg Trials
At this event, Putin reminded the attendees of the importance
of the historic tribunals which ran from November 21, 1945 to October – 1946, saying:
"We constantly refer to the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials; we understand their
importance for defending the truths of historical memory, for making a well-founded and solid
case against deliberate distortions and falsifications of World War II events, especially the
shameless and deceitful attempts to rehabilitate and even glorify Nazi criminals and their
accessories It is the duty of the entire international community to safeguard the Nuremberg
Trials' decisions, because they concern the principles that underlie the values of the post-war
world order and the norms of international law."
Putin's remarks were
amplified by Sergey Lavrov who elaborated on the new legal paradigm created at Nuremberg
which provides an obvious cure for the rise of WWII revisionism, sanitation of Nazism in
Ukraine and beyond as well as the revival of many of the practices that made Nazism a viral
threat to mankind.
"The Nuremberg Trials -- an example of international criminal justice -- proved that
justice can be achieved with a professional approach based on broad interstate cooperation,
consent and mutual respect. Clearly, the Nuremberg Tribunal's legacy is not limited to law, but
has enormous political, moral and educational value. A strong vaccination against the revival
of Nazism in all its forms and manifestations was made 75 years ago. Unfortunately, the
immunity to the brown plague that was developed in Nuremberg has seriously worn off in some
European countries. Russia will continue to vigorously and consistently oppose any attempts to
falsify history, to glorify Nazi criminals and their henchmen, and to oppose the revision of
the internationally recognized outcomes of World War II, including the Nuremberg
rulings."
So What Happened at Nuremberg?
Amidst the ashes of WWII,
a major battle was waged between those deep state forces that had funded fascism as a
"solution to the woes of the great depression" vs those genuine patriots who understood that
the very fabric of empire and its associated financial, cultural and legal paradigm had to be
destroyed and replaced with a paradigm more befitting human civilization.
Among the leading representative of the patriotic forces loyal to FDR's anti-colonial vision
was a man who has been nearly lost to history named Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954). Jackson
would serve as Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted legal advisor who first made a name for
himself working closely with
Ferdinand Pecora in prosecuting dozens of high level Wall Street financiers and pro-fascist
industrialists who orchestrated the depression of 1929 and the later coup and assassination
attempts against FDR in 1933-1934. After proving himself in combat, Jackson arose to become
U.S. Solicitor General (1938-1940), Attorney General (1940-41) and leading member of the
Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954.
Knowing that the deep state coup that ousted Vice-President Henry Wallace and imposed
Anglophile tool Harry Truman onto the USA might destroy the hopes for a post-WWII order of
peaceful cooperation as outlined by the United Nations Charter, Judge Jackson took the lead and
organized the Nuremberg Tribunals delivering the opening speech on November 21, 1945:
One of the prime motives behind the hearings was the intention to give legal meaning and
action to the universal ideals conveyed in the United Nations' Charter. This charter
encapsulated the principles that FDR and Henry Wallace outlined repeatedly in the
Four Freedoms . These freedoms asserted that all humankind regardless of race, sex, creed,
or nationality would: 1) have the freedom from want, 2) freedom to worship as one's conscience
dictated, 3) freedom from fear, and 4) freedom of speech. If international law could tolerate
wars of aggression, or if abdication of responsibility for ones' criminal deeds could be
tolerated on the basis of "I was just following orders", then the UN Charter could carry little
weight indeed.
As Jackson wrote in his Summer 1945 report to the President justifying the creation of the
Nuremberg Tribunal:
"We therefore propose to charge that a war of aggression is a crime, and that modern
international law has abolished the defense that those who incite or wage it are engaged in
legitimate business. Thus, may the forces of law be mobilized on the side of peace."
During the course of the 11 month proceedings, not only were leading cabinet members,
generals, lawyers and other high officials put on trial, but the deepest facets of natural law
vs Nietschean "law of the strongest" was investigated with Platonic rigor as laid out in the
brilliant award-winning film Judgement at Nuremberg (1960).
Due to the leadership of Justice Jackson, the treatment of INTENTION and conspiracy was made
the primary focus in the pursuit of justice and cause of criminal guilt. This was not a popular
approach then or today for the simple fact that our world is shaped by many top down forces
that want their victims' minds to be forever trapped in the material bottom up world of
deductive/inductive logic where immaterial causal intentions and ideas can never be found. For
anyone wishing to pursue this fruitful line of thinking further, I suggest reading Edgar
Allan Poe's Eureka.
When one adopts the view that intentions and conspiracies (i.e.: the effect of intentions +
ideas when put into action) ARE NOT a driving force of politics and life, then we forever loose
our ability to judge truthfulness in any serious manner. This was the philosophical premise of
leading Nazi financier Hjalmar Schacht, whose moral relativism and cold calculating principles
of economics directly justified the cheap labor camps that worked millions to death in the
German war production effort. This same philosophy again found fertile soil in the post-1971
consumer society that revived the logic of cheap labor production under the age of "cheapest
price is the law" globalization.
Quoting Schacht who said "Truth is any story that succeeds", Justice Jackson quipped
"I think you can score many more successes, when you want to lead someone, if you don't tell
them the truth- than if you do tell them the truth".
"The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty
crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make
deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world
untouched .
"The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and
authority in back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does
not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We
want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders .
"It is not the purpose in my part of this case to deal with the individual crimes. I am
dealing with the common plan or design for crime and will not dwell upon individual offenses.
My task is only to show the scale on which these crimes occurred, and to show that these are
the men who were in the responsible positions and who conceived the plan and design which
renders them answerable, regardless of the fact that the plan was actually executed by others
.
"The Charter recognizes that one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in
superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of state .
"The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization . The refuge of the defendants
can only be their hope that International Law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind
that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.
Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of
this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance."
Today, the world sits once more on the brink of a new world order, and the emergence of a
governing system that is shaped entirely on the same social Darwinistic/Nietschean operating
system that gave rise to fascism in WWII. The same denial of universal truth that animated the
minds of a Schacht, Goebbels, Heidegger or Schmidt has become hegemonic among western academia
as well.
Very few statesmen have had the courage and insight to resist this unipolar anti-nation
state system, but among those who have we are fortunate to have found the current leader of
Russia and his allies who in many ways are playing the same historic role as the one played 75
years earlier by Justice Robert Jackson, Henry Wallace and President Roosevelt. Whether the
rest of the world wakes up in time to recognize the superiority of the multipolar alliance over
the regressive order of the unipolarists carrying us ominously towards World War 3 remains to
be seen.
[Review of Stephen Kinzer, Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind
Control (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019)]
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a fearsome reputation. The author and executor of
countless coups and political assassinations, the CIA is notorious for waterboarding,
"extraordinary rendition," regime change, kidnapping, narcotics smuggling, financing of
guerrilla wars, and many other unsavory activities around the world, including against
Americans, even
inside the United States .
But "fearsome" does not mean "flawless." The CIA has failed at least as often as it has
succeeded, and sometimes the failures are so flagrant -- such as sending thousands of
anticommunist guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines in Korea, Eastern Europe, China, and
Southeast Asia during the Cold War, where nearly all of them died -- that CIA insiders wryly
refer to their organization as "Clowns In Action."
Which is it? Is the CIA a dastardly menace or a hotbed of horrible mistakes? If Stephen
Kinzer's new book, Poisoner in Chief , is any indication, the answer is both.
A veteran reporter on foreign conflicts such as those in Rwanda, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and
Iran, Kinzer is a former New York Times correspondent and, most famously, the author of the
2006 bestseller Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq . In his
latest effort he brings his analytical skills to bear on perhaps the most disturbing CIA
project of them all: MKULTRA, the top-secret, long-running effort to find a method for
controlling the human mind.
"History's most systematic search for techniques of mind control," Kinzer writes, was a
by-product of World War II.
At the end of 1942, a University of Wisconsin bacteriologist named Ira Baldwin - "America's
first bio-warrior" and a part-time Quaker preacher - was loaned to Washington (with the
blessing of the University of Wisconsin president) in order to set up and run a bioweapons
program for the United States military (p. 16). Based out of Camp Detrick in Maryland, the
Baldwin lab cranked out bioweapons for possible use against Allied enemies. In one of Baldwin's
bigger projects, shipment of tons of anthrax spores, ordered by Winston Churchill for potential
use against the Nazis, was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and almost ready for
delivery when the Germans surrendered on May 7, 1945 (p. 19).
For many, even for Quaker preachers, World War II cleared away the last of the psychological
hurdles against unleashing bioweapons against an enemy. Kinzer's book tells the tale of how the
targeting of unsuspecting populations was later justified by the bigger war, the Cold War,
which followed the demise of the Third Reich.
The ruined Third Reich provided much of the original brainpower for MKULTRA. Immediately
after World War II, the CIA -- formed out of the Office of War Information in 1945 -- was faced
with a choice. The Germans and the Japanese had been conducting advanced experiments on germ
warfare and other forms of biological weaponry. Should the Allies prosecute as war criminals
the scientists involved with such projects, or hire them as expert advisors? With the Cold War
starting and the Soviets looming as an unpredictable enemy, the CIA, with the tacit approval of
the few members of the United States Congress who were allowed to know even the existence of
the Central Intelligence Agency, decided to make use of the bioweapon expertise of erstwhile
foes in order to counter the new adversary in Moscow.
For example, Kurt Blome, the Nazis' director of biowarfare research and development whose
work had been championed by Heinrich Himmler, was acquitted, by American political fiat, at the
Doctors' Trial in Nuremberg in 1947 and sent to work - as part of Operation Paperclip designed
mainly to bring German rocket scientists to the US - at Camp Detrick (pp. 20 -- 24).
It was at Camp Detrick that Blome encountered a rising star in the CIA, Sidney Gottlieb.
Gottlieb, a bacteriological specialist who had been a star student of Ira Baldwin's at
Wisconsin, is the main figure in Kinzer's book. His career is virtually synonymous with
MKULTRA. Under the direction of Gottlieb, the CIA's laboratories at Camp Detrick transitioned
from R&D on bioweapons -- often using unwitting American subjects, such as in 1950 when a
US Navy minesweeper "specially equipped with large aerosol hoses" spent six days spraying the
Serratia marcescens bacterium into the San Francisco fog, infecting some eight hundred thousand
people (pp. 37 -- 38) -- to drugs which could be used for mind control. (MKNAOMI, MKULTRA's
sister CIA project, was also tasked with finding poisons and biotoxins which the CIA and the US
government could use in various operations.) Gottlieb provided the big ideas into which to fit
Blome's nefarious knowledge of mass murder by bacillus. Gottlieb became, virtually overnight
and with the help of former Nazi doctors, America's "poisoner in chief."
The CIA's mind control program, which was assuming a bigger and bigger importance as fears
of Soviet brainwashing grew in the US, was originally called Operation Bluebird and was
personally overseen by CIA higher-up Allen Dulles. (47)
At first, the Bluebird team experimented with "hypnosis, electroshock, and sensory
deprivation," along with drugs like sodium amytal, at CIA sites in "secret prisons in Germany
and Japan," looking for a way to extract information out of POWs and captured spies (pp. 44, 48
-- 49). But Dulles was unsatisfied with the results and decided to give the young CIA recruit
Sidney Gottlieb control of Bluebird's updated iteration: Operation Artichoke (pp. 51 -- 52).
The goal of Artichoke was to do whatever it took to get prisoners to divulge military and state
secrets to the CIA. The Cold War would brook nothing short of full-scale war against the human
mind.
Dulles became deputy director of central intelligence three days after launching Artichoke
in 1951, and Gottlieb, invisible to the outside world, was given virtually unlimited rein to
carry out any experiments thought necessary to achieve mind control (p. 51). This drive to
achieve total operational control over the human psyche eclipsed all reality and tactical
limitation . If the US didn't win the race to the mind control method, many in the CIA thought,
the entire American population lay vulnerable to mental enslavement by the Soviets. Dulles,
Kinzer writes, despite a disastrously unsuccessful three-year "Artichoke" attack on a Bulgarian
political prisoner named Dmitri Dimitrov, "had convinced himself not only that mind control
techniques exist but that Communists had discovered them, and that this posed a mortal threat
to the rest of the world" (pp. 52 -- 53).
Mind control was the pressing need, but nothing brought it within reach. Technique after
technique, drug after drug, was tried on prisoners, but to no avail. In frustration, Artichoke
agents under Gottlieb upped the ante, turning to marijuana, cocaine, and then heroin as
possible catalysts of CIA-directed, anti-Soviet brainwashing. As part of Artichoke, a
University of Rochester psychology professor was given a grant by the US Navy to test heroin on
his students. The control of the mind remained as elusive as ever, despite the massive dosing
of the Rochester student population with opiates. Nothing seemed to have the potential to crack
open the mind for the CIA (p. 59).
Someone in Artichoke suggested using mescaline after the other narcotics failed, and this
gave Sidney Gottlieb an idea. He remembered hearing about a drug called LSD which Dr. Albert
Hofmann had discovered during an experiment at Sandoz laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, in
1943. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), an ergot enzyme, produced extraordinary and disturbing
psychological effects, Dr. Hofmann found when he ingested some and recorded the drug's effects.
Washington learned of Hofmann's discovery in 1949, and one of the chemical specialists in the
US military complex told Gottlieb of the new substance (pp. 34 -- 35) In 1951, Gottlieb asked
Harold Abramson, who had been a physician in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War II,
to administer LSD to him. Gottlieb experienced the same psychedelic state as Dr. Hofmann had
described. Other subjects were tested, as well, not all of them wittingly, and all seemed to
exhibit similar reactions. LSD most definitely altered the mind (pp. 60 -- 61). Gottlieb was
convinced that he had found the magical drug which would allow the CIA to control the psyche ,
and therefore to beat the Soviets at (what Allen Dulles, Gottlieb, and many others at CIA
thought, at least, was) the Soviets' own game.
The experiments on human subjects followed rapidly after Gottlieb's conversion to belief in
the powers of LSD. These experiments often ended in death, often by murder. One study quoted by
Kinzer reports that
in 1951 a team of CIA scientists led by Dr. Gottlieb flew to Tokyo .Four Japanese
suspected of working for the Russians were secretly brought to a location where the CIA
doctors injected them with a variety of depressants and stimulants .Under relentless
questioning, they confessed to working for the Russians. They were taken out into Tokyo Bay,
shot and dumped overboard. (p. 64)
The CIA carried out similar experimentation and executions in Korea and Germany (p. 64).
Gottlieb was usually personally involved.
Throughout the 1950s the experimentation continued. An American artist named Stanley
Glickman was lured to a bar near his studio in Paris by CIA agents in 1951 and a chemical was
slipped into his drink. Glickman began to hallucinate wildly. He fled in a state of panic and
remained in his Paris apartment for the next ten months in paranoid hiding until his family
came to take him home, and then he spent the rest of his life as a near invalid. The chemical
which the CIA had slipped into Glickman's drink was almost certainly LSD, and Glickman, Kinzer
suggests, had been chosen by the CIA because he had just recovered from hepatitis and the
Artichoke team was conducting an experiment on the effects of hepatic infection on the efficacy
of LSD (pp. 66 -- 67)
Things got worse from there. In 1952, the CIA commissioned underworld denizen and former
vice cop George Hunter White to run a human-subjects experiment site at 81 Bedford Street in
Greenwich Village, New York (pp. 74 -- 75). White's job was to bring to the CIA's apartment
"expendables" on whom Gottlieb and his team could test LSD. White "knew the whores, the pimps,
the people who brought in the drugs," as one of Gottlieb's MKULTRA colleagues later explained,
and this made him invaluable for procuring the "drug users, petty criminals, and others who
could be relied upon not to complain about what had happened to them" when the CIA's
experiments were finished (pp. 76 -- 77). Many of these "expendables" suffered nervous
breakdowns, and some died.
In order to keep the supply of LSD flowing, CIA agents went to Basel, where LSD had been
discovered, and tried to buy all the LSD in stock. Allen Dulles authorized a $240,000 outlay to
pay for it (p. 86). Sandoz held the patent for Hofmann's 1943 discovery, but Sandoz wanted
nothing to do with the troublesome substance and so Gottlieb, freed of any need to scruple over
IP infringement, tasked US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly with making LSD in the States (pp.
85 -- 86) With their mind control serum in production, MKULTRA agents could focus on how to
dose experimental subjects. The CIA even hired a professional magician, John Mulholland, to
teach Gottlieb and his agents how to deliver LSD into unsuspecting subjects' drinks and food
without being detected (pp. 89 -- 94)
Gottlieb recruited a Kentucky addiction specialist, Dr. Harry Isbell, to test LSD and new
mind-altering drugs on prisoners and patients. More lives were destroyed (pp. 94 -- 96). Among
the victims of another of Gottlieb's agent-doctors was none other than James "Whitey" Bulger,
the mafioso who, along with "nineteen other inmates" at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary,
beginning in 1957 "was given LSD nearly every day for fifteen months, without being told what
it was" (pp. 98 -- 99). Bulger was plagued for the rest of his life with nightmares, suicidal
thoughts, and "deep depression" (p. 98). Bulger, who had been told that he was taking part in
experiments designed to find a cure for schizophrenia, did not learn the truth about what had
happened until 1979 (pp. 263 -- 64).
The human toll of Gottlieb's MKULTRA experiments continued to mount. One of Gottlieb's
closest associates in the project, Frank Olson -- a bacteriologist trained at the University of
Wisconsin who had also been recruited for the CIA by Gottlieb's mentor Ira Baldwin -- began to
express doubts about what the MKULTRA team was doing. He told his wife that he had made a
"terrible mistake" in his work (p. 114). He shared his misgivings with his CIA colleagues as
well. Olson's conscience appeared to be getting the better of him, and he became a liability to
the team.
In late 1953, Gottlieb surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD at a backwoods MKULTRA
gathering, "Deep Creek Rendezvous," outside Camp Detrick (p. 113). Olson spiraled into a
frightening disorientation, and early in the morning on November 28, 1953 -- a few days after
Thanksgiving -- Olson "fell or jumped" from a window of the Statler Hotel in Manhattan, dying
few moments after hitting the concrete below . Another MKULTRA agent, Gottlieb's lieutenant
Robert Lashbrook, was the only other person in the room when Olson "fell or jumped" (pp. 120 --
21). Lashbrook told the New York City police that Olson had jumped out of the window and
Olson's death was originally designated a suicide, but the Olson family eventually grew
suspicious and an investigation was carried out, including a new autopsy on Olson's body. The
forensic pathologist, after a month's examination of the corpse, declared: "I think Frank Olson
was intentionally, deliberately, with malice aforethought, thrown out of that window" (p. 250).
Wounds on Olson's body were consistent with methods taught in CIA manuals for incapacitating
people and then killing them in order to make their deaths look self-inflicted.
Gottlieb and MKULTRA were shaken by Olson's demise, but they carried on with their work.
They spent the next few years looking for magic mushrooms in Mexico (157); arranging suicide
capsules for American agents, including U-2 pilot Gary Powers (who chose not to use his when he
was shot down over the Soviet Union) (pp. 172 -- 75); attempting, at the order of then attorney
general Robert Kennedy, to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (after exploding cigars and
exploding conch shells were ruled out, Gottlieb tried with a wetsuit laced with fungi and
bacteria) (p. 184); and hooking Allen Ginsberg and other radicals on LSD (pp. 188 -- 90).
Gottlieb personally delivered to the American embassy in Leopoldville in the Congo poisons that
Gottlieb had developed to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, but the Belgians and the
Africans beat the CIA to it (pp. 176 -- 80).
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Gottlieb's career brought ruin and suffering to untold numbers of people, many of them
innocent. He retired from the CIA in 1973 after receiving the Distinguished Intelligence Medal
(p. 211). Lifelong devotees of folk dance, Gottlieb and his wife, Margaret, moved to the
countryside in rural Virginia and attempted to blend in with the small community there,
volunteering, dancing, and experimenting with radical ecology. However, "investigative reporter
Seymour Hersh, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam,"
learned of the MH-CHAOS program targeting Americans, and the Congress was forced to act.
Gottlieb's career, long a well-kept secret, was being brought into the open, and his retirement
would therefore be far from peaceful.
But there were still many who tried to cover up what Gottlieb and the other MKULTRA agents
had done. In 1975, after the outcry caused by the Hersh reporting, President Gerald Ford
deputized Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to chair a commission on the CIA. The new CIA
director, William Colby, was remarkably frank. Colby informed the Rockefeller Commission that
"the CIA had conducted LSD experiments that resulted in deaths. Later he referred to
assassination plots" (p. 216). Nelson Rockefeller, attempting to prevent the CIA director from
revealing too much, buttonholed Colby later: "Bill, do you really have to present all this
material to us?" (p. 216).
In 1977, in the wake of the Church Report on further American intelligence excesses, Senator
Edward Kennedy, Robert's brother, spurred on by some documents which had been discovered as the
result of a FOIA request (Gottlieb had ordered all MKULTRA files burned, but some undetected
copies remained), called Admiral Stansfield Turner to testify before Congress on MKULTRA. The
walls were closing in. Gottlieb himself was eventually forced to testify -- albeit in a
closed-room setting his lawyer had helped arrange -- but Gottlieb essentially pleaded amnesia
(nearly all of his answers to questions about MKULTRA were some version of "I do not recall")
and the matter seemed to end there.
Still, the skeletons in Gottlieb's closet would not go away. In 1984 Gottlieb agreed to meet
with the family of Frank Olson, the former MKULTRA colleague who had "fallen or jumped" from
his Manhattan hotel room in 1953. Eric Olson, Frank Olson's son, was unconvinced by Gottlieb's
explanation for the "accident," and, after Frank Olson's widow and Eric's mother passed away,
ordered Frank's body exhumed in 1994. As information about MKULTRA built in the public's
awareness, other cases were reopened, including that of Stanley Glickman. (257) The courts were
now involved and Gottlieb could not count on the CIA to get him out of his legal trouble.
Gottlieb pushed back the trial for Glickman's murder as long as he could, and then, in early
March, 1999, Sidney Gottlieb died.
Like Frank Olson, it was not officially revealed whether or not the death had been a suicide
(p. 259).
Stephen Kinzer's Poisoner in Chief is a highly readable, thoroughly researched introduction
to the life and work of one of America's most unknown, and yet infamous, government agents.
Kinzer is to be thanked for his plainspoken, courageous book. Even those who have studied the
CIA and the various schemes and crimes which "the Agency" has committed over the past
seventy-five years will be surprised by some of the information Kinzer relates. To see in one
volume a rendering of just some of the lives ruined by just one CIA program, MKULTRA, is a
sobering revelation.
Sidney Gottlieb, the person directly responsible for much, if not most, of the MKULTRA
devastation over more than twenty years, remains as mysterious at the end of Kinzer's volume as
at the beginning, however. By all accounts Gottlieb was a good student from a stable family.
Kinzer speculates that perhaps Gottlieb's having been rejected for military service in World
War II -- Gottlieb stuttered and had a clubfoot -- left him unsatisfied and impatient to prove
his patriotism, an urgent task for the son of immigrant Jews (p. 50). Gottlieb was heavily
involved in New Age mysticism and meditation and appears to have expended considerable energy
psychologically compartmentalizing his "work," so there are indications that he was aware that
the experiments he and his MKULTRA team were carrying out were, at best, unethical, and
objectively speaking often outright crimes.
But Gottlieb was hardly alone in his endeavors, and the explanation that Gottlieb, Allen
Dulles, and many others in the CIA gave -- to themselves and to each other, and to the world
around when pressed -- makes the most sense. They had a country to defend, they faced an enemy
of unprecedented cruelty in the Soviet Union, and they were willing to do whatever it took,
even sacrificing innocent people, to keep Americans as a whole from falling under the spell of
communist mind control.
~ a civilian assassination program that also included torture during the Vietnam War ~
"The Phoenix Program program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States special operations forces , special forces
operatives from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam's
(South Vietnam) security apparatus during the Vietnam War.
"The program was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration,
torture, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The CIA described it
as "a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the
Viet Cong".The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that infiltration had required local
support from non-combat civilian populations, which were referred to as the "political
branch" that had purportedly coordinated the insurgency.
"Phoenix "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of VC membership, of whom 26,369 were
killed"
Moneycircus , Nov 26, 2020 5:47 PM Reply to
Moneycircus
"During the Cold War, the vast majority of states overthrown were left-leaning or
socialist governments aligned with the Eastern Bloc."
I take issue with this. The great movement after the collapse of the British Empire was
autonomy and, in attempting to throw off the plantation class, that meant land distribution
as a response to popular pressure, regardless of political colour.
In short it was nationalism, which can be left or right.
As for the U.S. it was just business. Both Allen Dulles and his brother were shareholders
in the Boston/United Fruit Company – and one of their first "happenings" was to defeat
the threat of redistribution and secure land for their own private profit .
Even more important than land distribution was equal access to natural resources ,
beginning with water and firewood and extending to minerals. That is why Bolivia's Evo
Morales came to power and why he was ousted.
U.S. regime change was primarily the CIA acting as muscle for the people who had founded
it: the Wall Street bankers, lawyer and associated corporations.
"Left leaning" was the excuse. This is why the CIA and State Department armed Castro while
halting weapon sales to Fulgencio Batista, as documented by U.S. ambassador to Cuba at the
time, Earl T. Smith.
The only explanation for this is that the CIA expected Castro to become another Batista or
it wanted a boogeyman in the western hemisphere as a justification for actions it had in
mind.
There is even a convincing argument that the Bay of Pigs was a ruse in order to provide
leverage against JFK. Nov 26, 2020 6:38 PM Reply to
Moneycircus
Agreed. At the same time that Rockefeller and Kissinger were pushing for an opening with
communist China and forging business deals with Chinese officials, they were also working to
orchestrate a coup against socialist Salvador Allende in Chile. Allende wasn't aligned with
the Eastern Bloc. He was a threat because of his nationalization program and its impact on
corporate interests in Chile, banking and copper mining among others. The 'communist' thing
was a pretext, as it had been when they overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala.
For Rockefeller, Kissinger and associates it was simply about serving Wall Street
interests, and the CIA was their enforcement arm. They have been willing to work with
communists, fascists, and anyone else who help advance their economic and global objectives.
However, I don't doubt that many CIA covert operators doing the dirty work during the Cold
War were true believers in the anti-communist crusade.
Researcher , Nov 26, 2020 6:42 PM Reply to
Moneycircus
Most of it's a ruse. I expect Bay of Pigs was some kind of intentional ruse. Didn't JFK
reject Operation Northwoods in favor of keeping Cuba communist to fuel the Cold War?
I don't even think JFK was planning to disband the CIA. I just think LBJ was far more
powerful within the cryptocracy and wanted JFK and Bobby Kennedy out of the way because he
was an ambitious psychopath. The Killing of the King was a ritual to inflict psychological
trauma on the American public and to show those working within the system that nobody is
safe.
Moneycircus , Nov 26, 2020 6:53 PM Reply to
Researcher
For all the talk about the defining role of the American corporation, the country's wealth
was largely secured by supplanting European empires. That did not happen once the "west" had
been settled or the internal opportunities exhausted -- it anticipated the decline of
European empires, starting well before the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
To put it another way, how many of America's ruling families were not imperialists?
Grafter , Nov 26, 2020 5:13 PM
After reading that it is clear we will be entering a dark and dangerous era where those
who own and control the media , corrupt the foundations and operations of their own
government and believe in their psychopathic doctrine of "exceptionalism" will ensure that we
will be taken to the edge of a precipice. Their greed for power and financial gain is
limitless and as evidenced by the Covid scam we appear to be helpless regards whatever malign
agenda they wish to implement.
In Washington foreign conflicts are to policymakers what lights are to moths. The desire
to take the U.S. into every political dispute, social collapse, civil war, foreign conflict,
and full-scale war seems to only get stronger as America's failures accumulate.
There may be no better example than the battle between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the
latter's claim to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, contained within Azerbaijan but largely
populated by ethnic Armenians. Distant from the US and Europe, the struggle matters most to
nearby Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Russia.
The impact on Americans is minor and indirect at best. Yet there is wailing and gnashing
of teeth in Washington that the US is "absent" from this fight. Send in the bombers! Or at
least the diplomats! Candidate Joe Biden predictably insisted that America should be leading
a peace effort "together with our European partners," without indicating what that would mean
in practice.
The roots of the conflict, like so many others, go back centuries. Control of largely
Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Armenia passed among Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Russian
Empire. After the Russian Revolution the two were independent and fought over N-K's status,
before both were absorbed by the Soviet Union. Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population
began pressing for transfer to Armenia during the U.S.S.R.'s waning days. After the latter
collapsed in 1992 the two newly independent nations again fought, resulting in tens of
thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees, and Armenia grabbed the disputed
land as well as even larger adjacent territory filled with ethnic Azerbaijanis.
A ceasefire froze the bitter conflict, leaving the conquered territory under Armenian
control. Although Yerevan's gain was tenuous, unrecognized by the rest of the world and
dependent upon a geographic corridor between Armenia and N-K, the government, largely in
response to internal political pressures, grew steadily more aggressive and unwilling to
honor previous commitments. Violent clashes mixed with ineffective talks between the two
states.
With no prospect of resolution, despite long-standing diplomatic efforts through the
so-called Minsk Process, involving America and France, among others, Azerbaijani forces,
relying on Turkey, employing Syrian mercenaries, and utilizing Israeli-made drones, launched
an offensive in September. With Yerevan losing troops and territory, Moscow brokered a new
ceasefire, which required Armenia's withdrawal from areas conquered a quarter century ago.
The transportation corridor is to be policed by Russian peacekeeping forces; Turkish
officials will help monitor the ceasefire.
The result was jubilation in Baku and riots in Yerevan. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinyan, under political siege, declared: "This is not a victory, but there is no defeat
until you consider yourself defeated, we will never consider ourselves defeated and this
shall become a new start of an era of our national unity and rebirth." More accurate was
Azerbaijani President Ilham Alyev's assessment: "This [ceasefire] statement constitutes
Armenia's capitulation. This statement puts an end to the years-long occupation. This
statement is our Glorious Victory." With Pashinyan's authority in tatters and Alyev
triumphantly enjoying a surge in popular support, hostilities could easily explode again.
Why would any sane American want to get in the middle of this fight?
Demands that Washington "do something" ignore three important realities. The first is that
the conflict has nothing to do with the US and threatens no serious American interests. The
fighting is tragic, of course, as are similar battles around the world. However, this
volatile region is dominated by Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Iran previously supported Armenia,
Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan, and Russia has good relations with both, including a
defense treaty with Yerevan which Moscow deemed not to cover contested territory, meaning
N-K.
Which of these powers, all essentially American adversaries – despite Ankara's
continued membership in the transatlantic alliance – dominates which neighbor is a
matter of indifference to Washington. It simply doesn't matter, and certainly isn't worth
fighting over. Once US officials would have preferred Turkey over Iran and Russia, but
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken his nation in an Islamist and authoritarian
direction, warmed relations with Russia, the only serious target of NATO, and begun
aggressively expanding Turkish influence and control in Syria, Libya, and the eastern
Mediterranean. Ankara encouraged the current military round by enhancing Azerbaijani
capabilities.
Georgia also shares a border with both combatants but is only a bit player in the ongoing
drama. However, it has lobbyists in Washington whose mission is to get Tbilisi into NATO and
thus turn Georgia into another US defense dependent. Doing so would create a direct border
conflict with Russia, made much more dangerous by the volatility of Georgian politics. The
irresponsible and reckless President Mikheil Saakashvili triggered the brief yet disastrous
2008 war with Russia and remains active politically. Tbilisi's dubious role is another reason
for the US to avoid deeper involvement in the region's disputatious politics.
The second point is that there is nothing sensible America for do, despite cacophonous
demands otherwise. In October Washington Post columnist David Ignatius complained:
"The global power vacuum invites mischief. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has
escalated over 10 days of fighting. Armenian leaders initially hoped that US diplomacy could
produce a ceasefire; now they look to Moscow."
Translated, Yerevan wanted Washington to save Armenia from both its original aggression
and later intransigence. Like many other governments have desired in other conflicts. But how
was the US to restrain Azerbaijan, which was able to recover long-lost territory only by
resorting to force? America's regional policy has been a disaster. Washington already
demonstrated its impotence in Ankara as Erdogan charted an independent course. The US turned
a difficult relationship with Moscow into a mini-Cold War. The Trump administration foolishly
declared economic war on Iran, creating regional instability and precluding negotiation.
As for Azerbaijan, military intervention would risk war for no good reason. Economic
sanctions would punish Baku, but to what end? So far, the president's constant resort to
"maximum pressure" has failed to induce political surrender in Havana, Caracas, Damascus,
Pyongyang, or Moscow. Whatever the economic price, Aliyeh could ill afford to retreat and
anger an entire population currently celebrating his triumph. Anyway, the issue is not worth
another failed American attempt at global social engineering. Which means Washington had
nothing to offer but words.
Certainly the US should encourage a peaceful settlement and negotiation, but this is a
conflict for which there is no obvious diplomatic answer. It is easy to insist that Baku
should not have restarted hostilities, but the Alyev government struck because diplomacy had
frozen along with the dispute. And Baku's success dramatically reshaped the balance of power,
leaving Armenia in a far worse position than before. Creative mediation might help, but
Azerbaijan, on offense, showed no interest in such an effort. Nor has Washington demonstrated
the ability to reign in Baku's main backer, Turkey, anywhere else. Washington is filled with
magical thinking, the belief that the president merely need whisper his command and the
entire world will snap to attention. Alas, America long ago lost that ability, if it ever had
it.
Moreover, US officials share some blame: On the presumption that Azerbaijan was committed
to a peaceful settlement, Washington provided it with arms and aid to combat terrorism.
Unfortunately, weaponry, like money, is fungible. And that mistake cannot be unmade.
An equally mistaken belief in the Trump administration's commitment also might have helped
lead Armenia astray. Since taking power in the Velvet Revolution two years ago, Pashinyan
sought to move westward. However, in the present crisis neither America nor Europe did
anything to assist Yerevan – whose occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh remains illegal under
international law. Some US interest groups attempted to turn Armenia into a cause celebre of
religious persecution, but the Muslim-Christian clash is incidental to broader geopolitics
which little concerned the West.
The horrid genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against ethnic Armenians a century ago
is constantly cited but remains irrelevant to today's conflict. Around three decades ago
Armenia invaded Azerbaijan to seize incontestably Azerbaijani land. Baku struck back for
reasons of nationalism, not religion. The essential irrelevance of religion is reflected in
Christian Russia's good relations with Muslim Azerbaijan, Jewish Israel arming Muslim
Azerbaijan, and Muslim Iran's long backing for Christian Armenia, though these ties ebbed in
the last couple years. The US should no more be a crusading Christian republic than a
crusading republic.
Finally, Russia demonstrated that other powers have an interest in peace and stability and
are able to act. That is a tough lesson for the denizens of Washington to learn, given their
irrational hatred of Russia. Vladimir Putin is no cuddly liberal but most American
policymakers make hypocrisy and sanctimony the foundations of their approach to Moscow. After
all, Putin has killed fewer innocent people than Trump administration's favorite dictator,
Mohammed bin Salman, whose aggression against Yemen has resulted in more than five years of
murder and mayhem and created the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet. Yet Washington
continues to sell Saudi Arabia more weapons and munitions with which to kill more Yemeni
civilians.
Moreover, though Moscow has behaved badly, in Georgia and Ukraine in particular, so has
the US in Russia's eyes. Washington misled Moscow over NATO expansion, dismantled longtime
Russian friend Serbia, pushed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, embraced Tbilisi,
which fired on Russian troops guaranteeing security in neighboring secessionist territory,
encouraged a street putsch against an elected, Russophile government in Kiev, and sought to
push Moscow out of Syria, an ally of nearly 70 years. The expectation of American
policymakers that they can use military force to push the Monroe Doctrine up to Russia's
border without triggering a sharp response is unrealistic at best, deadly at worst.
Of course, the Russia-brokered accord was a clear diplomatic triumph and likely will
solidify Moscow's influence. However, with success has come responsibility, which could prove
costly to Moscow. The accord remains fragile and unstable, and might collapse.
By its nature the agreement is short-term and does not address the fundamental issue, the
status of N-K. Indeed, on its own terms either party, which would most likely be Azerbaijan
in this case, can order the withdrawal of Russian monitors in five years. However, the modus
vivendi might not last even that long. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev posited: "I hope
that today's ceasefire and our further plans to normalize relations with Armenia, if
perceived positively by the Armenian side, can create a new situation in the region, a
situation of cooperation, a situation of strengthening stability and security." With Yerevan
aflame after angry mobs took over the National Assembly building, severely beat that body's
speaker, trashed the prime minister's home, and forced him into hiding, "positive" probably
is not the right word to describe Armenians' perception of the settlement. In fact, those who
abandoned their homes in territory turned over to Azerbaijan adopted a scorched earth policy,
destroying everything.
Both sides probably view the latest agreement a bit like French Gen. Ferdinand Foch
presciently saw the Versailles Treaty: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
Only the N-K time frame might be much shorter. Nevertheless, no one else has offered any
better alternative. Unfortunately, zero-sum disputes over territory are among the most
difficult disputes to resolve. Either Armenia or Azerbaijan will control N-K. Either ethnic
Armenians or Azerbaijanis will live in N-K. Yes, the ideal would be people from both lands to
live together in a democratic state, joining hands around a bonfire to sing Kumbaya every
night. However, no one believes that is even a remote possibility.
With nothing meaningful to offer to solve the current firefight, it was best for
Washington to stay out. In fact, Armenia's old guard, pushed out of power by Pashinyan two
years ago in the Velvet Revolution, blame their nation's defeat on his government's
subsequent turn West, from which it received little support. Brokering the current defeat
would merely have reinforced anger against America.
Russia acted because it has far more at stake. Let it undertake the burden of seeking a
settlement. Let it accept the cost of enforcing a settlement. Let it bear the blame if the
system again crashes.
US policymakers have trouble imagining a world in which a sparrow falls to earth, to
borrow Biblical imagery, without the US responding. If the bird falls in Nagorno-Karabakh, at
least, Americans should allow someone else to pick it up. It is not Washington's purpose to
make every conflict on earth America's own.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
Predictions are tricky matters in world affairs – and as it turns out, prescience
produces little in the way of public or personal vindication. There's scant satisfaction when
one's subjects tend towards the tragic. Take the (for now) paused 44-day war in the South
Caucasus. Back in an October
interview , I offered this (then) seemingly provocative prognosis:
"If this thing gets solved, or put back in the freezer, which is about the best we can
hope for right now, it will be Putin playing King Solomon and cutting the Nagorno-Karabakh
baby in half."
Think Moscow will merit plaudits from mainstream media? After all, four weeks ago, a
U.S.-brokered truce held a whole
few hours !
Snark aside, intellectual merriment loses luster when it amounts to dancing on thousands
of fresh graves filled with family members of the tens of thousands more newly
displaced . Only the implications of the ceasefire's terms – under which Armenian
troops withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh after a 26 years occupation and replaced by Russian
peacekeepers – are also disturbing. The outcome also set potentially long-lasting
precedents.
Make no mistake this was no small victory for the initiator – if not aggressor
– nation of Azerbaijan. That under the agreement , Azeri troops stay
in place within areas of Nagorno-Karabakh they seized in battle, has profound ramifications.
War worked. Furthermore, seven odd weeks of combat proved – once again – that it
often does, at least in certain contexts.
What are those (not-so) special situations, you ask? Easy: be in the esteemed and wealthy
Western camp. Kow-tow diplomatically and play ball economically – especially in energy
sales – with multinational corporations headquartered in North American and European
capitals. Thus, win powerful friends and influence prominent people and nearly anything is
permissible.
Anyway, both people and leaders in Baku – especially the mini-Stalinist Aliyev dynasty running the
family fiefdom – are thrilled with the outcome. Same goes for folks in Ankara, and
madcap Erdogan – the man who would be sultan – himself. Instructively, there's no
less enthusiasm in Tel Aviv – not just by Bibi Netanyahu's dominant rightist ethnocrats .
Because this much you can't make up: pro-Baku rallies and the
waving of Azeri flags in Israel!
Look, Ankara hates their Armenian late genocide victims for surviving to tell the
Turk-indicting tale. Besides, Erdogan is pursuing neo-Ottoman
adventurism region-wide, and more than happy to tap in into ethno-Turkic and co-religionist
solidarity to grease those grandiose wheels. Israel's self-styled Jewish and Democratic
hybrid state support for Shia Islamic majority Azerbaijan seems stranger – unless one's
in the know on the lengthy and sordid ties
between Bibi and Baku.
Not so among Armenians in Yerevan – where protesters stormed the parliament, physically
accosted the speaker and reportedly looted the prime minister's own office. Something tells
me we haven't heard the last of Armenia's army in Nagorno-Karabakh – given the soreness
and inherent instability of losing sides in long-standing and externally-escalated
ethno-religious conflicts.
And here's the troubling rub: if not quite smoking guns there's plenty of smoke
indicating that Turkey – and to a lesser but
significant extent, Israel – conspired with Azerbaijan's petty autocrats to conquer
(or reconquer) Nagorno-Karabakh. The preparatory collusion was years in the making, ramped up
mightily in the months before D-Day – yet unfolded largely under the U.S. and broader
international radar. Consider a cursory recitation of the salient sequence.
Ankara's support for its Azeri Turkic-brethren has grown gradually more overt for years.
So have its long-standing arms-sales to Baku. Then came a decisive pivot – according to
one report , a six-fold jump in weapon's transfers to Azerbaijan over the last year.
Then, this past summer, Turkish troops trained and did joint exercises with Azeri forces.
Consider it a pre-invasion capstone.
Finally – now here's a cute catalyst – Ankara
reportedly moved those implausibly-deniable Syrian mercenaries into Azerbaijan two weeks
before Baku's attack. Don't take my radical word for it, though. Consider the
conclusions of the decidedly establishment-friendly Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace's resident Caucasus expert. Fellow longtime NK-watcher Tom de Waal was as clear as he
was concise:
"It's pretty obvious that Azerbaijan has been preparing for this. Azerbaijan decided it
wanted to change the status quo and that the Armenian side had no interest in a war " and
"Clearly, the decisive factor in this conflict is Turkey's intervention on Azerbaijan's
side. They seem to be heavily coordinating the war effort."
All told, that indirect intervention, coordination, and the combat-
proven capabilities of allied arms sales bonanzas – especially Turkish Bayraktar
TB2 and Israeli kamikaze drones – were decisive. Thousands of Yerevan's troops were
killed, about a third of its tanks were destroyed, and at least 50,000 Armenians have fled in
the face of Azeri gains.
Then, in the eleventh hour breach – as if to force friendly peace terms from Russia
– Turkey
threatened to intervene outright. Just how did big, bad, unhinged and the 10-foot-tall
Putin of Democrat-delusions respond to Erdogan's provocation? Well, he essentially folded
– or settled – in the interest of temporary tranquility in Russia's restive
near-abroad. Recall that Moscow eschewed even much menacing – let alone actual
intervention – on behalf of its official Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
Armenian ally.
That this was all so represents nothing less than a paradigm-shifting precedent-setter. Or
at least a reminder of force's forever utility for some. Boost your batch of backers, gather
the tech-savvy arsenal that's thus available, and ready your patron-trained troops for war.
Invade only once the green-light comes from on-external-high, and the "rules-based"
international order that isn't – but is dominated (for now) by Washington
– will avert eyes long enough to enable Nuremberg's "
supreme crime " of armed aggression to work its magic.
So force pays if your government has coveted energy resources, the cash they produce, the
weapons they buy – plus powerful patrons willing to sell you the cutting edge stuff.
Just ask sundry Gulf Arab autocrats! (Though it rarely turns out as well for internal –
especially Shia dissidents or, you know, Yemeni kids).
To take it a step further, maybe your benefactor even tosses in some third-party
mercenaries, trains and advises your army just before game-time, and threatens outright
intervention if your little-bro-government doesn't get it's way. It also helps if your
patron's patron is still a hyper-hegemon that bullies – I mean, "leads" by principled
example – much of the wealthy world into silence or complicity, and looks the other way
long enough for facts on the ground to turn your way. Now there's a formula for force as
solution to frozen conflicts!
No doubt other parties paid attention. Heck, they want in on the violent game-changing
game! Believe you me, there are plenty of neo-fascists, adventurist American "allies," and
frenemies – all in need of a little citizen-distraction from Covid, corruption, and
economic collapse – who are all in for applying the new NK-formula. Ukrainian fascists,
Georgian Euro-aspirants, frightened and ever-opportunist Baltic bros or Taiwanese troops,
Egypt's military coup-artists, Arabian princely theocrats, and no doubt Israel's Bibi bunch
– yea, they all took careful Caucasus-notes.
So where does America's president-elect, Joe Biden, stand on the Russian-brokered truce,
you ask? About as you'd suspect from a fella inside the beltway cult of "collusion." Biden
picked partisan point-scoring over principled consistency. He "
slammed " Trump's supposed slow response to the NK-fighting and accused him of
"delegating the diplomacy to Moscow." In fact, his campaign's initial
statement singled out Moscow's ostensibly "cynical" arms sales to both conflict parties
and failed to name even once the war's Beetlejuice of bellicosity – Turkey.
Never known for nuance, the gut-player-elect failed to couch his rather bold critique with
admissions of US security assistance to both sides, acknowledge the Tel Aviv and Ankara
accelerants, nor the circumscribed options for any administration in an unfrozen conflict in
which Washington has no real "
dog in the fight ." Well, that's strange – seeing as the Russian-led settlement
pushed past achieving one of Biden's publicly
stated goals: to "make clear to Armenia that regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh cannot
be occupied indefinitely."
Well, so it goes with Russia-obsessed Democratic administrations beset with the
clinical -narcissism of American exceptionalism. No matter how distant the conflict, no
matter how far off the citizenry's obscurity-radar: the maelstrom must be about us .
See everything, everywhere , is apparently about US interests, anxieties, and
obsessions. Today's obsessive flavor of the moment – and for most of the century since
Bolshevik Red October – is Moscow.
Therein lies the problem, and what I've been boy-who-cried-wolfing about regarding the
real
risk regarding the coming Democratic administration. That is, after making everything
about Trump and Russia for four years, they might begin believing their own exaggerated
alarmism and follow through with legit escalation and acceleration of theater numero uno of a
dual-front, Eurasia-spanning Cold War encore. If Moscow and Beijing are forever branded bad
boys – in motive and machinations – then on shall continually churn the war
state, with all the pecuniary and professional benefits to both the outgoing Trump team and
incoming
Biden bunch alike.
Few Americans will notice, or bother to bother themselves about it – pandemic
preoccupied and social media distracted as they be – until the fruits of folly flash in
front of their eyes (pun intended).
Forget Condi Rice's farcical foreboding of a mushroom cloud as smoking gun . Even the Bushies'
bald-faced lies rarely reached past Saddam's singular nuclear blasts – Washington and
Moscow might end the world in an afternoon.
So permit me one final prediction: if they do, some staunch US"ally" learned-of the latest
Caucasus-conclusions will be the one to drag us down to oblivion.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer, senior fellow at theCenter for
International Policy(CIP), contributing editor atAntiwar.com, and director of the new Eisenhower Media
Network (EMN). His work has appeared in the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post,
The Hill, Salon, The American Conservative, Mother Jones, Scheer Post and Tom Dispatch,
among other publications. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught
history at West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq
War,Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the SurgeandPatriotic Dissent: America in
the Age of Endless War. Along with fellow vet Chris "Henri" Henriksen, he co-hosts
the podcast "Fortress on a
Hill." Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVetand on hiswebsitefor media requests
and past publications.
"... granting the government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wants under the guise of protecting the public health ..."
"... formally granted the government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wanted under the guise of remedying the distress of the people ..."
"... It functions like a cult , totalitarianism. It creeps up on you, little by little, little lie by little lie, accommodation by accommodation, rationalization by rationalization until one day you find yourself taking orders from some twisted little narcissistic nihilist on a mission to remake the entire world. You don't surrender to it all at once. You do it over the course of weeks and months. Imperceptibly, it becomes your reality. You do not recognize that you are in it, because everything you see is part of it, and everyone you know is in it except for the others , who are not part of it. The "deniers." The "deviants." The "foreigners." The "strangers." The "Covidiots." The "virus spreaders." ..."
Break out the Wagner, folks the Germans are back! No, not the warm, fuzzy, pussified,
peace-loving, post-war Germans the Germans ! You know the ones I mean. The "I didn't
know where the trains were going" Germans. The "I was just following orders" Germans. The
other Germans.
Yeah those Germans.
In case you missed it, on November 18, the German parliament passed a law, the so-called
"Infection Protection Act" ("Das Infektionsschutzgesetz" in German) formallygranting the government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wants under the guise of
protecting the public health . The government has been doing this anyway -- ordering
lockdowns, curfews, travel bans, banning demonstrations, raiding homes and businesses, ordering
everyone to wear medical masks, harassing and arresting dissidents, etc. -- but now it has been
"legitimized" by the Bundestag, enshrined into law, and presumably stamped with one of those
intricate official stamps that German bureaucrats like to stamp things with.
Now, this "Infection Protection Act," which was rushed through the parliament, is not in any
way comparable to the " Enabling Act of 1933
," which formally granted the government the authority to issue whatever edicts it wanted
under the guise of remedying the distress of the people . Yes, I realize that sounds quite
similar, but, according to the government and the German media, there is no absolutely
equivalence whatsoever, and anyone who suggests there is is "a far-right AfD extremist," "a
neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist," or "an anti-vax esotericist," or whatever.
As the Protection Act was being legitimized (i.e., the current one, not the one in 1933),
tens of thousands of anti-totalitarian protesters gathered in the streets, many of them
carrying copies of the Grundgesetz (i.e., the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany),
which the parliament had just abrogated. They were met by thousands of riot police, who
declared the demonstration "illegal" (because many of the protesters were not wearing masks),
beat
up and arrested hundreds of them , and then hosed down the rest with water
cannons .
The German media -- which are totally objective, and not at all like Goebbels' Ministry of
Propaganda in the Nazi era -- dutifully reminded the German public that these protesters were
all "Corona Deniers," "far-right extremists," "conspiracy theorists," "anti-vaxxers,"
"neo-Nazis," and so on, so they probably got what they deserved. Also, a spokesperson for the
Berlin police (who bear absolutely no resemblance to the Gestapo, or the Stasi, or any other
notorious official-ideology-enforcing goons) pointed out that their water cannons were only
being used to "irrigate" the protesters (i.e., not being aimed directly at them) because there
were so many "Corona Denier" children in their ranks.
According to the government, the German media, the intelligentsia, and, basically, anyone in
public life who wants to remain there, these "Corona Deniers" are becoming a problem. They are
spreading baseless "conspiracy theories" that are threatening the public health and causing
distress to the German people (e.g., that
the vast majority of those infected suffer only mild to moderate flu symptoms or, more
commonly, no symptoms at all, and that over 99.7% survive ). They are walking around
without medical-looking masks, which is making a mockery of the government and media's efforts
to convince the public that they are under attack by an apocalyptic plague. They are posting scientific facts on the Internet. They are
staging these protests and otherwise challenging the government's right to declare a "health
emergency," suspend the German constitution indefinitely, and rule society by decree and
force.
Despite the German government and media's efforts to demonize anyone not obediently
parroting the official "New Normal" narrative as a "dangerous neo-Nazi Corona Denier," the
"Corona Denialism" movement is growing, not just in Germany, but all throughout
Europe . Clearly, the time is coming for Germany to take stronger measures against this
threat. The health of the Vater uh, the nation, is at stake! Fortunately, this "Infection
Protection Act" will provide the government with the authority it needs to conceive and carry
out some kind of well, you know, solution. Allowing these degenerate anti-social deviants to
run around challenging the German government's absolute power is not an option, not in a time
of national health emergency! These "
Nazi-sympathizing Corona Deniers " must be rooted out and dealt with, mercilessly!
But seriously, I don't mean to pick on the Germans. I love the Germans. I live in Germany.
And they're hardly the only ones
implementing the new
pathologized totalitarianism . It's just that, given their not-too-distant history, it is
rather depressing, and more than a little frightening, to watch as Germany is once again
transformed into a totalitarian state, where the police are hunting down the mask-less on the
streets, raiding restaurants, bars, and people's homes, where goose-stepping little Good German
citizens are peering into the windows of Yoga studios to see if they are violating "social
distancing rules," where I can't take a walk or shop for groceries without being surrounded by
hostile, glaring, sometimes verbally-abusive Germans, who are infuriated that I'm not wearing a
mask, and otherwise mindlessly following orders, and who robotically remind me, "Es ist
Pflicht! Es ist Pflicht!"
Yes, I am fully aware that it is "Pflicht." If I had any doubt as to whether it was
"Pflicht," the Berlin Senat cleared that up when they commissioned and ran this charming advert
instructing me to fuck myself if I don't want to follow their "Corona orders" and profess my
belief in their new Big Lie.
And OK, before the Literalist Society starts flooding me with outraged emails, no, I'm not
calling these Germans "Nazis." I am calling them "totalitarians." Which, at this point, given
everything we know, if you're still pretending that this coronavirus in any way warrants the
increasingly ridiculous "emergency measures" we are being subjected to, I'm sorry, but that is
what you are.
You may not believe that is what you are totalitarians never do, not until it is far too
late.
It
functions like a cult , totalitarianism. It creeps up on you, little by little, little lie
by little lie, accommodation by accommodation, rationalization by rationalization until one day
you find yourself taking orders from some twisted little narcissistic nihilist on a mission to
remake the entire world. You don't surrender to it all at once. You do it over the course of
weeks and months. Imperceptibly, it becomes your reality. You do not recognize that you are in
it, because everything you see is part of it, and everyone you know is in it except for the
others , who are not part of it. The "deniers." The "deviants." The "foreigners." The
"strangers." The "Covidiots." The "virus spreaders."
See, although the narratives and symbols may change, totalitarianism is totalitarianism. It
doesn't really matter which uniform it wears, or which language it speaks it is the same
abomination. It is an idol, a simulacrum of the hubris of man, formed from the clay of the
minds of the masses by megalomaniacal spiritual cripples who want to exterminate what they
cannot control. And what they want to control is always everything. Everything that reminds
them of their weakness and their shame. You. Me. Society. The world. Laughter. Love. Honor.
Faith. The past. The future. Life. Death. Everything that will not obey them.
Unfortunately, once this kind of thing gets started, and reaches the stage we are currently
experiencing, more often than not, it does not stop, not until cities lie in ruins or fields
are littered with human skulls. It might us take ten or twelve years to get there, but, make no
mistake, that's where we're headed, where totalitarianism is always headed if you don't believe
me, just ask the Germans.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing,
Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent
Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Governments are "tools" to accomplish things. The totalitarian Han Communist Party runs
the PRC in a way that the Democratic/Republican Party does not run the United States.
Totalitarians recognize no inherent limit on their 'authority' to act. Non-totalitarians do.
A totalitarian government is a better 'tool' to command lock step obedience to a central
authority because most of the population at large and ALL of the political population knows
what happens should the central command total authority be disobeyed or be seen to be
disobeyed.
So in a plague, war maybe, flooding, famine, fires, the totalitarians will be more
effective.
So what? In ordinary times I'd rather live under non-totalitarians because incarceration
for thought crime is vastly less frequent.
Totalitarianism is a 'good tool' for exceptional matters requiring "uniform and
disciplined" response. Under normal times its just another Third Reich.
Ask any Han who wishes to state a non-approved opinion; any Tibetan wishing to display a
photo of the Dalai Lama and any Muslim wishing to be orthodox. Why is it that you don't see
people illegally entering totalitarian Han Communist China? well except from an even worse
place North Korea. While millions want to "be" in the US? People vote with their feet. They
flee from the Totalitarians. They flee toward the US. Power to people feet.
"... His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy. ..."
Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off.
Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate.
Ike's a mystery. Why did he NOT question Harry Truman's commitments to NATO, the UN,
and all that rubbish? Ike was a WWII guy. He knew Americans hated the UN in 1953 as much as
they hated the League of Nations after WWI. But he let it all slide and get
bigger.
His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the
70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out."
Thanks buddy.
Well, agree on your points however, on the other side of the ledger, he never understood
the stupidity of the Korean war (that he could have ended) and majorly up-ramped CIA
activities in all manner of regime change (bay of pigs anyone?). Almost a direct path to our
foreign policy now (and now domestic policy)
'One may wonder: where was the German Left when Hitler's popularity increased amongst
Germany's Working class at a speed that puts Covid-19 to shame?
" The left was very much around and the combined electorate of communists and social
democrats exceeded in November 1932 that of the NSDAP. I cannot think of a single plausible
explanation for the rise in popularity of NSDA. As always and more probably, there was a
multitude of reasons, not easily identified then and now. My guess is that during the
economic collapse of Germany the citizens have lost patience with the left wing parties as
the communist and socialists did little, or perhaps could do little, to alleviate their
hardship. Then there was a novelty feature of the NSDAP and the belief or a hope that
nationalism could reduce the foreign interference in the affairs of Germany. Furthermore, the
legend of the "Dolchstoss" was steadily gaining in popularity with the increasingly distant
armistice of 1918. Feelings that "we were cheated" and dreams that Germany could be great
again were also on the rise. Finally, die NSDAP propaganda apparatus was much better at
identifying the "enemies" of the working classes and unemployed by pointing out the factual
dominance of the Jews in running the state.
@karel
hing. Basically, conservatives like von Papen thought the weakening of the Nazis and their
inexperience meant that they could be manipulated.
"The factual dominance of the Jews running the state" – they didn't. They had no
significant footing in the armed forces or the civil service in Germany. The Nazis called
Weimar the Judenrepublik but had it actually been so, they would have encountered more
resistance and less cooperation from state elements than they did. In reality, this was a
state that in the 1920s thought about deporting Hitler back to Austria (he did not gain
actual German citizenship until relatively late) but never did.
@Wielgus
cillations in support of one or another party are quite common in any system.
The perception that the Jews were running the state was overwhelming, whether you like it
or not. Most banks were in Jewish hands as well as large sections of the retail and textile
industry. Apparently, almost 80% of all lawyers were Jews. In fact, prior to the putsch in
1933, most Jews could be described as German nationalists. It is paradox that Jews in
Czechoslovakia were also leaning towards German nationalism. Czech speaking Jews were more
like rare exotic birds. The putsch in 1933 brought them to their senses and those who did not
emigrate started to learn Czech.
@Wielgus
Jewish intellectual, Kurt Eisner, and after his assassination, two other Jewish leaders,
Gustav Landauer and Eugen Levine, assumed positions of major influence in the "Raterepublik"
("Soviet" Republic"). Rosa Luxemburg, who was also assassinated, was a leader of the
revolutionary Spartakus- bund, which was one of the predecessors of the German Communist
party.
In the following years as well, Jews held major political posts, primarily in the leadership
of the democratic and socialist parties. The most prominent Jewish Political figure was
Walther Rathenau, who served first as minister for economic affairs and then as foreign
minister.
@Wielgus
"The factual dominance of the Jews running the state" – they didn't. They had no
significant footing in the armed forces or the civil service in Germany.
This is no different to current ZOG regimes now. Just because they are not the rank and file
in the military or the government paper pusher does not mean they are not in charge. What they
were in charge of was the cultural, financial and academic institutions, when you run these
things then you run everything. Luckily for Germany the military was not overrun by the
cuckservative types like in the US military is now, there were enough decent types that overthrew
the jew in their government.
Exactly a week after Esper was unceremoniously dismissed, the Pentagon
issued a notice to commanders to prepare to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan to
2,500, and to reduce the number of troops in Iraq to 2,500 by January 15.
Despite the dark rumors, Esper and his associates weren't fired because they failed to
assist Trump in a domestic military takeover, or because they were insufficiently loyal and
didn't grovel enough before the person of Donald Trump. The real reason for their dismissal is
simple: Esper didn't think U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan by Christmas. Trump
disagreed.
The commander in chief has "the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views" are
aligned with his own, as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. This hardly represents a
coup.
"The commander in chief has "the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views" are
aligned with his own, as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. This hardly represents a
coup."
It's a "coup", alright. A coup against the deep state. Long overdue, but better late than
never. President Trump giving The Swamp the middle finger one last time. And flushing out
warmonger Biden, daring him to show his true colors & re-escalate again. Checkmate.
It used to be that "it took a village to raise a child", and where I'm from at least this
was meant in a very literal sense: it took not only parents but other elders in the community
to impart the accumulated wisdom that instills pro-social, community-building values into
children, ensuring that it wasn't the sins, but rather the virtues of the elders that were
visited upon the children, even unto the seventh generation. The "village" has now largely
replaced parents and community elders with a dizzying, eclectic mix of social media
influencers, tv personalities, pseudo-thought leaders and an education system that's been
captured by our elites to instill their own preferred version of values into our
children.
The analogue with the "horizon of understanding" is that for most individuals, defining
what it represents has been outsourced to a dizzying mix of experts who are tasked with
creating and maintaining a national value system. In a world paralyzed by partisanship, each
side of the ideological divide has its own (bought and paid for) triangulated opinion of
experts to shape what people on each side come to believe is real. As the chances of creating
a harmonious, pro-social horizon of understanding are sacrificed at the altar of partisanship
and polarization, the disorientation and discomfort felt by most people as we navigate the
unfolding crises of our times is only going to increase.
It seems these days that we are simultaneously bombarded with information and opinions,
while also being herded into our ideological corners by unseen algorithms. I honestly don't
know what the long term consequences of this will be, but its hard to see good
outcomes.
Going forward, I suspect the unseen algorithms are going to be the most malign influence
in widening the divide, a sort of social herding at scale. On the subject of opinions, most
people, for better or worse, still defer to the opinions of experts on important matters, so
you can imagine what happens when expert opinion is drawn not from "mere" PMC hired guns but
from the upper, upper crust of the oligarchy, even the most independent thinkers are bound to
subject their deeply held perceptions/beliefs to a review, if for nothing else but to get in
early on a nascent bull market and profit from it.
To take an example, the early adopter set for bitcoin was for a long time made up of
hackers, criminals and other fringe players who dabbled out of curiosity. The professional
money management industry on the other hand took a dim view of the whole crypto thing,
disparaging it at every opportunity and making sure portfolio allocations to it were
extremely scarce at the best of times to non-existent every other time. Then came covid, and
along with that activist central banks printing unprecedented amounts of money to shore up
collapsing economies. With fiat currencies being devalued as a result, the previously
skeptical titans of fund management started talking up bitcoin as a store of value comparable
to gold, first Paul Tudor Jones, then Stan Druckenmiller, followed most recently by Bill
Miller. Granted there are still holdouts like Ray Dalio and Peter Schiff who haven't hopped
on to the bitcoin bandwagon but, along with the guys at Microstrategy also becoming fervent
evangelists, I suspect the pronouncements of these titans alone are enough to take bitcoin
mainstream as an asset class, volatility be damned. I'm not a crypto bull by any stretch but
the power of expert opinion raining down from the very top of the class hierarchy to move the
herd further down will remain undiminished for a while still, and if said opinion is
programmed into an algorithm, heaven help us all.
Reminds me of the old proverb " If it ain't broke don't fix it " while I believe that at
some point in time someone decided to come up with a money making child rearing manual which
started a flood of variations on that theme resulting in constant tinkering, which in my job
would be the equivalent of overworking clay.
Consider the structure of the term "common sense", which is just shared opinion. If there
is no common sense, there will be no common action.
The problem with coming together is that the ruling class divides and rules us as a normal
procedure of creating a class system. Nobody in the ruling class has a problem with this.
Their purpose in life is to reproduce the system of mass slavery and adapt it to present
conditions and they, being among the elect, are fine with this.
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald 'This is endlessly amazing: Brazil, a huge country, has nationwide municipal elections
today. Voting is mandatory. *All* votes will be counted & released by tonight.'
Ah, I see the problem here. The difference is that Brazil is a Third World nation that is
kept that way by morons such as Bolsanaro. America, on the other hand, is being turned into a
Third World nation because the elite is seeing a profit in doing so.
"... It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini. ..."
"... The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. ..."
"... The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. ..."
"... That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea. ..."
"... A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head. ..."
"... Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ ..."
"... I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world. ..."
"... The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other. ..."
"... "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way." ..."
"... Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state. ..."
Donald Trump was much troubled during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns by so-called conservatives who rallied behind the #NeverTrump
banner, presumably in opposition to his stated intention to end or at least diminish America’s role in wars in the Middle East and
Asia. Those individuals are generally described as neoconservatives but the label is itself somewhat misleading and they might more
properly be described as liberal warmongers as they are closer to the Democrats than the Republicans on most social issues and are
now warming up even more as the new Joe Biden Administration prepares to take office.
To be sure, some neocons stuck with the Republicans, to include the highly controversial Elliott Abrams, who initially opposed
Trump but is now the point man for dealing with both Venezuela and Iran. Abrams’ conversion reportedly took place when he realized
that the new president genuinely embraced unrelenting hostility towards Iran as exemplified by the ending of the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. John Bolton was also a neocon in the
White House fold, though he is now a frenemy having been fired by the president and written a book.
Even though the NeverTrumper neocons did not succeed in blocking Donald Trump in 2016, they have been maintaining relevancy by
slowly drifting back towards the Democratic Party, which is where they originated back in the 1970s in the office of the Senator
from Boeing Henry “Scoop” Jackson. A number of them started their political careers there, to include leading neocon Richard Perle.
It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is
now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini.
The transition has also
been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed
for the party’s failure in 2016. Given that mutual intense hostility to Trump, the doors to previously shunned liberal media outlets
have now opened wide to the stream of foreign policy “experts” who want to “restore a sense of the heroic” to U.S. national security
policy. Eliot A. Cohen and David Frum are favored contributors to the Atlantic while Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were together at
the New York Times prior to Weiss’s recent resignation.
Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in 2016 that “It is time for some moral straight
talk: Trump is evil incarnate,” is a frequent columnist for The Washington Post while both she and William Kristol appear regularly
on MSNBC.
The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and
everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia
serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. In the post-9/11 world, the neocon media’s leading publication The Weekly Standard
virtually invented the concept of “Islamofascism” to justify endless war in the Middle East, a development that has killed millions
of Muslims, destroyed at least three nations, and cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 trillion. The Israel connection has also resulted
in neocon support for an aggressive policy against Russia due to its involvement in Syria and has led to repeated calls for the U.S.
to attack Iran and destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Eastern Europe, neocon ideologues have aggressively sought “democracy promotion,”
which, not coincidentally, has also been a major Democratic Party foreign policy objective.
The neocons are involved in a number of foundations, the most prominent of which is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
(FDD), that are funded by Jewish billionaires. FDD is headed by Canadian Mark Dubowitz and it is reported that the group takes direction
coming from officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Other major neocon incubators are the American Enterprise Institute,
which currently is the home of Paul Wolfowitz, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John Hopkins University.
The neocon opposition has been sniping against Trump over the past four years but has been biding its time and building new alliances,
waiting for what it has perceived to be an inevitable regime change in Washington.
That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy
agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create
in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland.
Robert was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president
and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by
Trump. His wife Victoria Nuland is perhaps better known. She was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government
of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election.
Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support
to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies
on the square to encourage the protesters.
A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents
in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget,
but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she
and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp
break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.
And, to be sure, beyond regime change in places like Ukraine, President Barack Obama was no slouch when it came to starting actual
shooting wars in places like Libya and Syria while also killing people, including American citizens, using drones. Biden appears
poised to inherit many former Obama White House senior officials, who would consider the eager-to-please neoconservatives a comfortable
fit as fellow foot soldiers in the new administration. Foreign policy hawks expected to have senior positions in the Biden Administration
include Antony Blinken, Nicholas Burns, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Samantha Power and, most important of all the hawkish Michele
Flournoy, who has been cited as a possible secretary of defense. And don’t count Hillary Clinton out. Biden is reportedly getting
his briefings on the Middle East from Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who now lives in the Jewish state and is reportedly
working for an Israeli government supported think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.
Nowhere in Biden’s possible foreign policy circle does one find anyone who is resistant to the idea of worldwide interventionism
in support of claimed humanitarian objectives, even if it would lead to a new cold war with major competitor powers like Russia and
China. In fact, Biden himself appears to embrace an extremely bellicose view on a proper relationship with both Moscow and Beijing
“claiming that he is defending democracy against its enemies.” His language is unrelenting, so much so that it is Donald Trump who
could plausibly be described as the peace candidate in the recently completed election, having said at the Republican National Convention
in August “Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing their dreams and the dreams of American workers, offshoring their jobs,
opening their borders and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars, wars that never ended.”
It should be noted that the return of "neocons" does not mean the return of people like Wolfowitz, Ladeen, Feith, Kristol who
are more "straussian" than "liberal/internationalist", but those like Nuland, Rice, Sam Powell, Petraeus, Flournoy, heck even
Hilary Clinton as UN Ambassador who are CFR-type liberal interventionist than pure military hawks such as Bolton or Mike Flynn.
These liberal internationalists, as opposed to straussian neocons, will intervene in collaboration with EU/NATO/QUAD (i.e. multilaterally)
in the name upholding human rights and toppling authoritarianism, rather than for oil, WMDs, or similar concrete objectives. In
very simple terms, the new Biden administration's foreign policy will be none other than the return to "endless wars" for nation-building
purposes first and last.
The name Kagan is the Russianized version of the name Cohen. He was going to be McCain's NSA had he been elected. They pulled
a stunt with the Bush admin to make Obama look weak by pushing Georgia into war with Russia in 2008. Sakaasvili, the president
of Georgia, was literally eating his own tie:
A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy
goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors
feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head.
I don't think they have that much influence. They pushed a lot of nonsense in the late 70/early 80s about how the Taliban were
George Washingtons and here we are today, they're worst than the Comanche. The last time I saw Richard Perle make a TV appearance,
he was crying like a baby. Robert Novak, the prince of darkness, was a Ron Paul supporter. The only ones really kicking around
are Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, but Kristol was almost alone when he was talking about putting 50,000 boots on the ground
in Syria. Rubin is a harpie who only got crazier and crazier. Kagan had his foot in the door with Hillary only because of his
wife. Those two might get back in with Biden on Ukraine, but Biden would do well to keep them at a distance.
I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present
in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist
foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world.
It seems now that there is a new breed of neocons, unified by opposition to Trump's messaging, but not much else. Odd to find
people like Samantha Power, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, and Paul Wolfowitz marching together in perfect step.
A good perspective by Philip Weiss on the same subject. Eliot A Cohen must be communicating a lot with the Kagan brothers ,
Dennis Ross and Perle to see who can be parachuted either to the WH or Foggy Bottom.
I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology
The revolutionary spirit (see E. Michael Jones' work). From communism to neoconservatism it's ultimately an attack on the Beatitudes
and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. "The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war" -- Servant of God Dorothy Day
I hold the Cold Warriors like Scoop a species distinct from those of the post-USSR era. The current version started at the
end of the cold war. We felt like kings of the world after Gulf War 1 and the shoe seemed to fit.
The HW Bush administration pondered how best to use this power for good. I've read some things which report there was a debate
within the administration on whether to clean up Yugoslavia or Somalia first. They got Ron to "do the honors" for the invasion
of Somalia at Oxford: About 20 minutes in.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?35586-1/arising-ashes-world-order
That was played as part of the pep-talk on the Juneau off the coast of Somalia. Stirring stuff.
In some small way I never stopped sipping that Kool Aid. It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you
have the power to stop it...or think you do. Time will tell if the Neocons are capable of perceiving the limits of force. Certainly
had some hard lessons in the last few decades.
Hogs lining up for a spot at the trough? The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other.
I think its generally shocking that Trump or the republicans didn't make a bigger issue of Biden's history of supporting disastrous
intervention, especially his Iraq War vote. Maybe they felt like its not a winning issue, that they would lose as many votes as
they gain by appearing more isolationist. But overall, Trump favoring diplomacy over cruise missiles should have been a bigger point in his favor in the election.
It is distressing to read that we will have people in the government who are looking for a fight. That is especially true in
view of China's aggression in recent years and the responses we will have to make to that. I think we will have more than enough
to do to handle China. What do the neocons want to do about China?
Here is an article about China that really startled me and made me realize how much of a threat is was becoming. The Air Force
chief of staff talks about the challenges of countries trying to compete militarily with us in ways that have not occurred for
awhile. Here are two quotes that really got me:
"Tomorrow's Airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments, and must be prepared to fight through combat
attrition rates and risks to the nation that are more akin to the World War II era than the uncontested environments to which
we have since become accustomed," Brown writes."
And
"Wargames and modeling have repeatedly shown that if the Air Force fails to adapt, there will be mission failure, Brown warns.
Rules-based international order may "disintegrate and our national interests will be significantly challenged," according to the
memo."
The article doesn't say we will have another arms race but that is an obvious response to China's competition with us. I thought
all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it. I don't want another period of foreign entanglements, period. We still
haven't paid for the War Against Terrorism. I look into the future and all I see is us racking up bills that we have no ability
to pay. And then there is the human cost of all this, I don't want to even think about that.
Snouts in the trough accounts for a certain amount of neocons, I'm sure. There is, however, a unifying vision beyond that which
puzzles me, given the very different political orientations of various neocons. Neocons are found in academia and the media as
well. Those types are less dependent on taxpayer dollars in exchange for their views (they'll get whatever tax money gets pushed
their way in grants, etc regardless).
I find Polish Janitor's "straussian" and "liberal/internationalist" flavors of neocon intriguing, as I hadn't considered that
before.
COL Lang's quote from Plato reminds me of another (from Cormac McCarthy): "It makes no difference what men think of war, said
the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The
ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All
that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state.
I concur with your thoughts about standing by as evil occurs. We just have a habit of jumping into complex situations we don't
understand, and making things worse. I suspect you feel the same way.
The military misadventures during my career (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) were marked by our own black and white
thinking. The more successful adventures (Colombia, Nepal) were marked by our appreciation (to a certain extent) of the complex
nature of the environments we were getting involved in...and the fact that we weren't involved in nation-building in the latter
two locales. There were viable governments in place, and we weren't trying to replace them.
Here is another Biden clip that should have been exploited too - way back when - when the media was a little more trusted,
but no less pompous. However, Biden The Plagerizer had it coming.
Though I am warming more and more to Trump Media becoming the real soul of America. Plus someone, in time. will need to pick
up Rush Limbaugh's empire. America needs a counter-weight to fake news more than it needs the keys to the White House, with all
its entangling webs, palace intrigues, chains and pitfalls.
Godspeed President Trump. If someone with as few talents s Biden can rise like Lazarus, just think what you can do with your
little finger. No wonder the Democrats want Trump destroyed; not just defeated in a re-election. We have your back, Mr President.
Are the people of America up for another arms race and a more or less cold war with China? I think the Chinese will give us
a lot more trouble than the Soviets ever did.
And yet we allow their students to come here and learn all we know and their elites to bring their dirty money here and we
give them green cards and citizenship and protect the money they took from the Chinese people. Not so smart on our part.
What is the next theater of war that Biden's new friends will involve us in? I noticed lots of Cold War era conflicts are heating
up lately, Ethiopia Morocco Armenia being recent examples. IS in Syria/Iraq is still castrated due to the continued mass internment
of their population base in the dozens of camps, but they have established thriving franchises in Africa and their other provinces
continue to smolder.
"... Obviously the 2016 elections were just as rigged and choreographed (despite backfiring dramatically) as the most recent one, but who could have done the choreography? What organization could get the "Operation Mockingbird" mass media to sing in chorus? What organization that is deeply intertwined with the State Department that Clinton was the head of also has long-running plans like color revolution preparations, proxy wars, and covert actions around the globe that would greatly benefit from a seamlessly smooth transition of imperial figureheads? ..."
"The seeds of this scheme were planted several months prior to the 2016 election when
Hillary Clinton authorized a smear campaign against Trump..." --quoted by our host
above.
In other words, this was initiated during the primaries, at which point Trump even being
allowed to be a candidate in the general election was inconceivable. How could the Clinton
campaign have known that the corporate mass media would be giving Trump hundreds of $millions
in free advertising at that point? How could the Clinton campaign have known that the joke
candidate could beat out serious career politicians? How could the Clinton campaign have
known so early they would be facing off against the Great Orange Ogre in the general?
Obviously the 2016 elections were just as rigged and choreographed (despite backfiring
dramatically) as the most recent one, but who could have done the choreography? What
organization could get the "Operation Mockingbird" mass media to sing in chorus? What
organization that is deeply intertwined with the State Department that Clinton was the head
of also has long-running plans like color revolution preparations, proxy wars, and covert
actions around the globe that would greatly benefit from a seamlessly smooth transition of
imperial figureheads?
That would be the same organization that thinks crickets in Cuba are Soviet brain rays
damaging its operatives' soft and fragile minds, so it really is no surprise that they
screwed the pooch with their "brilliant plan" in 2016. They only managed to regain
control of the imperial figurehead position in 2020 by using banana republic election fraud.
Fortunately they have a lot of practice with that kind of work and they have Big Tech and the
corporate mass media fully on board to help. It is quite obvious that they would have failed
again otherwise.
Basically, we can take some comfort from the gross incompetence that the CIA has had on
display for many years now.
Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee by Republican National Committee
chairman Reince Priebus on May 3.
In April 2016, an attorney for Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC hired Fusion GPS
to investigate Trump. In June 2016, Fusion GPS subcontracted Steele's firm to compile the
dossier.
"The majority of Trump's recent tweets are currently censored. I don't care how
misleading or even false they are. That's not for Twitter to arbitrate. People cheering this
power-grab by unelected tech officials are authoritarian dupes" --quoted by our host
There is a shorter word for "authoritarian dupes" . It is "fascist" .
"Sure, we'll have fascism in this country, and we'll call it anti-fascism" " --Huey
Long
The US is essentially another colony to the multinationals who can set up domiciles in tax
havens, bribe politicians to enact favorable laws, and lobby for spending to enrich
themselves. That's the reality, not the liberals versus conservatives. They also have the
benefit of an unelected body that can enrich them through printing money which gives them
more power to stop other fiscal stimulus. It's evident in much of the world where this is
going on in the West. It is a variation of the Economic Shock Therapy applied by the West,
except that the oligarchs are spared from the economic shock.
The transcript of the Michael Hudson-Paul Jay podcast is now available here . Yes,
it's a long read with much being a rehash of his many previous interviews. IMO, his newest
most important point is the need for a revamped Constitution:
"Let's get back to fascism because that's very important. Around the time that Roosevelt
made that comment [1938], Trotsky analyzed fascism in Germany and Italy, and he said that
fascism is what occurred when the socialists don't have a solution to the problems.
"I think we are indeed emerging in that kind of fascism today because you don't have the
left or the progressive interests really coming up with a solution to the problems. And
that's because the only kind of solution is so radical that it can't be solved within the
existing political framework and the existing legal framework. There has to be the equivalent
of a revolution. [If] It's not going to be an anti-fascist revolution; then it'll be a
fascist revolution. What we're seeing is that kind of a slow revolution....
"Now and all throughout Europe, it was the upper house of government, the House of Lords,
or the Senate that tried to block any kind of reform, not only leading to socialism, but that
helped capitalism. There had to be a political revolution strengthening the House of Commons
relative to the House of Lords. And that occurred in 1909-10 in England. Now, here you're
going to have a similar constitutional crisis in order to do the socialist policies that you
mentioned. The crisis is not only because there's federalism in the United States, states'
rights that are written in the Constitution, to have an economy that can rescue the American
industry, and rescue the American working class, you need to rewrite the Constitution.
"But the efforts to make plans for a constitutional convention have all been done by the
ultra-right, by the Federalist Society, and by the people that you and I have made fun of for
many years. And I don't see any movement on the left to say the situation is so serious
that we need a radical rewrite of the Constitution in order to become really a parliamentary
democracy that can provide the political context in order to introduce socialist policies
."[My Emphasis]
He's correct. When you have a Bernie Sanders being equated with Leftism, then you have no
Left.
I'm not going to flog this particular horse to death, because, at this stage, if you are
still seriously arguing that Trump is The New Hitler™ then there is no reasoning with
you, but one of the innumerable differences between Trump's Republican Party and Hitler's Nazi
Party (and Mussolini's Fascist Party etc.) was that the Nazis and Fascists were the 'New Kids
on the Block'. In other words they are outsiders trying to 'break in' to the existing
structure, usually with the help of massive ( non-state ) violence. And they were led by
young, angry men, who bitterly resented the Establishment and simply demanded that they be
allowed to lead (cf the fact that European fascists and Nazis invariably came to power after
WW1: the view, common at the time, that this was a war when old men had led young men to their
deaths, is highly significant here).
The American Republican Party on the other hand, is going on 200 years old, and is led by
complacent, tired, wealthy old men. They are the Establishment.
The only way round this problem for those insisting that the United States, one of the
oldest and most stable of all the Western Republics/democracies, now stands quivering on the
verge of tyranny/civil war, is to claim that Trump is a radical, fundamentally different force
in Western politics, that Trumpism has practically no antecedents (apart from Hitler etc.) and
that Trump has radically and fundamentally transformed the Republican Party into something
radically new.
Which is .obviously not true. There is little that Trump has done that Romney would not have
done, most of Romney's supporters are also Trump's, and the amount of violence that Trump has
unleashed (and the vast majority of this is state violence not non-state a huge difference
between Trump and the Nazis) pales into insignificance when compared to what Bush Sr. did in
similar circumstances, let alone LBJ/Nixon.
Far from terrifying the Establishment, Trump is openly ridiculed by it on late night TV
(and, increasingly, daytime TV), and his inchoate and half-assed 'revolt' against Republican
shibboleths has long since petered out: Trump now governs as a standard Republican, no ifs,
ands or buts. You just need to ask yourself: what policy pronouncements has Trump made recently
that Romney would not have made? The answer is that there are none. Romney might have managed
Covid a bit better. That's it.
In any case, as has been tirelessly pointed out, there is simply no equivalent in the US
Constitution for a 'total' Enabling Act of the kind that Hitler used. As Corey also points out,
to describe the Nazi coup as 'constitutional' is a very big stretch: Hitler had murdered no
small number of his political opponents by the time of a 'vote' which met no one's idea of
'free and fair'.
tl;dr The Republicans do not and will never rebel against the Establishment. They are
the Establishment. Those who deny this are essentially arguing that the Republicans will
overthrow themselves.
ph 10.23.20 at 7:49 am (no link)
Welcome back, Corey and congrats on the piece.
@24 You're right. The idea that literally a fascist would permit his government, his
supporters, family, and himself to be mocked on halloween pumpkins (some of these are great),
on SNL, by late-night comedians, on the front page of the press and by a very substantial
percentage of the population doesn't say much for his authoritarian credentials.
Re: the OP and New Yorker piece. Plenty of Dems are just as conservative as Republicans
depending on the issue. Nor, do the older distinctions of conservative/liberal apply –
if they ever did.
Reform act politicians and those after were much of a kind – branding various forms
of sexist and elitist capitalism to appeal to a wealthy minority of like-minded bigots. The
issues were opportunities to exploit sinecures and alliances, utterly un-related to any sense
of the public good.
So, what do we get in 2020? At the end of the final debate we saw exactly the kind of
choice we'd expect to see from any Republican and any Democrat of the modern era. Biden
offered big government, higher taxes, and better equality of outcome. Trump warned that
electing the Democrat would make the country less safe and send the economy over the
cliff.
Based on the Frank Luntz independents post-debate response, Corey's sound analysis of the
GOP electoral college strengths, and Biden's weakness among African-American males, in
particular, my current call is a Trump electoral college victory similar to that in 2016, and
a similar loss in the popular vote. Biden didn't do himself any favors tonight by taking a
hard stance on getting rid of fossil fuels. Winning Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania just took a
big hit.
The Luntz independents also wanted to know why the media has suddenly stopped talking
about Biden's Burisma email problem – now that actual evidence has surfaced. RUSSIA DID
IT AGAIN!!!! didn't get much traction with this particular group.
Biden succeeded in looking like the same polished, lifeless, pol from the past who voters
know so well, and who does so little to win their support, especially when he's on the media
loves to call Biden's 'A' game. He presented himself as the only professional politician on
stage: slippery, defensive, and evasive. In doing so, Biden convinced the independent voters
Luntz polled to choose Trump over Biden by a large majority.
From the Luntz group: "Words to describe Trump tonight: • "Controlled" •
"Reserved" • "Poised" • "Con artist" • "Surprisingly presidential"
Words to describe Biden tonight: • "Vague" • "Unspecific" • "Elusive"
• "Defensive" • "Grandfatherly"
Today's GOP stool consists of the the Plutocrats, the Theocrats, and the Yahoos. Bush the
Lesser won by being a Chimera of the three; Trump is a Plutocrat who bought off the Theocrats
and made himself King of the Yahoos.
1) Everyone is totally engaged in a debate over whether or not Donald Trump is a "fascist."
Maybe he is. But, as I've pointed out in a previous diary , it's a weird sort of
fascism that allows people the same freedom of speech and freedom of political action that they
would have if Donald Trump were not President, and which in fact
celebrates freedom . And indeed it is true that Donald Trump has shown what William
I. Robinson calls "fascist tendencies." Robinson, for his part, projects "21st-century
fascism" into the future. But, honestly, if this were 20th-century fascism, the type that
actually came to fruition as fascism , you would not be reading this diary right now
because it would have been censored out of existence. The state would be busy reimposing Jim
Crow, and denying women rights in the manner specified in The Handmaid's Tale . It would have
abolished democracy altogether, in a way that would prohibit those yelling the word "fascist"
the loudest from voting him out of power. It took Adolf Hitler less than two months to establish a
permanent dictatorship; Donald Trump has had four years at the pinnacle of power and does not
appear to be even
close to having the powers Der Fuhrer had. There is, by the way, a term for the ongoing
dictatorship at the heart of our situation, the dictatorship that has persisted before Trump
and during Trump and will persist after Trump; it's called "inverted totalitarianism," and it
pervades the writings of Sheldon Wolin . Yet we are all obliged to
call Trump a "fascist," in a sort of mandatory panic.
Saner voices have seen Donald Trump for what he is: an asshole and a troll. Yeah, let's vote
him out of office, because who the f*ck likes being trolled? But those voices do not win the
day, because there is nothing grandiose about not wanting to be trolled, nothing earth-shaking
about saying "gee, aren't you tired of Trump's trolling of us? Let's get rid of him because
he's a pest." There is also, I suppose, the attempts to abolish the Postal Service, privatize
the public schools, and destroy the EPA. I put this stuff under "pest" because it's not clear
that the Republicans under Biden won't try to do these same things under the radar. ("Under the
radar," here, means "out of MSNBC's visual range.") The nice liberals with big egos thus appear
immature for not being able to admit their (and indeed our) quotidian motive behind
their (and indeed our) hatred of Trump.
2) The nice liberals with big egos are going to "
Dump Trump, Then Battle Biden ." But there really is no precedent for the nice liberals
with big egos actually taking on the party they've put so much energy into supporting so far,
as against those evil Republicans. Is there going to be some point at which the nice liberals
with big egos all say "okay, the Republicans are no longer worse, so you all have our
permission to battle Biden"? It's easy to be skeptical about promises to do something that has
never happened before, and that, given the way the system is set up, won't be likely to happen.
The nice liberals with big egos need a contingency plan for when their vows to "battle Biden"
do not reach audiences, and when the Biden administration tells us all "what are you going to
do, vote Republican?". Such a plan would start, but not end, with the Movement for a People's Party .
3) The nice liberals with big egos still can't admit to the great forfeiture of Democratic
Party power that happened under Obama. All branches of the Federal government, 12 governor's
seats, and 900+
seats in state legislatures , from (D) to (R). It was the primary event of politics in this
century, and it escapes their notice. When confronted with its reality, their explanations are
lame to the point of not being credible. Come on, folks -- Obama preferred a party which didn't
fight for anything YOU believed in, and all the while you were worshiping the ground upon which
he walked. Admit it!
4) The nice liberals with big egos insist upon vast overestimates of the power of the Left
in a situation in which the Left really has damned little in the way of any power at all. The
Left had a lot of potential power in those two short periods in which Bernie Sanders was
running for President. You could hear the conversations opening up -- Medicare for All, College
for All, the Green New Deal. Okay, so let's go back to that atmosphere, and really put some
enthusiasm into it. Or at the very least let's start with a realistic estimate of the power we
have, and of the extent to which we've squandered that power by supporting neoliberals like
Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Clinton Two.
So there it is. If the nice liberals with big egos want to restore my confidence in them,
there's where they can start.
I agree with all you points PO, rather those complaining about Russia are throwing a bunch
of contradictory self-serving and ultimately emotional accusations and complaints that
very much echo western foreign policy after the Cold War of Do Something, regardless
of how dumb, damaging and even making the situation much worse for those who they supposedly
are claiming to help. DO SOMETHING! My response is 'WTF don't YOU do something
youselves ? Put your body, blood and mind on the line if you really care so much
rather than typing on a keyboard thousands of miles away in great comfort. Keyboard warrior
wankers!
Those actually running the west aren't much different which is why they go for the easy
option of flying above 20,000ft and dropping bombs rather than sending very large numbers of
troops to hold ground and have a quick result. Why? Because they are afraid of bodybags and
how they might look. That is the crux. They're more afraid being turned against by the
electorate so 'easy solutions' that look good but don't deliver are the order of the day.
They just can't stand the real cost or be courageous enough to spell it out to the public
that their words if taken at face value means quite a lot of death. It doesn't sell.
I don't understand the current situation in full context but it seems that Armenian
leadership has whored themselves to Western interest. And the whore-wanabe's pictured above
are eager to sell their souls as well.
Russia's take may be to let Armenia face consequences of that decision to align with the
Western empire. And, it will be up to the Armenian population to remove the leadership that
chose Western allegiance if they so chose.
Russian leadership (showing great wisdom in my opinion) shuns imposition of
the-right-thing-to-do on a population that is too lazy or too fearful or too accommodating of
a whoring leadership. Russia has learned its lesson about helping other nations at great
expense to itself and then expecting gratitude or loyalty. As noted by others, the only
nation to do such has been Serbia.
The above Russian strategy is likely predicated on the belief that the Western empire is
wobbly and nearing the tipping point. Russian leadership appears to have concluded that it
now time to disconnect Russia from the Western economic system to escape the coming
calamity.
MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Moscow will provide all necessary assistance to Yerevan in
accordance with the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the two
countries, if hostilities spill over to Armenia's territory, the Russian Foreign Ministry
said in a statement on Friday.
I am sure word will soon arrive here from Finland about this matter, namely about what
Russia should do but, as a result of its inherent weakness, most certainly will not do.
You may find things different by mid-November, as Armenia has – allegedly –
formally asked for Russian help. Here's a particularly pithy and realistic quote;
"In the modern world, you must either have your own heavily armed army combined with a
strong economy that can support it, or you must be friends with those who have it (here's a
hint, either Russia or China, because we see the results of Pashinyan and Lukashenko's
friendship with Europe and the US online today). The usual liberal mantras of
"Russia-Armenia-Belarus have no enemies" are good exactly as long as you are not attacked in
reality, and not on the Internet or in the media. And no assurances of American and European
friendship will save you. You'll be lucky if they don't take you apart themselves."
Remember when Pashinyan was elected, and the protests which swept him to power? Remind you
of anybody? Poroshenko, maybe? Not to suggest Pashinyan is a powerful oligarch – to all
appearances he is not. But he came to power by the same mechanisms – playing public
naivety like a violin, quoting hopeful citizens who really believe a different face is the
magic bullet which will blow away corruption, and receiving the benevolent blessing of the
west that the election was just as fair as fair could be. It always is, so long as the
western-preferred candidate gets 'elected'.
"Historically, Armenia's elections have been marred by fraud and vote-buying.
However, international observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe said the elections had respected fundamental freedoms and were characterised by
genuine competition."
You'd think that kind of boilerplate would have lost its power to make me laugh, but by
God, it still tickles me; "characterised by genuine competition" – oh, 'pon my word,
yes! You, like others, may have noticed by now that all it takes in certain countries to
eliminate any possibility of 'genuine competition' is advance polls which indicate the
western-disliked incumbent will win easily. That's how the people plan to vote, but that
counts for nothing – it's only 'genuine competition' if there is a realistic
possibility the west's man (or woman) will get in, and the more likely that looks to happen,
damned if the competition does not get more genuine. Nobody seems to notice that the
'competition' reaches the very zenith of 'genuineness' just about the time nobody has a
chance of holding off a landslide win by the preferred candidate.
I think by now everybody who reads here knows how I feel about it; you can't really blame
the west and its media outlets for behaving the way they do. The western countries are mostly
run by wealthy venture capitalists, and what wealthy venture capitalists like best is
acquiring and controlling more wealth. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Even when
western venture capitalists are dead altruistic and benevolent, what they want is for more
wealth and capital to be acquired and controlled by the country to whom they feel the most
sentimental attachment, so that a few of their countrymen might do all right out of their
maneuvering as well – these are the people who come to be regarded as
'philanthropists', like George Soros. But generally they are mostly in it for themselves.
No, what I find the most objectionable is the veneer of holier-than-though goodness which
always covers western exploitation ops. They always have to pretend like a smash-and-grab
crime is some kind of fucking religious moment just because it is they who are doing it, as
if they bring rectitude to even the most blatant self-interest. When the truth of the matter
is that what the powerful do not give even the tiniest trace of a fuck about – Locard
himself could not detect it – is what life is going to be like afterward for the
average citizen in the country targeted for exploitation by changing its leadership. You
know, the ones jumping up and down in Independence Square (there's always an Independence
Square), or walking around with big dumb grins on their faces as if they have just felt the
planet shift under their feet.
It's worth mentioning here that the period during which the west – led, of course,
by the United States and its government/venture-capital institutions – was the most
optimistic about Russia was the moment when it looked like a class of wealthy venture
capitalists was going to take over the running of what was left of the Soviet Union; the
Khodorkovskys and the Berzovskys and the Abramovitches. The wealthy Boyars who, albeit they
spoke a different language, really spoke the same language to the letter as their western
counterparts.
And the official western perspective on Russia made an abrupt turn to the South, and grew
progressively grimmer, the more evident it became that that was not going to happen.
"Venture capitalists" may not be the most accurate terminology for those who run the West.
There are a lot of old power blocks including the Vatican, the British royals, Zionists and
other groups who get along well enough not to openly attack each other but will protect their
particular areas of dominance. Their glue are narcissistic/messianic beliefs of their right
to rule humanity. There may be deeper and murkier layers in the ruling hierarchy. I say
"ruling" but their rule is only to the degree that we do not care enough to resist.
The interesting thing is that these demonic forces are nearly entirely of a Western
origin. Is there a genetic factor that has become concentrated in the ruling elites? Some
other self-propagating driver of their beliefs?
I do believe that Russia and China are sorting and identifying the real actors in the
Western ruling elites.
A very interesting and thought-provoking reply. I think we must be careful to not just
'study it, judiciously as you will', while 'history's actors' reshape reality around us.
It seems to me that whatever the behavior of Armenia, Russia is still expected to
protect/save christians in the region regardless of all the s/t that is thrown at them and
particularly knowing the blood thirsty history of Az/turcoman/whatever behavior against
Armenians.
There is a point here as Russia presents itself as the leader of the Orthodox Christian
world it is its actual duty to rise above (pthe etty nasty s/t) and protect christendom in
the hood regardless
But, and as we all know, the having the cake and eat it crowd has only but expanded, most
notably those who are pro-west. They are owed it and thus they demand it as they are
considered and have been told that they are a cut above the rest. It's the same western
'benefit of the doubt' that allows its intellectuals to support successive foreign policy
adventures that have ended in catastrophic failure but even worse left those that they
pledged to help in a much worse position.
I also think that in this case most people really do not know that Armenia is run by a
pro-western government. It's not exactly hot news. And its still not widely reported let
alone. After all, the western media is not exorciating Washington, Berlin, Paris and London
for doing f/k all to help Armenia. They've been mostly silent. No need to point out yet again
that the west picks and choses which countries/territories to carve up in contravention of
long standing international law, and which others it strictly abides by, in this case
Nagorno-Karabakh.
This may well be in part of being stung by the highly successful and bloodless return of
the Crimea to Russia which was done in line with international law regardless of western
protestations. It really put their carving off Kosovo by extreme violence in an very bad
light by comparison and cannot be denied any longer as 'not a precedent' if they claim Russia
took over Crimea illegally. The West has really tied itself in to a gordian knot at the
international and state level despite doing its best to ignore it at home. The rest of the UN
members don't buy it in the least.
So back to the beginning, who to blame? Russia is the easiest target. Surely not the west
who is also selling weapons to Azerbaidjan, buys its gas and give the dictatorship a free
pass. And even less so i-Sreal selling weapons, another people that has suffered the fate of
genocide. No. Russia has to do something!
And, or, is it also their argument that despite 'Russia not respecting international law'
that in this case it is an 'exception' (but not a 'precedent' (!)) and their failure to do so
is inexcusable? It really is the most gigantic load of bollocks.
Just a few points – Russia's defense of Christendom may be limited to Orthodoxy as
the rest are spinoffs or spinoffs of spinoffs. Christian religious values in the west hardly
resemble core Christian values so why should Russia give a damn about protecting such
Christians? If the Armenia Orthodox church is comfortable with, if not endorsing, LGBT? life
styles, then they would likely be considered as non-Christian. I do not know if the forgoing
is the case; just discussing implications.
Russia will fulfill its obligations to defend Armenia from armed attack. However, once
Azerbaijan has gotten what it wants, there will be no incentive for an attack on Armenia and
especially so considering the dire consequences of a Russian military response.
I remember when my wife asked an old priest here after our youngest's christening into the
ROC if we could get wed in said church. He told her we couldn't because I wasn't a
Christian.
She begged to differ, but he insisted that I was a heretic and would have to baptized
according to ROC rights and after having had ROC catechism lessons.
He was right too and twofold: (i) all "Christian" faiths are heresies, aberrations of the
true, correct liturgy as passed on from the apostles and (ii) I am a heretic of a pagan
nature.
I have a soft spot for pagan beliefs as well. There are nonphysical entities that we
interact, mostly without awareness, on a daily basis. No big deal, we just need to be mindful
of such realities to better understand why things happen the way they do. The Woke folks
could not possibly understand such, being isolated in their hall-of-mirrors tight little
self-contained world of self-importance with the firm conviction that they are the be-all and
end-all. A peasant toiling in the fields or a kid in the slums understand reality better the
the Wokest of the Woke. Am I serious? I don't know.
There's a report the other day that China's massive planting of trees is estimated to soak
up to 35% of the carbon dioxide it produces industrially. The data comes from ground level
station, satellite and other sources.
Which leads me to this question. If farmers (in u-Rope) are now being paid not to grow
food, then wtf not just plant forests of trees that can also be farmed and managed? Is it
because it is too easy and there's not much profit in it?
Trees are central to Germanic paganism. How can one not respect a tree such as the mighty
oak that is at least 500 years old when mature and may live for 1,000 years and more? Such
living things interact with us -- of course, they do, if "only" in the maintainance of an
ecological balance of the gas that is necessary for our existence.
That bastard Charles "the Great" of the Franks waged relentless war for over 30 years
against the Saxons (not the "Anglo-Saxons, but my kinfolk in what is now Lower saxony in
Germany) because of their refusal to accept Christianity.
Too right they didn't, for they knew full that if they had, the would have fallen under
the thrall of the person who styled himself as emperor of the Western Roman Empire that had
fallen into dissolution some 300 years earlier, which reborn "Roman Empire" had as its state
religion Christianity -- Roman Christianity that is, and its emperor, much later styled as
the "Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation", was guess who? That's right, Charles the
Great/Carolus Magnus/ Karl der Grosse/Charlemagne.
One of Charles' favourite tricks in subduing the Saxons was making public spectacles of
hacking down their "holy" trees or " Irminsul . After one victory against rebellious
Saxon pagans whose lands the Franks had invaded, Charles had them all baptised -- then had
them beheaded, all 4,500 of them!
Einhard, Charlemagne's biographer, said on the closing of the conflict:
The war that had lasted so many years was at length ended by their acceding to the
terms offered by the King; which were renunciation of their national religious customs and
the worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion, and
union with the Franks to form one people.
So the Saxons started eating small pieces of bread that they were to believe was god,
which is far more reasonable than believing that trees and rivers and forests and storms were
worthy of their respect.
Right! I'm off to my holy grove in order to pay my respects to Woden.
Okay, you've baited me (love to spend more time here but I do appreciate the occasional
glance and many great comments and discussions)
"But veneration is inherent in the human breast. Presently mankind, emerging from
intellectual infancy, began to detect absurdity in creation without a Creator, in effects
without causes. As yet, however, they did not dare to throw upon a Single Being the whole
onus of the world of matter, creation, preservation, and destruction. Man, instinctively
impressed by a sense of his own unworthiness, would hopelessly have attempted to conceive the
idea of a purely Spiritual Being, omnipotent and omnipresent.
Awestruck by the admirable phenomena and the stupendous powers of Nature, filled with a
sentiment of individual weakness, he abandoned himself to a flood of superstitious fears, and
prostrated himself before natural objects, inanimate as well as animate. Thus comforted by
the sun and fire, benefited by wind and rain, improved by hero and sage, destroyed by wild
beasts, dispersed by convulsions of Nature, he fell into a rude, degrading, and *cowardly
Fetissism*, the *faith of fear*, and *the transition state from utter savagery to
barbarism*."
• "The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam" by Richard Francis Burton
You'd think that voting Republican would be an easy decision if you work on Wall Street,
especially given the lower taxes and the removal of burdensome regulations. But Democrats have
entangled themselves so deeply in the web of Wall Street, that the industry is now leaning to
the left, according to a new report from
Reuters .
The Center for Responsive Politics took a look at how the industry, and its employees, break
down for the 2020 election cycle.
It has been obvious that Democratic candidate Joe Biden has been outpacing President Trump
when it comes to fundraising, and this is also true of "winning cash from the banking
industry," Reuters notes.
Biden's campaign has been the beneficiary of $3 million from commercial banks, compared to
the $1.4 million Trump has raised. This is a far skew from 2012, where Mitt Romney was able to
raise $5.5 million from commercial banks, while Barack Obama only raised $2 million. In 2012,
Wall Street banks were among the top five contributors to Romney' campaign.
In 2020, campaign contributions to congressional races from Wall Street banks are about
even. Republicans have raised $14 million while Democrats have brought in $13.6 million. About
four years ago, Republicans pulled in $18.9 million, which was about twice as much as the
Democrats raised. In 2012, Republicans raised about 61% of total bank donations.
Interestingly enough, when Biden and Trump are removed from the equation, the highest
recipient from Wall Street is none other than Bernie Sanders, who has raised $831,096. Sanders
often tops contributions in many industries due to his grassroots following.
When you remove the employees from the equation and only look at how the bank's political
arms donate, the picture turns more Republican-friendly.
House of Representatives lawmaker Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, one of the senior
Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee, which is key for the banking industry,
tops the list, hauling in $226,000. Next up is Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the top
Republican on that panel, with $185,500 in cash from bank political committees.
The top 20 recipients of bank political funds comprise 14 Republicans and six Democrats.
Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, a senior member of the House banking panel,
received the most among Democrats, with $140,000.
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The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the value of
Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives.
ay_arrow
tonye , 3 hours ago
It's obvious. Wall Street is part of the Deep State...
Le SoJ16 , 3 hours ago
How can you hate capitalism and work for a Wall Street bank?
tonye , 3 hours ago
Because Wall Street is no longer capitalist.
Main Street is capitalist, they create the GNP.
Wall Street is a casino owned by globalists and bankers. They don't create much
anymore.
Macho Latte , 2 hours ago
It has nothing to do with ideology. The Biden is FOR SALE!
Any questions?
Lord Raglan , 2 hours ago
It is because the majority of Wall Street are Jewish and **** overwhelmingly support
Democrats.
David Horowitz has said that 80% of the donations to the Democrat Party come from
****.
KashNCarry , 2 hours ago
What a bunch of ****. Wall St. elites are in it up to their necks casting their lot with
the globalists who want total control NOW. Trump is the only thing in their way....
artvandalai , 3 hours ago
Wall street people don't know much about the real economy. They also know little, nor do
they care about, the real problems faced by business people who have to work everyday to
overcome the policies put in place by liberals.
They do understand finance however. But all that requires is the ability to push paper
around all day.
But let them vote for the Libotards and have them watch Elizabeth Warren take charge of
the US Senate Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Committee. They'll be jumping
out of windows.
FauxReal , 3 hours ago
Wall Street favors free money?
sun tzu , 1 hour ago
Wall Street wants bailouts. 0bozo gave them a yuge bailout
American2 , 2 hours ago
Based on the massively coordinated MSM suppression of the Biden corruption scandal, now I
know why these folks back Biden.
CosmoJoe , 2 hours ago
Democrats as the party of the big banks,
bgundr , 2 hours ago
Of course banksters favor policies that make the average person a slave with less
agency
Homie , 2 hours ago
Especially if you like the endless bailouts, give-aways, and freedom from those pesky
rules limiting the Squid's diet
You'd think that voting Republican would be an easy decision if you work on Wall Street,
especially given the lower taxes and the removal of burdensome regulations.
mtl4 , 2 hours ago
The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the
value of Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives.
The banks are big on corruption and that's one poll the Dems are definitely leading by a
longshot.......thick as thieves.
tunetopper , 2 hours ago
Wall St youngsters dont realize their job is to whore themselves out as much as possible
to the few remaining classes of folk they dont already have accounts with. The few
Millennials and Gen Xers that have enough capital saved up are their target market. Ever
since the take-down of Bear Stearns and Lehman, and the exit of many others from their
Private Client Groups- the Whorewolves of Wall St are very busy pretending to be Progs and
Libs.
And like this post says: " who really cares, they all live in NY, NJ and CT which are
guaranteed Dem states anyway"
So in essence- they have nothing to lose while pretending to be a Prog/Lib. in order to ge
the clients money.
radar99 , 36 minutes ago
I arrived to wall st in 2010. My female boss at a large investment bank hated me from the
moment I criticized Obama. I was and still am absolutely amazed you can work on wall st and
be a democrat
moneybots , 59 minutes ago
"The shift in data shows that while Wall Street's top brass may still understand the value
of Republican leadership, bank employees themselves may overwhelmingly favor
progressives."
So 50 Cent alone went Trump after finding out NYC's top tax rate would be 62% under
Biden?
Flynt2142ahh , 1 hour ago
also known as MBNA Joe Biden friends, you mean the privatize profits but liberalize losses
crowd that always looks for gubment money to bail out failures - Shocking !
invention13 , 1 hour ago
Wall St. just knows Biden is someone you can do business with.
Loser Face , 1 hour ago
Wall Street leans towards anyone who passes laws that benefit Wall Street.
Obamaroid Ointment , 1 hour ago
The Wally Street crowd has always been a bunch Globalist Mercedes Marxists and Limousine
Liberals, this article is ancient history.
Sound of the Suburbs , 2 hours ago
US politicians haven't got a clue what's really going on and got duped by the banker's
shell game.
When you don't know what real wealth creation is, or how banks work, you fall for the
banker's shell game.
Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy towards a financial
crisis.
On a BBC documentary, comparing 1929 to 2008, it said the last time US bankers made as
much money as they did before 2008 was in the 1920s.
Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy into a financial
crisis.
Money and debt come into existence together and disappear together like matter and
anti-matter.
The money flows into the economy making it boom.
The debt builds up in the financial system leading to a financial crisis.
Banks – What is the idea?
The idea is that banks lend into business and industry to increase the productive capacity
of the economy.
Business and industry don't have to wait until they have the money to expand. They can
borrow the money and use it to expand today, and then pay that money back in the future.
The economy can then grow more rapidly than it would without banks.
Debt grows with GDP and there are no problems.
The banks create money and use it to create real wealth.
Caliphate Connie and the Headbangers , 2 hours ago
The banks and corporations of America have been welfare queens since 2008. Regardless of
who wins, they will be the beneficiaries of moar US-style corporate welfare socialism.
Victory_Rossi , 3 hours ago
Wall Street loves globalism and hates the entire ethos of "America First". They're people
with dodgy loyalties and grand self-interests.
FreemonSandlewould , 3 hours ago
What a surprise. The Banking Cartel faction of the Jish Control Grid sent Trotsky and
company to Russia to implement the Bolshevik revolution. Should I be surprised they lean
left?
Well I guess not. But they are at base amoral - that is to say with out moral philosophy.
Their real motto is "Whatever gets the job done".
"... Overspending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program does not make America any safer. The president's military spending increase is based on the false premise that more spending equals more security. More spending may even make America less safe by spending us into bankruptcy. ..."
"... One big problem with this massive spending on one defense program is that it gives interventionist politicians the tools of war that they desire. ..."
"... While some support this flawed program no matter how much it costs and actually advocate spending more taxpayer cash on it, Americans want that $1.7 trillion spent at home and not on a transnational defense spending program to defend other nations. ..."
"... The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is not worthy of a massive investment by the taxpayer when it does not make America safer while also being a poorly negotiated government contract that has stuck the taxpayer with a massive bill. ..."
Overspending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program does not make America any safer. The
president's military spending increase is based on the false premise that more spending equals
more security. More spending may even make America less safe by spending us into
bankruptcy.
The F-35 program is expected to cost well over
$1 trillion when it is fully operational and deployed. That massive investment will serve
to enrich government contractors while giving interventionist politicians an offensive weapon
of war. This program was created as a "too big to fail" scheme where once the government starts
the process of making these fighter jets, they will have spent so much money that they can't
back away. The F-35 program is a bad deal for the taxpayer while promoting a policy that will
make these same taxpayers less safe.
It appears that the massive amount put into the program has purchased a lemon of a jet. The
program has been troubled from day one and is currently experiencing some padding of the
contract. On September 11, 2020,
Bloomberg reported, "the Pentagon's five-year budget plan for the F-35 falls short by as
much as $10 billion, the military's independent cost analysis unit has concluded, a new
indication that the complex fighter jet may be too costly to operate and maintain." The plan
for the F-35 for the next five years was an estimated "$78 billion for research and
development, jet procurement, operations and maintenance and military construction dedicated to
the F-35 built by Lockheed Martin Corp." This $10 billion mistake is going to fall on the
shoulders of an already overtaxed taxpayer.
One big problem with this massive spending on one defense program is that it gives
interventionist politicians the tools of war that they desire. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
program contains a number of versions of a stealth fighter jet that can engage other aircraft
and conduct military strikes. The goal is to use these aircraft as the primary fighter jets for
the air force, navy, and marines. These can be used as offensive weapons in the hands of
politicians who desire to engage in the endless war policies that have left the United States
vulnerable to attack. This is a very expensive program that will not provide $1 trillion in
security for American citizens.
Typical with government defense contracting, there have been numerous problems that have
shifted significant increased cost onto the Pentagon.
Defense News reported recently that the contractor was trying to stick the taxpayer with
the cost of spare parts for the F-35. According to
Bloomberg , the taxpayer received more bad news: "the F-35's total 'life cycle' cost is
estimated at $1.727 trillion in current dollars." That is an insane amount of taxpayer cash and
"$1.266 trillion is for operations and support of the advanced plane that's a flying
supercomputer." When pressed by
Bloomberg , a Pentagon spokesman bragged that a Pentagon "cost analysis office projects
that the average procurement cost for an F-35, including its engines, is dropping from a
planned $109 million to $101.3 million in 2012 dollars." Only in Washington would a bureaucrat
brag about ripping off American citizens by just under $8 million less as a deal for the
taxpayer.
While some support this flawed program no matter how much it costs and actually advocate
spending more taxpayer cash on it, Americans want that $1.7 trillion spent at home and not on a
transnational defense spending program to defend other nations.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is not worthy of a massive investment by the taxpayer
when it does not make America safer while also being a poorly negotiated government contract
that has stuck the taxpayer with a massive bill.
"... The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals. ..."
Last month, national security prosecutors at the Justice Department were told to look at any
ongoing investigations involving Iran or Iranian nationals with an eye toward making them
public.
The push to announce Iran-related cases has caused internal alarm, these people said, with
some law enforcement officials fearing that senior Justice Department officials want to
reveal the cases because the Trump administration would like Congress to impose new sanctions
on Iran.
U.S. officials on Wednesday night accused Iran of targeting American voters with faked but
menacing emails and warned that both Iran and Russia had obtained voter data that could be
used to endanger the upcoming election.
The disclosure by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe at a hastily called
news conference marked the first time this election cycle that a foreign adversary has been
accused of targeting specific voters in a bid to undermine democratic confidence -- just four
years after Russian online operations marred the 2016 presidential vote.
The claim that Iran was behind the email operation, which came into view on Tuesday as
Democrats in several states reported receiving emails demanding they vote for President
Trump, was leveled without specific evidence .
...
Metadata gathered from dozens of the emails pointed to the use of servers in Saudi Arabia,
Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.
The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who
was behind them.
...
... the evidence remains inconclusive.
The claims that Iran is behind this are as stupid as the people who believe them.
I for one trust (not) those 50 former intelligence officials who say that all emails are
Russian disinformation. They are intended to 'sow discord' which is something the U.S. has
otherwise never ever had throughout its history.
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their
belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian
information operation."
...
While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security
experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant
role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand
at work.
"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in
this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."
No, this doesn't make any sense. It is not supposed to do that.
Posted by b on October 22, 2020 at 7:21 UTC | Permalink
The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of
comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just
happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy
goals.
We know that these yarns align in syncopation with
what the amerikan empire most wants to promulgate, yet bereft of even a a cunt hair's worth
of evidence, the only truth which can be inferred from this foggy bottom tosh is the obvious
one - that is that the empire is becoming so desperate they will happily toss their
credibility with the many to the winds if they can, please sir, just convince a few of the
few.
Stuff like this is a suitable test of how the media are supposed to represent our interests
and help us in not getting fooled. You report, and afterwards you test what your readers
believe.
Independently of questionable bias issues serious newspapers will defend news like this
with formal justifications of journalistic code
- neutrality and objectivity: we just report but don't judge.
- null hypothesis of trustworthiness: official sources are to be trusted unless proven
otherwise. At least, proven otherwise by someone we consider trustworthy.
The propaganda is already embedded in the lofty ethics codes journalists will proudly adhere
to.
"Other documents that have emerged include FBI paper work that reveals the bureau's
interactions with the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who reported the laptop's contents
to authorities. The document shows that Isaac received a subpoena to testify before the U.S.
District Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019 . One page appears to show the serial
number for a MacBook Pro laptop and a hard drive that were seized by the agency."
https://www.ibtimes.sg/signed-receipt-hunter-bidens-name-delaware-laptop-repair-store-surfaces-52672
So the FBI kept Hunter Biden's bomb shell HDDs under wraps for almost a year. Enough time
to figure out they where not filled with Russian kompromat.
If you needed a leaked email to understand why it was corrupt for Hunter Biden to be getting
50k a month to be on the board of a Ukranian energy company, then you are likely already so
propagandized that you will vote for Joe Biden no matter what gets printed.
Really this propaganda is a brilliant move for those who control what is in print. They
have a clear circle of blame in Russia, Iran, or China, who are to blame for everything, and
this allows the media to limit the scope of discussion greatly by suppressing real criticisms
towards actual problems (the Bidens being corrupt across multiple generations) and deflecting
that energy into hating Russia, China, and Iran, which are the main targets for imperialism.
It is also a crude and vague lie to use anonymous sources to blame foreign entities for these
types of things, which actually makes it an elegant argument for a simpleton as it is
difficult if not impossible to disprove.
Because the media is really owned and operated by so few people who all have a hive-mind
about money and power, the messages are consistent, even though ridiculous, and they resonate
with many of the readers who really ought to know better, but have become inured to the
damaging effects of the lies they have consumed for decades. Stories like these will keep
working for a long time. If one of the sources in the article reported 'Up is Down, Left is
Right!', there would be a wave of car accidents until they issued a retraction.
The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.
I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
-- not truth-capable;
-- not ethics-capable;
-- not shame-capable;
-- not honour-capable.
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?
He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness!
How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining
their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a
Russian information operation."
Do American journalists actually believe it's still in Russia interest to re-elect Trump?
Washington-Kremlin relations have deteriorated rapidly under Trump.
Posted by: Et Tu | Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 9 -- "In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and
World Peace is a threat to National Security."
Nice one... Meet Mr Truth, un-registered foreign agent !!! and Mr World Peace, national
security threat !!!
American leadership would not be so despicable IF they do not pretend to be "spreading
freedom / democracy" when they wreak their global malice.
They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care
for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the
Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to
care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.
Here's a part of a comment I posted back in February 2020 that none of you took
seriously.
Posted by: Circe | Feb 28 2020 20:29 utc | 124:
The planet of extremely bad karma SATURN is moving into Bloomberg's sign, Aquarius, right
after mid-March and forming a square to Biden's sign, Scorpio. This is a very malefic
aspect.
People under these two signs, Aquarius and Scorpio ie Bloomberg and Biden will
experience obstacles, setbacks and challenges, create hidden enemies , and aging
will be accelerated and serious health issues could emerge.
So I was criticized for injecting astrology into that election thread, mostly by
AntiSpin.
Turns out as usual I hit the mark.
Bloomberg lost close to a BILLION dollars and failed badly in the primaries. That's what I
call a major setback. However, as of December after a 6-month retrograde into Capricorn,
Saturn is returning to Aquarius, so it ain't over for Bloomberg and things will get
complicated for Biden , for the U.S. and the rest of the world.
I also stated back then that nominating Joe Biden would be a greater risk for Dems than
nominating Bernie Sanders because Joe Biden was heading for serious astrological head winds
relating to something unseen at the time involving a serious family issue.
While I was certain that whatever the issue was would come to light and could affect him
in the Presidential campaign, I couldn't figure out the family aspect at the time, since he
appears to have a solid marriage and tragedy is in the rear view now.
Last night however it all suddenly became clear and I've come to the realization that I
was 100% right when I wrote that comment back in February 2020. Tonight I realized that the
family issue...is Hunter Biden!
I was sounding the alarm that something bad would come to light because Saturn was headed
into Aquarius, Biden's Home and Family sector squaring Biden's sign.
However, to make matters worse, it turns out that Hunter Biden is an Aquarian and Saturn
the karmic taskmaster is headed on a collision course to upend his life.
At the time I wrote the comment I obviously couldn't predict exactly what would unfold,
how or the precise timing, only that it would be bad and that's why I warned back then that
Democrats should have chosen Bernie. I believed Bernie could beat Trump and I was right,
because Trump is in total mental meltdown and self-destructing with his handling of the
pandemic.
Now even if Saturn will square Biden's Scorpio that's not to say that Biden won't still
win, but we are approaching a very bad full moon on October 31st. There is massive tension
building, subterfuge lurking and the situation is going to get ugly. A battle royal is
brewing. This is a powder keg moment.
Trump will not behave at the debate today. Must see t.v. With Obama's scorching speech
yesterday seething in Trump's brain, and his Iran stunt unravelling and ineffective at
distracting from the spotlight from Obama and the laptop bone clenched between his teeth;
he's a rabid dog fit to be tied. Give him a padded cell, already.
As for the U.S. and the world: The pandemic started with Saturn crossing Pluto's path in
Capricorn and entering full force into Aquarius in March when the world shut down.
So what will happen when karmic Saturn crosses Pluto again on it's way out of Capricorn
and enters Aquarius for the next 3 years?
Fasten your seat belts everyone...we're heading into major turbulence. There's so much
karmic tension gathering steam; it's very scary.
How much does it cost to get a trip to the moon?
I'll get back to sleazy Giuliani and his Pandora's box. There's too much to unpack there
than meets the eye. Just know that when circumstances appear too convenient-it's because they
are.
Trump's dirty play is a day late and a dollar short plus he's not playing with a full
deck. Must be one of those Covid long-term effects.
It's time...to get these scum-sucking, misery mongers out of the damn White House
already!
You know the US government is suffering from severe Alzheimer's disease when it claims that
Iran (of all nations) sent threatening emails to Democrat voters demanding that they vote for
a President who authorised the murder of a popular Iranian military general back in early
January this year.
Brian Kilmeade and morning crew run the fake Iranian emails story by former CIA station
Chief Daniel Hoffman.
Kabuki Actor Hoffman:
'[Uses opportunity to say Iranian Mantra] Iran has been attacking us for years, they have
attacked our shipping in the Gulf (???, that's a new one) blah-blah-blah.
'Iran and Russia are attacking our democracy because that is what they fear most about
America. Democracy would be the end of both regimes (Iran has no other motive to dislike the
U.S. such as us killing their top General, the Stuxnet virus, murderous sanctions, ...)'
So they hate us because of our freedoms, a classic.
Kabuki Actor Kilmeade:
'Can't we do something about this?' [note, the U.S. is the perpetual victim, never the
bully]
'Can't we pushback?' [The aggrieved victim, the U.S. is defending itself]
'Iran is doing this, Russia is sending bombers, can't we blow up an oil well?'
Kabuki Actor Kilmeade represents the entire degenerate U.S. public, unable to process
information that views another country as having rational motives or our Intel agencies of
being deceptive.
God, if you exist, You must hate this more than I do. How long?
All that rubbish is distraction. Discussing it is just playing to Borg's music.
They come up with so outlandish and jaw dropping crap that half he people thinks "it is so
outlandish it gotta be true, who would lie so much?" and other half that knows better is in
such a shock and disbelief that it needs some time to come to its senses and start tearing
apart the lie piece by piece BUT.... Time is lost, distraction worked and MSM/Borg come up
with next outrageous lie for next round. Russia, China, Navalny etc. etc.
And while marry go round Borg is doing it's deeds in dark while people is obsessing with
Trump's knickers.
Barack oblamblam held off until as long as he possibly could, a move most likely connected to
two realities, (1) not wanting to contradict what he, oblamblam said back in march "do not
underestimate Joe's ability to screw anything up" and (2) Oblamblam's desire not to be
found to be associated with sleepy joe's blatant corruption. Mud sticks n all that. Oblamblam
was much more subtle in lining up wedges to be trousered. eg. Try as people might they have
yet to uncover how a community worker turned prez found the dough to purchase a 45 acre
Martha's vineyard estate off a notorious billionaire and Oblambam is reluctant to do anything
which could prompt those questions,
Hence it wasn't until the 2020 election was mostly over that some DNC extortionists
managed to convince oblam to say a few words, or else, to the Philadelphia african american
males who chose to stay home on election day 2016.
Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise
between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute
with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted.
There we mentioned the philly speech oh rabid, irrationally superstitious dembot.
Here's my prediction
Trump re-elected I fortell will mean more racist murdering thugs on the street. an guess what
they'l be In uniform and directly or indirectly trained by Israel.
And then there's the military presence on your streets -- you ain't seen nothing yet.
Wake the f up your gunna be massively oppressed by a fascist govenment ya skin couloir won't
matter, nore who you voted for. You already live in a one party dictatorship.
ie the elite. Face it your redundant as a human being replaced by a micro-chip.
Revolt I tell you revolt !!
The greater American public are about to become the next oppressed Palistinians ! oppressed
devalued and slowly distroyed. Like a frog in a heated pan.
You won't notice till it's to late will you ?
No really, will you ?
Journalism love's that high minded nonsense.
They write what they are paid to write.
Looking at the guardian wrt Assange
these clowns are beneath contempt.
Don't know if you are familiar with the box populi blog.
There a very good set of chapters from a book about journalist ethics.
i'm just surprised they haven't brought in venezuela and bolivia yet. that's supposed to be
sarcasm, but reality keeps outstripping sarcasm. i am actually worried they are ramping up
for a war in biden's first 100 days, either against iran or some serious provocation of
russia like provoking some incident in azerbaijan and blaming armenia. they're f/n batshit.
mark2 i think you're correct about more jackbooted government thugs on the street, but that's
gonna happen under either trump or crime bill joe/copmala. you're right about the israeli
training too, they trained cops in that kneeling on the throat technique. field tested on
palestinians.
Idiotic.
The united States was once a nest of excellence in nearly everything. Now it s a hub of naked
idiocy.
The Russians have nothing to fear from the US or Nato, except in the economy but they can fix
it. The Iranians have enough of what it takes to keep the Zio anglos away and at bay:
thousands of missiles to target Israel, Saudiland, a 25 year economic alliance program with
Beijing.
And clearly the time and opportunity where it was possible to still erase in a single coup
the Iranian military might is over.
"Breaking WaPo: The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening
emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S.
officials. https://washingtonpost.com/technology/202"
Posted by: librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in
your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.
Absolutely correct. You win the thread.
Neither Iran nor Russia nor China give a rat's ass about the US election. There may be
literally thousands of private enterprise hackers who want to breach US election servers
precisely to get the Personal Identifying Information which is coin of the realm on the Dark
Web, but they couldn't care less about the election itself. It's physically impossible for
any country outside of the US to significantly influence the election in a country of 300
million people - and every country knows that. The only country that *doesn't* know that is
the US, which is why it spends scores and hundreds of millions of dollars - up to five
billion in Ukraine, allegedly - to influence foreign elections. That's the level of effort
needed to influence a foreign election more than the influence of the actual inhabitants of
that nation. But every time some private group in Russia launches an ad campaign for a couple
hundred thousand bucks tops, with zero effect on the US election, Putin gets blamed for some
plan to mastermind the overthrow of "democracy."
I rather liked Obama's speech If for no other reason than the tone was completely
different from the two candidates.
1. I'm tired of Trump's narcissism .
2. Can't stand Biden's fake 'I'm one of you'. He is corrupt, feels guilty about it, and
has to reassure us that he's Lunch Box Joe .
I've noticed this about Biden for a while, he conjures up these fake memories ...
'You know what I'm talking about because I've been on that park bench at noon when you only
have 20 minutes to eat your lunch because that whistle going to blow and you have to run
back to your Tuna canning station or lose your job and with that your health insurance,
car, and home.'
Okay this is not a literal quotation but it is a pattern and you know what I'm talking
about :-)
Pretzelatack @ 26
Yes to all you say their.
Re-reading my above comments they sound pretty harsh !
I am sorry, and do apologise !
It was part desperation and part morbid humour in the spirit of b's post.
Comparing Americans to a frog in pan may be a bit much !
I am in the U.K. we had a gen election one year ago !
I WAS THAT FROG IN A PAN.
Now I live in a pox ridden bankrupt banana republic run by a bunch of Israel bootlickers.
I don't go down well at party's.
And it's not superstition when the facts start to align with planetary motion.
How do you explain the Moon's effect on nature?
You think it's the only celestial body in the Solar System that influences life on Earth?
That cosmic order is inescapable. Astrology is thousands of years old dating back to the
Babylonians and has evolved through centuries of study and cannot, should not be dismissed as
mere superstition.
I'm not an expert at all, but I recognize order and higher authority when I see it and
believe me those planets are there for a reason and they rule everything. They're like
carrots and sticks (IMHO mostly sticks). Now who put them there and to what ultimate purpose
besides order and evolution is another matter.
I don't often bring it into a discussion, especially not to throw a discussion off topic,
except when I intuitively feel fate present in important events both personally and on a
universal scale.
This is a time of fated/karmic events, the pandemic being the most important (lesson) of
these.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Fascist Season" . . . Fascism has come of age here
in the land of the fee. The "intelligence agencies" create disinformation campaigns to
overthrow the elected President while the "justice department" et al withhold evidence and
fail to prosecute all the oligarchs and crooks who are busy censoring
information and preparing to rig and disrupt the
impending presidential election.
But technology and the "progressive" (pun intended) destruction of the US Constitution has
led the dumbed-down US masses (don't forget Canada and Australia lol) into a whole new world
of Orwellian lock-downs and wholesale economic destruction aimed at finishing off what was
left of the US middle class. Soon we will have our cash taken away and replaced with a
digital currency that can
always be taken away or tailored for limited use, subject to negative interest rates that it
cannot escape, etc. And all this is ushered in via
hyperinflation leading to a collapse of the bond and equities markets, and finally the
collapse of the US dollar (and all other Western fiat currencies).
The USA is so naive. They have been interfering in so many elections using money,
blackmail,CIA operations. There was no way for other countries with less means to do the same
to the USA. Now with social media they can, and they are absolutely right to take their
revenge for all the troubles they got into with the USA plotting to promote a pro-US
leader.
Now the battle is equal and the USA does not have the monopoly of interfering in other
countries election!
Tit for tat...
All these stories are risible. Note the struggle to clarify who these 'malign'
Régimes are attacking the US, and why.
Russia-R-R for Trump, but Iran-Ir-Ir for Trump doesn't quite hit the spot so now Iran is
trying to damage Pres. Trump (from one of the articles..) .. is Iran trying to promote the
election of Kamala Harris? What? Russia is for Trump and Iran against ?
The fall-back is a blanket, these evil leaders are trying to 'undermine democracy',
influence 'US voters', meddle in 'our freedom-loving' politics, etc.
The attempt to stir up the spectre of threatening enemies far off is a hackneyed ploy. In
the case of the USA, it is now melded with the promotion and control of planned internal
strife, with internal enemies being natives (not islamist terrorists who sneak in and are
under cover before erupting in murderous madness..) - Color Revolution Style.
-- BLM + Antifa haven't been active recently (or not in MSM top stories) as the election
is approaching. Such would be upping the Trump vote for "law-and-order."
(imho from far off..) Many in the US don't take any of this seriously, it is just
game-playing, false alarm, pretend concern.
"Oh wow, Iran is targetting Trump, did you know, real serious, did you hear, tell me is
Zoe-chick divorcing that creep Edmond, I want to know, did you have that interview with Gov.
X for the job? Is she hot? How much "
The credentialised class and the movers and shakers just roll their eyeballs, and the poor
are in any case stuck in a desperado cycle of struggle against misery, what is going on with
Putin / Iran / Xi is off the radar.
Vilification of China (hate hate hate); claimed by the media and the pundits and our
"Fearless Covid Conquering Leader" and all the good little parrots, to be the source of evil
itself... Scapegoat extraordinaire... Hacking and Cheating and Aggressing and exercising
Brutality towards its own citizens... The worst of the worst per our "intelligence" apparatus
(and blind ideologues). Existential threat numero uno.
But wait!
The US is being attacked! Attacked they say; by all of the "bad" guys simultaneously.
The forces of evil out there are broad and out to get us. They hate our (imagined)
freedoms.
Evidence (not):
Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases
U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats
U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election
Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say
Invariably in all cases, The Voice of "Intelligence" (not bloody likely from ANY of this
crew) deeply intoned to impart the "certainty", neatly encapsulated in the words "highly
likely", delivered without a scrap of proof but loud, prominent, regular, mind numbing
pontification.
Trust me! We lie, We cheat, We steal; and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The US, all on its own, engenders distrust within the population because the US and all
its political and Executive, and Legislative and Judicial and "intelligence" bureaucracies
are corrupt to the core... Worse, they make no bones about it if you pay attention. And
Partisanship is nothing but distraction because they are ALL corrupt and morally bankrupt;
without empathy, remorse, sense of guilt or shame.
It was the US itself that thought it could subjugate the world through its faux
"democratic" business practices and its claim of natural superiority... Its self declared
Rules of Order instead of adhering to and supporting consensus established International
LAW... Hegemon pompously declaring it has a RIGHT to Full Spectrum Dominance and slavish
obedience.
Not the Iranians, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the CCP, not the North Koreans,
not the Venezuelans; none of them are disrupting, threatening or meddling in the US
elections.
If you believe what the morons are smearing across the public consciousness through every
communication medium possible you are a sucker... Totally disconnected any critical thinking
faculties that may have been present. The very definition of sheeple... baaaa! (the sound
drowns out reason and thought).
The rest of the World beyond NATO and Five Eyes isn't attacking the US or its
institutions. They have all been attacked every which way from Sunday BY the US and its
Satraps (targets of, victims of, and willing accomplices to our sophisticated excessively
funded and supported global protection racquet).
The US, our Government, always blames our designated and non-compliant, non-obeisant
existential threats for all the things we do to them.
And all this cacophony of alleged evil "attacks" from outside right now?
Look!!! Look!!! Over here!
Don't pay any attention to who and what decided to put us in the position we find
ourselves in and what we have done to vast swaths of the world's populations "over
there".
Now go vote for one of two degenerate teams, both of which are headed by supremely
unqualified psychopaths.
The CIA really needs a new playbook. The Russia/Iran thing is laughable to the rest of the
world, and to many 'Americans' as well. Unfortunately Partisans run the country, and those
folks are addicted to the Kool Aid of MAGA – just different versions.
This October is like an Advent Calendar of October Surprises with plenty of time still on
the clock for some great Golden Shower or Democratic child orgy deep fakes. Who the hell
knows at this point – the acceleration of events this year makes Future Shock look like
an Ambien commercial.
Trump is toast and good riddance. And sure Biden et al are war criminals and corrupt
creatures of the Swamp. The Establishment is a much easier target to resist vis a vis policy
than a crazy cretin without any policy but his own self-aggrandizement.
"Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true,
and do not remember those that turn out false. Astrology has not demonstrated its
effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity.[6]:85;[11] The study,
published in Nature in 1985, found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better
than chance, and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis."[10] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology
As for getting voter US state voter databases, most states allow people to purchase part of a
voter's information. Other parts like birth dates remain private. But the publicly available
list is probably enough as it identifies party affiliation, voting history as when dates they
voted (not how they voted). All the other private information is more useful to identity
thieves and Indian scam centers. And as one poster noted, those databases like gold on dark
web.
As for email addresses that implies those must be acquired through party officials and
candidates off donor lists. Off hand I do not know that an email address is required to
register to vote--I seriously doubt it. I know that Bernie famously refused to give his donor
database to Hillary. The emails imply some sort of inside job or some false flag.
Just read the story on Truthout of voters in Alaska & Florida, and possibly Pennsylvania
and Arizona receiving threatening messages if they should vote against Trump. "We know you're
a Democrat and we have access to your voting records..." Metadata indicates servers located
in the kingdoms of Israel's new friends...
Well, I just went to the Board of Elections website for my county here in Ohio and I can,
with a few clicks, generate a report from their site of a county listing of voters filtered
in over a half-dozen ways - i.e. by Party affiliation and including addresses. Comes under
the heading of "Voter and Candidate Tools."
So some concoct a tale which blames Iran, Russia, etc. for information freely available
from your State's BOE? This information has always been available, but not exploited before
in this way by US neo Nazis.
So, even though your ballot is secret, intimidation is easy to engage in based solely on
Party affiliation of record. If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their
windows, or perhaps fire-bombings? Trump and his supporters are certainly ratcheting up the
apocalyptic messaging, working themselves into a frenzy - that is obvious and not even
debatable.
I never read Dante; which circle of hell are we entering now?
Everyone here knows I was 100% behind Bernie Sanders for the Presidency because I felt he was
the right person for these times, but the mass is dumb and blind. I agree with the comment I
read on the previous thread I think by someone called Horseman that portrays Bernie's goal as
moving the Dem Party to the Left and not sheepdogging, but recognizing the stakes involved
superceded Left purity.
At the same time I was totally against Biden because he is much more Zionist than Bernie,
therefore more corrupt, as Zionism is counter-evolutionary being inherently supremacist,
entitled, and undemocratic.
However, Trump is exponentially worse! He is a fascist Zionist and totally depraved. There
is a choice here of monumental significance. Short term loss for greater future gain.
Biden is very flawed, but I'm inclined to view a man who suffered multiple life-altering
tragedies to reach this point and who is grappling with embracing a son, Hunter, who probably
was destroying his life, than a narcissistic less than evolved baby-man pig with a god
complex who squandered life and daddy's money on material and artificial pursuit and has no
notion of humanity, as the only sane choice.
Yes, Joe Biden should face his flaws and answer for whatever corruption exists in him, but
that laptop issue should not be a reason to stop people from getting Trump, the most corrupt
President in my lifetime next to Bush OUT. That goal is paramount. This is 2nd to the
pandemic in fated events. If people do not make the right choices and learn something from
these events then let this planet devolve into hell because that will be what is deserved!
The stakes right now are astronomical and super-fated!
Don't blow a singular opportunity to get rid of that Fascist pig Trump over a laptop
that's really a Pandora's box being used by Shmeagol Gollum Giuliani as a trap to unleash
misery for years to come.
This is clearly the Deep State and imperial establishment spouting obvious nonsense in order
to discredit themselves and therefore to help in Trump's reelection bid! Henry Kissinger told
me so! What incredibly subtle and intricate plans they have!
Or... maybe it is just a bunch of incompetent baboons in the Deep State control room
randomly flipping switches and pulling levers in the desperate hopes that something,
anything, works.
Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we
cannot grasp its intricate complexities.
All these new threads are defaulting to election threads. Sorry, b.
But I'll bite.
In the case of a Biden victory, which do you think will happen first?:
1) Renewed hostilities w/ Assad in Syria leading to his violent ousting and thrusting the
west into violent confrontation w/ Russia...
Or...
2) Forcible entry into the Armenian/Azerbaijan conflict and establishing a no-fly
zone...
Or...
3) a combination of both and would throw us into a direct confrontation with either Russia
or Iran or both?
It looks like the demonizing of Iran is ramping up with the mail-threats telling dims to
vote Trump or else. Dims don't like hostile, foreign powers helping the Don and swaying
elections. It's a nice tip-off as to what Biden and the dim establishment might consent to
once Obama-era sycophants and technocrats move back in to the White House.
Seems to be the year of anniversaries; another's being celebrated today but not by the Outlaw
US Empire. China
& North Korea Celebrate 70th Anniversary of China's intervention in Outlaw US Empire's
invasion of Korea , which is how it's being portrayed, "China, N. Korea stand together
'for self-protection against US hegemony' like 70 years ago" reads the headline at the link.
To mark the anniversary, China has published an official
history , explaining its decision "To resist US aggression and aid Korea, China had no
choice but to fight a war;" the 3-volume work is The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid
Korea . From China's perspective, it defeated Outlaw US Empire forces; so, it's not
"forgotten" at all. Xi's using the occasion to give a major speech, the subject of which
hasn't been disclosed.
Just 12 days to go until the refusals to abide by the outcome day arrives. If one wants to
look, there's lots of illegal foreign influence happening but from sources that go
unmentioned: Corporations that have foreign owners, which most do, who provided campaign
contributions in any form to any entity associated with the election.
HeHeHe!!! The first bits of Putin's appearance at the Valdai Club today
are being published . In a jab back at those accusing Russia of interfering in elections
and such Putin said:
"Strengthening our country and looking at what is happening in the world, in other
countries, I want to say to those who are still waiting for the gradual demise of Russia: in
this case, we are only worried about one thing -- how not to catch a cold at your
funeral."
There's more, although a transcript has yet to be published.
There's a thread right before this one on International Events. Why don't you go spew your
poisonous Trump Kool-Aid there instead of polluting with Trumpian-laced propaganda here?
I know-I know, Election threads raise the common sense factor further and that leads to
Trump's demise, so you can't help but rush in to correct that dangerous shift. Why
don't you do something equally meaningless like pounding sand down a rat hole?
After the Russiagate fiasco I thought the Americans had learned their lesson, but it seems I
was wrong.
Honestly, this may be the beginning of an irreversible process of ideological polarization
of the American Empire.
The thing is it's one thing to wage propaganda warfare against a foreign enemy to your
domestic audience: the foreign enemy will be destroyed either way, so they will never be able
to tell their version of the story, plus the domestic audience can give itself the luxury of
living the lie indefinitely as it doesn't affect their daily lives. Plus they'll directly
benefit from the conquest of a foreign enemy, e.g. cheaper gas to your car after the
destruction and conquest of Iraq; the abundance in the shelves of Walmarts after the
subjugation of China, and so on.
It's a completely different story when you wage propaganda warfare against yourself: the
Trump voter knows he/she didn't vote for Trump because of Russian influence, while the Hilary
Clinton/Joe Biden voter knows he/she didn't vote in either of them because of Chinese
influence. But each part will believe the half of the lie that benefits them against the
other, creating a vicious cycle of mistrust between the two halves.
Meanwhile, the American economy (capitalism) continues to decline. Time is running up:
It was a shock-and-awe moment when lawmakers gave the package a thumbs up. Yet in the
months since, the planned punch has not materialized.
The Treasury has allocated $195 billion to back Fed lending programs, less than half of
the allotted sum. The programs supported by that insurance have made just $20 billion in
loans, far less than the suggested trillions.
The programs have partly fallen victim to their own success: Markets calmed as the Fed
vowed to intervene, making the facilities less necessary as credit began to flow again.
So, the very announcement of the Fed it would lend indefinitely and unconditionally made
such loans unnecessary!
I didn't like it at the beginning, but the term "Late Capitalism" is growing on me.
MSM pushing the the Iran angle shows that they are more anti-Iran than anti-Trump.
What effect would Iran intend by sending fake threatening emails from right-wing guns nuts
to Democrats? I doubt it would discourage those Democrats from voting (for Biden), and I
doubt Iran would think it would. The only effect it would have is to increase the fear,
distrust, and disgust Democrats already have for those groups - which is "sowing discord",
not "meddling with elections".
The Trump regime pushes this because it makes Trump look good & makes Iran look bad
(at least the way it's been framed). MSM generally doesn't like Trump, but prints this
because hyping fear & loathing toward Iran matters more to them than dumping Trump.
Great that they are working on it, I was taking notes but kind of lousy its not easy to
listen and write at the same time. Started kind of nervous, but right now it is Putin at his
most relaxed and eloquent.
It is interesting to see how Putin is way more at ease when answering journalist's
questions than when exposing his part of the event. Right now they asked him about his image,
punk, criminal etc etc. Answer: my function is the main thing, and I do not take it
personally, now the chinese will ask.
In case the truth gets lost in your purposely misleading translation. This hare-brained
scheme was cooked up by Trump and his newly-appointed right-hand bootlicker RATcliffe, at DNI
and delivered to the American people by the latter as a desperate distraction minutes after
Obama smacked down Trump on every air wave.
It immediately gave off an offensive odor, as I stated previously, of Trump turd floating
in golden toilet.
And that's why Chris Wray looked so awkward and uneasy behind that RAT.
Three hours of serious talking about any and all world problems. I wonder how long Lunch Box
Joe could hold on his own. The orange man probably could do it, but just talking about
himself. The US need someone like VVP.
I ought to listen while also reading the Russian close-captioning so I can rebuild my
Russian language facility and catch the body language messages, but I still need to read/hear
it all in English. As for his response to questions, IMO Putin knows what to expect from
media reporters but not from other experts in the audience whose questions are usually more
complex. Then there's the need to remain tactful, although there are times when he does need
to get indignant, as with the issue of illegal sanctions that harm nations's abilities to
deal with the pandemic--the utter immorality and inhumanity of the Outlaw US Empire that
never gets the attention it deserves.
What would Iran gain by scaring lower end of the spectrum Democrats into voting for Trump,
is that desirable for Iran?
Ah ... but it was a pump fake, Iran thought that people would think that the emails were
genuine, arrest a few of the Proud Boys and this would hurt Trump by associating him with a
domestic terror group. Not only is this scenario convoluted but it is extremely risky because
it might scare a handful of impressionable Democrats into voting for Trump and any
investigation would uncover hacking of some kind.
Most likely suspect, Israel. They have the means to hack and the contacts in the U.S. to
suggest Iranian origin.
As Putin said, Russia was able to find "balance" in its reaction to COVID; and as with China
but unlike the Outlaw US Empire, it put the safety of the Russian people first and foremost.
The Empire is experiencing yet another big outbreak nationwide and has yet to put the
interests of its citizenry first.
Is Circe deranged?
I don't know but I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent
men women and children.
Mmmmm
Perhaps to people living in a ''loony bin'' (America) people outside must seem quite strange
!
I live near Glastonbury finest bunch of people you'd ever meet. Not known for genocidel
tendency's.
Any ways Iran, Russia interfering in America's elections -- -- - pure paranoid delusion
(weaponised)
The Mighty Wurlitzer has
begun to sound more like the New York Philharmonic tuning up while riding the Empire State Express
as it crashes endlessly into Grand Central Station.
Dear Circe, each language is a world view, I wish I had the resources available today when
I was younger, I would speak as many as possible, I consider that with the means available
today speaking half a dozen would be no problem at all. You have the blessing and the curse
of speaking english, so no need for anything else, but that is your problem, you are so
relaxed about it that you're not able to spell correctly the name of one of your best known
cities, San Francisco, with a c before the s.
Again, come up with something else, the bot label is as primitive as your knowledge of your
own language and geography.
kiwiklown@14: They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care
for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the
Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to
care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.
Well said, although rather sad! The last pretension reveals exactly the mentality that was
behind the genocide upon the Native American centuries ago, resorting to tactics such as
passing out smallpox infected blankets, dispensation of whisky, as well as outright
slaughters of course.
Gruffy @ 68
Maybe but she martches to a different drum beat. Not the trump drum beat of war that you
follow, and will lead you all over the cliff.
Don't get me wrong ! You'd have to squeeze my nuts pretty dam hard (tears in my eyes) before
I'd vote for Biden.
But you must know two things -- -
A. Trump is bat shit crazy and has his finger on the button whilst the Dems are money mad and
there is know profit in Armageddon.
And
B. I'm antifa my hobby is smashing the filthy fascists !!
Who's streets ? Our streets !!
Without mentioning its name, Putin in his speech pinned the tail on
the donkey regarding TrumpCo's pandemic failure:
"The values of mutual assistance, service and self-sacrifice proved to be most important.
This also applies to the responsibility, composure and honesty of the authorities, their
readiness to meet the demand of society and at the same time provide a clear-cut and
well-substantiated explanation of the logic and consistency of the adopted measures so as not
to allow fear to subdue and divide society but, on the contrary, to imbue it with confidence
that together we will overcome all trials no matter how difficult they may be.
"The struggle against the coronavirus threat has shown that only a viable state can act
effectively in a crisis ..." [My Emphasis]
Yes, it didn't begin with Trump, but he sure did accelerate the process of making the
domestic part of the Outlaw US Empire dysfunctional, which for me makes this "silly season"
even worse than usual.
I view this as shit-against-the-wall policy. You throw it up there. Sometimes it sticks,
sometimes it doesn't.
This is how lowly vermin do foreign policy nowadays.
Remember the story -- first reported as Russians, then Iranians -- paying bounty to the
Talibs to kill (as if they needed motivation) American soldiers?
Well, in that case, I guess neither story really stuck, but you see where I'm going with
this. It's all shite
And silly season continues with self-proclaimed anti-fascists who don't know what fascists
are.
Fascism doesn't necessarily have anything to do with race or religion. Is there any racial
difference between Ukropians and Russians? Fascism is simply a tool that capitalists use to
smash class consciousness. Literally any differences can be used by the capitalists to direct
the violent mobs at their victims, even differences that are completely imaginary and don't
really exist except in the group mind of the mob.
Now I wonder... who is it that will attack someone for saying "But ALL lives
matter!" ? Who is smashing class consciousness?
And this is why the USA is turning into a failed state and Russia isn't:
"Nevertheless, I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the
confidence its citizens have in it . That is the strength of a state. People are the
source of power , we all know that. And this recipe doesn't just involve going to the
polling station and voting, it implies people's willingness to delegate broad authority to
their elected government, to see the state, its bodies, civil servants, as their
representatives – those who are entrusted to make decisions, but who also bear full
responsibility for the performance of their duties .
"This kind of state can be set up any way you like. When I say 'any way,' I mean that what
you call your political system is immaterial. Each country has its own political culture,
traditions, and its own vision of their development. Trying to blindly imitate someone else's
agenda is pointless and harmful. The main thing is for the state and society to be in
harmony .
"And of course, confidence is the most solid foundation for the creative work of the
state and society. Only together will they be able to find an optimal balance of freedom and
security guarantees ." [My Emphasis]
What a brilliant collection of words emphasizing the absolute requirement for the state to
do its utmost to support and develop its human capital--its citizens--while also saying
citizens have their own duty to ensure the quality of the state, which means installing
representatives that will work for them and promote their interests first and foremost since
they are the backbone of the state. Don't feed and care for the citizenry as in the USA and
you'll have a corrupt, feeble state when it comes to keeping itself strong. And IMO the
primary difference that's making Russia stronger while the USA atrophies is that Russia
listens to its people and genuinely cares for and acts in their interests while in the USA
the demands of the citizenry have fallen on deaf ears for decades, regardless the political
party running the government.
Gruffy is trying to conflate perpetrator as opposed to the victim/ victems !
Classic -- -
US geo-politics.
Blame shifting fascist tactic.
Learned far right tactic.
Or
Psychopathic projection.
Example -- --
US attacks Iran &Russia but blames them for attacking The US.
Also Gruffy I note how you side step a point well made by
Asking a deliberately distracting question. Yawn
"Blame shifting" absolutely is part of smashing class consciousness. Shift the blame
for people's difficulties from capitalism to various parts of the working class. Those who
participate violently in this process are fascists and perpetrators. Of course, they are also
victims because they are destroying their own class consciousness. Class consciousness is
necessary if they are ever to be able to address the real issues causing them hardship.
When the question and answers segment comes online it is worth reading his opinion about
the Karabakh conflict and how it is a very difficult situation for Russia since both
countries involved, Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of a common family. The question implied
that Russia would unequivocally side with Armenia based on religion, to which Putin answered
that 15% of Russia population professes the islamic faith and that he considers Azerbaijan a
country as close to Russia as Armenia, with over two million nationals from each of the
warring countries living in Russia and as part of a very influential and productive
community.
Interesting too his take on Turkey, admitting that there are a lot of disagreements Putin
had good words for Erdogan admitting that he is independent and that he is someone able to
uphold his word, the Turk Stream project, it was agreed upon and completed, compared to the
europeans to whom he did not spare in his almost contemptuous words insinuating their lack of
sovereignty.
Gruffy error !!
In this context the 'mob'
Is trump followers.
The thugs in uniform.
The proud boys.
The US forces abroad and at home.
Gruffy 'you' ARE the mob.
I feel you watched to many cowboy films portraying native Americans as the bad guys! It
shows.
I won't be replying more. as I see your very shabby diversionary tactic. Nice try though. We
see you !! What you are and what you do.
Thanks for your reply! Even before the Q&A Putin skewers both the Empire and EU in
this paragraph:
"Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be imported.' I have said so many times. They
cannot be a product of the activities of foreign 'well-wishers,' even if they 'want the best
for us.' In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing
and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are
nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of
sovereignty. People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never
asked for their opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the
overlord decides everything for the vassal . To reiterate, only the citizens of a
particular country can determine their public interest." [My Emphasis]
And that "particular country" is one where both the citizens and the government share
"confidence" in each other such that they work in "harmony." Thus the #1 goal of the Outlaw
US Empire to sow chaos within nations so such confidence and harmony can't be established;
and if they are, then destroyed.
No one has ever lied to American people more than the American regime and her terrorizing
intelligence community organization, Snowden is the living proof of this . Anyone still alive
and living on this planet if it ever believed a word on anything coming out of the USG not
only is a fool and a total idiot but his/her head must be seriously checked. Regardless of
their party affiliations they have no shame of lying cheating steeling those United
oligarchy' Secretary of State is the proof that.
This poster is on neither "side" . More like Putin looking in pain over Azerbaijan and
Armenia killing each other at the prompting of some third party that doesn't care about
either of them. This poster is neither faux left nor right wing; however, this poster's
grandmother was Cherokee. There is no anger directed your way for your failure to understand,
though.
If Americans had any backbone they would be on the streets protesting about this sham
election prior to the election, of false choice no choice.
You earn your democracy or you loose your democracy.
Iran, Russia bashing ! Just how low have you people sunk.
No hind sight, no insight and no foresight !
No hope. Spineless.
Totally weird! You all, please get behind re-electing Trump. He is doing such a good job of
destroying the US empire and its pretensions. If you are really a leftist, this is a GOO:-D
thing!
The alternative is to vote Independent or Green but they don't have a chance right
now.
Walking only 3 miles on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles , going west I have counted 47 homeless
(male,females,wht,black,Asian)asking for handouts. These lost soles are the ones who have
paid the price for the for ever wars to secure the Israel' realm,
The propose of yesterday's security show at FBI was to convince the public that all negative
comments and cretics coming their way by internet blogs, email , media etc. is not really
from disfranchised Americans public, but rather foreign countries operation that they do not
like our democracy and way of life, It was solely meant to make people not to subscribe and
believe what negativity they hear or read on US( non existing)democracy ,
This is a cheap standard operation by totalitarian regimes.
53
That money went to the ESF,what else do you think is levitating stocks and bonds ?
You assumed wrongly, but Kudlow let slip they(ESF) were broke and actually stated the money
was going to them in a presser.
I dunno why I'm bothering to do this because astrology is such a lame easily disproven
superstition that gets by because there are just so many con artists making predictions that
occasionally some must be correct - the stopped clock effect, but here goes.
The moon's effect on our planet's oceans is proven to be caused by a known phenomenon,
gravity. These stars whose positions we are told influence our human lives (just another
anthrocentric load of bulldust what about beings on other planets?) are thousands of light
years away from earth, meaning when the con-artists draw up their star charts or WTF they
call 'em, they are looking at formations that happened thousands of years ago - all different
depending on a particular star's distance from earth.
Claiming to be able to predict anything rational from such a mish mash of incorrect data is
risible, sad really and goes much to explain the house dembot's mania.
As for oblammer in Miami? I guess the dnc know where quite a few oblammer bodies are
buried.
My view is changing, Biden is so crooked that even though if he wins, the corporate media
will try hard to leave him alone, but he's just too clumsy, so that some dems are going to
side with the rethugs to impeach him and fast, however that may be what the oligarchy is
counting on, as that brings bad karmala harris to the fore, a women so unpopular with dem
rank and file she withdrew from the primary before any votes were cast, how's that for
'democracy'.
This is the real issue, both dem & rethug prez candidates are crooks through and
through, if the dems win, then the spotlight the corporate media shone on orangeutan will be
turned off. At least some of trump's worst rorts were stopped by a fear of being found out,
but if the dems win dopey joe will have no such constraint - until he does something so over
the top eg kick off nuclear war, that the media finally wakes up. too late but at least now
they're awake.
Posted by: vinnieoh | Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45 If Trump loses, should some people expect
bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings?
That is the threat. If either side loses, there will be massive civil unrest - at least
it's very likely that is (part of) "the plan" - whatever the plan actually is. In any event,
plan or not, it's predictable. Most of the preppers I follow on Youtube are urging everyone
to stock up on food and water because there's a good chance that everyone will be back on
movement restrictions of some sort, if not full-on martial law, within the next couple
months. As I said before, this country is going to start looking like Turkey or Italy in the
70's when the Grey Wolves and the Red Brigades were terrorizing those countries. It may not
be "civil war", but it's likely to be uglier than what happened this summer.
There will be cries of joy in the streets and maybe some celebratory looting, all from the
urban left.
Trump's supporters might assemble peacefully in a very sparse manner, but I would bet most
would simply take the newly alotted time from the Biden-victory to prep and ready a little
more before the real fireworks begin. Violence would only erupt from the urban left attacking
those demonstrations.
Real men are lying in wait. The city is not their playground any longer.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19 -- "Barack can claim 'he paid his dues'
whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has
already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine
rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted."
Thanks for your astute observations. Am learning much.
A compromised man never escapes blackmail: he is but a tool in the hands of his owners. It
is not IF, but WHEN he will be used / abused. Over and over again, like a banker's boot
stomping on his arrogant face.
But then, who is to say that Obanger Obummer was unaware of his VP, that Basement-Biding
Bidet Biden's 'arrangements' for wealth accretion? And more (there is always more), who is to
say that Obanging Ohumming gets NO share therefrom at some 'convenient' time?
Evil thinks himself clever to hide in the dark, yet lives in daily fear of the light.
Thusly Obanging Ohummer's calculations that you noted above, and his dark demeanour these
days. He knows he is walking on a knife edge, with a sword hanging over his head, and a
safety net (those 17 intelligence agencies?) that can turn into a fowler's snare (sorry,
mixed metaphors!)
Yet, looking at the happier demeanour (she used to scowl all through 2017/2018) on that
shallow face called Michelle Ohummer, we can guess that she thinks they have escaped clean
with their 'rewards of office'.
Christian J. Chuba @17 asked, "How long?" I ask, how does an immoral leadership ever going
to turn moral? When does America get the leadership that she deserves?
@71 karlof1 - "only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis" - Putin
What a brilliant equation from Putin. Even more penetrating and useful than the formerly
existing observation that socialist-style societies have performed best in response to the
virus. Putin's criterion cuts exactly to the essence of the thing.
What the US has demonstrated from the virus response is that it is not a viable state. The
benchmark now exists. Thanks for bringing it over.
I have a friend of Cherokee ancestry. She told me how once she was speaking with an elder
woman of the tribe, and described herself as "one-eighth Cherokee".
The old woman shook her head and said, "The Cherokee spirit cannot be diluted."
Should any here be interested, Wikipedia has aa extensive listing of governmental scandals
for the 20th and 21st century administrations. Note the number of executive, legislative and
judicial scandals for each administration. Note also the volume of scandals as
administrations go from Franklin D. Roosevelt through to D.J. Trump for both executive and
legislative branches. The political parties of the malfeasant are of interest as well -
trending can be discerned, maybe, for the observant.
Tramp was essentially the President from military industrial complex and Israel lobby. So he was not played. That's naive. He
followed the instructions.
On March 20, 2018, President
Donald Trump
sat beside Saudi crown prince Muhammed bin Salman at the White House and lifted a giant map that said
Saudi weapons purchases would support jobs in "key" states -- including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio, all
of which were crucial to Trump's
2016 election victory
.
"Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of
equipment but if you look, in terms of dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million -- that's peanuts for you. You
should have increased it," Trump
said
to the prince, who was (and still is) overseeing a military campaign in Yemen that has deployed U.S. weaponry to commit
scores
of alleged war crimes.
Trump has used his job as commander-in-chief to be America's arms-dealer-in-chief
in a way no other president has since Dwight Eisenhower, as he prepared to leave the presidency, warned in early 1961
of the military-industrial complex's political influence. Trump's posture makes sense personally ― this is a man who
regularly
fantasizes
about violence, usually toward foreigners ― and he and his advisers see it as politically useful, too. The president
has repeatedly appeared at weapons production facilities in swing states,
promoted
the head of Lockheed Martin using White House resources, appointed defense industry employees to top government jobs
in an unprecedented way and expanded the Pentagon's budget to near-historic highs ― a guarantee of future income for
companies like Lockheed and Boeing.
Trump is "on steroids in terms of promoting arms sales for his own
political benefit," said William Hartung, a scholar at the Center for International Policy who has tracked the defense
industry for decades. "It's a targeted strategy to get benefits from workers in key states."
In courting the billion-dollar industry, Trump has trampled on moral
considerations about how buyers like the Saudis misuse American weapons, ethical concerns about conflicts of interest
and even part of his own political message, the deceptive
claim
that he is a peace candidate. He justifies his policy by citing job growth, but data from
Hartung
,
a prominent analyst, shows he exaggerates the impact. And Trump has made clear that a major motivation for his defense
strategy is the possible electoral benefit it could have.
Next month's election
will show if the bargain was worth it. As of now, it looks like Trump's bet didn't pay off
― for him, at least. Campaign contribution records, analysts in swing states and polls suggest arms dealers have given
the president no significant political boost. The defense contractors, meanwhile, are expected to
continue
getting richer, as they have in a dramatic
way
under Trump.
Playing Corporate Favorites
Trump has thrice chosen the person who decides how the Defense Department
spends its gigantic budget. Each time, he has tapped someone from a business that wants those Pentagon dollars. Mark
Esper, the current defense secretary, worked for Raytheon; his predecessor, Pat Shanahan, for Boeing; and Trump's first
appointee, Jim Mattis, for General Dynamics, which reappointed him to its board soon after he left the administration.
Of the senior officials serving under Esper, almost half have connections
to military contractors,
per
the Project on Government Oversight. The administration is now rapidly trying to fill more Pentagon jobs under the guidance
of a former Trump campaign worker, Foreign Policy magazine recently
revealed
― prioritizing political reasons and loyalty to Trump in choosing people who could help craft policy even under a
Joe Biden
presidency.
Such personnel choices are hugely important for defense companies'
profit margins and risk creating corruption or the impression of it. Watchdog groups argue Trump's handling of the hiring
process is more evidence that lawmakers and future presidents must institute rules to limit the reach of military contractors
and other special interests.
"Given the hundreds of conflicts of interest flouting the rule of
law in the
Trump administration
, certainly these issues have gotten that much more attention and are that much more salient
now than they were four years ago," said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan
good-government group.
The theoretical dangers of Trump's approach became a reality last
year, when a former employee for the weapons producer Raytheon used his job at the State Department to advocate for a
rare emergency declaration allowing the Saudis and their partner the United Arab Emirates to buy $8 billion in arms ―
including $2 billion in Raytheon products ― despite congressional objections. As other department employees warned that
Saudi Arabia was defying U.S. pressure to behave less brutally in Yemen, former lobbyist Charles Faulkner led a unit
that urged Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
to give the kingdom more weapons. Pompeo
pushed
out Faulkner soon afterward, and earlier this year, the State Department's inspector general
criticized
the process behind the emergency declaration for the arms.
MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS
Red
Crescent medics walk next to bags containing the bodies of victims of Saudi-linked airstrikes on a Houthi detention center
in Yemen on Sept. 1, 2019. The Saudis military campaign in Yemen has relied on U.S. weaponry to commit scores of alleged
war crimes.
Even Trump administration officials not clearly connected to the
defense industry have shown an interest in moves that benefit it. In 2017, White House economic advisor Peter Navarro
pressured
Republican lawmakers to permit exports to Saudi Arabia and Jared
Kushner, the president's counselor and son-in-law, personally
spoke
with Lockheed Martin's chief to iron out a sale to the kingdom, The New York Times found.
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When Congress gave the Pentagon $1 billion to develop medical supplies
as part of this year's
coronavirus
relief package, most of the money went to defense contractors for projects like jet engine parts instead,
a Washington Post investigation
showed
.
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"It's a very close relationship and there's no kind of sense that
they're supposed to be regulating these people," Hartung said. "It's more like they're allies, standing shoulder to shoulder."
Seeking Payback
In June 2019, Lockheed Martin announced that it would close a facility
that manufactures helicopters in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and employs more than 450 people. Days later, Trump tweeted
that he had asked the company's then-chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, to keep the plant open. And by July 10, Lockheed
said
it would do so ― attributing the decision to Trump.
The president has frequently claimed credit for jobs in the defense
industry, highlighting the impact on manufacturing in swing states rather than employees like Washington lobbyists, whose
numbers have also
grown
as he has expanded the Pentagon's budget. Lockheed has helped him in his messaging: In one instance in Wisconsin, Hewson
announced
she was adding at least 45 new positions at a plant directly after Trump spoke there, saying his tax cuts for corporations
made that possible.
Trump is pursuing a strategy that the arms industry uses to insulate
itself from political criticism. "They've reached their tentacles into every state and many congressional districts,"
Scherb of Common Cause said. That makes it hard for elected officials to question their operations or Pentagon spending
generally without looking like they are harming their local economy.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat who represents Coatesville,
welcomed
Lockheed's change of course, though she warned, "This decision is a temporary reprieve. I am concerned that Lockheed
Martin and [its subsidiary] Sikorsky are playing politics with the livelihoods of people in my community."
The political benefit for Trump, though, remains in question, given
that as president he has a broad set of responsibilities and is judged in different ways.
"Do I think it's important to keep jobs? Absolutely," said Marcel
Groen, a former Pennsylvania Democratic party chair. "And I think we need to thank the congresswoman and thank the president
for it. But it doesn't change my views and I don't think it changes most people's in terms of the state of the nation."
With polls showing that Trump's disastrous response to the
health pandemic
dominates voters' thoughts and Biden sustaining a lead
in surveys of most swing states
, his argument on defense industry jobs seems like a minor factor in this election.
Hartung of the Center for International Policy drew a parallel to
President George H.W. Bush, who during his 1992 reelection campaign promoted plans for Taiwan and Saudi Arabia to purchase
fighter jets produced in Missouri and Texas. Bush
announced
the
decisions
at events at the General Dynamics facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and the McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis that made
the planes. That November, as Bill Clinton defeated him, he lost Missouri by the highest
margin
of any Republican in almost 30 years and won Texas by a slimmer
margin
than had become the norm for a GOP presidential candidate.
MANDEL NGAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
President
Donald Trump greets then-Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson at the Derco Aerospace Inc. plant in Milwaukee on July 12,
2019. Trump does not appear to be winning his political bet that increased defense spending would help his political
fortunes.
Checking The Receipts
The defense industry can't control whether voters buy Trump's arguments
about his relationship with it. But it could, if it wanted to, try to help him politically in a more direct way: by donating
to his reelection campaign and allied efforts.
Yet arms manufacturers aren't reciprocating Trump's affection. A
HuffPost review of Federal Election Commission records showed that top figures and groups at major industry organizations
like the National Defense Industrial Association and the Aerospace Industries Association and at Lockheed, Trump's favorite
defense firm, are donating this cycle much as they normally do: giving to both sides of the political aisle, with a slight
preference to the party currently wielding the most power, which for now is Republicans. (The few notable exceptions
include the chairman of the NDIA's board, Arnold Punaro, who has given more than $58,000 to Trump and others in the GOP.)
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics
shows
that's the case for contributions from the next three biggest groups of defense industry donors after Lockheed's employees.
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One smaller defense company, AshBritt Environmental, did
donate
$500,000 to a political action committee supporting Trump ― prompting a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, which
noted that businesses that take federal dollars are not allowed to make campaign contributions. Its founder
told
ProPublica he meant to make a personal donation.
For weapons producers, backing both parties makes sense. The military
budget will have increased 29% under Trump by the end of the current fiscal year,
per
the White House Office of Management and Budget. Biden has
said
he doesn't see cuts as "inevitable" if he is elected, and his circle of advisers includes many from the national security
world who have worked closely with ― and in many cases worked for ― the defense industry.
And arms manufacturers are "busy pursuing their own interests" in
other ways, like trying to get a piece of additional government stimulus legislation, Hartung said ― an effort that's
underway as the Pentagon's inspector general
investigates
how defense contractors got so much of the first coronavirus relief package.
Meanwhile, defense contractors continue to have an outsize effect
on the way policies are designed in Washington through less political means. A recent report from the Center for International
Policy found that such companies have given at least $1 billion to the nation's most influential think tanks since 2014
― potentially spending taxpayer money to influence public opinion. They have also found less obvious ways to maintain
support from powerful people, like running the databases that many congressional offices use to connect with constituents,
Scherb of Common Cause said.
"This goes into a much bigger systemic issue about big money in politics
and the role of corporations versus the role of Americans," Scherb said.
Given its reach, the defense industry has little reason to appear
overtly partisan. Instead, it's projecting confidence despite the generally dreary state of the global economy: Boeing
CEO Dave Calhoun
has said
he expects similar approaches from either winner of the election,
arguing even greater Democratic control and the rise of less conventional lawmakers isn't a huge concern.
In short, whoever is in the White House, arms dealers tend to do
just fine.
In
footage published on Monday, the conservative media watchdog shared around eight minutes of
an interview with a man identified as Ritesh Lakhkar, said to be a technical program manager at
Google's Cloud service, who accused the company of putting its thumb on the digital scales for
the Democrats.
"The wind is blowing toward Democrats, because GOP equals Trump and Trump equals GOP.
Everybody hates it, even though GOP may have good traits, no one wants to acknowledge them
right now," Lakhkar said when asked whether Google favors either political party.
Project Veritas @Project_Veritas BREAKING:
@Google Program Manager Confirms Election Interference In Favor of
@JoeBiden Google search "skewed by owners and drivers of the algorithm" "Plain and simple
trying to play god"
While Lakhar – whose LinkedIn page states he's worked at Google since
May 2018 – did not specify exactly how the company gives an edge to certain political
viewpoints, he suggested the platform is selling favorable coverage to the highest bidder.
"It's skewed by the owners or the drivers of the algorithm. Like, if I say 'Hey Google,
here's another two billion dollars, feed this data set of whenever Joe Biden is searched,
you'll get these results,'" he went on, blasting Big Tech firms for "playing god and
taking away freedom of speech on both sides."
Lakhkar complained of a suffocating, overly-political atmosphere at Google, where he said
"your opinion matters more than your work," recalling a dramatic response to Donald
Trump's 2016 election win at the company. Several media reports have documented employees'
appalled reactions to the victory, including
internal company footage of a meeting soon after the election, where co-founder Sergey Brin
is heard comparing Trump's win to the rise of fascism in Europe.
"When Trump won the first time, people were crying in the corridors of Google. There were
protests, there were marches. There were like, I guess, group therapy sessions for employees
organized by HR," he said.
I guess that's one of the reasons I feel suffocated [at Google]. Because on one side
you have this unprofessional attitude, and on the other side you have this ultra-leftist
attitude. Your entire existence is questioned.
PetarGolubovicRomanov 19 hours ago Nothing unexpected there - it always seemed a
dodgy thing to me Google is 'the greatest' place to work. It must be to 'keep the lights on'
with all their servers, but it is a company with what, two products - search and maps - and
both have not changed almost at since they were created over a decade ago. Reply 5 2 Head like
a rock PetarGolubovicRomanov 18 hours ago but it is run by the CIA so what do you expect?
Mickey Mic 16 hours ago For the life on me; I just can't understand, why so many have faith in
a system that has enormous disdain for them. Do the people really need the news to make the
announcement ? Sadly, that is the case, because most can't think for themselves anymore, they
rely on the narrative that everything is on a honest base system still !? The fact checkers
don't check the facts, there is no such thing as a private large corporation with out ties to
the intelligence apparatus. Big Company's are used by the shadow Gov. to gain the kind of
wealth they need to stage their secrete plans of the NWO. People like Bill Gates, Fauci,
only spoken in generalities, because they where only groomed to make the wealth for the
advancements of the puppet masters agenda's. How many conspiracies must come true for one to
think that the word "conspiracy" is only used to make others think, the next person must be
crazy to think the way he does ? What the world needs is more common sense, and less dependence
on the glow boxes in front of them. True wisdom, is only for the few that don't think the world
is what they was conditioned to believe in. Ethnocentric pride creates a comfort zone; which is
hard to break, it gets internalized though generations just like how holidays are created.
Sadly, most wouldn't remember by next week; because the their brain is constantly getting
flooded by squeals of events. And to top it all we have fake news to underline the long term
memory bank system. Salman M Salman 14 hours ago Big tech companies represent the pillars of
globalism which by definition supports only their people. The world after the elections will
see their take over or demise.
Head like a rock TheLeftyHater 18 hours ago but those are both CIA creations, is that 'lefty'?
Guns Blazing 14 hours ago Very old news, but worthy of repeating. Just watch that exchange in
Congress between Senator Cruz and Dr. Robert Epstein. Google swaying millions of votes in favor
of Democrats. Also top Clinton campaign donor in 2016 was Alphabet, the parent company of
Google.
Well, well – hello, Chrystia Freeland, I'd like you to meet Andrzej Duda, President
of Poland. What, your Grampy was a Nazi collaborator, too?? You're kidding me – why,
we're like brother and sister!!
"Polish President Andrzej Duda pursues a Russophobic policy and actively supports
Ukrainian nationalists, because one of his ancestors was a Nazi collaborator who served the
Nazi invaders and took part in the massacres on the territory of Belarus.
Ukrainian publicist Miroslava Berdnik, previously persecuted by the SBU, reported this
in her Telegram channel, the correspondent of PolitNavigator reports."
I agree. I roll my eyes every time. It goes to show how deeply embedded the false
narrative of NSDAP is. Many otherwise bright writers use this same example. Use the
Bolshevism of the USSR instead.
Invest time in viewing 'The Greatest Story NEVER Told' or 'EUROPA: The Last Battle.'
They're both long, but comprehensive.
Bolshevism may not a good comparison to the common perception of Nazism as Hitler won over
the loyalty of much of the German citizenry where Bolshevism was terror handed down to the
population by the tyrannical minority at the top.
This in reply to your #131 yesterday re JP Morgan, oligarch power and method used to create
Federal Reserve:
There is more. Banking has an odd and opaque history of global control of money/finance.
It was clear by ca. 1900 that the global keystone was control of USA banking...but how?,
because any USA legislation had to be signed-off by a President...the ONLY exception being
overriding a pres. veto. It could not be done in USA by pres. decree.
So the riddle is how could this rip-off be done in a freak nation that was an open society
of free public discourse full of very active politician? Even if Congress could be bribed and
otherwise cajoled to pass such legislation, how could any President be "arranged" to sign
it?
CLUE -- W. Wilson -- headmaster of Princeton University suddenly rose to Governor of New
Jersey , then suddenly ran for Pres of US. A most weird election resulted in WW becoming Pres
and in his first year signed the Fed Res Act. Boom! Done!
CLUE -- How did the bankers, Warburg et al, manage to put WW under their control? How did
they select WW and get hooks so deeply into headmaster WW and get him elected Pres.? What was
their secret?...and that could be kept secret? and never in writing.
The ANSWER might well be known only to surviving members of families of those involved in
WW's mysterious medical maladies. Though WW's doctors never disclosed publicly all his
medical data, related family members of consulted medical experts would likely have it as a
family secret...that WW had an "unspeakable" malady whose diagnosis was quietly handed down
to successive generations.
Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate
through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or
contractor.
First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an
era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in
highlighting the threat from Beijing.
They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and
defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop
Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand
to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.
It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money,
either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the
ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action,
and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the
chimpanzees believe.)
Jacques Chirac President of France told Jr Bush if the United States finds WMDs in Iraq you
put them there. The CIA and MI6 knew Iraq had no WMDs because Tariq Aziz Saddam's long time
number 2 was a CIA asset. Back in the 1980s Aziz was a regular on the Washington cocktail party
circuit and a frequent guest on CNNs Crossfire with Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak vs Tom Braden
and Michael Kinsley. Finally Dick Armey Republican and House Majority leader was going to vote
against authorizing the war in the fall of 2002. Cheney goes up to Capitol Hill pulls Armey
into the Vice Presidents office in the Capitol and tells him that Iraq is close to having
suitcase nukes and has very close ties to Osama bin Laden. Both lies of course.
On one occasion when Jr Bush was talking to Chirac he told him that the war on terror is
Biblical prophecy. Needless to say Chirac was stunned. Yes the Republican establishment lied
the country into one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our history. Almost as bad as
Woodrow Wilson taking us into World war 1 which led to the rise Bolshevik revolution and Nazi
Germany
Vietnam was bad for sure and had a much larger death count, but the region or the
domino theory never materialized. The Middle East has been in chaos ever since our
invasion and occupation of Iraq
Britain created Saudi Arabia? They supported the westernized Hashemites rivals of the
Saud to the hilt. Just one of the many factual errors in a muddle-headed article that seems
to draw its inspiration from the reflexive anti-Americanism of the European loony left.
The Caucasus, like the former Yugoslavia, or India before partition, is made up of many
populations coexisting. When ethno- or religious nationalism rears its ugly head, violence
and ethnic cleansing inevitably ensue. The Armenians prevailed militarily due to
Azerbaijani incompetence, not because of any intrinsic moral righteousness, but the thing
about military gains is they can be reversed when the other side gets its act together,
specially if it enjoys an overwhelming advantage in population and resources.
Foreign powers like Russia, Turkey, Iran, France or Israel are pouring oil on the fires
of revanchism for political or mercantile reasons, instead of pushing both sides to
meaningful negotiations (let's not forget the Armenians are perfectly happy with the status
quo and have not exactly been eager to negotiate it away). The last thing the US should be
doing is taking sides, and since this is Russia's backyard there is not much we can do
other than pressuring Turkey to stop making things worse, but we all know how little real
sway we have with Erdögan.
The article seems to me to be disjointed and I have feeling the damage was done during
editing. There's no egregious mistake is saying the Brits created "Saudi" Arabia. That is a
historical fact and which family/tribe they supported is irrelevant in historical terms.
Your charge of "reflexive anti-Americanism of the European loony left." because of a few
inaccuracies in the article is way off the wall. The article is badly written but it is
informative.
Regarding your claim, "Foreign powers like Russia, Turkey, Iran, France or Israel are
pouring oil on the fires...", I agree with you with the exception of Iran's role in this
mess. The very first official announcement by the IRI, which I posted to another article on
the site, warned Turkey is pouring fuel to the file. There's no disagreement there. Iran
has no military personnel nor funding going to either country. Azerbaijan has about 700
Kilometers of common border with Iran, and Armenia shares about 32 Kilometers of borders
with Iran. Iran has a substantial, vibrant and patriotic Azari population. Many are in top
IRI leadership including Khamenei. Iran also has a very substantial and vibrant Armenian
population. Iran does recognize the Turk's genocide of its Armenian population. Iran is
connected to Armenia via oil and gas pipelines, as well as power grids. Iran is the most
important of energy supplier for Armenia.
A bit of recent history will shed some light on Iran's behavior and attitude towards
each country. While Armenia remained one of Iran's stalwart neighbors, Azerbaijan took the
path of endearing itself to the US and Israel axis of war mongering and destabilizing
policies. This put Azerbaijan on Iran's list of "unfriendly" governments, I'm not talking
about Azerbaijan's Shia population in this context. There's nothing for Iran in this war.
Therefore Iran's latest announcement is to end the war as soon as possible through
diplomatic means. The shells and missiles have started landing on Iranian soil but no
casualties fortunately.
The British had literally nothing to do with the creation of Saudi Arabia.
Abdulaziz Ibn Saud took back his family fief of Riyadh in 1901 from the rival al-Rashid of
Ha'il, then waged war over the other tribes of Arabia, enlisting a fanatical proto-ISIS
like militia called the Ikhwan to conquer in 1924 the British-supported Hejaz ruled by
Sharif Hussein of the Hashemite dynasty. He did not extend his conquests to Yemen, Oman,
Kuwait or Transjordan and Syria because that would have meant waging direct war on the
British and French empires, and in fact had to quell a rebellion of the Ikhwan who wanted
to do exactly that.
The Saudis draw great pride in being the one nation in the Middle East that was not
colonized by Western powers (mostly because it was worthless until the discovery of oil).
Just because William Shakespear or Gertrude Bell toured the region does not make the
al-Saud British puppets like the Hashemites were, whatever their many faults. While
Abdulaziz bided his time and tactically made treaties with the British like temporarily
accepting a protectorate status or agreeing to fight the al-Rashid (like he would do
otherwise, they being his family's hereditary enemies....), they never provided him with
any significant assistance, and in fact tried ineffectually to contain his rise.
I think if we remove "Saudi" from the discussion and just talk about "Arabia" our
difference of opinion will evaporate. The country is mistakenly, in my opinion, was named
"Saudi Arabia" for the Western colonizers' special interest. The rest of your argument
about who did what to whom in Arabia is inside baseball to me.
By the way, stay tuned. We many start hearing about the al-Rashid as soon as the "king"
passes and mBS tries be big cheese of Arabia.
Of course Iran would just like the conflict to go away; its leaving them with only bad
choices, whether that to be appearing to support Azerbaijan and alienating Armenia, with
whom they have an important relationship, or appearing to support Armenia and alienating
much of its local Azeri population. I think Iran publicly is walking a fine line and trying
to stress diplomacy to solve the conflict as much as possible, though its still hard for
them to extricate themselves from the politics of the situation.
Though, in that regard, its a bit wrong to compare the Azeri population in Iran to the
Armenian population; its completely different in scale and importance. Iran has some
concern that the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, if handled wrongly, would become regional or
spill over into their borders, and they're less concerned about Armenia in that part.
Also wrong to not point out that Israel formed ties with Azerbaijan and Iran formed ties
with Armenia around the same time; these were complementary moves, and its just as possible
to explain Israel's ties with Azerbaijan as being as a result of Iran's ties with Armenia,
rather than just the reverse. Just as well, Israel at the time had friendly relations with
Turkey, which have since deteriorated. Its also true that the relationships are based on
reasons independent of those kind of geopolitical moves, and are largely based on
self-interest on both sides. Azerbaijan is also Israel's top oil supplier. Simply blaming
all this on the US and Israel, and making Iran's stance towards Azerbaijan as a result of
them being the victim of these types of deals, is a bit much.
I doesn't seem Iran can or even thinks about extricate herself from "the situation".
Iran is situated right there and whether things spill over to Iran or not will play a big
role in Iran's perception of the regional security.
No sure where I inferred any comparison between the Azari and the Armenian population of
Iran. They are BOTH Iranians. After the breakup of the USSR, the Azerbaijani dictator
Heydar Aliyev established relation with Israel and later the US, while refusing to join any
of the several post-Soviet economic arrangements. That was accompanied by Azerbaijan making
noises about "unification" of Azerbaijan. That pushed Iran to throw all its support behind
Armenia then. The situation has changed and IRI and Azerbaijan have normal relations.
Iran cannot simple afford to consider the Armenian Iranians less "important" than her
Azeri Iranians, if that's where you are going.
The author may have been a banker, but he clearly was neither an historian or diplomat.
He knows neither the details of what he writes, nor does he have a framework.
The decision to assign Karabakh to Azerbaijan was taken in 1921, not 1923 and was taken
by the Bolshevik Caucasus Bureau, not by Stalin. General clashes between Azerbaijanis and
Armenians took place in 1905, and the fighting for Karabakh proper erupted in 1918 with the
formation of independent Armenian and Azerbaijan republics. Both well before the Bolsheviks
or Stalin could do anything about Karabakh (although the Bolsheviks did join with the
Armenian Dashnaks in March 1918 to seize Baku and butcher Azerbaijanis in the process. Yes,
Azerbaijanis retaliated in September, but the Armenians did start it and got their hands
plenty bloody, outside Baku as well).
The author's contempt for Azerbaijanis comes through in his comment that the
Azerbaijanis have lost every time against the Armenians. He never reflects that the
possible reason might be that the Armenians have been both better organized and more
aggressive than the Azerbaijanis. He deliberately leaves out that Armenian expelled 800,000
Azerbaijanis from the territories surrounding Karabakh. He is stunning in his
disingenuousness and ignorance. As for his framework, he has none. Where does he get the
idea that Kosovo and Karabakh are interlinked and that they can be resolved through
tradeoffs? Does he imagine that Muslims are one people and constitute a single union?
Apparently.
An Arab world moving toward Pan-Arabism and socialism in 1924?!
As to the "Armenian settlement area" – the author might reflect on the Kurds'
claims to 90% of that same area, and the bloody history of Kurdish-Armenian relations. If
turning over old borders what do you do about Abkhazia, Circassia, and multiple places in
the Balkans from where Muslims were expelled. Bring Greeks back into Turkey, too, while we
are it? This article was not analysis, but uninformed blathering laced with ethnic
invective. The Armenians have suffered enough to deserve such shoddy argumentation. AmCon
should be ashamed to have run this.
Turkey regularly threatens Europe with opening the gates with their "refugees" as
leverage in negotiations. Erdogan travels to the heart of Europe to encourage the Turkish
diaspora to perpetuate their grudges on European soil and encourage them to flex their
political muscle to further an Islamist agenda. They slaughtered Armenians, Greeks, and
Syriac Christians- never acknowledging the crime or showing remorse. Now they seek to
finish what they started with the Armenian Genocide- and the world sits on its hands
claiming that both sides are equally responsible.
This is outrageous! Turkey has proved time and time again that it is the aggressor,
using threats to get what it wants, and does not behave as an ally. Turkey has
single-handily destabilized entire countries in its dream of Neo-Ottoman domination over
the region. Time to heavily militarize the Greek- Turkish frontier, kick Turkey out of
NATO, and put it on notice that it's adventurism in Libya, Syria, and Armenia will be met
overwhelming force. Feeble responses made by the West will only encourage the mad-dog
Erdogan.
Explains well why Biden spent the other day criticizing the President for not taking a
more active role in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Warmongers gonna warmonger. I assume
that's one of the main attractions for Biden's supporters - more dead women and children in
Asia. They spent eight years driving around with "Support America's Foreign Invasions"
yellow ribbon stickers on their SUVs under the last administration Biden was part of.
With not a new war for nearly four years, I can understand why the establishment and
Democrat voters are pissed. At least the fake "neoconservatives" are back in the party they
belong in.
War mongering is like Herpes. You can suppress it, but it's virus never goes away. Biden
has had it for years. He supported W's war of choice in Iraq, which led to the carnage of
thousands of American 20-somethings, thousands of mental illness sufferers and MILLIONS of
dead Iraqi people of ALL ages. He is an unrepentant old neo-con war criminal.
American diplomat George Messersmith found himself in an awkward situation while attending a
luncheon in Kiel, Germany in August of 1933.
As lunch came to a close, the attendees erupted into song with arms outstretched in the Nazi
salute.
First they belted out Germany's national anthem, followed by the anthem of the
Stormtroopers– the paramilitary "Brownshirts" who violently enforced Germany's new social
rules.
Messersmith was the US Consul-General overseeing America's diplomatic ties with Germany, so
he politely stood at attention. But he did not salute or sing along.
Germans were required by law to render the Nazi salute, especially during the anthem; Hitler
had been awarded supreme executive authority only a few months before, and he made the
mandatory salute law of the land.
Foreigners, however, were explicitly exempt from saluting or singing the anthem.
But that didn't help Messersmith.
Even though he was legally excused from making the Nazi salute, angry Brownshirts menacingly
glared at him for not participating in their rituals.
Messersmith later wrote in his memoirs that he felt threatened, as if the Brownshirts were
ready to attack him.
"I felt really quite fortunate that the incident took place within doors. . . For if it
had been in a street gathering, or in an outdoor demonstration, no questions would have been
asked as to who I was, and that I would have been mishandled is almost unquestionable."
Messersmith was one of the few US officials who grasped just how dangerous the Nazis were in
1933. Others had to witness it first hand before they understood.
A similar event unfolded when a US radio host and his family found themselves amidst an
impromptu Nazi parade in Berlin.
And in order to avoid Hailing Hitler, they turned their backs to the parade and gazed into a
store window.
But several Brownshirts quickly surrounded the family and demanded to know why they did not
salute.
The family explained that they were from the US and didn't know the customs in Germany. But
the Brownshirts didn't care. The family was assaulted as police officers watched and did
nothing to stop the violence.
News of these sorts of incidents quickly made their way overseas, and foreigners read the
about Americans traveling in Germany being savagely beaten or threatened for not engaging in
Nazi rituals.
But more surprising is that many foreigners actually sided with the Nazis.
Even the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany defended the Nazis and their Brownshirt
enforcers.
She said that news reports of these assaults and beatings were "exaggerated by bitter,
close-minded people" who ignored the "thrilling rebirth" Hitler had ushered in for Germany.
Of course, we know in retrospect that these early warning signs were not at all an
exaggeration. They were a small preview for what would come next.
Today we are obviously in a different time dealing with totally different circumstances.
But it would be foolish to ignore the early warning signs and pretend as if what's happening
now is not a preview for what could come next.
This is perhaps best illustrated by a CNN reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin back in August who
stood in front of burning cars and buildings, with a violent mob all around him, yet declared
the protests "fiery but mostly peaceful."
This willful ignorance of the undercurrent coursing its way through the Western world will
not save anyone from the destruction it brings.
For example, just this past Monday, "peaceful protesters" in Portland, Oregon celebrated
Columbus Day with an "Indigenous People's Day of Rage."
They weren't even pretending to be peaceful. They called it what it is: RAGE. That's
literally the name they gave to their own actions.
Hundreds of people dressed in all black, covered their faces, and armed themselves with
shields and nightsticks. They marched their way through the city, smashed windows, and forced
any witnesses to stop filming and delete photographs.
A man who filmed from his apartment's terrace had lasers shined in his eyes and was doused
in some sort of liquid.
The protesters tore down statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. They smashed the
windows of the Oregon Historical Society building, and unfurled a banner that said "stop
honoring racist colonizer murderers."
Police did not even attempt to intervene until the rioters had been on the streets for hours
and had already caused havoc and destruction.
(Ironically, much of the mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge that this group
'antifa'– the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists– even exists.)
It's obvious that a small, fringe, ideological minority has started to take control.
They have squashed civil discourse and free speech. Dissent is met with violence and
intimidation. And if you dare to speak out, you become a target.
That could mean being "cancelled" by the Twitter mob. Or being accosted in public and forced
to raise your fist. Several people have already been killed in protests across the nation.
This is far from the first time in history that a tiny fraction of the population has
resorted to violence and extremism to force their agenda on an entire nation.
But you don't have to watch helplessly as the born-again Brownshirts destroy everything you
have worked for.
The first step is to recognize that the radical movement will not simply go away on its own.
This has been growing for some time, and history tells us that it could become much
worse.
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Second, have a rock solid Plan B. This means deciding– in advance, when you're still
calm and rational– what steps to take in order to secure your family's safety, your
prosperity, and your freedom in a worst case scenario.
After all, you don't want to be thinking about your next move when some antifa thug
'peacefully' hurls a molotov cocktail through your window.
On another note We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the
next few years.
If The Federalist's
Sean Davis ' informants are even half right, director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Gina Haspel is making a big mistake - for herself, for the CIA , and, above all, for the country.
Davis wrote:
"Haspel is personally blocking the declassification and release of key Russiagate documents in the hopes that
President Donald Trump will lose his re-election bid, multiple senior U.S. officials told The
Federalist. The officials said Haspel, who served under former CIA Director John Brennan as
the spy agency's station chief in London in 2016 and 2017, is concerned that the
declassification and release of documents detailing what the CIA was doing during the 2016
election and the 2017 transition could embarrass the CIA and potentially even implicate
Haspel herself."
What Haspel seems to be missing here is that the CIA, and the FBI , of course, have already been embarrassed,
greatly, their reputations tarnished almost beyond recognition with tens of millions of U. S.
citizens by the Spygate/Russiagate scandal.
She and FBI director Christopher Wray , deluding themselves
that they are protecting vital institutions of our society, are apparently waiting with the
proverbial bated breath for a Biden administration so that all revelations and potential
indictments that might come via John Durham and William Barr are flushed down the equally
proverbial memory hole.
It won't work. The only way to resuscitate those reputations is for them, Haspel and Wray,
to be fully transparent, now , before the election .
Even if everything Durham and Barr are investigating is flushed away before reaching
fruition, even if the Biden-Harris administration instantly installs a new attorney general and
cleanses the DOJ and the intelligence agencies of all remnants of the dreaded Trump over night,
tens of millions of Americans already know.
They have already seen at least parts of the story and they won't forget. How could
they?
They know their new president Joe Biden and many allied with him have been implicated in a
treasonous plot of previously unheard of proportions to upend the prior administration.
These same people, these millions, now distrust the CIA and the FBI, and, to a great extent,
their government. They consider these pivotal institutions their enemies, working against their
interests and, more importantly, the interests of the country. And these people are some of the
most deeply patriotic of all Americans.
What a situation for our county! How can we then function as a democratic republic?
Did Ms. Haspel think about that? Did Mr. Wray consider that as he withholds or endlessly
redacts documents, allegedly to protect who exactly?
(Wray has taken his desire for a Biden victory to such lengths that he tried to downplay the
importance of Antifa.)
Haspel and Wray are doing the reverse of safeguarding their vital institutions. They are
increasing public distrust of them, a distrust so great that many of us see our society moving
inexorably in the direction of China, a high-tech tyranny of "social credit scores" and
obedience to a Big Brother Orwell could never have conceived.
What is the road back from that?
We should be heartened, however, by reports today as President Trump was exiting from Walter
Reed Hospital that the president was planning on declassifying and releasing many of these
documents himself within days. His chief of staff Mark Meadows was said to have a briefcase
stuffed with them.
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Perhaps, by the time you read this, you will know more.
If so, Haspel and Wray, to use another old proverb, will have missed the boat. Everyone will
know that their agencies need a thorough house cleaning and it will be done, as it should be,
without them.
And I will add, although the media will shout the contrary to the hills, though this is
October, revealing these documents is in no way an October Surprise. This is information We the
People (remember them?) were owed years ago.
When you have been deliberately deceived, that's no October Surprise. That's justice.
SilverRhino , 25 minutes ago
We are WELL beyond saving the FBI or the CIA.
Thucydides , 22 minutes ago
Full transparency will end up with all of them at Leavenworth KS.
Macho Latte , 11 minutes ago
CIA, and the FBI ,
of course, have already been embarrassed
Embarrassed? JFC! The author is the one who is delusional.
CIA, DOJ & FBI are corrupt DemonRat from top to bottom.
NoDebt , 9 minutes ago
The title to this article has to be one of the most darkly funny ones I've ever read on
ZH: "Only Full Transparency Will Save The CIA And FBI Now"
It's not just that they will never be transparent because obfuscation and opacity are
their stock-in-trade. It's that the idea that somehow becoming the opposite of what they
are (and were born to be) would "save" them.
That's like saying that auditing The Fed would "save" them. Or that fish should get out
of the water so they can breathe better. It's ridiculous in the extreme. It would kill
them. Which is why they don't do it. And never will.
ze_vodka , 26 minutes ago
Nope.
In 2010, I thought the FBI and CIA were OK.
Now I know full well that they serve only a single purpose... to harass, imprison, and
kill Americans who deviate from the preferred narrative.
Tenebrose , 24 minutes ago
"National Security" means the status quo in this our brave new America
And that is whatever we say it is, slave
Unknown User , 26 minutes ago
JFK tried to shut down the CIA, so they shot him.
namrider , 20 minutes ago
Deep State protecting themselves. C LIE A, FBLIE. Their purpose is NOT PUBLIC SAFETY, it
is deception. On behalf of their masters they have created an upsidedown world where it is
"legal" for them to lie, but not the public - this is bassackwards, they work for us, not
the other way around (except we know who they actually work for).
Both agencies should be 100% eliminated - same with the fake "Patriot Act" and all the
fake agencies it created.
When you pursue "safety" you wind up with neither safety nor FREEDOM.
2banana , 23 minutes ago
obama wesponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS and EPA to go after political enemies and those
who just had different viewpoints.
The left cheered. The fake legacy media cheered.
And now no one trusts any of them.
To include those on the left.
The Chicago Way.
spam filter , 8 minutes ago
Is a community organizer synonymous with organized crime boss? Obama will go down as the
most corrupt potus in history.
Yen Cross , 6 minutes ago
Devin Nunez, suggested during very compelling house testimony, that these agencies be
shuttered until they're cleansed.
Pretty good idea, based on all the horse **** we've been fed?
Nelbev , 12 minutes ago
The CIA has admittingly been engineering elections round the planet for years, it was
just under Brennan that they turned covert ways inward to US to get Hillary elected and
keep incumbent demoncrats in control. Brennan should be in prison. Haspel ran the London
CIA in 2016, thus helped or was congnizant of Halper, 5 eyes spying on Trump campaign
people like, coordination to get Papadopoulos to start Crossfire Hurricane. Haspel just
covering her ***. Not enough Kentucky bourbon to save her. Liked her deal in with
Mohammed bin Salman to cover up his assassination of Khashoggi in Tukey, what a charmer
.
spam filter , 18 minutes ago
What does government do when caught in the wrong? They arrogantly double down.
Government rarely admits wrongdoing. They're hinging their hopes on Biden winning, at all
costs. Look for the dirtiest tricks in political history, and i think we've already
witnessed germ warfare unleashed on the Potus by those elements who have the most to lose
in a Trump win.
Fuster-cluck , 5 minutes ago
100 years ago a spy was correctly considered despicable - at the level of child
molester or lower. Governments and militaries held their noses and used them even while
disgusted.
Somehow since the 50's onward spies became glorified (probably James Bond), and today
spying is pervasive, from the cameras in our houses, to Google, to the 3 letter
agencies.
Somehow we need to get the right attitude back. A spy is repugnant slime. They would
foul a cesspit, and no decent person would allow such filth in their house, much less at
their table.
There is no path to grace for the agencies, nor should we seek one. Eradicate every
last one of them and desecrate their memory.
PGR88 , 13 minutes ago
The idea that the CIA and FBI are in any danger from public opinion is preposterous.
They are in no danger because as perhaps the most important arms of the deep state, they
will have total protection from other arms of the deep-state; media, entertainment,
business, government bureaucracy, etc...
This is not just about Russiagate. It's also about Syria, including jihadists who
imposed Sharia law on portions of Syria they controlled with the aid of the CIA and false
flag chemical weapons attacks. Horrendous war crimes were inflicted, evidence for which
has been presented to the UN but kept out of the public eye.
The only possible road back from that is to blame it on someone else. Turkey's Erdogan
would be the best choice as he's made himself an enemy of everyone, including the Saudis.
Don't be surprised if Greece joins with Armenia and both get the backing of the US
against soon-to-be-ex-NATO-member Turkey.
And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay.
They'll be model liberators. And they'll take time to bring back Azerbaijani civilians
(refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that would become mixed as a result of
return."
Agreed, this is rubbish. "Mr. C" – assuming someone like this even exists, is either
terribly misinformed or an outright liar. Basically, if we follow Escobar's logic, Armenian's
are making a mistake by not agreeing to surrender their lives to the peace loving and rather
humanistic dictatorship of Azerbaijan. While he touches on some relevant points, overall,
Escobar has not done his homework and has come up with quite a bit of drivel.
Pepe, you didn't mention the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide,
all perpetrated by Turkey.
Why not? Would the Azeris, all Turks, be different? You say the Azeris if they won, Turks,
would treat the Armenian population nicely. Huh?
I remember from Runciman's book on the First Crusade that the Turks had already taken over
much of Anatolia but he seems to mention Armenians at every turn (from memory -- don't have
the book handy).
My impression is that before the Genocide the Armenians were all over Anatolia. There was
a narrow coastal strip at the western end that was historically part of Greece, and many
different peoples of Asia Minor are mentioned in the NT, but they arguably were all
Armenians, making the Armenians the indigenous people of Anatolia.
How is it that Turkey was allowed to keep part of Europe after WWI when they were losers?
And did they keep faith? Is the current St Sophia turmoil the norm of Turkish good faith?
Time for all the Turks to get out of Anatolia, give it back to Armenia, and head for
Azerbigan.
@Yevardian having been disciplined for some years now is, once again, at the throat of
the west. Europe spent millions of lives and huge resources throwing the Moors out last time.
If they don't take a stand and support Armenia they may very well have to do it again. As far
as the mythical Mr C is concerned he comes across, to me, as yet another apologist for the
Religion of Peace. Obviously cucked NATO will not help Armenia, they have neither the
intestinal fortitude nor the will, so it will be left to Russia and the Visigrad nations, in
the mean time Turkey is attempting to take Greek territory, Syrian territory, Libyan
territory and anything else that it can get it's mitts on and the West does absolutely
nothing. This will not end well.
I think few Armenian civilians will take the chance but I very much doubt Azerbaijanis
will be "model liberators". The new Azerbaijani state was born from the Sumgait and Baku
pogroms. I also don't think they will delay in moving Azeris into areas formerly inhabited by
Armenians – their role model Erdoğan has been trying to change facts on the ground
by moving ethnic Turks into Kurdish areas in his own country.
@Ann Nonny Mouse endeavor, even if they were the majority, though most accounts say they
were 40%.
I would strongly urge the Armenians to get off their nationalist high horse and solve the
problem diplomatically and learn to live with their neighbors. Super nationalism is a
dangerous and fake mantra that usually leads to disaster. My understanding was that the
Azeris and Armenians always got along before this debacle. They should try to work out things
and get back to a their original multi-cultural paradigm, that is living side by side instead
of fighting and dying over territory and national flags. Live is short and when we pass to
the other side you dont carry your flag with you.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991: but that was not
recognized by the "international community"
Just to throw in quickly that if Kosovo is "recognized", then bleeding Karabakh should
also long since have been recognized. Especially since the Armenians have an actual holocaust
in their 20th century past.
So, seems like the way to get sympathy to rob territory is to make full use of any
"genocide" one had suffered as excuse . worked very well ( in fact, spectacularly well) so
faR with the Chosen ones .
Well i admittedly dont know enough about the situation to try to critique this piece as
some of the other comments on here But i am skeptical about Armenia and their stated intent.
If it is reallly about protecting an ethnic group – then why not offer them citizenship
to move into your territory??? That would lead me to believe it is more about land and
resources
Yeah i dont know the nitty gritty in this conflict – but i do agree Edrogan seems to
be biting off more than he can chew He has too many pots on the fire it seems. Kurds –
Qatar/Saudis – Libya – Syria – Greece – Cyprus – and now
this..?
Aside from refusing to participate against their Muslim cousins (Afghanistan, Libya),
Turkey is using NATO doctrine quite effectively. It is a useful bullet prove vest for
Erdogan. The Brussels morons will be sorry for not expelling Turkey from their military club
long time ago.
@Ann Nonny Mouse driven to the Syrian desert AFTER some of them had aligned with the
Russians who were about to invade eastern Anatolia in 1915. Similarly, most of Crimean Tatars
were expelled from Crimea AFTER some of them had aligned with the invading Germans in 1941.
As another comparison, American-Japanese living at the Pacific coast were banished to camps
in the interior AFTER the Japanese army had attacked Pearl Harbor and not before.
When a group of people kill or drive out another group it's usually not for the fun of it but
rather due to necessities of survival, whatever evil that might require at that particular
time depending on the particular circumstances.
It would be interesting to read a scholarly exposition on what the USSR and governments in
Eastern Europe proper did or did not do to educate people away from their ancient hatreds,
and why whatever they did do appears not to have been particularly successful. Or was it
mostly successful and the hatreds were much more intense before 1917?
The entire Jewish American lobby and Israel are on Azerbaijan's side and anti-Armenian,
just as when they were working with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide.
Israel has also sold billions of dollars of weapons to Azerbaijan which the latter is
using against Armenians. Israel gets oil from Azerbaijan
Of course, Azerbaijan and Turkey have imported jihadists from Syria and Libya to fight
Christian Armenians now.
Apparently, Pepe, you and the Jewish lobby, Israel, Turkey, and the jihadists are on the
same side.
Congratulations.
P.S. It would take a hundred pages to list all the factual errors you made. For example,
Armenians were still the clear majority in Artsakh/Karabagh in 1988 and 1991. Armenians there
had been grossly mistreated by Azerbaijan for decades.
The fighting occurred in the late 1980s only because Azerbaijan, backed by the Russian
military, killed and harrassed Armenians. The Azeris also committed massacres of Armenians
who were living in Baku and Sumgait in the late 1980s.
Stalin also placed Nakhichevan, an Armenian territory, inside Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan kicked out every Armenian from Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan was doing that to
Artsakh/Karabagh too.
No wonder Artsakh voted to be independent from Azerbaijan, something you don't want to
understand.
Better luck next time trying to fool readers, Pepe.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan,
Russia will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line.
Moscow has all it takes to put him in serious trouble – as in shutting off gas
supplies to Turkey.
Russia isn't going to shut off gas to Turkey. Russia never does that (shutting off gas).
It's a Western canard.
Russia could, however, impose a no-fly-zone over Georgia, effectively blocking resupply
and reinforcements to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is almost completely surrounded by Russian
allies and bases. They rely on Georgia for military transit.
Ignorant post. Armenian nationalist were active in Russia prior to ww1, then supported
Russian entrance into Turkish territory because they shared a religion. They stabbed the
ottomans , of which they were a big part, in the back. The young Turks , who were actually
donmeh jews, had them marched off to Syria and lebanon, etc, causing many deaths! The
Armenian is still causing trouble for the Turks. They sided with the mongols in their battles
against the Muslims, along wit the Georgians, repeatedly. More to a small story
What's going to happen to USA? The poverty and racial intolerance ,both seem to be
undermining the stability and the ideological integrity of the country . I see many states
emerging from the body of America.But the problems will not be resolved . It might just like
like Caucasian territory or Balkan .
1. BTC is described as 'bypassing Iran'. One could easily argue it also bypasses *Russia*
. Perhaps that's what made it necessary for Soros & others to peel Georgia off from
Russian control back in the day? Look how Russia responded by recapturing the Georgian
Military Highway (South Ossetia).
2. Look in general at how Russia is willing to give up huge areas of territory so long as
she keeps key strategic points of control: South Ossetia, Crimea, Transnistria, Abkhazia and
Armenia. Smell the coffee.
3. 2. 'Mr. C' is quick to mention Baku/Ankara joint exercises in August, but fails to
mention Kavkas 2020 exercises led by Russia. Uh duh.
4. 'Mr. C' seems to ignore the fact that Armenia couldn't have taken that territory in
first place, or kept it, w/out Russian assistance. And idea 'Russia can do nothing' is
absurd. As is the idea that Russia can't supply Armenia because there's no land connection.
Did the allies have any problem keeping West Berlin supplied by air? Of course not. All
nonsense.
5. The idea that there is a 'Russia/Turkey' strategic partnership is also silly. Where is
this partnership? Turkey buying S-400s? So what? Are they in partnership in Syria? In Libya?
No. So why would they be in N-K?
6. Weird. No mention of China and it's growing relationship with Turkey. This probably
tells you all you need to know about the author. Unless of course the author is just a fool,
which is also possible.
"Yet even before the collapse the Azerbaijani Army and Armenian independentists were
already at war (1988-1994), which yielded a grim balance of 30,000 dead and roughly a million
wounded."
This is a wounded-to-killed ratio of thirty-three to one. Doesn't make sense.
Were Russia to be as devious and underhanded as the puppet regime in the Di$trict of
Corruption, they would arrange for an overthrow of the present NATO/EU/U$ regime in Yerevan.
With those bastards out of the way and Armenia no longer playing double jeopardy, it might be
possible for a new Orthodox oriented Armenian government to come to some sort of arrangement
with Baku.
At the same time, perhaps Syrian spetsnaz units could practice some infiltration tactics
into Turkish semi-occupied "greater" Idlib and Ghurka style, behead a few Turkish officers
running the show there.
"Sultan" Erdogan is playing loose and wild with his shattering economy and massive
military. It is high time he was given a black-eye–one that would cause him to lose
face among his own countrymen.
This is my educated guess, the Anglo-Zionists led by Rothschild and Netanayahu destablize
the oil in the Middle East to keep their prices of oil in USD above 100 $/barrel
They have also blown up oil derricks in the North Sea, shut down Iranian and Iraq and
Syria oil production. The game is clear, low oil prices are being met with wiping out the
competition.
And causing hell in Iran and Venezueala. Back in 1954 Operation Ajax took out Mossadeq and
installed the Shah – puppet of big oil. Before it was BP it was the Persian Gulf Oil
Co. BP is owned mostly by the crown.
Trump's secretary of state was Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon just like GW Bush picked Condoleeza
Rice CEO Chevron to be his national security advisor.
The Israel angle is to get Iran and to goad Russia into war with the USA, the eventually
goal is that USA-Russia-China are reduced while Jews rule the world from Jerusalem.
How much you wanna bet Bibi Satanyahu has a hand in this war? And Evangelical Christians
will support Israel even if this war kills lots of Armenian Christians just like in
Syria.
Since this war in on Russia's doorstep Putin an Lavrov will try negotiations first then
what will they do next. Putin has vowed the war will never come to Russia which means Russia
will enter the theater on the anti-Zionist side.
Have you noticed every state within a few hundred miles of Israel is being torched and the
natives driven out?
Back again to Pepe Escobar's distortions of reality. Nagorno-Karabakh is an
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territory. In fact, no country in the world recognises it as an
"Independent" as Escobar likes to mislead us. Armenia should do the right thing and withdraw
its forces, including foreign militants from there. Like Israel, Armenia is playing the role
of a victim of a "holocaust".
Considering that the 2nd largest US/NWO Embassy in the World is in Armenia – a
country of 2.9 million people, and that the new President was put in power by the West
– the end game is to continue to surround Russia, screw up the New Silk Road, and be at
Iran's back door too. As said before , the domestic USA can totally look like the USSR in the
90s, but the NWO Foreign policy money is 100% – guaranteed. What do all those thousands
of workers in that huge Embassy compound do ?
Actually, once the Armenians were genocided , the Jewish bankers were the big shots left
in Turkey. H Morgenthau, our Turkish ambassador along with being jewish himself, wrote about
it in his reports. The Game hasn't changed much – it stays the same. Thanks.
About a third of Iran's population is Azeri. Should they develop interest in the conflict,
Iran may become involved. That would align Turkey and Iran vs Russia. That would be
something.
Damn right. We already have experience what happens when Turks get control of Christian
Armenians – systematic gang rapes and death marches are the rule of the day. Turks are
animals and letting them control any portion of Armenia is basically turning that place into
a concentration camp.
Fact: 1979 was the year that "big oil" LEGAL contracts were to expire and the "puppet"
Shah had threatened as early as 1973 (when he was instrumental in making OPEC a powerful
entity) that in 1979 Iran "would sell Iranian Oil to any buyer, at market prices".
Fact: Iran, in 1978 produced 6 million barrels per day. It has never been permitted to
reach those levels again.
Fact: Chinese, Indian, Syrian, Venezuelan, and God knows who else, all projects of the
Global Cabal have been getting Iranian Oil (under their engineered boxing of Iranian nation)
at levels that very likely are equal if not LOWER than the terms the Qajar idiots gave the
insatiablely greedy and slimey English.
And you did not mention that the only quarters of Smyrna/Izmir that were not torched in a
fire in 1922 were the Jewish and Turkish quarters – what a surprise! An antecedent to
9/11. Here is the Jewpedia hiding the real story – as usual.
The Armenian and Greek quarters were destroyed and the Jews got a monopoly on the
commerce. Done deal!
If the "colour revolution" assumptions were in force, there would be a host of
denunciations of Azerbaijan and Turkey (the latter perhaps the real prime mover in this) by
the USA and EU etc. There aren't. The USA and EU may even tacitly support the Azerbaijanis,
perhaps they hope the Russians and Iranians will become entangled in this affair and so
forth.
How about swapping Nagorno-Karabakh for North Cyprus. I am sure the Greeks would be very
happy to live with the Armenians. But the Sultan's dreams of owning the Eastern Mediterranean
would come to naught.
Stalin did nasty things like that to keep the republics feuding with each other rather
than pushing back against Moscow. The mixed-up borders of the 'stans, further east, are
testament to this. Fergana Valley?
Divide and rule. Still costing lives in pointless wars almost 100 years later.
At stake is the very existence of the Armenian people. Turkey is trying to finish what
remains of them after the genocide last century. Both Erdoghan and Aliev have stated, that
they want a "final solution" to the "Armenian problem".
Exactly. The history of Turkey since 1880-s is full of ethnic cleansings and genocides of
the non-muslim people such as Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
My thanks to Escobar for taking on a subject rather obviously not susceptible to 2,700
word essays, along with attention worthy links.
His biases are not my own but he's thoughtful and certainly doesn't hide them.
In this and so many other incidents we can see how thoroughly Trump has moved the American
ship of state despite the relentless efforts of foreign and domestic resistance to neutralize
America First and destroy him.
It's really quite something the way Obama's presidency in all its disastrous fullness has
been memory-holed. The defense of it being that it merely extended Bush's world-historical
incompetence and malefactions.
Could you have turned US unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact into a "moment" if you tried? I couldn't.
You will be way ahead of most everyone if you get your mind around that and the
geopolitical sad story that is CCP China winning the post-Cold War quarter-century hands
down.
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia – according to quite a few
analyses circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There's the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The Navalny
circus. The "threat" to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow's attention
towards the Caucasus . . .
I confess that I get no end of enjoyment over bellyaching on behalf of those powers the
Obama administration was turning the world over to. Nord Stream II was merely the down
payment on Russia's assistance/acquiescence in throwing the electron to Hillary, with the sky
the limit for China, Russia and Iran once Democrats and their foreign allies had neutralized
free and fair elections.
Now all of these powers must deal with a real POTUS who asks "What have you done for the
US lately?"
The USG and Russia have cooperated where geopolitical interests align. More will follow
once Trump takes the oath again. As I've explained previously, despite its high-risk position
in the Resistance matrix, Russia/Putin have (unsurprisingly, to me) acted skillfully and with
circumspection.
The same cannot be said for Iran. Nor China, particularly since the end of last year.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has raised a number of questions. In
particular, why Moscow is in no hurry to stand up for Armenia and why it does not sharply
criticize
Azerbaijan. The answer is that Moscow and Baku have very close relations, and not only
economic relations. So what is the value and irreplaceability of Azerbaijan for
Russia?
Border and population changes are in order. A quarter of N-K goes back to Azerbaijan and
the rest closer to Armenia proper plus the capital city goes to Armenia with a 50 mile wide
band connecting it with the rest of Armenia. The Azeris get the rest of their lands now
occupied by the Armenians. Will it happen? Probably not, just look at Kosovo..
There is a province between Ngorno Karabakh and Armenia proper of roughly of the same size
belonging to Azerbaijan, so why not just exchange it with each other to avoid further
conflict and bloodshed?
There is no guarantee that Turkey will not try to then eliminate whatever remains of
Armenia.
Remember, Turkey genocided Armenians and wiped out close to 80% of them in 1915 through
1922. Armenian populated areas stretched from what is now Armenia until the shores of Eastern
Mediterranean. The only thing that is left of it is Kessab in modern day Syria.
@Ghali nial borders are fake, false and fraudulent, whether in Asia or Africa. Over time,
justice will prevail and borders will reflect the ethno-national composition of its long-term
inhabitants.
That said, the current regime in Yerevan needs to be overthrown, as it was established in
conjunction with the interests of the Cabal/Nato and their various puppet regimes. Armenia is
the oldest Orthodox Christian nation in the world and was severely genocided by the Donmeh
covert Jewish Masons who called themselves the "Young Turks" who were led by Enver Pasha.
By the way, who are you, Ghali? Do you have a dog in the fight? Are you connected with an
intel agency?
Excellent article, normally I pass over Pepe for the naughty articles on Unz but I might
have to take another look.
My only critique is that the article feels pro-Azeri but that's balanced with an
informative description how this started in July, including an accurate appraisal of Turkish
behavior.
I'm not Azeri or Armenian so I didn't have a dog in this fight until I noticed Israel's
support for Azerbaijan. It's nothing personal, I have only one hate.
Jewish Bankers shifting profits to other Jewish bankers. Funding all sides and profiting
from the mass graves again. 5000 years and nothing has changed.
The Turks are the US Army in this – with their proxy armies sent to help the
Azerbaijanis, just like the US Army /Israelis and their proxies Isis, al Nusra, al Qaeda etc.
in Syria. The US and their 6000 employees at the Embassy, don't have to say anything –
they back both sides – just like the Zionists do – in the US political parties.
Things don't change , Tactics don't change. Thanks.
You are asking him if he has a dog in this fight? What about yourself? You very clearly
have a dog in this fight yourself, haven`t you?
Try to cut down on the hypocrasy, why don`t you, and at the same time maybe moderate your
"holier than thou" attitude.
Obviously the large multinational corporations are not in fact in charge, and will meekly follow the edict of national-security
bureaucrats even as it harms their bottom line.
"... "the EU and Russia find common cause to limit Azerbaijani gains (in large part because Erdogan is no one's favorite guy, not just because of this but because of the Eastern Med, Syria, Libya)." ..."
"... "Iran favors Armenia, which is counter-intuitive at first sight. So the Iranians may help the Russians out (funneling supplies), but on the other hand they have a good relationship with Turkey, especially in the oil and gas smuggling business. And if they get too overt in their support, Trump has a casus belli to get involved and the Europeans may not like to end up on the same side as the Russians and the Iranians. It just looks bad. And the Europeans hate to look bad." ..."
It's important to remember that there was no "Azerbaijan" nation-state until the early
1920s. Historically, Azerbaijan is a territory in northern Iran. Azeris are very well
integrated within the Islamic Republic. So the Republic of Azerbaijan actually borrowed its
name from their Iranian neighbors. In ancient history, the territory of the new 20
th century republic was known as Atropatene, and Aturpakatan before the advent of
Islam.
How the equation changed
Baku's main argument is that Armenia is blocking a contiguous Azerbaijani nation, as a look
in the map shows us that southwest Azerbaijan is de facto split all the way to the Iranian
border.
And that plunges us necessarily into deep background. To clarify matters, there could not be
a more reliable guide than a top Caucasus think tank expert who shared his analysis with me by
email, but is insistent on "no attribution". Let's call him Mr. C.
Mr. C notes that, "for decades, the equation remained the same and the variables in the
equation remained the same, more or less. This was the case notwithstanding the fact that
Armenia is an unstable democracy in transition and Azerbaijan had much more continuity at the
top."
We should all be aware that "Azerbaijan lost territory right at the beginning of the
restoration of its statehood, when it was basically a failed state run by armchair nationalist
amateurs [before Heydar Aliyev, Ilham's father, came to power]. And Armenia was a mess, too but
less so when you take into consideration that it had strong Russian support and Azerbaijan had
no one. Back in the day, Turkey was still a secular state with a military that looked West and
took its NATO membership seriously. Since then, Azerbaijan has built up its economy and
increased its population. So it kept getting stronger. But its military was still
underperforming."
That slowly started to change in 2020: "Basically, in the past few months you've seen
incremental increases in the intensity of near daily ceasefire violations (the near-daily
violations are nothing new: they've been going on for years). So this blew up in July and there
was a shooting war for a few days. Then everyone calmed down again."
All this time, something important was developing in the background: Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in May 2018, and Aliyev started to talk: "The Azerbaijani
side thought this indicated Armenia was ready for compromise (this all started when Armenia had
a sort of revolution, with the new PM coming in with a popular mandate to clean house
domestically). For whatever reason, it ended up not happening."
What happened in fact was the July shooting war.
Don't forget Pipelineistan
Armenian PM Pashinyan could be described as a liberal globalist. The majority of his
political team is pro-NATO. Pashinyan went all guns blazing against former Armenian President
(1998- 2008) Robert Kocharian, who before that happened to be, crucially, the de facto
President of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kocharian, who spent years in Russia and is close to President Putin, was charged with a
nebulous attempt at "overthrowing the constitutional order". Pashinyan tried to land him in
jail. But even more crucial is the fact that Pashinyan refused to follow a plan elaborated by
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to finally settle the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh mess.
In the current fog of war, things are even messier. Mr. C stresses two points: "First,
Armenia asked for CSTO protection and got bitch slapped, hard and in public; second, Armenia
threatened to bomb the oil and gas pipelines in Azerbaijan (there are several, they all run
parallel, and they supply not just Georgia and Turkey but now the Balkans and Italy). With
regards to the latter, Azerbaijan basically said: if you do that, we'll bomb your nuclear
reactor."
The Pipelineistan angle is indeed crucial: for years I have followed on Asia Times
these myriad, interlocking oil and gas soap operas, especially the BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan),
conceived by Zbigniew Brzezinski to bypass Iran. I was even "arrested" by a BP 4X4 when I was
tracking the pipeline on a parallel side road out of the massive Sangachal terminal: that
proved British Petroleum was in practice the real boss, not the Azerbaijani government.
In sum, now we have reached the point where, according to Mr. C,
"Armenia's saber rattling got more aggressive." Reasons, on the Armenian side, seem to be
mostly domestic: terrible handling of Covid-19 (in contrast to Azerbaijan), and the dire state
of the economy. So, says Mr. C, we came to a toxic concourse of circumstances: Armenia
deflected from its problems by being tough on Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan just had had
enough.
It's always about Turkey
Anyway one looks at the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama, the key destabilizing factor is now
Turkey.
Mr. C notes how, "throughout the summer, the quality of the Turkish-Azerbaijani military
exercises increased (both prior to July events and subsequently). The Azerbaijani military got
a lot better. Also, since the fourth quarter of 2019 the President of Azerbaijan has been
getting rid of the (perceived) pro-Russian elements in positions of power." See, for instance,
here
.
There's no way to confirm it either with Moscow or Ankara, but Mr. C advances what President
Erdogan may have told the Russians: "We'll go into Armenia directly if a) Azerbaijan starts to
lose, b) Russia goes in or accepts CSTO to be invoked or something along those lines, or c)
Armenia goes after the pipelines. All are reasonable red lines for the Turks, especially when
you factor in the fact that they don't like the Armenians very much and that they consider the
Azerbaijanis brothers."
It's crucial to remember that in August, Baku and Ankara held two weeks of joint air and
land military exercises. Baku has bought advanced drones from both Turkey and Israel. There's
no smokin' gun, at least not yet, but Ankara may have hired up
to 4,000 Salafi-jihadis in Syria to fight -- wait for it -- in favor of Shi'ite-majority
Azerbaijan, proving once again that "jihadism" is all about making a quick buck.
The United Armenian Information Center, as well as the Kurdish Afrin Post, have stated that
Ankara opened two recruitment centers -- in Afrin schools -- for mercenaries. Apparently this
has been a quite popular move because Ankara slashed salaries for Syrian mercenaries shipped to
Libya.
There's an extra angle that is deeply worrying not only for Russia but also for Central
Asia. According to the former Foreign Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ambassador Extraordinary
Arman Melikyan, mercenaries using Azeri IDs issued in Baku may be able to infiltrate Dagestan
and Chechnya and, via the Caspian, reach Atyrau in Kazakhstan, from where they can easily reach
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
That's the ultimate nightmare of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) -- shared by
Russia, China and the Central Asian "stans": a jihadi land -- and (Caspian) sea -- bridge from
the Caucasus all the way to Central Asia, and even Xinjiang.
What's the point of this war?
So what happens next? A nearly insurmountable impasse, as Mr. C outlines it:
1. "The peace talks are going nowhere because Armenia is refusing to budge (to withdraw from
occupying Nagorno-Karabakh plus 7 surrounding regions in phases or all at once, with the usual
guarantees for civilians, even settlers -- note that when they went in in the early 1990s they
cleansed those lands of literally all Azerbaijanis, something like between 700,000 and 1
million people)."
2. Aliyev was under the impression that Pashinyan "was willing to compromise and began
preparing his people and then looked like someone with egg on his face when it didn't
happen."
3. "Turkey has made it crystal clear it will support Azerbaijan unconditionally, and has
matched those words with deeds."
4. "In such circumstances, Russia got outplayed -- in the sense that they had been able to
play off Armenia against Azerbaijan and vice versa, quite successfully, helping to mediate
talks that went nowhere, preserving the status quo that effectively favored Armenia."
And that brings us to the crucial question. What's the point of this war?
Mr. C: "It is either to conquer as much as possible before the "international community" [in
this case, the UNSC] calls for / demands a ceasefire or to do so as an impetus for re-starting
talks that actually lead to progress. In either scenario, Azerbaijan will end up with gains and
Armenia with losses. How much and under what circumstances (the status and question of
Nagorno-Karabakh is distinct from the status and question of the Armenian occupied territories
around Nagorno-Karabakh) is unknown: i.e. on the field of battle or the negotiating table or a
combo of both. However this turns out, at a minimum Azerbaijan will get to keep what it
liberated in battle. This will be the new starting point. And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do
no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay. They'll be model liberators. And they'll take time
to bring back Azerbaijani civilians (refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that
would become mixed as a result of return."
So what can Moscow do under these circumstances? Not much,
"except to go into Azerbaijan proper, which they won't do (there's no land border between
Russia and Armenia; so although Russia has a military base in Armenia with one or more thousand
troops, they can't just supply Armenia with guns and troops at will, given the geography)."
Crucially, Moscow privileges the strategic partnership with Armenia -- which is a member of
the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) -- while meticulously monitoring each and every NATO-member
Turkey's movement: after all, they are already in opposing sides in both Libya and Syria.
So, to put it mildly, Moscow is walking on a geopolitical razor's edge. Russia needs to
exercise restraint and invest in a carefully calibrated balancing act between Armenia and
Azerbaijan; must preserve the Russia-Turkey strategic partnership; and must be alert to all,
possible US Divide and Rule tactics.
Inside Erdogan's war
So in the end this would be yet another Erdogan war?
The inescapable Follow the Money analysis would tells us, yes. The Turkish economy is an
absolute mess, with high inflation and a depreciating currency. Baku has a wealth of oil-gas
funds that could become readily available -- adding to Ankara's dream of turning Turkey also
into an energy supplier.
Mr. C adds that anchoring Turkey in Azerbaijan would lead to "the creation of full-fledged
Turkish military bases and the inclusion of Azerbaijan in the Turkish orbit of influence (the
"two countries -- one nation" thesis, in which Turkey assumes supremacy) within the framework
of neo-Ottomanism and Turkey's leadership in the Turkic-speaking world."
Add to it the all-important NATO angle. Mr. C essentially sees it as Erdogan, enabled by
Washington, about to make a NATO push to the east while establishing that immensely dangerous
jihadi channel into Russia: "This is no local adventure by Erdogan. I understand that
Azerbaijan is largely Shi'ite Islam and that will complicate things but not render his
adventure impossible."
This totally ties in with a notorious RAND
report that explicitly details how "the United States could try to induce Armenia to break
with Russia" and "encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit."
It's beyond obvious that Moscow is observing all these variables with extreme care. That is
reflected, for instance, in how irrepressible Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,
earlier this week, has packaged a very serious diplomatic warning: "The downing of an Armenian
SU-25 by a Turkish F-16, as claimed by the Ministry of Defense in Armenia, seems to complicate
the situation, as Moscow, based on the Tashkent treaty, is obligated to offer military
assistance to Armenia".
It's no wonder both Baku and Yerevan got the message and are firmly denying anything
happened.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan, Russia
will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line. Moscow has all
it takes to put him in serious trouble -- as in shutting off gas supplies to Turkey. Moscow,
meanwhile, will keep helping Yerevan with intel and hardware -- flown in from Iran. Diplomacy
rules -- and the ultimate target is yet another ceasefire.
Pulling Russia back in
Mr. C advances the strong possibility -- and I have heard echoes from Brussels -- that
"the EU and Russia find common cause to limit Azerbaijani gains (in large part because
Erdogan is no one's favorite guy, not just because of this but because of the Eastern Med,
Syria, Libya)."
That brings to the forefront the renewed importance of the UNSC in imposing a ceasefire.
Washington's role at the moment is quite intriguing. Of course, Trump has more important things
to do at the moment. Moreover, the Armenian diaspora in the US swings drastically
pro-Democrat.
Then, to round it all up, there's the all-important Iran-Armenia relationship. Here
is a forceful attempt to put it in perspective.
As Mr. C stresses, "Iran favors Armenia, which is counter-intuitive at first sight. So
the Iranians may help the Russians out (funneling supplies), but on the other hand they have
a good relationship with Turkey, especially in the oil and gas smuggling business. And if
they get too overt in their support, Trump has a casus belli to get involved and the
Europeans may not like to end up on the same side as the Russians and the Iranians. It just
looks bad. And the Europeans hate to look bad."
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia -- according to quite a few analyses
circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There's the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The Navalny
circus. The "threat" to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow's attention
towards the Caucasus so there's more Turkish freedom of action in other theaters -- in the
Eastern Mediterranean versus Greece, in Syria, in Libya. Ankara -- foolishly -- is engaged in
simultaneous wars on several fronts, and with virtually no allies.
What this means is that even more than NATO, monopolizing Russia's attention in the Caucasus
most of all may be profitable for Erdogan himself. As Mr. C stresses, "in this situation, the
Nagorno-Karabakh leverage/'trump card' in the hands of Turkey would be useful for negotiations
with Russia."
And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay.
They’ll be model liberators. And they’ll take time to bring back Azerbaijani
civilians (refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that would become mixed as a
result of return.”
Agreed, this is rubbish. “Mr. C” – assuming someone like this even
exists, is either terribly misinformed or an outright liar. Basically, if we follow
Escobar’s logic, Armenian’s are making a mistake by not agreeing to surrender
their lives to the peace loving and rather humanistic dictatorship of Azerbaijan. While he
touches on some relevant points, overall, Escobar has not done his homework and has come up
with quite a bit of drivel.
Pepe, you didn’t mention the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide, the Assyrian
Genocide, all perpetrated by Turkey.
Why not? Would the Azeris, all Turks, be different? You say the Azeris if they won, Turks,
would treat the Armenian population nicely. Huh?
I remember from Runciman’s book on the First Crusade that the Turks had already
taken over much of Anatolia but he seems to mention Armenians at every turn (from
memory—don’t have the book handy).
My impression is that before the Genocide the Armenians were all over Anatolia. There was
a narrow coastal strip at the western end that was historically part of Greece, and many
different peoples of Asia Minor are mentioned in the NT, but they arguably were all
Armenians, making the Armenians the indigenous people of Anatolia.
How is it that Turkey was allowed to keep part of Europe after WWI when they were losers?
And did they keep faith? Is the current St Sophia turmoil the norm of Turkish good faith?
Time for all the Turks to get out of Anatolia, give it back to Armenia, and head for
Azerbigan.
@Yevardian having been disciplined for some years now is, once again, at the throat of
the west. Europe spent millions of lives and huge resources throwing the Moors out last time.
If they don’t take a stand and support Armenia they may very well have to do it again.
As far as the mythical Mr C is concerned he comes across, to me, as yet another apologist for
the Religion of Peace. Obviously cucked NATO will not help Armenia, they have neither the
intestinal fortitude nor the will, so it will be left to Russia and the Visigrad nations, in
the mean time Turkey is attempting to take Greek territory, Syrian territory, Libyan
territory and anything else that it can get it’s mitts on and the West does absolutely
nothing. This will not end well.
I think few Armenian civilians will take the chance but I very much doubt Azerbaijanis
will be “model liberators”. The new Azerbaijani state was born from the Sumgait
and Baku pogroms. I also don’t think they will delay in moving Azeris into areas
formerly inhabited by Armenians – their role model Erdoğan has been trying to
change facts on the ground by moving ethnic Turks into Kurdish areas in his own country.
@Ann Nonny Mouse deavor, even if they were the majority, though most accounts say they
were 40%.
I would strongly urge the Armenians to get off their nationalist high horse and solve the
problem diplomatically and learn to live with their neighbors. Super nationalism is a
dangerous and fake mantra that usually leads to disaster. My understanding was that the
Azeris and Armenians always got along before this debacle. They should try to work out things
and get back to a their original multi-cultural paradigm, that is living side by side instead
of fighting and dying over territory and national flags. Live is short and when we pass to
the other side you dont carry your flag with you.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991: but that was not
recognized by the “international community”
Just to throw in quickly that if Kosovo is “recognized”, then bleeding
Karabakh should also long since have been recognized. Especially since the Armenians have an
actual holocaust in their 20th century past.
So, seems like the way to get sympathy to rob territory is to make full use of any
“genocide” one had suffered as excuse…. worked very well ( in fact,
spectacularly well) so faR with the Chosen ones….
Well i admittedly dont know enough about the situation to try to critique this piece as
some of the other comments on here… But i am skeptical about Armenia and their stated
intent. If it is reallly about protecting an ethnic group – then why not offer them
citizenship to move into your territory??? That would lead me to believe it is more about
land and resources…
Yeah i dont know the nitty gritty in this conflict – but i do agree Edrogan seems to
be biting off more than he can chew… He has too many pots on the fire it seems. Kurds
– Qatar/Saudis – Libya – Syria – Greece – Cyprus – and
now this..?
Aside from refusing to participate against their Muslim cousins (Afghanistan, Libya),
Turkey is using NATO doctrine quite effectively. It is a useful bullet prove vest for
Erdogan. The Brussels morons will be sorry for not expelling Turkey from their military club
long time ago.
@Ann Nonny Mouse iven to the Syrian desert AFTER some of them had aligned with the
Russians who were about to invade eastern Anatolia in 1915. Similarly, most of Crimean Tatars
were expelled from Crimea AFTER some of them had aligned with the invading Germans in 1941.
As another comparison, American-Japanese living at the Pacific coast were banished to camps
in the interior AFTER the Japanese army had attacked Pearl Harbor and not before.
When a group of people kill or drive out another group it’s usually not for the fun of
it but rather due to necessities of survival, whatever evil that might require at that
particular time depending on the particular circumstances.
It would be interesting to read a scholarly exposition on what the USSR and governments in
Eastern Europe proper did or did not do to educate people away from their ancient hatreds,
and why whatever they did do appears not to have been particularly successful. Or was it
mostly successful and the hatreds were much more intense before 1917?
The entire Jewish American lobby and Israel are on Azerbaijan’s side and
anti-Armenian, just as when they were working with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide.
Israel has also sold billions of dollars of weapons to Azerbaijan which the latter is
using against Armenians. Israel gets oil from Azerbaijan
Of course, Azerbaijan and Turkey have imported jihadists from Syria and Libya to fight
Christian Armenians now.
Apparently, Pepe, you and the Jewish lobby, Israel, Turkey, and the jihadists are on the
same side.
Congratulations.
P.S. It would take a hundred pages to list all the factual errors you made. For example,
Armenians were still the clear majority in Artsakh/Karabagh in 1988 and 1991. Armenians there
had been grossly mistreated by Azerbaijan for decades.
The fighting occurred in the late 1980s only because Azerbaijan, backed by the Russian
military, killed and harrassed Armenians. The Azeris also committed massacres of Armenians
who were living in Baku and Sumgait in the late 1980s.
Stalin also placed Nakhichevan, an Armenian territory, inside Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan kicked out every Armenian from Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan was doing that to
Artsakh/Karabagh too.
No wonder Artsakh voted to be independent from Azerbaijan, something you don’t want
to understand.
Better luck next time trying to fool readers, Pepe.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan,
Russia will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line.
Moscow has all it takes to put him in serious trouble – as in shutting off gas
supplies to Turkey.
Russia isn’t going to shut off gas to Turkey. Russia never does that (shutting off
gas). It’s a Western canard.
Russia could, however, impose a no-fly-zone over Georgia, effectively blocking resupply
and reinforcements to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is almost completely surrounded by Russian
allies and bases. They rely on Georgia for military transit.
Ignorant post. Armenian nationalist were active in Russia prior to ww1, then supported
Russian entrance into Turkish territory because they shared a religion. They stabbed the
ottomans , of which they were a big part, in the back. The young Turks , who were actually
donmeh jews, had them marched off to Syria and lebanon, etc, causing many deaths! The
Armenian is still causing trouble for the Turks. They sided with the mongols in their battles
against the Muslims, along wit the Georgians, repeatedly. More to a small story
What’s going to happen to USA? The poverty and racial intolerance ,both seem to be
undermining the stability and the ideological integrity of the country . I see many states
emerging from the body of America.But the problems will not be resolved . It might just like
like Caucasian territory or Balkan .
1. BTC is described as ‘bypassing Iran’. One could easily argue it also
bypasses *Russia* . Perhaps that’s what made it necessary for Soros & others to
peel Georgia off from Russian control back in the day? Look how Russia responded by
recapturing the Georgian Military Highway (South Ossetia).
2. Look in general at how Russia is willing to give up huge areas of territory so long as
she keeps key strategic points of control: South Ossetia, Crimea, Transnistria, Abkhazia
and… Armenia. Smell the coffee.
3. 2. ‘Mr. C’ is quick to mention Baku/Ankara joint exercises in August, but
fails to mention Kavkas 2020 exercises led by Russia. Uh duh.
4. ‘Mr. C’ seems to ignore the fact that Armenia couldn’t have taken
that territory in first place, or kept it, w/out Russian assistance. And idea ‘Russia
can do nothing’ is absurd. As is the idea that Russia can’t supply Armenia
because there’s no land connection. Did the allies have any problem keeping West Berlin
supplied by air? Of course not. All nonsense.
5. The idea that there is a ‘Russia/Turkey’ strategic partnership is also
silly. Where is this partnership? Turkey buying S-400s? So what? Are they in partnership in
Syria? In Libya? No. So why would they be in N-K?
6. Weird. No mention of China and it’s growing relationship with Turkey. This
probably tells you all you need to know about the author. Unless of course the author is just
a fool, which is also possible.
“Yet even before the collapse the Azerbaijani Army and Armenian independentists were
already at war (1988-1994), which yielded a grim balance of 30,000 dead and roughly a million
wounded.”
This is a wounded-to-killed ratio of thirty-three to one. Doesn’t make sense.
Were Russia to be as devious and underhanded as the puppet regime in the Di$trict of
Corruption, they would arrange for an overthrow of the present NATO/EU/U$ regime in Yerevan.
With those bastards out of the way and Armenia no longer playing double jeopardy, it might be
possible for a new Orthodox oriented Armenian government to come to some sort of arrangement
with Baku.
At the same time, perhaps Syrian spetsnaz units could practice some infiltration tactics
into Turkish semi-occupied “greater” Idlib and Ghurka style, behead a few Turkish
officers running the show there.
“Sultan” Erdogan is playing loose and wild with his shattering economy and
massive military. It is high time he was given a black-eye–one that would cause him to
lose face among his own countrymen.
This is my educated guess, the Anglo-Zionists led by Rothschild and Netanayahu destablize
the oil in the Middle East to keep their prices of oil in USD above 100 $/barrel
They have also blown up oil derricks in the North Sea, shut down Iranian and Iraq and
Syria oil production. The game is clear, low oil prices are being met with wiping out the
competition.
And causing hell in Iran and Venezueala. Back in 1954 Operation Ajax took out Mossadeq and
installed the Shah – puppet of big oil. Before it was BP it was the Persian Gulf Oil
Co. BP is owned mostly by the crown.
Trump’s secretary of state was Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon just like GW Bush picked
Condoleeza Rice CEO Chevron to be his national security advisor.
The Israel angle is to get Iran and to goad Russia into war with the USA, the eventually
goal is that USA-Russia-China are reduced while Jews rule the world from Jerusalem.
How much you wanna bet Bibi Satanyahu has a hand in this war? And Evangelical Christians
will support Israel even if this war kills lots of Armenian Christians just like in
Syria.
Since this war in on Russia’s doorstep Putin an Lavrov will try negotiations first
then what will they do next. Putin has vowed the war will never come to Russia which means
Russia will enter the theater on the anti-Zionist side.
Have you noticed every state within a few hundred miles of Israel is being torched and the
natives driven out?
Back again to Pepe Escobar’s distortions of reality. Nagorno-Karabakh is an
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territory. In fact, no country in the world recognises it as an
“Independent” as Escobar likes to mislead us. Armenia should do the right thing
and withdraw its forces, including foreign militants from there. Like Israel, Armenia is
playing the role of a victim of a “holocaust”.
Considering that the 2nd largest US/NWO Embassy in the World is in Armenia – a
country of 2.9 million people, and that the new President was put in power by the West
– the end game is to continue to surround Russia, screw up the New Silk Road, and be at
Iran’s back door too. As said before , the domestic USA can totally look like the USSR
in the 90s, but the NWO Foreign policy money is 100% – guaranteed. What do all those
thousands of workers in that huge Embassy compound do ?
Actually, once the Armenians were genocided , the Jewish bankers were the big shots left
in Turkey. H Morgenthau, our Turkish ambassador along with being jewish himself, wrote about
it in his reports. The Game hasn’t changed much – it stays the same. Thanks.
About a third of Iran’s population is Azeri. Should they develop interest in the
conflict, Iran may become involved. That would align Turkey and Iran vs Russia. That would be
something.
Damn right. We already have experience what happens when Turks get control of Christian
Armenians – systematic gang rapes and death marches are the rule of the day. Turks are
animals and letting them control any portion of Armenia is basically turning that place into
a concentration camp.
Fact: 1979 was the year that “big oil” LEGAL contracts were to expire and the
“puppet” Shah had threatened as early as 1973 (when he was instrumental in making
OPEC a powerful entity) that in 1979 Iran “would sell Iranian Oil to any buyer, at
market prices”.
Fact: Iran, in 1978 produced 6 million barrels per day. It has never been permitted to
reach those levels again.
Fact: Chinese, Indian, Syrian, Venezuelan, and God knows who else, all projects of the
Global Cabal have been getting Iranian Oil (under their engineered boxing of Iranian nation)
at levels that very likely are equal if not LOWER than the terms the Qajar idiots gave the
insatiablely greedy and slimey English.
And you did not mention that the only quarters of Smyrna/Izmir that were not torched in a
fire in 1922 were the Jewish and Turkish quarters – what a surprise! An antecedent to
9/11. Here is the Jewpedia hiding the real story – as usual.
The Armenian and Greek quarters were destroyed and the Jews got a monopoly on the
commerce. Done deal!
If the “colour revolution” assumptions were in force, there would be a host of
denunciations of Azerbaijan and Turkey (the latter perhaps the real prime mover in this) by
the USA and EU etc. There aren’t. The USA and EU may even tacitly support the
Azerbaijanis, perhaps they hope the Russians and Iranians will become entangled in this
affair and so forth.
How about swapping Nagorno-Karabakh for North Cyprus. I am sure the Greeks would be very
happy to live with the Armenians. But the Sultan’s dreams of owning the Eastern
Mediterranean would come to naught.
Stalin did nasty things like that to keep the republics feuding with each other rather
than pushing back against Moscow. The mixed-up borders of the ‘stans, further east, are
testament to this. Fergana Valley?
Divide and rule. Still costing lives in pointless wars almost 100 years later.
At stake is the very existence of the Armenian people. Turkey is trying to finish what
remains of them after the genocide last century. Both Erdoghan and Aliev have stated, that
they want a “final solution” to the “Armenian problem”.
Exactly. The history of Turkey since 1880-s is full of ethnic cleansings and genocides of
the non-muslim people such as Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
My thanks to Escobar for taking on a subject rather obviously not susceptible to 2,700
word essays, along with attention worthy links.
His biases are not my own but he’s thoughtful and certainly doesn’t hide
them.
In this and so many other incidents we can see how thoroughly Trump has moved the American
ship of state despite the relentless efforts of foreign and domestic resistance to neutralize
America First and destroy him.
It’s really quite something the way Obama’s presidency in all its disastrous
fullness has been memory-holed. The defense of it being that it merely extended Bush’s
world-historical incompetence and malefactions.
Could you have turned US unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact into a “moment” if you tried? I couldn’t.
You will be way ahead of most everyone if you get your mind around that and the
geopolitical sad story that is CCP China winning the post-Cold War quarter-century hands
down.
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia – according to quite a few
analyses circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There’s the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The
Navalny circus. The “threat” to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow’s
attention towards the Caucasus . . .
I confess that I get no end of enjoyment over bellyaching on behalf of those powers the
Obama administration was turning the world over to. Nord Stream II was merely the down
payment on Russia’s assistance/acquiescence in throwing the electron to Hillary, with
the sky the limit for China, Russia and Iran once Democrats and their foreign allies had
neutralized free and fair elections.
Now all of these powers must deal with a real POTUS who asks “What have you done for
the US lately?”
The USG and Russia have cooperated where geopolitical interests align. More will follow
once Trump takes the oath again. As I’ve explained previously, despite its high-risk
position in the Resistance matrix, Russia/Putin have (unsurprisingly, to me) acted skillfully
and with circumspection.
The same cannot be said for Iran. Nor China, particularly since the end of last year.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has raised a number of questions. In
particular, why Moscow is in no hurry to stand up for Armenia and why it does not sharply
criticize
Azerbaijan. The answer is that Moscow and Baku have very close relations, and not only
economic relations. So what is the value and irreplaceability of Azerbaijan for
Russia?
Border and population changes are in order. A quarter of N-K goes back to Azerbaijan and
the rest closer to Armenia proper plus the capital city goes to Armenia with a 50 mile wide
band connecting it with the rest of Armenia. The Azeris get the rest of their lands now
occupied by the Armenians. Will it happen? Probably not, just look at Kosovo..
There is a province between Ngorno Karabakh and Armenia proper of roughly of the same size
belonging to Azerbaijan, so why not just exchange it with each other to avoid further
conflict and bloodshed?
There is no guarantee that Turkey will not try to then eliminate whatever remains of
Armenia.
Remember, Turkey genocided Armenians and wiped out close to 80% of them in 1915 through
1922. Armenian populated areas stretched from what is now Armenia until the shores of Eastern
Mediterranean. The only thing that is left of it is Kessab in modern day Syria.
@Ghali e fake, false and fraudulent, whether in Asia or Africa. Over time, justice will
prevail and borders will reflect the ethno-national composition of its long-term inhabitants.
That said, the current regime in Yerevan needs to be overthrown, as it was established in
conjunction with the interests of the Cabal/Nato and their various puppet regimes. Armenia is
the oldest Orthodox Christian nation in the world and was severely genocided by the Donmeh
covert Jewish Masons who called themselves the “Young Turks” who were led by
Enver Pasha.
By the way, who are you, Ghali? Do you have a dog in the fight? Are you connected with an
intel agency?
Excellent article, normally I pass over Pepe for the naughty articles on Unz but I might
have to take another look.
My only critique is that the article feels pro-Azeri but that’s balanced with an
informative description how this started in July, including an accurate appraisal of Turkish
behavior.
I’m not Azeri or Armenian so I didn’t have a dog in this fight until I noticed
Israel’s support for Azerbaijan. It’s nothing personal, I have only one hate.
Jewish Bankers shifting profits to other Jewish bankers. Funding all sides and profiting
from the mass graves again. 5000 years and nothing has changed.
The Turks are the US Army in this – with their proxy armies sent to help the
Azerbaijanis, just like the US Army /Israelis and their proxies Isis, al Nusra, al Qaeda etc.
in Syria. The US and their 6000 employees at the Embassy, don’t have to say anything
– they back both sides – just like the Zionists do – in the US political
parties. Things don’t change , Tactics don’t change. Thanks.
You are asking him if he has a dog in this fight? What about yourself? You very clearly
have a dog in this fight yourself, haven`t you?
Try to cut down on the hypocrasy, why don`t you, and at the same time maybe moderate your
“holier than thou” attitude.
The highlands of Nagorno-Karabakh are ethnically Armenian. The light blue districts were
originally Azeri but have been ethically cleansed during the war in the early 1990s.
Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan by supplying it with Turkish drones and with 'moderate Syrian
rebel' mercenaries
from Syrian and Libya . All are flown in through Georgian air space. Other mercenaries seem
to come from
Afghanistan . Additional hardware comes by road also through
Georgia. Another supporter of the attacker is Israel. During the last week Azerbaijani military
transport aircraft have flown at least six times to Israel to then return with additional
Israeli suicide drones on board. These Harop drones have been widely used in attacks on
Armenian positions. An Israeli made LORA short range ballistic missile was used by Azerbaijan
to
attack a bridge that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Allegedly there are also
Turkish flown F-16 fighter planes in Azerbaijan.
Turkey seems to direct the drones and fighter planes in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh
through AWACS type air control planes that fly circles at the Turkish-Armenian border.
The attack plan Azerbaijan had in mind when it launched the war foresaw to take several
miles deep zones per day. It has not survived the first day of battle. Azerbaijan started the
attack without significant artillery preparation. The ground attack was only supported by drone
strikes on Armenian tanks, artillery and air defense positions. But the defensive lines held by
Armenian infantry were not damaged by the drones. The dug in Armenian infantry could use its
anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons to full extend. Azerbaijani tanks and infantry were
slaughtered when they tried to break into the lines. Both sides had significant casualties but
overall the frontlines did not move.
The war seems already to be at a stalemate. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan can afford to use
air power and ballistic missiles purchased from Russia without Russian consent.
The drone attacks were for a while quite successful. A number of old air defense systems
were
destroyed before the Armenians became wiser with camouflaging them. The Azerbaijani's than
used a trick to unveil hidden air defense positions. Radio controlled Antonov
AN-2 airplanes, propeller driven relicts from the late 1940s, were sent over Armenian
positions. When the air defense then launched a missile against them a loitering suicide drone
was immediately dropped onto the firing position .
That seems to have worked for a day or two but by now such drone attacks have been become
rare. Dozens of drones were shut down before they could hit a target and Azerbaijan seems to be
running out of them. A bizarre music video the
Azerbaijanis posted showed four trucks each
carrying nine drones. It may have had several hundreds of those drones but likely less than one
thousand. Israel is currently under a strict pandemic lockdown. Resupply of drones will be an
issue. Azerbaijan has since brought up more heavy artillery but it seems to primarily use it to
hit towns and cities, not the front lines where it would be more useful.
It is not clear who is commanding the Azerbaijani troops. There days ago the Chief of the
General Staff of Azerbaijan was fired after he
complained about too much Turkish influence on the war. That has not helped. Two larger ground
attacks launched by Azerbaijan earlier today were also unsuccessful. The Armenians are
currently counter attacking.
In our last piece on the war we pointed
to U.S. plans to 'overextend Russia' by creating trouble in the Caucasus just as it is now
happening. Fort Russnotes
:
The current director of the CIA, Gina Haspel , was doing field assignments in Turkey in
the early stages of her career, she reportedly speaks Turkish, and she has history of
serving as a
station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan , in the late 1990s. It is, therefore, presumable that
she still has connections with the local government and business elites.
The current Chief of the MI6, Richard Moore , also has history of working in Turkey -- he
was performing tasks for the British intelligence there in the late 1980s and the early
1990s. Moore is fluent in Turkish and he also
served as the British Ambassador to Turkey from 2014 to 2017.
The intelligence chiefs of the two most powerful countries in the Anglosphere are
turkologists with connections in Turkey and Azerbaijan. It would be reasonable to assume that
a regional conflict of such magnitude happening now, on their watch, is far from being a mere
coincidence.
Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way
Airlines in more than 350
flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to 'Syrian rebels'.
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad center for waging
its silent war against Iran.
I have never perceived it that way. While Armenia's current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
tried to get into business with 'western' powers and NATO there was no way he could
fundamentally change Armenia's foreign policy. A hundred years ago Turkey, with the second
biggest NATO army, had genocided Armenians. They have never forgotten that. The relation to
Azerbaijan were also certain to continue to be hostile. That will only change if the two
countries again come under some larger empire. Armenia depends on Russian arms support just as
much as Azerbaijan does. (Azerbaijan has more money and pays more for its Russian weapons which
allows Russia to subsidize the ones it sells to Armenia.)
After Nikol Pashinyan was installed and tried to turn 'west' Russia did the same as it did
in Belarus when President Lukashenko started to make deals with the 'west'. It set back and
waited until the 'west' betrayed its new partners. That has happened in Belarus a few weeks
ago. The U.S. launched a color revolution against Lukashenko and he had nowhere to turn to
but to Russia . Now Armenia is under attack by NATO supported forces and can not hope for
help from anywhere but Russia.
Iran likewise did not fear the new government in Yerevan. It was concerned over Pashinyan's
recent diplomatic exchanges with Israel which were at the initiative of the White House. But
that concern has now been lifted. To protest against Israel's recent sale of weapon to
Azerbaijan Armenia has called back its
ambassador from Israel just two weeks after it opened its embassy there.
Pashinyan will have to apologize in Moscow before Russia will come to his help. As Maxim
Suchkov relays :
This is interesting: Evgeniy "Putin's chef" Prigozhin gives short interview to state his
"personal opinion" on Nagorno-Karabakh. Some takeaways:
- Karabakh is Azerbaijan's territory
- Russia has no legal grounds to conduct military activity in Karabakh
- there are more American NGOs in Armenia than national military units
- PM Pashinyan is to blame
- until 2018 Russia was able to ensure ARM & AZ discuss conflict at the negotiation
table, then US brought Pashinyan to power in Yerevan and he feels he's a king & can't
talk to Aliyev
I wonder if Prigozhin's remarks suggest he'd be reluctant to deploy his Wagner guys to
Armenia, if needed or if he is asked to do so, or he's just indeed stating his own views or
it's a way to delicately allude to Pashinyan that Moscow not happy with him ... ?
Russia's (and Iran's) interest is to refreeze the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. But that
requires compliant people on both sides. It therefore does not mind that Azerbaijan currently
creates some pressure on Pashinyan. But it can not allow Azerbaijan to make a significant
victory. One of its main concern will be to get Turkey out of the game and that will require
support for Armenia. Iran has a quite similar strategy.
The U.S. will probably try to escalate the situation and to make it more complicate for Russia.
It is likely silently telling Turkey to increase its involvement in the war.
Russia will likely only intervene if either side makes some significant territorial gains.
Unless that happens it will likely allow the war to continue in the hope that
it will burn out :
The upcoming winter conditions, coupled with the harsh terrain, will limit large-scale
military operations. Also, the crippled economies of both Azerbaijan and Armenia will not
allow them to maintain a prolonged conventional military confrontation.
Posted by b on October 3, 2020 at 17:28 UTC |
Permalink
thanks b....informative... another proxy war is how this looks to me with all the usual
suspects involved... they couldn't get what they wanted in syria, so now onto this...
The war started the day after negotiations between Russia and Turkey over Syria and maybe
Libya also failed. Now the Azeri military complains about too much Turkish involvement which
can only mean one thing--complaining about taking orders from Turks. So this looks like a
Turkish aggression against Moscow? Meant to make a point about Syria? Libya?
In fact, most of your links are propaganda from both sides. We really have no idea what is
going on on the ground.
In fact, most of your links are propaganda from both sides. We really have no idea what is
going on on the ground.
Azerbaijan's position is justified, given that Armenia illegally occupies Azeri territory.
The failure here is on the OSCE group for not being able or willing to resolve the conflict.
Azerbaijan has a right to regain its territory by force, if necessary.
Russia may very well allow Azerbaijan to retake its territory, if it can, but draw a red
line as to entering Armenia proper. The Current Armenian government is hardly a friend of
Russia.
@ Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 18:17 utc | 4... do you feel the same way about crimea and
ukraine taking it back? curious... you live in turkey if i am not mistaken.. are you
turkish??
In a rare move, the Defense Ministry suspended the export license of an Israeli drone
manufacturer to Azerbaijan in light of claims that the company attempted to bomb the Armenian
military on the Azeris behalf during a demonstration of one of its "suicide" unmanned aerial
vehicles last month.
The two Israelis operating the two Orbiter 1K drones during the test refused to carry out the
attack, Two higher ranking members of the Aeronautics Defense Systems delegation in Baku
then attempted to carry out the Azerbaijani request , but, lacking the necessary
experience, ended up missing their targets.
Last year, Azerbaijan used another Israeli suicide drone, an Israeli Aerospace Industries
Harop-model, in an attack on a bus that killed seven Armenians.
Last year, the country's president, Ilham Aliyev, revealed Azerbaijan had purchased some $5
billion worth of weapons and defense systems from Israel.
My citizenship is the same as yours. No one recognizes Nagorno Karabagh independence, not
even Armenia.
Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical solution
to the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the Armenian/Iran border
of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern territory Nakhchivan, thus
Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides would be winners one
assumes.
Apparently, no one liked the idea despite its fairness. I assume the Azeris in NK would
have to be exchanged with the Armenians in the corridor in a population exchange for this to
be realized.
"The war started the day after negotiations between Russia and Turkey over Syria and maybe
Libya also failed"
More than a week before start of the war, everyone involved in the region politics knew the
war is imminent. Two days before the start of war Zarif rushed to Moscow.
This bastard of Prigozhin goes where the money flows.
And the money flows from Baku.
Do not give much credit to this thug.
Or perhaps Crimea belongs to Ukraine?
"Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical
solution to the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the
Armenian/Iran border of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern
territory Nakhchivan, thus Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides
would be winners one assumes.
Apparently, no one liked the idea despite its fairness. I assume the Azeris in NK would
have to be exchanged with the Armenians in the corridor in a population exchange for this to
be realized."
That reads like a reasonable solution. Too bad it wasn't embraced.
b "The highlands of Nagorno-Karabakh are ethnically Armenian."? Nagorno Kharbakh is
internationally recognized Azerbaijan territory
Pashinyan's placement in Armenia was meant to give an advantage to those that 'brung him'
Your claims to the otherwise are some kind of pretzel logic.
Georgia absolutely flat out denied any passage of 'rebels' through their territory. That
claim is utter unsubstantiated rubbish.
"have never perceived it that way. While Armenia's current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
tried to get into business with 'western' powers and NATO there was no way he could
fundamentally change Armenia's foreign policy"
Why because you say he couldn't? The one constant is change.
While it is not a solution as such, I fully agree with b's last point about Russia and Iran
preferring to 'refreeze' the game and remove Turkey from the board.
Since the kick off I have wondered to what extent this is an Azerbaijani initiative and to
what extent a Turkish one.
Either way, as I posted on the open thread, Lavrov and Cavusoglu agreed a couple of days
ago that a ceasefire was necessary and Russia reiterated its strong stance against the
presence of foreign militias in the conflict. Let's hope sober heads prevail. As Rouhani
stated very clearly, the region can not withstand another war.
Sorry, didn't really answer your question. Kosovo, N. Cyprus, Crimea (annexation) and NK
independence are all regarded as illegal accoding to international law, as far as, I know.
None have had a proper UN sponsored referendum.
Although Turkish N. Cyprus did vote to reunite with Greek S. Cyrprus in a UN referendum, but
the Greek Cypriots nixed it, and were immediately admitted to the EU as a prize for their
pigheadedness.
Is it any wonder that Turks don't trust the Christian West or East? Neither the Grek
Cypriots or the Armenians have any incentive nor desire to negotiate in good faith because
the US, Europe and Russia are unwilling to compel them to, but reward them instead with
territorial freezes that benefit them.
The ethnic Muslim Turks in both cases get screwed because of the racist propaganda
directed at them through the ages.
Wow, Blue Dotterel, the hatred for Armenians runs deep in you. Nakhichevan was handed over to
Azerbaijan by the Soviets even before Karabakh/Artsakh was. Then the ethnic cleansing of its
majority Armenian population and destruction of ancient Armenian monuments began so there
would be little trace of its pedigree. Armenia has been chipped away at and betrayed by their
so-called betters generation upon generation. They are not budging nor should they.
You can buy as many weapons as you want, if your soldiers don't know how to fight it's not
going to help. Whether you get 4000 Syrian rebels or 40,000 to Azerbaijan it still won't help
them. If Azerbaijan could take those lands they wound have done it without asking Russia's
permission. Even with advanced weapons they stand no chance. Armenians are using mostly
antiquated and cheap air defense tech to shoot down the most advanced and expensive drones in
the world. Thousands of their troops got slaughtered And hundreds of tanks destroyed so they
could get one village that no one needs ? Wow great results. If they continue with these
results for 2 more weeks they are going to need a brand new army. One thing Azeris have
difficulty understanding is that in real life Might makes Right. Armenians learned this
lesson back in 1914 when they got slaughtered and no one cared, not even the Christian west
or orthodox Russia. Azeris just need to learn to leave with defeat and shame. And Azeris
don't understand how bizarre and funny their army music videos look outside Azerbaijan. Same
thing with Armenian videos. Not sure why both sides think there is a need to glorify war
which creates grief and misery.
What makes you think I hate Armenians? I grew up with many Armenian friends and
acquaintences in my home country. Even in Turkey, I have worked with Armenians (Turkish
citizens, of course) and even had and Armenian (from Armenia) cleaning women for my flat.
I certainly do think Armenians have had poor to incompetent, even racist leaders. Sort of
like the US recently. Indeed, both countries have even had a similar Covid19
mismanagement.
No, I have no problem with Armenians, any more than I do with USAians or any other
peoples.
You state "the ethnic cleansing of its majority Armenian population" with out any context,
but you do realise that Armenians are quite capable of and certainly committted ethnic
cleansing themselves. From the Pepe Escobar article: https://thesaker.is/whats-at-stake-in-the-armenia-azerbaijan-chessboard/
"The peace talks are going nowhere because Armenia is refusing to budge (to withdraw from
occupying Nagorno-Karabakh plus 7 surrounding regions in phases or all at once, with the
usual guarantees for civilians, even settlers – note that when they went in in the
early 1990s they cleansed those lands of literally all Azerbaijanis, something like between
700,000 and 1 million people)."
So, fact, the Armenians ethnically cleansed some 700,000 to 1 million Azeris from the
Azeri lands they now occupy including NK.
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, is commonplace in war time,
and even in peace time.
To make countries eligible to become part of the NATO the west first they would need to be
cleansed going through a western inspired and planed color revolution. Russian resistance
formula to prevent these countries joining NATO is to make these countries an economic,
political and military basket case by making parts of these countries' territory contested,
and out of control of western recognized seating governments. Once countries territorial
integrity becomes challenged and out of control of western inspired governments, it becomes a
challenge to be absorbed by any for any alliances. Such a country is a failed country
dependent on western economic, political and military freebies. Likes of Ukraine, Georgia,
Azerbaijan etc. We shall see when, US/west feel, this will not work and will go nowhere, and
tries to climb down the unipolar peak. Both of these countries are dependent on Iran and
Russia.
Self-determination is considered a major principle of international law. This principle is
included in the UN's Charter (Chapter 1). Even if a group of people goes ahead with declaring
its independence and breaking away from a country it dislikes being part of, as in the case
of Crimea, without consulting with the UN in any way, the UN cannot object to this act. What
Crimea did, did not violate international law.
Had the Crimeans consulted with the UN, they very likely would have been advised to remain
part of Ukraine.
Self-determination does not require any support or sponsorship from the UN.
Good analysis by MOA, and I also hope the war burns out going nowhere.
As to those that say NK is Azeri territory: after the Armenians were genocided on the
street of Baku in the 1990's and Azeri's destroyed 5,000 Armenian monumemts would you just
'walk away' and not protect the people of NK? And after getting out followed by the Azeri's
butchering the Armenians of NG it will be ignored!
Why did the Turks bring all those jihadis to Azerbaijan to fight: they will run the
massacres in NK.
I am not disagreeing with the Crimean's decision, and indeed sympathize with it, but still
question whether it shouldn't be considered illegal. I mean, really, how does it differ from
Kosovo separating from Serbia, or the Turkish Cypriots from the Greeks. The UN does not
consider the Turkish Cypriots independent. Perhaps they need to be absorbed by Albania and
Turkey respectively to be considered "legal", just as Russia absorbed Crimea, although it is
not considered legal, either. So why hasn't Armenia annexed NK? Why hasn't the UN recognized
NK as a separate state?
Anyway, we are not discussing our preferences here. The Greek Cypriots rejected uniting
their country with the Turks under a UN referendum, but the Turks voted for a united country.
Why are the Turkish Cypriots not recognized as a country by the UN or anyone, but Turkey. Why
have they not been rewarded with EU membership as the Greeks were? Is it any surprise that
the Greeks won't negotiate in good faith with the Turks? Why should they? They get the
benefits. the Turks not.
As I noted in the last thread on this topic: the war serves to make the Azeris more dependent
on the West. 'Winning' the war is perhaps not the goal of those behind the conflict.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Oct 3 2020 20:33 utc | 25
So far the jihadis are hearsay, not fact nay more than the PKK are fact fighting with the
Armenians. It would not be surprizing in either case, but neither has been confirmed as fact,
but merely propaganda.
Again, it is not surprising that some people in the "Christian world attribute all the
massacres and destructions on the Muslims but ignor the massacres and ethnic cleansing
committed by the "Christian" side. This is is a tacit, perhaps subconscious racism that has
existed for hundreds of years. It is so difficult to be objective when you have been brought
up to dislike, perhaps even hate the other, isn't it?
@ Blue Dotterel ... thanks for your comments... you never said, but i take it you are of
turkish descent.. either way, i like the comments you make, even if i don't know enough to
agree or disagree with them.. there are usually 2 sides to every story, but we often don't
hear both sides stories..
"The Greek Cypriots rejected uniting their country"
As I understand it the war in Cyprus started when Greek Cypriots abolished the rules
stipulated by British colonizers meant to subjugate majority Greek population. Those rules
gave Turk Cypriots larger portion of the power then the Greek.
Voting for unification expecting to come back to the same discriminatory laws against Greek
Cypriots is non-option for the Greek Cypriots.
The other thing regarding proposition to Armenians to trade its own historical land for the
other part of its own land and call if fair is very biased by my opinion. It is almost the
same as proposition to Serbia to trade part of its land with current Serbian majority in the
Nato occupied part of the country (Kosovo and Metohia) for the other part of the Serbia
proper where some of the land has Albanian majority.
Proposal to trade a corridor to the Azerbaijans Nakhchivan for the corridor to Armenians
Nagorno Karabagh would be a fair proposal.
So in both cases/proposals (Cyprus and Armenia) on the surface seem fair but if someone
scratch the surface the situation appear to be far from the fair.
And in the both cases the presentation is biased for the Turkish side ... by accident.
Stupid people fighting stupid wars for stupid reasons. The peoples of the Caucasus need to
learn to live in peace with each other or the region will continue to be a backwater
exploited for great power geopolitical games.
Russia and Iran are correct to stay out of this and let the idiots kill each other. If
there was any significant security threat from the mob of unruly idiots running Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Armenia; the Russian and Iranians would roll over them all in 48 hours and
there is not a damn thing anyone outside the Caucasus could do about it.
Agreed, sorry Mr B, no malice intended, but your blog's credibility with unfamiliar
audiences could potentially be undermined with some occasionally 'liberal' use of the English
language.
Respect for using your foreign language skills of course, but perhaps a friendly proof
reader with native English skills could also be an idea..
No, I am of mixed European descent, both east and west. And yes, that is the problem; we
seldom do seek out both sides. When one looks at the Assange case, one sees the the problem
of our age (and many others) where the prosecution is allowed to present its case with all
prejudice, but the defense is repeatedly hampered by the supposedly impartial judge. And the
media, well what to the people get - propaganda, often through ommision in this case.
Similarly, peoples are judged by through the propaganda of a culture or society, usually
to benefit those with power. So people are taught to demonize or denigrate the other assuming
their own to have upstanding moral character or, if defeated in some way, victims needing
redress.
After the bombing of the Turkish consulate in Ottawa in the early 80s by an Armenian
terrorist group, ASALA, I made a point of educating myself on the so called genocide issue,
but had a hard time finding the Turkish point of view in Canada. As fortune would have it, I
found employment in Turkey, and eventually discovered what was difficult to find in Canada:
an alternative point of view concerning the issue and many others. Examining the writers'
treatment of facts and their academic backgrounds was certainly educational in many
cases.
Suffice it to say that on being able to actually see the "defense", I came to different
judgements from those I would be able to come to in my home country.
@ Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 21:23 utc | 36.. thank you for this as well.. i hear what you
are saying.. it is an ongoing battle to get all the information and nuances.. we probably
don't ever get all the information necessary which is why i resort to believing war is not
the answer.. easy for me to say this here on the westcoast of canada...
Ah yes, the "other side's" point of view about Armenian genocide. Did you look for the Nazis'
point of view about the Shoah, too?
Point is, Turkey has been genociding (directly or by proxies) non-Muslim people since the
late 19th century, and keeps trying to do it everywhere it can. In a way, Kurds are lucky to
be Muslim, they're just occupied and suppressed instead of being mass-murdered by the
millions - unlike Cypriots, Greeks, Armenians, Yazidis, Assyrians and others.
The seven surrounding regions should be returned to Azerbaijan, so that 600,000 refugees can
return to their homes. NKAO should be allowed to join Armenia to avoid creating new refugees.
I understand that legally NKAO is part of Azerbaijan, but Armenians have been living in
Artsakh for thousands of years, and it is unrealistic to expect them to give up and leave. On
the other hand, it is morally wrong to preserve the status quo and thus accept the ethnic
cleansing of the 90s. That's why a compromise is needed.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 19:55 utc | 22
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, is commonplace in war time,
and even in peace time.
Yeah, when was that when Bulgarians expelled Turks from Bulgaria, 1989? It was tragic, hard
to watch.
Nationalism is evil. I blame French for that disease.
Somewhat unrelated question: so Karabakh is written in Turkish Karabağ, which is
quite similar (to me) to Montenegro, Karadağ. Is the similarity accidental, or both
words have related meaning / connotation?
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 20:54 utc | 29
So far the jihadis are hearsay, not fact nay more than the PKK are fact fighting with the
Armenians. It would not be surprizing in either case, but neither has been confirmed as
fact, but merely propaganda.
Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical solution to
the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the Armenian/Iran border
of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern territory Nakhchivan, thus
Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides would be winners one
assumes.
I would not be one who so assumes. Armenia would be nuts to give up their border
with the one neighbor supportive of them while creating contiguity between Turkey and
Azerbaijan's main territory.
One of my all-time favorite recordings is Love, Devotion, Surrender
(Santana, McLaughlin). The very first piece on the album, a cover of Coltrane's "A Love
Supreme," has the two guitarists engage in a master-acolyte argument that frantically
escalates, culminating in a crescendo of...agreement?
Yeah, those Syrian "rebels" that Turkey shipped to Azerbaijan are more than hearsay and
rumor. My heart really bleeds for them that when they got there they found they were facing a
well-equipped and trained army, rather than having their pick of defenseless Christian
villages where they could bring to bear their skills in robbing, raping, enslaving, and
beheading.
Even without conquering anything, with a large supply of drones and cheap yet robust comms
(I feel the need to think of point to point IR, but I don't know enough about modern radio),
the attacker can do a lot of damage without losing anything that expensive, i.e. potentially
cheap spotter and relay drones, plus the munitions themselves. Air defense technology made to
counter turn-of-the-century jets/helis/cruise-missiles, is not really appropriate. Handing
out manpads in quantity creates other problems.
This is what I come to MoA for. And it's nice to see b disclose his authorship with his
trademark idiomatic slips ("full extend" for "to their full extent", 'unveil' for 'reveal'
and 'relicts' for 'relics', etc).
"Full extend" was a slight error, but "unveil" seems perfectly fine to me, and "relicts"
was a better choice than "relics" in that context. (Though really the Antonov An-2 isn't
either a relic or relict "from the late 1940s": they were produced in vast numbers for
decades.)
@ Dr Wellington 46: Also 'Visions of the Emerald Beyond' by The Mahavishnu Orchestra is a
fantastic album that I think captures the Fusion era with a sense of refinement and less of
the "slop".
Extend should be extent, I like discover better there than reveal or unveil, and relic has
religious connotations, relict implies "remnant" which might work, derelict suggests
inoperable, hmmm.
Maybe "remnant" or "survivor" would work.
But to be honest B's usage didn't bother me reading over it, the Internets is nothing if
not slovenly about grammar and usage.
Some people here speak of yet more "exchanges" of territory as if it wouldn't involve 100%
replacement of the people living there. and almost certainly by murder. They seem to think
ethnic cleansing can be undone by more ethnic cleansing or at the very least loudly support
one more round of it as a "final solution". They make it easy to understand why Erdogan
references Hitler in positive terms.
The suggestion that Armenia and Artsakh losing their borders to Iran is fair is silly and
anything but fair. It is an invitation to more war and genocide after such a "peace deal".
The "peace plan" is nothing but siege warfare, it is a barely disguised war plan targeting
Armenia and Artsakh.
North Cyprus being presented as some kind of Turkish benevolence belies the fact of the
current ethnic Turkic dominance of the demographics of North Cyprus which did not happen by
natural means, ie. it was/is over forty years of steadfast ethnic cleansing. Almost none of
them were Cypriot when the Turkish invasion happened no matter how much they lie and pretend
they were.
@hopehely how conveniently you forget that Bulgaria was under the Ottoman rule for 500 years
and plenty of Bulgarian got murdered by the Turks during that time. WHEN the Bulgarians
rebelled against the Turks in 1875–78, the Europeans didn't wept for ALL the Bulgarian
women, children and men that were savagely slaughtered by the Turks, but instead sent one guy
who claimed he never saw any atrociousness.
YEah, most of modern peoples' memory goes as far back as WII, everything else is forgotten.
FUCK YOU, the Turks have always been savages.
Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines
in more than 350 flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to
'Syrian rebels'. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad
center for waging its silent war against Iran.
This is dubious. Why use an Azeri airline to ferry weapons over the border that separates
Bulgaria from Turkey, with a choice of three highways, an electrified railroad, or even by a
ship (164 nautical miles between the main ports of the two countries).
If Blitzkrieg failed the Azeris will use the attrition war tactic and that is absolutely
certain to succeed. Murad Gazdiev tweeted selfies posted by Jihadi imports in Azeri uniforms
in Azerbaijan here: https://mobile.twitter.com/MuradGazdiev/status/1312372865937932289
Jihadis will therefore be used as canon fodder by Azerbaijan while the Ottomans take over the
air combat, directly or indirectly. Unless Azerbaijan is stupid enough to attack Armenia
directly there is nothing Russia will ever do about it.
At some point approaching rapidly Armenian frontline positions will collapse and then
there will be a panicked refugee flood into Armenia from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding
occupied Azeri areas. At that point Nagorno Karabakh will become impossible to defend.
Whether Azerbaijan permits Erdogan to seed the area with jihadis is an open question, but at
the least Erdo will place Ottoman troops there to "guard against Armenia".
Without Nagorno Karabakh Armenia is actually worth very little to Russia. Even if it could
be "taught a lesson" by Putinist restraint it would be strategically useless and a resource
hole. A NATO Armenia, with or without a NATO Azerbaijan, would be a strategic disaster but
that's the way things seem headed.
Watching the latest South Front videos it is easy to see how drone technology makes it
difficult to move vehicles and set up fixed positions. It looks like a very high technology
affair to counter drones.
Very expensive very costly training would equate to excellent results in second and third
world areas for combat drones. Again the war party wins. It would be cheaper to build stable
societies. What a toxic mess. It must be some weird parallel groups of death cults pushing
this continued chaos.
Maybe is is just plain old human nature with high tech advantages over bronze and iron
weapons. Even the bronze age brought a long period of peace and prosperity for a time.
If Blitzkrieg failed the Azeris will use the attrition war tactic and that is absolutely
certain to succeed. Murad Gazdiev tweeted selfies posted by Jihadi imports in Azeri uniforms
...
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 4 2020 2:18 utc | 58
I beg to differ. This is not Libya, both sides have relatively large armies, Armenians
have weapons, high ground, prepared positions and people who believe that the choice is
between standing the ground and exile (or worse). They will not be demoralized by few hundred
casualties. Azerbaijan has low ground, attack uphill is not easy, and the motivation of
soldiers is not as good. After bringing few hundred or even few thousands of second rate
jihadists the equation will not change (inequality if you will).
Of course, if the war is protracted, both sides will need supplies. Except for Turkey, no
one declared the will to supply either side, but unofficial traffic is bound to happen.
Russia and Iran will surely neutralize any supplies from Turkey and Israel, they need to
maintain the regional balance that so far is in their favor.
Then there is no potential for tipping the balance by direct intervention: it will trigger
direct Russian response. Concerning the coming winter, one should read Wikipedia "Battle of
Sarikamish". On New Year Eve of 1915, Turkish army advised by Germans attacked Russian
positions after crossing high mountains. Because of even bloodier fighting in France, Russia
was attacking in East Prussia to relieve the French and Caucasus Army was at half of full
strength. The result was that 1/3 of Russian troops were lost, a lot of them to frostbite,
and about the Turks there are debates: did 1/10 of them survive, a bit less, or a bit
more.
"... As soon as many generals retire, they become the high-paid consultants and lobbyists for the major weapons manufacturers. There was a time when the Boston Globe and papers wrote about it. I wonder how many will now. It is time to recognize the problem and face up to the destructive influence it is having on our nation and our families in both our foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... This is another consequence of allowing the people who own the media to own other things. Allowing the people who make bullets and bombs to own media is a sure recipe for perpetual war. ..."
"... It is quite normal for a top General to protect his cabal of corruption. He still has his slush fund money to protect. These military "Heroes" are in the habit of sending men to their deaths, just to advance themselves into top jobs with the Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... They retire into prime Lobbying positions as well. This corruption has produced more broken Veterans than Covid-19 has produced deaths. ..."
"... “ I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort, ” As invading Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos.... and many other countries was a last resort to secure the US national security. ..."
"... Trump says those things, and at the same time increases the Pentagon's budget & spending to over $1 Trillion (more than the next 15 Countries combined, and 13 of them are your allies).. ..."
"... Trump is picking up some that vote that supported Tulsi Gabbard, or so I speculate. Though he speaks with a bit of forked tongue -- stealing oil in Syria, won't pull out of Iraq when told by Iraqi government; still in Afghanistan long after the Pentagon lost the war there again another war lost against a fourth world country. ..."
"... An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When you retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid position?" ..."
"... Trump should spin the rest of the beans. Directly and indirectly, the Violence Industry is the biggest employer in the US. It's a gigantic social program. ..."
"... I think Trump is posturing for re election purposes . He is clearly in the hands of the deep state. ..."
"... Trump promised to end America’s “endless wars” . Just look at the people he appointed. They all love war. and trying to expand them. Russia showed the world, convoys of stolen Syrian oil. Than Russia bombed them. Now the US is stealing even more Syrian oil and nobody is bombing it. ..."
"... Biden was thinking about rebuilding contracts for his family and friends before the first bombs ever fell General.. ..."
Army Chief of Staff General James McConville has vehemently rejected Donald Trump's comments
alleging that the military's top commanders wish to entangle the US in as many wars as possible
in order to enrich weapon manufacturers.
" I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending
our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort, "
McConville, a Trump appointee, said during an online conference on Tuesday. " We take this
very, very seriously in how we make our recommendations. "
The general added that many of the US commanders have sons and daughters that currently
serve in the military and some of them " may be in combat right now. " The general
declined to more directly respond to Trump's allegations, saying the military should remain out
of politics.
The Chief of Staff was referring to the highly publicized comments Trump made on Monday. The
president said that " the top people in the Pentagon " might not be " in love "
with him " because they want to do nothing but fight wars " to provide business for the
US military-industrial complex.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to end America's " endless wars " as he
often calls them. However, the long-time military bureaucrats he appointed to command publicly
opposed Trump's propositions to reduce US military presence in Afghanistan and Syria.
Please. Who is he kidding. Rather than recognize the problem like an Al-Anon, he discredits
himself and his institution even by suggesting there isn't one. As soon as many generals
retire, they become the high-paid consultants and lobbyists for the major weapons
manufacturers. There was a time when the Boston Globe and papers wrote about it. I wonder how
many will now. It is time to recognize the problem and face up to the destructive influence
it is having on our nation and our families in both our foreign and domestic policies.
This is another consequence of allowing the people who own the media to own other things.
Allowing the people who make bullets and bombs to own media is a sure recipe for perpetual
war.
The media needs to be splintered into a thousand pieces with the new owners not allowed
to own anything else. The Sherman anti trust act used to spell this out in law.
LonDubh 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:04 PM
It is quite normal for a top General to protect his cabal of corruption. He still has his
slush fund money to protect. These military "Heroes" are in the habit of sending men to their
deaths, just to advance themselves into top jobs with the Military Industrial Complex.
They
retire into prime Lobbying positions as well. This corruption has produced more broken
Veterans than Covid-19 has produced deaths. VFW (Victims of Futile Wars) have seen their
ranks increase and their support mechanism decreased. Another generation of American youth
destined for the scrapheap of "Heros"
IgyBundy LonDubh 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:25 AM
Have you noticed what great liars these so called honorable military brass have become?
Better than most politicians..
“ I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend
sending our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last
resort, ” As invading Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos.... and
many other countries was a last resort to secure the US national security.
Everyone knows that there is collusion between some serving and ex top guns with the MIC.
Resulting in endless wars everywhere and many countries are forced by security tension to buy
more expensive weapons which they can ill afford
It is not the generals but the politicians that started the endless wars. The politicians get
campaign donations to their Super PACs or to an offshore numbered bank account.
Jewel Gyn 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:07 PM
What national security threat and last resort when all wars conducted are in foreign soils.
Even if there are threats on the hundreds of military bases deployed around the world, the
question is still 'what the *f are US troops there in the first place'.
Mark La Brooy 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:59 PM
Is it any surprise that the US spends $700 billion on defense. Next comes China with only $90
billion or thereabouts. Yes, Trump is right. It is all about the US military industry complex
and continuous war.
Apparently it's been the last resort continually since 1775.
Sinalco 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:05 PM
Trump says those things, and at the same time increases the Pentagon's budget & spending
to over $1 Trillion (more than the next 15 Countries combined, and 13 of them are your
allies).. As they say, action speaks louder than words - those are just cheap empty words to
rally his base for the coming election.
Trump not as much of a war monger as the establishment would like. Most Americans oppose war
but that has never slowed the establishment. Probably the biggest reason the establishment
is so opposed to Trump, among the other obvious reasons.
Are you a kindergartener or just plainly naive?!!! Trump knows Americans love to hear this,
so he is giving you the LIP SERVICE FCOL !!! He will pamper the MIC just as he has been doing
in the last 4 years once the election in November is over! Exactly because americans are so
incredibly foolish that Trump or Biden will be your next president, LOL!
donkeyoatee 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 01:52 AM
How was Vietnam or Iraq anything to do with US "national security" or the wars in Yemen or
anywhere in the middle east and around the globe. The US isn't doing "National security" it's
doing interference and domination.
Ekaterina 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 08:00 PM
I would laugh if this whole situation wasn’t so pitiful and sad. Eisenhower was right.
Shelbouy 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 10:34 AM
So many people say that Trump has not started any wars, which makes him ok. He didn't have
to, there were enough already going on. What he did not do is stop any!
Juan_More 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:39 PM
When the Generals and Colonels end up with very cushy jobs in the MIC after they retire. It
certainly does look like something is up. After all who authorised the F35, Ford class
aircraft carriers and my favourite winner of the silly name for a boat the USS Zumwalt
The MIC stooges at the Pentagon don't need to say anything, as Trump's remark reflects what
everybody already knows for decades.
Enki14 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 06:42 PM
LOL The facts speak for themselves and if one considers the endless war(s) since 911 were
based on LIES...the towers were brought down by controlled demolition...in charge that day
was dick cheney.
Trump is picking up some that vote that supported Tulsi Gabbard, or so I speculate. Though he
speaks with a bit of forked tongue -- stealing oil in Syria, won't pull out of Iraq when told
by Iraqi government; still in Afghanistan long after the Pentagon lost the war there again
another war lost against a fourth world country. And he's flirted with an invasion of
Venezuela, perhaps to keep the hawks and neolibs like Bolton and Bill Krystal on the edge of
their seats. Sort of like Merkel getting exercised over Navalny to counter all the blather of
war hawks and those who want to scuttle Nordstream 2. Throwing the ideological dog a bone.
It's satisfying to finally hear a US president pick up the theme Eisenhower warned of. Now
let him tell the truth of the filthy soul of the CIA, to take up where JFK left off. Trump
could do far worse than to thank Pence for his... See more
Jim Christian Rocky_Fjord 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:43 PM
Nah, Gabbi is a Democrat. But she's a good kid. She, unlike 99% of them, got a taste of ugly
military service and spoke out, only to be crushed. All you need to know of
military/political corruption is to study THAT.
Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 07:51 AM
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Dwight Eisenhower (former
USA President)
pykich Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 08:14 AM
says the man who signed the "Grenada Treaty"...
Jim Christian 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:37 PM
How many times has the 'good' general recycled himself between defense contractor jobs and
board positions and then right back into the White House, sometimes to a University posting,
then back to the Pentagon, rinsing and repeating several times after retirement? How do these
Generals and Admirals become multi-millionaires otherwise? And there are hundreds of them.
And they bring us the WORST, most corrupt procurement such as the Ford Class Carriers and the
F-35, to name just TWO examples, albeit big ones Please. It's crooked as a 3-dollar bill.
Look at the Pentagon opposition to Trump's every single overture toward peace in the Middle
East (except Iran, which is a big mistake, our issues were resolved until they weren't under
Trump). Any contest to the premise that the U.S. military is corrupt beyond repair is
patently absurd. And this "General" is just the wrong representative to refute the truth. He
is after all, part of the corruption.
Rocky_Fjord Jim Christian 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:46 PM
Two classes of US submarines were made with inferior steel from Australia. The steel was
known by the contractor to be inferior, but the Pentagon did not run its own tests. So tens
of billions wasted for subs that are unsafe at depths and of course in actual combat
conditions. The generals and politicians float above it all like scu*m on a fe*tid pond.
shadowlady 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:24 PM
The Pentagon has to justify its enormous budget, they provoke conflict at every turn.
a325 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:06 PM
“I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending
our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort" yada
yada , of course you are going to say that. Admitting the truth would be instant career
suicide
wasn't it Trump and many other presidents who were dishing out money left right and centre to
the american war machine to build bigger and so called better weapons. Goes to show no matter
what when push comes to shove the american government will always blame anyone else but
themselves.
foxenburg 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 01:48 AM
An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When you
retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking
chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid
position?"
Ever since Obama was elected we hear way to much out of these so called Generals. Jumping on
a bandwagon is something active Generals should never do.
lectrodectus 10 September, 2020 10 Sep, 2020 02:06 AM
Frankiln Delanor Roosevelt: (During The Depression Created The WPA Works Progress
Administration) "Instead Of Spending As Some Nations Do Half Their National Income In Piling
Up Armaments And More Armaments For The Purposes Of War, We in America Are Wiser In Using Our
Wealth On Projects Like This Which Will Us More Wealth And Greater Happiness For Our
Children" (Fireside Chats) Similar To Dwight D Eisenhower.
RealWorld1 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 12:26 PM
Trump should spin the rest of the beans. Directly and indirectly, the Violence Industry is
the biggest employer in the US. It's a gigantic social program.
I think Trump is posturing for re election purposes . He is clearly in the hands of the deep
state.
Fred Dozer 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 12:17 AM
Trump promised to end America’s “endless wars” . Just look at the people he
appointed. They all love war. and trying to expand them. Russia showed the world, convoys of
stolen Syrian oil. Than Russia bombed them. Now the US is stealing even more Syrian oil and
nobody is bombing it.
Is Trump really anti-war? Or he is just trying to exert his power over those hawkish generals
in Pentagon to tell the world who is in charge of US? If he is truly against all kinds of
war, that must be the only acceptable thing he has done so far.
The war industry, the prison industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and many others, they all
have their lobbyists and their plans for making more money. And manufacturing more wars, more
prisoners, and more diseases is not beyond them. Freedom and democracy and high cholesterol
are money making cons, and sometimes it takes a con like Trump to recognize it.
PurplePaw 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 02:59 PM
IF TRUMP WANTS TO END WARS ( KILLING) AND RIGHTLY SO THESE SO CALLED GENERALS NEED TO BE
OUSTED FAST. THE MILITARY SHOULD BE IN MY VIEW INCLUDED IN POLITICS AND EXPOSED AS IN ANCIENT
TIMES. A WARRIOR SHOULD BE ABLE TO BECOME CHIEF AS IN THE PAST. A PERSON LIKE ALEXANDER,
JULIUS, BUT THEY MUST ALSO BE THE MOST GALLANT WITH HUMILITY AS IN ARTHUR'S DAYS. NONE OF THE
HIGH MILITARY MEN HIDING BEHIND THE CLOAK IN THE DARK TO DECEIVE WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT. TO
MUCH OF THAT WHERE THEY ARE. TRUMP IS RIGHT ON HERE, STOP ABORTION.
pykich 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 08:10 AM
They should ask him what his plans after retiring are...
Ph7 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 06:06 AM
If he's so worried about national security "his" troops should be on the streets of US not in
the bushes of Afghanistan and Iraq .
off topic, but very important, Sen. Ben Sasse's op-ed regarding repeal of the 17th amendment.
Haven't seen mention of it at RT. Whether you are red or blue, this is massive in returning
power to the people.
DavidG992 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 06:08 PM
He could stage this 'ati-war' show only becasue democrats have ceded opposition to the
military-industrial war machine to a belligerent fraud.
Absolute truth really bothers these folks a lot. And Trump is not afraid to speak it.
Frank Cannon 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 08:58 PM
They leave the military for high paying indusrty jobs as a form of Briberty / reward for
keeping the endless wrs going & business good..
Mark90168 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:24 AM
Every candidate before election become wise due to seeing sword over his heads but after
winning the election they again become hate mongers and wars lovers. The US election
candidates should never be trusted. It reminds me "The game of thrones."
This is easy. Trump has always done exactly as the pentagon wants. this is a stunt for Qanon
votes that's all. Trump is smart he reads. He knows what Qanon thinks and wants to give them
a bone.
General James McConville , even if you tell us that tomorrow the Sun will rise from the East
we will not believe you, until we see it ourselves, general McCorrupt.
Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 07:55 AM
The DEEP STATE is build by the bosses in the FBI, CIA and the PENTAGON.
Winter7Mute 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:41 AM
Violence as a way of gaining power... is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition,
national honor [and] national security. For almost 100yrs now.
Mark90168 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 05:04 AM
Every candidate before election become wise due to seeing sword over his heads but after
winning the election they again become hate mongers and wars lovers. The US election
candidates should never be trusted. It reminds me the game of thrones.
Over the past three months, the Russian Be-200ES amphibious aircraft flew more than 200
times for suppressing wildland fires in Turkey. Aircraft with Russian crews onboard have been
participating in the firefighting missions at difficult and strategically important places
and locations since June 16. Total flight time exceeded 400 hours .
####
I don't know how I missed this.
So while Russia has been putting out fires in fancy parts of Turkey (Izmir), Turkey has
been continuing its fires in Syria!
Fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh intensified, on Monday, with heavy civilian and military casualties reported
amid disputed claims of an Azeri warplane being shot down.
Azerbaijani troops and forces from Nagorno-Karabakh have been trading artillery and rocket
fire, with the population of much of Karabakh told to seek shelter. Meanwhile, Armenia has
declared a general mobilization and barred men between the ages of 18 and 55 from leaving the
country, except with the approval of military authorities.
The most intense attacks took place in the Aras river valley, near the border with Iran, and
the Matagis-Talish front in the northeast of the region, according to Armenian Defense Ministry
spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan. He claimed that the Azeri side has lost 22 tanks and a dozen
other vehicles, along with 370 dead and many wounded.
Artur Sargsyan, deputy commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh military, said their own losses so
far have amounted to 84 dead and more than 200 wounded. Both figures should be understood in
the context of an ongoing information war run by the belligerents.
Vagram Pogosyan, spokesman for the president of the self-declared Artsakh Republic –
the ethnic Armenian de-facto government in the capital Stepanakert – said their forces
shot down an Azeri An-2 airplane outside the town of Martuni on Monday. This is in addition to
some three dozen drones, including ones provided by Turkey, that the Armenian forces claim to
have shot down over the past 48 hours.
Baku has denied the reports, saying only that two civilians were killed on Monday, in
addition to five on Sunday, and 30 were injured. There was no official information on military
casualties. Reports concerning the downed airplane were rejected as "not corresponding to
reality."
Azeri forces have taken several strategically important locations near the village of Talish
in Nagorno-Karabakh, Colonel Anar Eyvazov, spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Baku, said in
a statement. He was also quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that Lernik Vardanyan, an
Armenian airborne commander, was killed near Talish. Armenia has denied this and labelled it
"disinformation."
In a video conference on Monday, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev told UN General Secretary
Antonio Guterres that the question of Nagorno-Karabakh should be resolved in line with UN
Security Council resolutions guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and called
for the urgent withdrawal of Armenian troops from "occupied territories."
The current Azeri offensive is backed by Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
called Armenia "the biggest threat" to peace in the region and called for it to end the
"occupation" of Azeri land.
"Recent developments have given all influential regional countries an opportunity to put
in place realistic and fair solutions," he said in Istanbul on Monday.
Unconfirmed reports that Turkish-backed militants from northern Syria have been transported
to Azerbaijan to fight the Armenians have been denied by Baku as "complete nonsense."
They amount to "another provocation from the Armenian side," Khikmet Gadzhiev, an aide
to President Aliyev, told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan vowed his people "won't retreat a
single millimeter from defending our people and our Artsakh." All Armenians "must unite
to defend our history, our homeland, identity, our future and our present, " Pashinyan
tweeted on Sunday from
Yerevan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is one of several border disputes left over from the collapse of the Soviet
Union. An enclave predominantly populated by Armenians, it seceded from Azerbaijan in 1988 and
declared itself the Republic of Artsakh following a bitter war in 1992-94.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
In Karabakh Turkish drones #Bayraktar started systematic destruction of enemy armored
vehicles. Of course they are ruled by the Turks. Azerbaijani operators simply could not learn
how to manage them in such a short time. The Armenian side opposes them with the outdated
Osa-AKM complexes. They cannot cope with this task.
Most likely, the Coral electronic warfire system operate in conjusction with the drones.
They create interference, operators are distracted by false targets, while drones enter the
target and destroy it. If in the near future the Armenian side will not be able to quickly
clear the airspace, then the Azerbaijanis will show many more shots with the destruction of
armored vehicles.
What can be opposed to #Bayraktar ? Do not think that they are invulnerable. "BUKs" and
"Pantsir" systems cope well with them. But we cannot say yet whether they are in the area of
hostilities.
By their actions, the Ottomans make it clear that strike drones will be deployed anywhere in
the world where there are Turkish interests. That's their brand. Similar to the Syrian
mercenaries. Accordingly, their opponents first of all need to think about building an
effective air defense system.
If you have a territorial dispute with Turkey, then it is better not to run to the UN with
another note of protest. And he will directly turn to Russia with a request to urgently sell
several "BUKs". Trust that there will be much more benefit from it. Indeed, while the world
community calls on the parties to sit down at the negotiating table, dozens of your soldiers
are dying on the battlefields. And "BUK" in seconds can prove to a presumptuous guest that he
was not expected in this sky. And neither he nor his brothers should appear here.
Interesting link Evdokimova, 79% Armenians and 84% Azerbaijanis want the USSR back, that
goes to confirm the castotrophe of the USSR dissolution, of course there would be no wars in
that inmense area, in exchange for McDonalds advertised by Gorby we have now conflicts
galore, Moldavia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kirguizia,
Abjazia, Osetia.... and who needs to eat that crap?
An opportunity to hit several skittles with one ball was too much to leave alone for the
Turks, especially if the skittles could be hit down in someone else's backyard and
particularly if that someone else happens to be a client state of Turkey's.
It surely also suits the United States in some way, if that opportunity leads to Russia
and Iran becoming bogged down fighting in the Caucasus, and they are forced to take their
attention (and money, arms and fighters) away from Idlib province in NW Syria.
So presumably if the Azeris could beat the Armenians with imported "Syrian rebels", that
then would encourage home-grown rebel wannabes in Daghestan, Chechnya and other Muslim areas
in the northern Caucasus to "rise up" against Russian rule. At the same time, Azeris in NW
Iran would be inspired (in the wildest dreams of both the American and Turkish governments)
to rise up against Tehran and declare their part of Iran independent.
Unfortunately the Armenians, despite their government's pro-American tendencies, recovered
from what must have been surprise attacks and were able to retaliate quickly and hard. Now
Russia has taken the high road and offered itself as a mediator.
Let's see if the US and the EU can persuade the Armenians with their offers of loans worth
billions (presumably contingent on Armenians deferring to Israel as to whose Holocaust
deserves to be called a "Holocaust" and not a mere genocide - even though Winston Churchill
about 100 years ago or so used the term to describe the Ottoman massacres of Armenians and
other Christian groups in their empire) away from Russian mediation and negotiation. If the
money fails to lure Armenia into the IMF / World Bank debt trap, there goes the opportunity
to scatter all the skittles.
I'm trying to get a better contextual setup to this conflict. I recall the USA directed
coup attempt dubber "Electric Yerevan" when a company from said nation bought the power
company, ran it into the ground and used it as a basis for sparking protests. Next I am
hearing that the current president is a "Random Guido" who answer to the USA. If so how does
this effect Armenias strategic partnership with Russia? From what little I know about the
Armenian spirit they are fiercely devoted to their culture. Many Americans of Armenian would
fly back to the old country in order to take up arms. It seems as though this conflict is
going to escalate if only because the damage done so far. Armenia is fully mobilizing.
In regard to the Donbass situation, I gathered that the Ukrops army was heavily laden with
conscripts many of whom fled to Russia. They succumbed to the cauldron tactic due in part to
be order by "results driven" leaders in the rear. That and they stuck to the roads and were
easily flanked by smaller NAF units operating "in the green" What I found interesting (and
disturbing) about this conflict is that it resembles what could very well happen in the USA,
minus the armor although....
I'm trying to get a better contextual setup to this conflict. I recall the USA directed
coup attempt dubber "Electric Yerevan" when a company from said nation bought the power
company, ran it into the ground and used it as a basis for sparking protests. Next I am
hearing that the current president is a "Random Guido" who answer to the USA. If so how does
this effect Armenias strategic partnership with Russia? From what little I know about the
Armenian spirit they are fiercely devoted to their culture. Many Americans of Armenian would
fly back to the old country in order to take up arms. It seems as though this conflict is
going to escalate if only because the damage done so far. Armenia is fully mobilizing.
In regard to the Donbass situation, I gathered that the Ukrops army was heavily laden with
conscripts many of whom fled to Russia. They succumbed to the cauldron tactic due in part to
be order by "results driven" leaders in the rear. That and they stuck to the roads and were
easily flanked by smaller NAF units operating "in the green" What I found interesting (and
disturbing) about this conflict is that it resembles what could very well happen in the USA,
minus the armor although....
Although it is, clearly I suppose, not my field, from known and new mostly military
analysis sources recently found, I will try form a somehow readable post...( forgive thus
if I do not write the weapons denomination correctly...I make the effort to keep you
informed...and alos take into account, I am figuring out the events without thoroughly
studying the maps, I have passed the day working/making food shopping/taking a nap... )
On the doubts about whether Russia would intervene on behalf of Armenia, that wouldv
happen if Armenia request assistance under CIS agreements, but Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
( currently Republic of Arsakh, the name of ancient Great Armenia, to eliminate the azeri
denomination Karabakh.. ) is not Armenia, it is a region which apealed self-determination
but not recognized by any nation so far...not even by Armenia, due the ceasfire signed in
1994 ( what implies that the war never ended, but was frozen for a while, to be reignited
from time to time...) Thread ( you translate the Twitts on your own this time...otherwise
would get too long post..)
Both countries are very mountainous terrain, this is Caucasus, what makes advancement
quite difficult, thus, eventhough at first moments success was falling on the side of
Azerbaijan ( which counts with the unestimable help of Turkish swarms of drones and
intelligence from Turkish AWACSm it seems that Armenia, which has its borders mined, has
inflicted heavy loses in armor to Azerbaijan today, destroyed and captured....( warning
disturbing content of people flying in the air space..), also list of fallen in the
Armenian side, most milennials...This is when most fallen could have originated...in
Martakhert, in the North...
#LATEST HOUR #URGENT #Azerbaiyan army claims to have destroyed #Armenia's air defense in
Martakhert (north), with 12 OSA systems destroyed. The #Martakhert garrison would be
surrounded and offered the option to surrender.
#LATEST HOUR First list of fallen in combat by #Armenia. Note that most are kids born in
2000. The Armenian Defense Ministry also claims that during a successful counterattack
they have captured 11 armor including an advanced BMP-3.
It seems that modern warfare through drones is rendering heavy armor a bit obsolete,
well, like seating ducks slowly advancing in mountainous terrain of Caucasus..
The miniature air campaign being carried out by the #Azerbaijan drones against #Armenia
seems to be very successful. Its main protagonist is being the MAM-L micromissiles from
#Turkey.
#Azerbaiyan has already deployed the TOS-1 Buratino thermobaric rocket launchers. The
#Azerbaiyan drone air campaign continues to wreak havoc on the Armenian ranks.
BTW, @flighradar24, where some people use to follow flights path is under attack...guys
are saying this is Turkey/ Azrbaijan so that their drones can not be followed..
Some additional points in this thread by another guy who works for @descifraguerra, with
what is described by him as #cutremapa ( an outline made in the run without much
precision so as to clarify his points.. ):
There are skirmishes throughout practically the entire front but the "serious" fighting
is concentrated in the areas marked A (Murov Peak), B (Agdara - Heyvali axis) and C
(Fuzuli region). Especially in the latter, I refer to the video.
The ultimate goal of the Azeris appears to be a south-north pincer on the capital of
Artsakh, Stepanakert, with all the difficulties that this entails. Taking this into
account, it seems that there are two previous objectives.
The first of these objectives is to cut the M11, the main logistics artery of Artsakh,
for which they have two options: A) Take the peak of Murov and block the road taking
advantage of the heights. But storming up the mountain is always tricky.
B) Take the Heyvali junction. To do so, they must first cross several towns, such as
Aghdara, and it is in this area where it seems that more artillery fire is concentrating
in the last hours.
The second ideal objective would be to cut the M12, the second most important road in
the area and therefore the second most important supply route, but considering its
position this is something very difficult to carry out in most of its tracing.
So it seems that they are opting for a second objective, a priori simpler: to capture
the Fuzali region (remember, zone C on the map) and cut the M12 at the entrance to
Stepanakert itself (just 1.37 km south From the capital).
For now, it seems that the Armenians are holding up well to the south, although it is
the front in which the most intense fighting has taken place so far this day, but they
have less and less anti-aircraft and that allows the Azeri drones to act.
On the growing military drone industry being built by Turkey ( guess where the command
and control of those swarms of drones attacking one day after another Khmeimin and Syrian
positions and warehousesd is placed ), in the hands of his son-in-law, it seems that Syrian
oil smuggling resulted most profitting...
Turkey is laying the foundations of its geopolitics in the massive use of drones in
places of conflict where it has great interests.
To achieve his goals, Erdogan managed to establish his own drone industry. He is
currently in the hands of one of his sons-in-law.
But Erdogan is so blatant in his challenges that it is plain he fancies Turkey to be
Russia's equal on the world stage, and dares to poke it even as he takes actions that result
in greater power and influence for Turkey. He needs a hard kick in the ass to remind him
where his provocative actions are taking him. The west is unhappy with Turkey's cozying-up to
Russsia, but is doubtless delighted when he behaves like this.
Maybe Armenia could call it's new friends in NATO and in the EU
Please read the following it is a quote from an article over a Moon of Alabama.
" .. . Although a long-standing Russian partner, Armenia has also developed ties with the
West: It provides troops to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and is a member of NATO's
Partnership for Peace, and it also recently agreed to strengthen its political ties with the
EU. The United States might try to encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit. If
the United States were to succeed in this policy, then Russia might be forced to withdraw
from its army base at Gyumri and an army and air base near Yerevan (currently leased until
2044), and divert even more resources to its Southern Military District. "
Armenia after its colour revolution started to act in an anti -Russian way
Yet Russia is supposed to feel obliged to help Armenia?
What for? they have shown that they are going in another direction
And I think both Azerbaijan and Turkey looked at Armenia's behaviour to Russia and are
taking full advantage of a weakened alliance.
You make some good points. If Armenia has politically distanced itself from Russia and
approached the West and the NATO then it makes no sense for Russia to offer help without
strings attached. But Russia cannot let Turkey/Azerbaijan overrun Armenia either, or let
Azerbaijan grab Nagarno-Karabakh, because it would strengthen Turkish position too much in
the Caucasus region.
Yes, you are plainly having the time of your life and yukking it up again like you do
whenever something difficult happens to put Russia in a bad position – plainly, you are
a real friend of Russia, and only motivated by concern. Keep on laughing and making jokes.
Perhaps Russia should drop a bunker-buster on your house – would that be a martial
enough reaction for you?
They should – they should smack down a Turkish aircraft without warning and at the
first available opportunity. Russia is trying to stabilize the situation and calm things
down, while Turkey is openly backing Azerbaijan's military operation. A hard slap now could
break the cycle, but it seems plain Erdogan will get away with whatever he is allowed to.
It almost doesn't matter whether Turkey shot down the Armenian Su-25, rather that Armenia
has publicly stated it. This is about crossing the Rubicon. For all the chest-beating and rah
rah rah from In'Sultin' Erd O'Grand & Aliyev, both states have denied it happened. Here
we clearly see the gulf between broadcast to self-and actual potential consequences of such
an action.
Add to that Armenia has been open (not necessarily transparent) about its losses. Theres
been nothing from Azerbaidjan except American Vietnam war style 'body counts' of
Armenians.
It looks to me that Armenia are upping the ante to the max. and Azerbaidjan is left
wanting by its response which makes no sense if its claims of victories/whatever are anywhere
near true.
What I really want to know is what if any assistance, apart from words, the US is
providing and comparatively Russia. One or them is clearly in a much better position than the
other. There's really not much to go on as we know Russia does not broadcast and it certainly
would not be in the current 'pro-EU' Armenian administrations interest either. Yet again, we
are only left to ask what hasn't been said & done.
As far as I can see, Armenia is keeping most of its powder dry. The threat of 'other
measures' is currently more useful (and doesn't entail the same risks) than actually enacting
them. Maybe Putin will invite €µ to cover Aliyev's humilition as Sarkozy was for
Sakaashiti's? Now that would be funny, but we must not get ahead of ourselves..
Strategically, each time In'Sultin' Erd O'Grand backs stunts like these, he exposes
himself further to trouble at home. For Russia, not being fully NATO onside is evidently
quite useful however distasteful his behavior is, but he may well be undoing himself and
putting Turkey squarely back in to the western camp overall but retaining its nationalist Big
Boy streak.
Осеннее
военное
обострение в
Нагорном
Карабахе для
многих стало
совершенной
неожиданностью.
Но специалисты,
которые следят
за
военно-политической
обстановкой в
Закавказье,
подобное
развитие
событий давно
предсказывали.
В частности,
эксперты
Центра анализа
стратегий и
технологий
(ЦАСТ) еще два
года назад
спрогнозировали
обострение
ситуации в
Карабахе. В их
книге "В
ожидании бури:
Южный Кавказ"
даны оценки,
которые, судя
по всему,
подтверждаются
сегодня, пишет
Сергей
Вальченко в
материале для
сайта MK.ru
####
More at the link.
This looks like a reasonable analysis. If you are lazy like I am, use and online
translator.
I don't see how Armenia can accept the loss of critical territory even if the Azeri
operations are 'limited.' According to the interview, Azerbiajan is repeating the tactics of
2018 which is a big NO NO according to Tsun Tzu. I would be surprises is Armenia hasn't
already planned for this. The big fly in this ointment is Yerevan which may delay or limit a
response and listen to its 'western partners.' That would cement Azeri successes and damage
the 'Pro-EU' government. One reasonable strategy would be to actually encourage Azeri
'successes' as tehy would be tempted to go further than their limited goals and draw the
forces in to a pre-prepared 'cauldron', aka kiling zone as occured previously in the Donbass
and wrap up the Azeri army and gain ground. There's the risk that it wouldn't work either,
yet again Tsun Tzu do not fight the next war as you fough the last
On Sunday Ilham Aliyev, the longtime dictator of Azerbaijan,
launched a war on the Armenian held Nagorno-Karabakh area. That he dared to do this now, 27
years after a ceasefire ended a war over the area, is a sign that the larger strategic picture
has changed.
When the Soviet Union fell apart the Nagorno-Karabakh area had a mixed population of
Azerbaijani (also called Azeri) Shia Muslims and Armenian Christians. As in other former Soviet
republics ethnic diversity became problematic when the new states evolved. The mixed areas were
fought over and Armenia won the Nagorno-Karabakh area. There have since been several border
skirmishes and small wars between the two opponents but the intensity of the fighting is now
much higher than before.
In 1994 the Armenians won and forced Azerbaijan to a ceasefire. In the meantime
Nagorno-Karabakh organized itself into a sovereign country [called Artsakh] with its own
army, elected officials and parliament. But it still hasn't been recognized by any country
other than Armenia and is still classified as one of the "frozen conflicts" in the region,
along with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
But this "frozen conflict" may soon heat up, if you believe what Azerbaijan's
playboy/gambling addict/president, Ilham Aliyev, says. Not that Azerbaijanis should get too
excited about another war: If Armenians are still the fighters they were ten years ago, then
statistically, it's the Azeris who'll do most of the dying. While matched evenly in soldiers,
the Azeris had double the amount of heavy artillery, armored vehicles, and tanks than the
Armenians; but when it was over, the Azeri body count was three times higher then that of the
Armenians. Azeri casualties stood at 17,000. The Armenians only lost 6,000. And that's not
even counting the remaining Azeri civilians the Armenians ethnically cleansed.
Since the strategically-important Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened up, pumping Caspian Sea
oil to the West via Turkey, the Azeri president has been making open threats about reclaiming
Nagorno-Karabakh by force. The $10 billion in oil revenues he expects to earn per year once
the pipeline is fully operational is going to his head. $10 billion might not seem that much
-- but for Azerbaijan it constitutes a 30% spike in GDP. In every single interview, Aliyev
can't even mention the pipeline project without veering onto the subject of "resolving" the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Aliyev started spending the oil cash even before the oil started flowing and announced an
immediate doubling of military spending. A little later he announced the doubling of all
military salaries. Aliyev's generals aren't squeamish about bragging that by next year their
military budget will be $1.2 billion, or about Armenia's entire federal budget.
Over the next 14 years the war that Yasha Levine foresaw in 2006 did not happen. That it was
launched now points to an important change. In July another border skirmish broke out for still
unknown reasons. Then Turkey
stepped in :
Following the July conflict Turkey's involvement became much deeper than it had previously
been, with unprecedentedly bellicose rhetoric coming from Ankara and repeated high-level
visits between the two sides. Ankara appeared to see the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as yet
another arena in which to exercise its growing foreign policy ambitions, while appealing to a
nationalist, anti-Armenian bloc in Turkey's domestic politics.
Turkey's tighter embrace, in turn, gave Baku the confidence to take a tougher line against
Russia, Armenia's closest ally in the conflict but which maintains close ties with both
countries. Azerbaijan heavily publicized (still unconfirmed) reports about large Russian
weapons shipments to Armenia just following the fighting, and President Ilham Aliyev
personally complained to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
In August, Turkey and Azerbaijan completed two weeks of joint air and land military
exercises, including in the Azerbaijani enclave of Naxcivan. Some observers have questioned
whether Turkey left behind military equipment or even a contingent of troops.
The potential for robust Turkish involvement in the conflict is being watched closely by
Russia, which is already on opposing sides with the NATO member in conflicts in Libya and
Syria.
Russia sells weapons to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, but has a military base in Armenia
and favors that strategic partnership.
Azerbaijan has bought drones from Turkey and Israel and there are rumors that they are flown
by Turkish and Israeli personal. Turkey also hired
2,000 to 4,000 Sunni Jihadis from Syria to fight for the Shia Azerbaijan. A dozen of them
were already
killed on the first day of the war. One wonders how long they will be willing to be used as
cannon fodder by the otherwise hated Shia.
There were additional rumors that there are Turkish fighter jets in Azerbaijan while Turkish
spy planes look
at the air-space over Armenia from its western border.
The immediate Azerbaijani war aim is to take the
two districts Fizuli and Jabrayil in south-eastern corner of the Armenian held land:
While the core of the conflict between the two sides is the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,
Fuzuli and Jabrayil are two of the seven districts surrounding Karabakh that Armenian forces
occupy as well. Those districts, which were almost entirely populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis
before the war, were home to the large majority of the more than 600,000 Azerbaijanis
displaced in the conflict.
While there has been some modest settlement by Armenians into some of the occupied
territories, Fuzuli and Jabrayil remain nearly entirely unpopulated.
The two districts have good farm land and Armenia, already poor, will want to keep them. It
certainly is putting up a strong fight over them.
The war has not progressed well for Azerbaijan. It has already lost dozens of tanks (vid) and hundreds
of soldiers. Internet access in the country has been completely blocked to hide the losses.
The losses do not hinder Erdogan's scribes to already
write of victory :
Defending Azerbaijan is defending the homeland. This is our political identity and conscious.
Our geopolitical mind and defense strategies are no different. Always remember, "homeland" is
a very broad concept for us!
We are not making a simple exaggeration when we say "History has been reset." We are
expecting a victory from the Caucasus as well!
Well ...
An hour ago the Armenian government
said that Turkey shot down one of its planes:
Armenia says one of its fighter jets was shot down by a Turkish jet, in a major escalation in
the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The Armenian foreign ministry said the pilot of the Soviet-made SU-25 died after being hit
by the Turkish F-16 in Armenian air space .
Turkey, which is backing Azerbaijan in the conflict, has denied the claim.
...
Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that its air force does not have F-16 fighter jets. However,
Turkey does.
A Turkish attack within Armenian borders would trigger the Collective Security
Treaty which obligates Russia and others to defend Armenia.
A Russian entry into the war would give Erdogan a serious headache.
But that might not even be his worst problem. The Turkish economy is shrinking, the Central
Bank has only little hard currency left, inflation is hight and the Turkish Lira continues to
fall. Today it hit a new record low .
Azerbaijan has quite a bit of oil money and may be able to help Erdogan. Money may indeed be
a part of Erdogan's motivation to take part in this war.
Russia will certainly not jump head first into the conflict. It will be very careful to not
over-extend itself and to thereby fall into a U.S. laid trap.
Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report
examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then
analyzes potential policy options to exploit them -- ideologically, economically,
geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain
options).
As one option the report discussed to over-extend
Russia (pdf) in the Caucasus:
The United States could extend Russia in the Caucasus in two ways. First, the United States
could push for a closer NATO relation-ship with Georgia and Azerbaijan, likely leading Russia
to strengthen its military presence in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, and southern Russia.
Alternatively, the United States could try to induce Armenia to break with Russia.
Although a long-standing Russian partner, Armenia has also developed ties with the West: It
provides troops to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and is a member of NATO's Partnership
for Peace, and it also recently agreed to strengthen its political ties with the EU. The
United States might try to encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit. If the United
States were to succeed in this policy, then Russia might be forced to withdraw from its army
base at Gyumri and an army and air base near Yerevan (currently leased until 2044), and
divert even more resources to its Southern Military District.
The RAND report gives those options only a poor chance to succeed. But that does not not
mean that the U.S. would not try to create some additional problems in Russia's southern near
abroad. It may have given its NATO ally Turkey a signal that it would not mind if Erdogan gives
Aliyev a helping hand and jumps into anther war against Russia.
Unless Armenian core land is seriously attacked Russia will likely stay aside. It will help
Armenia with intelligence and equipment flown in through Iran. It will continue to talk with
both sides and will try to arrange a ceasefire.
Pressing Azerbaijan into one will first require some significant Armenian successes against
the invading forces. Thirty years agon the Armenians proved to be far better soldiers than the
Azeris. From what one can gain from social media material that seems to still be the case. It
will be the decisive element for the outcome of this conflict.
Posted by b on September 29, 2020 at 18:04 UTC | Permalink
div> As much as I appreciate b's conflict sitreps, I sure hope this one does not
become a recurring one..
As I reported last week, the Armenians were one of the international participants in recent
military exercises held in the Caucus region, and they frequently train with Russian troops
as CSTO members. Neither the Azeris or Armenians can really afford a conflict, although the
former have the better economic basis and have done a better job dealing with COVID. Because
of their history, Armenians are better and more tenacious in combat. Until Nagorno-Karabakh
is resolved, it will be exploited by the Outlaw US Empire.
The trouble with this kind of intimate geography, is that it is very tempting to operate
longer-range weapons or drones from the 'uncontested' portion of each country's territory,
since each home territory is theoretically out of bounds of the conflict.
The main meaningful response to a long-range or unmanned attack, targeting the source,
could then be used to blame the other side for any escalation. It seems Azerbaijan is more
comfortable with this at the moment. Assuming they end up occupying more of the contested
territory, they will end up on the receiving end of the same pattern, but either way the
result would be the same.
Besides the muddled geopolitics and heartbreaking history, it makes for a relevant study
in the state of modern drone and anti-drone systems, which will only increase in significance
going forward, as guidance systems, software integration,
networked/relay-based-communications and hard-to-detect point-to-point radio or IR comms are
all more accessible now. (for example, what would you do if you had the capacity to make ~10
million of the things a year)
Meanwhile, the radical blue ticks need some way to seem like they are superior to plebs who
might be inclined to take Armenia's side. It's all very complicated, both sides are just as
wrong you see!
"1 No side has a monopoly of justice. Both sides have historical claims to Karabakh. It
was the site of a medieval Armenian kingdom in the 12th century and an Azerbaijani (Persian
Turkic Shia) khanate in the 18th c. Both peoples have lived together here, mostly
peacefully."
But the people never changed, they were Armenian before and after the very brief period of
being a part of that Khanate (75 years, he left this out) against their will. It's all the
more surreal since the guy making the argument that 75 years of being under somebody's rule
300 years ago makes you theirs forever.
It's all the more surreal given the writers own father is from Amsterdam given.
I don't see anyone suggesting Spain has legitimate claims on Flanders and the
Netherlands.
It must be hard for bluechecks because their vaunted 'rules-based international order'
such it might ever have been said to exist with constant violation without consequence by
powerful countries is the source of the problem. Azerbaijan is only still after this
territory based on the thin logic that despite being 85-90% Armenian at it's lowest point in
the last 250 years and 100% Armenian today and being totally separated from Azerbaijan
politically, the UN still considers it's de jure Azerbaijan. The map says it's
Azerbaijan!
It is surprising seeing Erdogan who is a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic supporting a mostly Shia
Muslim country of Azerbaijan.
May be Persia should get involved to get back the land it lost during the Persian-Russo wars
!
B, it is good to see you reporting on matters that are within your area of expertise. Your
reporting on conflicts of this kind is invaluable, and I always follow your reports with
great interest.
I wish I could say the same for your recent post about Covid19, but there are aspects of
that post that are unfortunate. It is clear, for example, that you have not been following
the latest work on cross-reactive immunity--that is, the evidence that people who have not
yet been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 nevertheless have some immunity to it, due to exposure to
other corona-viruses. Nor is your overall analysis of the actual lethality of the disease
convincing--you seem to be unaware of the vast difference between young people and children,
who almost never die of Covid19, versus the elderly, who are much at risk. This has great
implications for what policies are best in dealing with the disease.
Yes NK was historically Arm going back forever. Nevertheless, the geography made defending
it impossible without occupying adjacent areas which as far as I know, were Azeri in modern
times. There are few happy answers to be found here.
As far as biases are concerned, deWaal is giving the interview to Al Jazeera, and the
network is (not surprisingly) somewhat more sympathetic to Turkish and therefore Azeri
statements on the matter, though they typically do a better job keeping a professional facade
than domestic (US) media at least. But that gives a hint.
Excellent couple of articles, 'b'. You are really on form. Thanks.
Think you are spot on regarding money and deflection. What we've seen recently from
Erdogan is vast expenditure in construction - unnecessary pandemic hospitals with
extortionate rental agreements to be met by the local authorities - and in technology - the
latest TechnoFest headed by his other 'damat' advertised significant projects to be funded by
the state, and of course oil and military: In these sectors nepotism and cronyism rule. it is
those companies close to Erdogan that reap very significant benefits. So, any earnings that
can be gleaned from Aliyev are very welcome I am sure.
The other aspect is deflection from a series of foreign policy failures, and several
serious domestic failures, one being the management of Covid currently and its obvious
manipulations and the abject failure of the online education system in which it is estimated
between 35 and 50 percent of pupils are NOT participating. The others being the economy as
'b' alluded to and the failed Greek, Libyan and Syrian situations. Other than that, the
political ground does not favour Erdogan at all and he is terrified of losing his 2023
deadline and therefore desperate to win back more of the electorate.
Turks talks about Turkey and Azerbaijan as One People, Two states - the Azeris do not say
the same. But it is a sign of just how important this is to Turks. As 'b' has mentioned, the
Turkish media is already in faitytale / victory mode - the last dreamt up report I saw
claimed that PKK were moving from Syria to Iraq and into Armenia to fight against Azeris -
and people are buying it, as they always do. Nationalism is very big in Turkey. There's a
reason why criticising a military campaign is considered a crime!
I was tempted to think that this 'conflict' would go the way of every other contrived
foreign policy foray this year, but Aliyev and Erdogan may be out to save each other's
political lives here in which case we need to consider what they're fighting to defend - very
wealthy authoritarian 'mafia states'. I do not think that Turkey would decide to push Russia
too far unless it had NATO or US backing because Turkey's economy and regional influence are
very dependent on Russia. So, I think this will be a limited show-piece that may score some
territory. What is certain is that in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, victory is already
guaranteed by the media! Does that imply a short 'conflict'?
Another aspect to remember is Iran. it has very good and important relations with both
Azerbaijan and Armenia and would no doubt fully back any Russian intervention be it
diplomatic or otherwise. It has also offered to mediate between the two. The Nagorno-Karabakh
area is very important to Iran.
So many fuses, so little time with desperate madmen on the march. As the good professor said,
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought
with sticks and stones." WWIII ain't your grandfather's World War.
R.A.
The swprs has been a constant source of Covid-19 scepticism from the outset. It is not
balanced and is full of cherry picking about its sources and analysis. It is a very serious
error to focus entirely on mortality in Covid 19 and its major effect on older people. It
does mean premature death for many. But even more seriously Covid-19 causes serious morbidity
and together with a high infectious rate leads to very sharp swamping of health systems,
major loss of front line workers because of illness and serious health and economic effects
independent of the mortality. Focussing on mortality of elderly only is a narrow view and
ignores why Covid 19 is such a serious pandemic.
Was lacking some of the details and depth of B's report but it was clear Erdogan is running
point on another Nato led shit sandwich on Russia's doorstep and a blatant 'damned if you do,
damned if you don't' trap laid out for Putin.
What's the bet if Russia supports Armenia the media will paint this as 'Russian
aggression' on poor Azerbaijan and an invasion of their sovereign territory? The region is
technically still part of Azerbaijan. Yet when all the first videos showed Azeri drones
striking Armenian tanks in defensive dugouts, while Armenian footage showed ATGM's striking
Azeri armour maneuvering in open fields, it doesn't take a genius to work out who the
aggressor was... but facts should never get in the way of a good narrative when it comes to
Nato..
Another frozen conflict would be just the ticket to drain more resources from Russia, not
to mention, the potential for instability and refugees right on Iran's doorstep would be too
much for the US not to want to invest in. Combine that with Erdogan's megalomania, and he'll
be happy to add 15% on all munitions charged to Azerbaijan to help plug some of his budget
holes, no doubt.
Luckily I'm no military strategist, but when i hear things like this i can't help wonder
if some good old 'domestic terrorism' or missiles flying into Baku, Washington or Istanbul
are just what is needed for these psychopaths to be brought to the negotiating table nice and
early and avoid a lot of human misery... It is just crazy to think we have leaders who
actually start wars in order to poke Russia in the eye... one wonders, since they know
exactly who is doing what and why, what sort of payback that may bring one day.
There is no doubt that Nagorno-Karabakh is traditionally part of Azerbaijan and only got
claimed by Armenia after a surfeit of Armenians invaded the territory since the end of WW1.
All in all a very similar situation to that which developed in Serbia vis a vis the invasion
of Kosovo by Albanians.
MOA has consistently stood against the internationally illegal Kosovo enclave, so why the
contradiction with Nagorno-Karabakh?
Surely it cannot be because of ideological reasons i.e. Armenia is 'good guys' &
Azerbaijan are bad guys? That is precisely the type of logical inconsistency which causes
wars.
Azerbaijan is in a tough enough situation with Armenia block the creation of a contiguous
nation with Armenia's takeover of the south of Azerbaijan up to the Iranian border. If you
look at the first map provided you will see an unlabelled black blob up against the Iranian
border a part of Azerbaijan which has been deliberately isolated by Armenia from the rest of
Azerbaijan.
This report sounds like something out of the NYT or Guardian next you'll be claiming with
zero evidence that there are Turkey funded terrorists brought in from Idlib just as the
guardian has been claiming.
Another motivation for Ottoman Sultan wannabe Erdogan may be the possibility of extending
Turkish influence (and by implication his and his family's) through Azerbaijan and the
Caspian Sea into Central Asia all the way to and into ... Xinjiang in NW China, with the
potential for Uyghur terrorists, nurtured by Turkish propaganda, money and arms, to get a
free ride through Central Asia and straight into any future conflict zones Turkey might want
to open up in Iranian Azerbaijan and all Iran's northern and eastern border areas with
Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Of course this will have US, UK, EU (possibly) and Israeli blessing if it means Turkey
will have to do most of the heavy lifting of money transactions.
thanks b.... seeing erdogan involved here makes sense.. at some point, someone is going to
take him out to bring peace back to the area.... until then he is a useful tool..
@ debs....thanks for your comments.. perhaps b will respond to them?? i agree with et tu,
the narrative the msm will spin here will tell us a lot..
@Jen
If I remember rightly, and I'll try to find the reports, it was claimed back in July that
Erdogan had offered to send Syrian militias to help defend Azerbaijan.
What makes you think the claim is unfounded?
The jihadists left in N.Syria are a serious problem for Turkey, so it would nake perfect
sense to try to 'liquidate' them in contrived 'conflicts'.
When did that "invasion of Kosovo by Albanians" did happen? You seem so pretty sure of it
that it makes me wonder if you are the creator of history itself, so you just invented it,
and believe it.
The solution would be to give back the adjacent territories that border Azerbaijan to
Azerbaijan and maybe pay some kind of nominal compensation to the displaced in return for
normalisation. They are to my knowledge much like parts of the buffer zone in Cyprus, full of
abandoned towns and villages. (Some of which you can see tanks using for cover in the
videos)
But the Caucuses are the Caucuses are grudges are grudges. Can't turn back the clock so
it's all or nothing, one side loses and one side wins.
Then you have all the exclaves and enclaves to deal with, which ironically, haven't become
an issue yet at all, probably because it would involve attacks on Armenia proper. Though
there has already been one strike in Armenia proper of a bus that was set to carry Armenian
solders.
1. It is obvious that the current aggravation was not accidental, but prepared in advance.
2. Possible goals for Turkey:
> Anchoring Turkey in Azerbaijan - the creation of full-fledged turkish military
bases.
> Inclusion of Azerbaijan in the Turkish orbit of influence (thesis "two countries -
one nation", in which Turkey assumes supremacy) within the framework of the concept of
neo-Ottomanism and (pseudo-)leadership of Turkey in the Turkic world.
> Economic goals and energy projects (Azerbaijani oil, gas) as part of the Turkish plan
to turn the country into an energy supplier.
> Given the circumstances (Ukrainian black hole, Belarusian problem, coronavirus,
spectacle with Navalny, threat to Nord Stream-2 etc), involve Russia in the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, thereby tying Russia's hands in the Caucasus direction in
order to act more freely and boldly in other theaters (the Mediterranean conflict with
Greece, Syria, Libya...), given the problematic position of Turkey (simultaneous war on
several fronts and the almost complete absence of assistants/allies). In this situation, the
Nagorno-Karabakh leverage/'trump card' in the hands of Turkey would be useful for
negotiations with Russia.
The latter assumption is probably the main one.
@Debsisdead, #16
There is no doubt that Nagorno-Karabakh is traditionally part of Azerbaijan
Funny.
Actually, this territory - Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan - have been
the territory (or "property", if you will) of Russia for the last 200-250 years.
Interesting historic fact. As long as the centre (USSR) held, the facts on the ground held,
much like the other areas of conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine and Transnistria. With the end of
the USSR, everything changed. This is what Putin meant when he called the breakup of the USSR
as disaster. And NATO will continue to poke a stick at these vulnerabilities. Are the people
of Armenia really that stupid that they see anything positive from joining NATO? Like that
will protect them against Turkey. They can see how Greece is treated. Hopefully this conflict
will put to bed any thought of Armenia being pried away from Russia.
Stalin's Legacy: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Nagorno-Karabakh is a highly contested, landlocked region in the South Caucasus of the
former Soviet Union. The present-day conflict has its roots in the decisions made by Joseph
Stalin when he was the acting Commissar of Nationalities for the Soviet Union during the
early 1920s. In April 1920, Azerbaijan was taken over by the Bolsheviks; Armenia and Georgia
were taken over in 1921. To garner public support, the Bolsheviks promised Karabakh to
Armenia. At the same time, in order to placate Turkey, the Soviet Union agreed to a division
under which Karabakh would be under the control of Azerbaijan. With the Soviet Union firmly
in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades.
As #12 seems to be implying as well, b is ignoring this region is the backyard of another
regional powerhouse: Iran.
Any involvement from the US in Iran's backguard will be gladly countertargeted so that
automatically means Turkey has very big ambitions to join this battle. This could very well
end up in straight war if the diplomatic channels of mainly Russia are not effective
enough..
I've read somewhere that only English wankers call Iran "Persia". Iran lost those
territories when the Turkic Qajar incompetents were ruling Iran (in a fashion).
It is informative to look into Qajar Iran. They somehow managed to take a Safavid (also
Turkic) Iran from a fairly respectable state to the lowest state that Iran has likely been in
its entire 3000+ year history. It is amazing what the Pahlavis managed to do to resurrect
Iran in the short 50 turbulent years a Persian dynasty finally got to run Iran after
centuries.
As to Sultan of Turkey making noises about Azar (Fire) PaadGaan (Guardians) being the
homeland of the 'multi-faceted' spawn of the displaced Mongols of Turkistan, he can go and
suck the Tsar of All Russians and Minions prick, again.
--
Interesting that "B" claims (without any proof whatsoever) that Russia intends to use Iran
as a channel to transport arms to Armenia. Iran's media already has come out and has denied
reports by "foreign media" to say such things. I guess that includes you, Moon Of
Alabama.
--
Also interesting that the apparently very capable Turkish drone being used is not
discussed here at Moon of Alabama. When did this place turn into the New York Times? What's
next, B, a Pulitzer?
Since the bar keep is not sharing links to vidoes released by Azerbaijan's military
showing multiple distinct drone hits on Armenian armour, then I won't either. But it is just
a few clicks away.
--
Finally, this situation is a touchy one for Iran, aka as "Persia" amongst the wankers and
related sorts. Will the "Muslim" revolutionaries, the children of Ayatollah cum Imam of
"Persians" (lol) yet again choose infidels as waali, if they think this will permit them to
warm the throne of Jamshid and the Hidden Imam and wisely rule and chart the destiny of
"Persians"? The answer to that is answered by noting that no one has ever accused the Mullahs
of "Persia" to be impractical men. Unholy, sure, some. But impractical, estaghforallah!
"..Actually, this territory - Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan - have been
the territory (or "property", if you will) of Russia for the last 200-250 years." alaff@22
A very good point. These countries have never been independent states. In 1918, under
western influence, and led by mensheviks Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan formed the
Trans-Caucasian Republic. My guess is that by the end of the Soviet era secularism dominated
all three societies and religious disputes were largely forgotten.
One historical grudge very much alive is that of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the
Turks, a century ago.
Sorry grump one, I just got back from my wednesday morning doctor's run where I pick up some
locals from around the area & run them to the Drs in town.
I hope that this conflict won't get characterised as a religious conflict, because that
isn't really what it is about.
Armenians fled east during WW1 in direct response to the genocidal attacks on Armenians by
Turks, so that should be easy eh? Blame the Turks, but it isn't that easy because of the
French & Englanders machinations when sequestering all the assets of the Ottoman
empire.
Right the way through WW1 which was at heart a war over assets for empires, even the spark
that lit the fuse was caused by the Austro-Hungarian Empire's lust for grabbing Serbia &
including it in their repressive empire, all the politicians & bureaucrats to empire of
the 'big' nations, spent a lot more time and energy divvying up their hoped for imperial
gains, than they ever spent on concern about the generation of young men being forced through
the meat grinders.
There were 3 big nations on the winning side France, England & Russia, yet
Sykes Picot is a secret agreement between only two of the triumvirate. Many suppose this
is because Russia pulled out of WW1 after the October revolution, that is not correct as this
secret agreement was signed in May 1916, 18 months before the Bolshevik soviet uprising.
England & France were doing the dirty on Russia even while the Tsar was the
bossfella.
Perfidious Albion seems to be the one most responsible as it has always claimed that a
similarly secret deal England made with Russia, unbeknownst to France had been completed. A
deal whereby England would grab the oil rich Mesopotamia & all the rest of Arabian
peninsular in return for Russia getting Constantinople and most of Anatolia.
That seems unlikely since England and France had already spilt the blood of 213,980
French, English Australian, New Zealand & Canadian troops on the Dardanelles in pursuit of an
invasion and eventual takeover of Constantinople which england had begun planning since back
in 1905! Long before WW1. Winston Churchill in particular had been advocating this for more
than a decade because he wanted to deny Russia easy access to the mediterranean.
A lie was told to the fatally foolish Tsar - it was that the anglo-french invasion of
southern Turkey was to be a distraction that would require Turkey & Germany/Austria to
divert troops from the eastern front thereby relieving pressure on Imperial Russia's
armies.
So what? How does that effect Nagorno-Karabakh? Well it does, because after england
screwed up at the Dardanelles, they then encouraged Armenians to take up arms against the
Ottomans, all the while knowing that despite promises to the contrary, if the Armenians came
unstuck against the 'easybeat' Turks, there would be no way of helping the Armenians out.
That is what happened of course. Kemal Attaturk the bloke who had overseen Gallipoli &
england's send off was sent to oversee the fight against Armenian guerillas and the Armenians
got monstered, so fled eastwards some as far as into the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The situation is even more complicated by the fact that after WW1 ended and elites all
over europe were crazed with anxiety about a 'red' takeover of Europe, 'the west' kicked up
even more trouble. By financing a mob oops sorry, army, of so-called white russians to resist
the USSR in the South Western Caucasus, it meant that the USSR was unable to exert full
control of the region for nearly 5 years. This is why as Tom says at #24 it wasn't until 1921
that the Soviet Union could credibly promise Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, a blatant bribe to
encourage the warring parties to talk not shoot, but really it was more like 1923 when the
USSR got total control of the region.
I point out the mess that previous interference has caused because it is vital that
history not repeat itself in that regard. If it does, then all that will result will be a
conflict held in abeyance for a time until it flares up again.
There are two issues people & geography, maybe the boss of Azerbaijan is an arsehole
who is trying to get back onside with Azerbaijanis by cranking up a conflict that is close to
the hearts of most citizens because every time they look at a map they are confronted by the
injustice of their nation cleaved in two. His alleged arseholery does not diminish the
genuine injustice Azerbaijanis feel in their bones.
That is one group of people, the other group are the relatively small number of Armenians
squatting illegally on Azerbaijani land.
The easiest way to fix the geography & people issue is for those Armenians to be
relocated into decent accommodation within Armenia and return Nagorno-Karabakh plus a land
corridor that rejoins Azerbaijan once again.
It will be complex to resolve as there will also be an issue with Armenians who have occupied
the space between the two parts of Azerbaijan, but however much it costs, that is bound to be
less than the cost of airplanes, rockets & artillery shells that will be expended keeping
the conflict bubbling away.
Turkish officials are preparing for the worst case scenario as talks in Ankara made clear
that Moscow doesn't want a new deal
####
This is a Turkey sympathetic piece but may be one reason for current events between
Armenia and Azerbaidjan. As for Syria, Turkey has been claiming to keep the north/Idlib under
control which is has until the last few weeks at it has used the previous time to reinforce
its military presence ('observation posts') – vis Vinyard the Saker – and now
claims it is not reponsible and its not fair that Russia reacts to attacks by its re-dressed
(literally) jihadists. Turkey's preference is of course to do nothing despite the all the
attacks, and that in itself explains a lot. Turkey is now publicly putting out its argument
in advance that it is 'Russia wot broke the agreement' and thus 'we are not responsible for
any of the consequences.' Erd O'Grand is due another significant spanking. Would he call NATO
to his defense as he did before? Certainly. Will it happen? No. Not to mention his current
intreagues around Cyprus and pissing of the French, Greeks and others. Trouble t'mill.
Despite Turkey's efforts to maintain the status quo in Idlib, a Russian-backed Syrian
assault seems increasingly likely.
####
In short, Turkey has not kept up its side of the deal of bringing the rebels under control
and the supposed opening and joint patrols of the M4 & M5 highways has been suspended by
Russia because of the attacks by rebadged jihadis. Turkey has clearly used the agreement to
simply buy time for another 'cunning plan' and as no interest in fulfiling the agreement with
Russia. The latter's patience is almost gone.
"... The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades. Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all. ..."
"... Screw the war mongers and the MIC. ..."
"... If you read the article, it's obvious that [neo]liberals/whores are the apogee of hypocrisy. ..."
"... Perpetual war is about $$$. It knows no party. Never has and never will. ..."
Feral, yes; rabid, absolutely; smart... not so much. Why is anyone surprised?
The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated
to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves
that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades.
Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all.
Yup. It's always about the money. As Fitts would say, that screeching you hear is the cash flow drying up for the rentiers.
The murdering of women and children be damned. Hillary's demonic cackle is but the grotesque cherry on top:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
"... Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it. ..."
"Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders,
planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A
trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network."
"Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of
propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria's political and armed opposition.
Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western
government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding,
from what they said to where they said it.
The leaked files reveal how Western intelligence cutouts played the media like a fiddle,
carefully crafting English- and Arabic-language media coverage of the war on Syria to churn out
a constant stream of pro-opposition coverage.
US and European contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition leaders at all levels,
from young media activists to the heads of the parallel government-in-exile . These firms also
organized interviews for Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the
UK's Channel 4.
More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained in a joint US-UK
government program called Basma, which produced hundreds of Syrian opposition media
activists.
Western government PR firms not only influenced the way the media covered Syria, but as the
leaked documents reveal, they produced their own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on
major TV networks in the Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient
TV .
These UK-funded firms functioned as full-time PR flacks for the extremist-dominated Syrian
armed opposition. One contractor, called InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a
network of more than 1,600 international journalists and "influencers," and used them to push
pro-opposition talking points.
Another Western government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to "re-brand" Syria's
Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by "softening its image ." ARK boasted that it provided
opposition propaganda that "aired almost every day on" major Arabic-language TV networks."
"The Western contractor ARK was a central force in launching the White Helmets operation.
The leaked documents show ARK ran the Twitter and Facebook pages of Syria Civil Defense,
known more commonly as the White Helmets.
ARK also facilitated communications between the White Helmets and The Syria
Campaign , a PR firm run out of London and New York that helped popularize the White
Helmets in the United States.
It was apparently "following subsequent discussions with ARK and the teams" that The Syria
Campaign "selected civil defence to front its campaign to keep Syria in the news," the firm
wrote in a report for the UK Foreign Office." thegreyzone
--------------
Using really basic intelligence analytic tools; Occam's Razor, Walks like a duck,
Smileyesque back azimuth's, etc. it has been clear that the UK government has been deeply
involved in sponsoring and influencing the Syrian/ jihadi opposition in that miserable country.
The wide spread British Old Boys network of aspirants to the tradition of imperial manipulation
has been visible just below the surface if you had eyes to look and a brain to think.
A lot of the money for this folly came right out of USAID.
I object to the line in the article that they "played the media like a fiddle" - as it
implies the mainstream media is a victim as opposed to willing accomplice.
The American public very strongly told Obama they didn't want another invasion and war in
the middle east (red lines or not) so rather ineffective propaganda.
Moreover, I suspect that given the US public inattention to overseas events that do not
involve much US blood (in places they can not find on a map). Today's mess would be where
more or less the same if the entire IO had never happened - though maybe with less cynicism
of US/UK gov'ts and media.
OTH, it is curious how well the British Old Boys network (and US) aligns with Israeli
interests (and runs counter to US or British interests). Maybe grayzone will investigate that
(impressive) IO campaign. I think a small country in the middle east played US and UK elites
like a fiddle.
I've only given this article a cursory reading so far and it is clear that the Brits are
going balls to the wall on the PSYOPS/perception management front. This campaign flows
naturally from the strong material support for the Syrian "moderate rebels" provided by the
US, the Brits and probably others for years. We may still be blowing up IS jihadis, but we're
also supporting our own brand of jihadis around Al-Tanf, giving free hand to Erdogan's
jihadis along the Turkish-Syrian border and doing our best to stymie R+6 efforts to crush the
remaining jihadis and unite Syria.
The article focuses on the contractors role in PSYOP. I'm not sure if it mentions the
British government's role in this. The GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group
(JTRIG) probably manages most of those contractors. The British Army also has the 77th
Brigade. This brigade's slogan is: "behavioural change is our unique selling point". Gordon
MacMillan, a reserve officer with the 77th Brigade, is now Twitter's head of editorial
operations for the Middle East.
The 77th was formed in 2015 and subsumed the 15th Psychological Operations Group which was
headed by Steve Tathan, who went on to head the defence division of SCL, the now defunct
parent of Cambridge Analytica. I'm sure the 77th is capable of managing some of those
contractors, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of contractors were also
reservists in the 77th.
I bet we're not letting the Brits have all the fun. The CIA Special Activities Center
(formerly SAD) includes the Political Action Group for PSYOP, economic warfare and
cyberwarfare. That dovetails nicely with what CENTCOM is doing in Syria. I knew some of those
guys a while back. I remember scaring them with some of my own anarchist hacker rantings when
I was penetrating those hackers.
Our Army has fours PSYOP groups brigade-sized), two active and 2 reserve. I would think
they have advanced their methodology since I took the course at Bragg. For a few years, they
were called military information support operations (MISO) groups rather than PSYOP groups.
They have since reverted to their PSYOP name although their activities are referred to as
MISO. I don't know what the difference is.
There is no such small country as you describe in the Near East.
There is an self-disciplined proxy force masquerading as a state which is mostly funded by
the United States to further the religious policies of the WASP Culture Continent.
It is no accident that in this context, the names of US and UK occur often in the same
sentences; one declared a crusade to wrestle control of Plastine from Muslims, and the otber
one carried out that crusade and escalated it.
That is also the reason that US cannot end the war over Palestine or leave Islamdom
(Oil, Geostrategic considerations, arms sales, Realpolitik are just pseudo-rationications
to obscure the real war.)
"WASP Culture" is into golfing, not crusading. Erik Prince and the religious
fundamentalists, maybe, but they don't drive US policy.
Russia and/or Chinese dominion over Eurasia cannot be permitted. Their means to achieve
that would be less ethical, not that the US or UK have been prince among men and salts of the
earth, as noted in the article.
The US has tried in vain to win over hearts and minds. It has been a mostly noble effort
to bring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan into the 21st century, but it was always more of
a losing game. The problem lies too much in Islam and tribal rivalries.
Recruiting for military is much easier if there is no jobs.
Notable quotes:
"... They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers ..."
I wonder if any of the commentators here have considered that the [neoliberal] cabal now
in power in the US (not elsewhere) are not in power to "take power" except for a temporary
period. They don't want to run the federal government, they want to destroy it, except for
the police state and the military.
They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for
a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations
off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid,
medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and
so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done
with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that
they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global
corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and
bankers , and I think there's a high degree of cooperation for the agenda. The
revolution is the cabal run by Trump/Bannon who are more extreme and ideological than any
previous faction, who have no tolerance for compromise. They have an apocalyptic vision of
grinding it all down to a bare minimum police state.
During the last weeks there was news that Turkey was hiring some
2,000 'Syrian rebels' to fight in
Azerbaijan against Armenian forces which since 1993 occupy Nagorno- Karabakh . Earlier today the
Azerbaijan forces and the mercenaries launched
their attack on Armenian lines. It was a massacre. Two Azerbaijani helicopters were shot
down. Some 10 tanks and armored troop transporters went up in flames . Azerbaijani
artillery hit some civilian structures in Stepankert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkish(?) drones hit Armenia front positions .
The Azerbaijani tactic seems to be to bunch up a lot of their tanks in the open field and to
wait for the Armenian artillery to destroy them. Russian troops are stationed in Armenia and
additional heavy support from Russia was flown in today . But Russia is
friendly with both countries and is already urging for an armistice. Armenia has mobilized its
forces and reinforcements are moving towards the front.
This is now, after Syrian and Libya, the third country in which the wannabe Sultan of Turkey
is trying to fight Russian supported forces. It ain't gonna work. But Erdogan has to keep on
doing that as a domestic diversion because the Turkish economy has screeched to a halt. The
recent central bank
rate hike is unlikely to stop the loss of the Lira but will deepen the recession.
The situation might well escalated from here on. There will be a lot of disinformation
coming from both sides.
Posted by b on September 27, 2020 at 12:55 UTC |
Permalink
Azerbaijan can't lift a finger without Ottoman backing. Armenia is traditionally a Russian
ally, and even though the current regime is wooing Amerikastan, it can't survive without
Russian protection. In any regular war Armenia will smash Azerbaijan flat but the Ottomans
are guaranteed to get involved. Now Russia and the Ottomans are on different sides in Libya
of course, Russia would back Greece in any conflict with Ankara, and increasingly Russia is
getting fed up with Ottoman attempts to annex North Syria. I can only surmise that this is an
Ottoman warning to Russia.
The claim the Azeri tanks were just sitting in a field waiting to be smashed by Russian
artillery etc. actually sounds like the Russians attacking first. The aggressor usually has
the initiative and thus usually has operational success in the opening round. It's
theoretically possible that a Russian artillery offensive was on high alert, waiting to
launch after a suitable "incident" which could be represented as an Azeri assault. Whatever
the value of mercenaries from a losing war, a few weeks is very unlikely to permit meaningful
incorporation into an actual fighting force. Therefore it is highly unlikely that their
reinforcement was the enabling cause of an Azeri assault.
It is a strange and marvelous world, where wonders delightful and horrible abound. So it
is barely possible the Azeris are terminally stupid, the underlying theory of the post. I
would still say that it's *not* because non-Christians are stupid. More likely it's because
the Azeris are getting their military advice from their friends the Russians.
IMO this reigniting of an old conflict comes as response to recent Kavkas 2020 maneuvers
organized by Russia which are taking place right now, with the participation of Armenia, and
also as response of last meeting between Zarif and Lavrov, in whose presser Lavrov was quite
explicit, at least more than before...
This comes, in the first place, as a new hot front ( apart from Belarus ) in the
post-Soviet space to implicate Russia and make her choose amongst two neighbors she gets
along with quite well, and at the same time, the transport of Syrian jihadi mercenary forces
in a charter flight by Turkey imply that a new abcess the size and type of Idlib is planned
to be inserted in the viccinity of both Russia and Iran, which will act as destablization
force for future incursions after US elections...
As we talk Azerbaijan is announcing advances in the Southern front and the take over of
some localities along Iranian border ...Why? What that has to do with Armenia? To implant
there the jihadis for the coming "proxy war" on Iran, the same way they were implanted in
Syria/Turkey northern East and West border and Syria/Lebanon Southern border...
Turkey here acting as US proxy PMC to position US managed and funded jihadi forces, as it has
done in Syria and Lybia...
Also the conflict comes to shoot two, or three, birds with the same shot by starting
another military conflict or destabilization process in the Silk & Road path...
This is the US MIC reasuring their rate of profit for the coming US presidency by
extending the perpetual war...
Although may well be that they will not even wait for the elections results...
On the importance of this new conflict and its obvious connection with Iran...See map in
thread linked above...Some more sources...Probable objective of past "color revolution" in
Armenia...on the grounds of "alleged" US chaotic state...chaos in the US acts as veil for its
own population ( so as thvey can not think of continuously started wars while they cop with
the immeidate miserable oticome of the pandemic...) and for opponents... who may think of
relaxing...Fortunately, Gerasimov, and IRGC, are always attentive...
THE SECOND WAR OF THE NAGORNO-KARABAJ HAS BREAKED In red the disputed region, in the center
of which is Stefankert, the capital. In blue the areas supposedly conquered by #Azerbaiyan.
Everything indicates that the Azeri offensive began by surprise in the early hours of
today, and has maintained a reasonable pace of advance
On the visible hand of Turkey in this reginition...no way Turkey is moving without NATO
consent...and even support...recall "international coalition of the willing to fight ISIS in
Syria"...which then turned into ISIS proxy war onto Syrian state and population...
I have
been checking and Azerbaijan announced in June that they were interested in buying TB2 from
Turkey. In no way have they been able to buy, receive and put the drones into operation in
such a short time. It starts to get cloudy.
Twitter turco está diciendo abiertamente que son sus drones. Mientras Clash Report,
que ya se ha comentado muchas veces que podría estar ligada a la inteligencia truca
(por el acceso que tienen a cierto material informativo) habla de que los drones son
Bayraktar TB2.
Shooting is common in Upper Karabakh...but not in Down Karabakh...this conflict as part of
war on Russian gas supply to Europe...
Although shooting is common in Upper Karabakh, a disputed area between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, this is the fastest escalation in recent times. Just hours after the last
incident, Armenia has declared martial law and total mobilization.
Let's not think that this is simply a local conflict between two countries: Azerbaijan
is backed by Turkey, while Armenia is backed by Russia. And to this we can add the natural
gas that comes to Europe from the Caspian.
In case someone wants to follow, Youtube channel of Armenian TV which sometimes biradcast
in Englisgh language...
In case anyone is interested in following him from the origin, YouTube channel with a live
signal from an Armenian television (at times they speak in English)
Well, sorry, posting too fast, as I must go now, and without time to check two
times...
It seems that tweets by #DragonLadyU2 got middle trnaslated...Repost correctly and with
blockquote, as it is not, as it could seem by the size of letter, info of mine, but of this
account who is following the issue of Azerbaijani drones purchase...
I was introducing it as:
On the visible hand of Turkey in this reginition...no way Turkey is moving without NATO
consent...and even support...recall "international coalition of the willing to fight ISIS in
Syria"...which then turned into ISIS proxy war onto Syrian state and population...
I have been checking and Azerbaijan announced in June that they were interested in buying
TB2 from Turkey. In no way have they been able to buy, receive and put the drones into
operation in such a short time. It starts to get cloudy.
Turkish Twitter is openly saying that it is their drones. While Clash Report, which has
already been commented many times that it could be linked to Turkish intelligence (due to
the access they have to certain informative material), talks about the drones being
Bayraktar TB2.
On preparations for this conflict, and who provoked whom...also reflected some intends of
transforming this inot religious conflict...which then would reginite the whole Caucasus and
Caspian region, and thus would end implying Iran and Russia...and probably palcing them in
different sides...which could be one of the objectives, to put a breach into very good
Russian/Iranian relations...Beware...
I'm reminded Israeli bizjet associated w secret flights was in Baku, Azerbaijan 3 days ago.
Landed back in Israel along w Azeri ministry of defense cargo
I have not been able to verify the arrival of Syrian fighters from the Turkish-backed
factions (SNA) in Azerbaijan as of now. I can confirm that dozens of fighters from NW Syria
(outside of regime control) left Syria via Turkey in an unknown direction about a week ago.
Families lost touch with these men since their departure. Rumored destinations include
Azerbaijan, Qatar, Turkey and Libya. I am in touch with families & friends of men who
left and will report once they manage to get in touch with their loved-ones.
About a month ago, rumors spread on WhatsApp among SNA fighters that they can register
to go to Azerbaijan. Many registered over WhatsApp, others apparently thru offices in the
Turkish-controlled areas.
The fighters registered due to the enticing rumored salaries of $2K-$2.5K
The SNA mercenaries who've gone to fight in Libya against Haftar were recruited with
direct involvement by Turkish officers who met with commanders of the SNA factions to
pressure them to send fighters. With the alleged Azerbaijan recruitment, there haven't been
such meetings.
It seems likely that the recruitment is being carried out by a Turkish private security
company that is also involved in shipping Syrians to fight in Libya. There is no need to
apply pressure on Syrians to leave anymore. The number of men wanting to go far exceeds
demand.
With time, the idea of being deployed oversees as a mercenary is becoming more socially
acceptable in Syria, in both communities residing outside of regime control (men in Idlib
have registered to go to Azerbaijan too) and in regime areas (where men are going to fight
for Haftar)
Syrian lives are regarded as expendable, with Syria serving as an arena to settle
geostrategic scores at Syrians' expense. Syrians resisted & still resist this logic,
but the collapse of the economy is prompting many Syrians to be willing to sell themselves
to the highest bidder.
div> I think that Jihadists have no nationality, therefore it is wrong to
label them as "Syrian"!
(1) re: tanks bunched up - the linked Armenian MOD twitter-video with the cheesy music and
2 tank hits ( this one ) suggests it is not
artillery? Recently dug cover beind them, but tanks mostly facing toward camera. Bulldozer
still there. Direct hits. You can see from the reaction of the tanks what they think is the
direction from which they were attacked. After the first hit, the next tank to be hit
attempted (unsuccessfully) to hide behind the remains of the tank already destroyed. The
others which were not already facing that way, turn their turrets toward the camera, which is
the direction from which they think they were attacked. They start making smokescreen as the
clip ends.
(2) We really don't need to see a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
(3) I don't really get the geopolitics of this. For Turkish strategic motivations, the
relevant oil/gas pipeline does not pass thru the contested territory although is quite close.
Not sure what to make of that. Map
here , with Nagorno-Karabakh colored in under Azerbaijan. Turkey is in danger of being
bypassed by Greece-Cyprus-Israel pipeline, how does this this help them in any way?
(4) For US-Iran conflict, just seems like general chaos. Perhaps there is a land route
from Russia-Georgia-Iran, but it can't be as good as the caspian sea route.
(5) for Greece-Cyprus pipeline, there may be a commercial benefit, if the reliability of
the Azerbaijan-Turkey route comes into question due to war or instability.
Looks like Turkey has gone rogue. Since the 2016 assassination attempt, Erdogan doesn't
trust NATO anymore.
As for (3), it's very straightforward: Turkey probably wants some symmetrical leverage
against Russia against the FUBARed situation in Idlib (which is draining Turkish coffers and
soldiers). They are probably very desperate, and are looking for something on these lines:
"look, Russia, you give us Idlib and we let Nagorno-Karabakh alone the next day. Deal?".
The Azeris making advances is to be expected if they had the aggressor's initiative. The post
implies the Armenians are winning handily, which is not to be expected when a prepared Azeri
offensive kicks off.
Armenia has long been on the US Regime Change hitlist - June/July 2015, July 2017, April 2018
when the Random Guy Pashinyan was imposed as leader. He has the tricky task of balancing the
demands of his owners versus the reality of Armenian interests.
p>
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Sunday saw huge clashes erupt between the armies of Armenia and Azerbaijan along the already
militarized and disputed Nagorno-Karabakh border region. An official state of war in the region
has been declared by Yerevan.
"Early in the morning, around 7 a.m. the Azerbaijani forces launched a large-scale
aggression, including missile attacks..." Armenia's Defense Ministry stated Sunday. Armenia has
since reportedly declared martial law and a "total military mobilization" in what looks to be
the most serious escalation between the two countries in years.
Air and artillery attacks from both sides ramped up, with each side blaming the other for
the start of hostilities, while international powers urge calm. Crucially, civilians have
already been killed on either side by indiscriminate shelling . At least a dozen soldiers on
either side have also been reported killed.
Armenia's high command has ordered all troops throughout the country to muster and report to
their bases : "I invite the soldiers appointed in the forces to appear before their military
commissions in the regions," a statement said.
Armenia's military has released footage of significant tank warfare in progress. The below
is said to be Armenian army forces destroying Azerbaijani tanks:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-mJffVrtPLk
And here's more from Sunday's fighting:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D2jd1bw0AXQ?start=9
The recent conflict hearkens back to 2016, but before that to post-Soviet times. Christian
Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan fought a war at that time in which at least 200 people were
killed over Armenian ethnic breakaway Nagorno Karabakh, which declared independence in 1991,
despite being internationally recognized as within Azerbaijan territory .
Dozens of civilians have already been injured Sunday in the major flare-up of fighting, as
CNN reports :
While Armenia said it was responding to missile attacks launched by its neighbor Sunday,
Azerbaijan blamed Armenia for the clashes.
In response to the alleged firing of projectiles by Azerbaijan, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan tweeted that his country had "shot down 2 helicopters & 3 UAVs, destroyed
3 tanks."
Multiple dramatic battlefield videos are circulating on social media confirming the
large-scale deployment of tanks, artillery units, and airpower . Multiple Azerbaijani soldiers
have been
reported killed, but it's as yet unclear what casualty numbers could be.
Turkey's role in new fighting is attracting scrutiny. Its foreign ministry blamed Armenia
and called for it to halt military operations, however, it hardly appears to be a mere outside
or 'neutral' observer, given
new widespread reports Turkey has transferred 'Syrian rebel' units to join the fighting on
Azerbaijan's side .
These reports of Turkish supplied Syrian mercenaries began days ago, in what regional
analysts predicted would be a huge escalation in hostilities in the Caucuses.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
late in the day slammed Turkey's meddling in the conflict . Ankara had called Armenia "an
obstacle" to peace after the fresh hostilities broke out. Yerevan has now formally confirmed
Turkey is supplying fighters .
Given the number of vital oil and gas infrastructure facilities and pipelines in the region
, impact on global markets could be seen as early as Monday.
"At least 16 military and several civilians were killed on Sunday in the heaviest clashes
between Armenia and Azerbaijan since 2016, reigniting concern about stability in the South
Caucasus, a corridor for pipelines carrying oil and gas to world markets," Reuters reports.
Azerbaijan has also declared an official state of martial law while clashes between the
armies are unfolding.
Meanwhile footage has emerged showing Armenia's nationwide mustering of its national and
reserve forces :
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"Pipelines shipping Caspian oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the world pass close to
Nagorno-Karabakh,"
Reuters reports. "Armenia also warned about security risks in the South Caucasus in July
after Azerbaijan threatened to attack Armenia's nuclear power plant as possible retaliation
."
The fighting is expected to grow fiercer along front lines in the disputed region into the
night as the prospect of a full 'state of war' is looming between the historic rivals.
Selfishness may be exalted as the root and branch of capitalism, but it doesn't make you
look good to the party on the receiving end or those whose sympathy he earns. For that, you
need a government prepared to do four things, which each have separate dictums based on study,
theorization, and experience. Coercion: Force is illegitimate only if you can't sell it.
Persuasion: How do I market thee? Let me count the ways. Bargaining: If you won't scratch my
back, then how about a piece of the pie? Indoctrination: Because I said so. (And paid for the
semantics.)
Predatory capitalism is the control and expropriation of land, labor, and natural resources
by a foreign government via coercion, persuasion, bargaining, and indoctrination.
At the coercive stage, we can expect military and/or police intervention to repress the
subject populace. The persuasive stage will be marked by clientelism, in which a small
percentage of the populace will be rewarded for loyalty, often serving as the capitalists'
administrators, tax collectors, and enforcers. At the bargaining stage, efforts will be made to
include the populace, or a certain percentage of it, in the country's ruling system, and this
is usually marked by steps toward democratic (or, more often, autocratic) governance.
At the fourth stage, the populace is educated by capitalists, such that they continue to
maintain a relationship of dependency.
The Predatory Debt Link
In many cases, post-colonial states were forced to assume the debts of their colonizers. And
where they did not, they were encouraged to become in debt to the West via loans that were
issued through international institutions to ensure they did not fall prey to communism or
pursue other economic policies that were inimical to the West. Debt is the tie that binds
nation states to the geostrategic and economic interests of the West.
As such, the Cold War era was a time of easy credit, luring postcolonial states to undertake
the construction of useless monoliths and monuments, and to even expropriate such loans through
corruption and despotism, thereby making these independent rulers as predatory as colonizers.
While some countries were wiser than others and did use the funds for infrastructural
improvements, these were also things that benefited the West and particularly Western
contractors. In his controversial work Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins reveals
that he was a consultant for an American firm (MAIN), whose job was to ensure that states
became indebted beyond their means so they would remain loyal to their creditors, buying them
votes within United Nations organizations, among other things.
Predatory capitalists demand export-orientations as the means to generate foreign currency
with which to pay back debt. In the process, the state must privatize and drastically slash or
eliminate any domestic subsidies which are aimed at helping native industry compete in the
marketplace. Domestic consumption and imports must be radically contained, as shown by the
exchange rate policies recommended by the IMF. The costs of obtaining domestic capital will be
pushed beyond the reach of most native producers, while wages must be depressed to an absolute
bare minimum. In short, the country's land, labor, and natural resources must be sold at
bargain basement prices in order to make these goods competitive, in what one author has called
"a spiraling race to the bottom," as countries producing predominantly the same goods engage in
cutthroat competition whose benefactor is the West.
Under these circumstances, foreign investment is encouraged, but this, too, represents a
loaded situation for countries that open their markets to financial liberalization.
Antifa and BLM are just shows with stunts designed to distract people from the level they are
fleeced by MIC and financial oligarchy. As well as restore the legitimacy of Clinton wing of
neoliberal oligarchy which was badly shaken during 2016 election, when their candidate was send
packing.
Nicholas Kristof is member of "Clinton gang of neoliberals" and a part of this effort to
distract people. The number of people who pay attention to Nicholas Kristof bloviations is
astounding. Few understand that we do not know the facts and the real issue if the tight grip of
MIC and financial oligarchy on the society. What is interesting is that s in California, there
are 8.5 million residents born outside the country and about 150,000 homeless. "The melting pot
burned over. It is now a ... salad.
For example, if money spend on wars were used to manage thoseforests with difficult terrain
and perioc drauts, would the outcome be different?
Can those fires and destruction be viewed as God punishment for war the USA unleashed? As
Thomas Jefferson said "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
BTW, the number of commenters with Russian paranoia symptom is frightening. Of course NYT
attracts specific audience, but still. In this sense NYT columnists including Nickolas Kristof
are just warmongering bottom feeders of MIC crumps. It is pathetic how he tries to hide the lack
of money for forest management and mismanagement if this issue by Oregon Dem politician under the
broad banner of "climate change" Existence of climate change does not mean that fire should burn
uncontrollably.
MIC steals half trillion dollars and then financial oligarchy steals probably another half,
if not more. What is left is not enough for proper maintenance of land, water and environment in
general. Stupid situation, but this is neoliberalism my friend, where "greed is good". And people
chose this mousetrap themselves in 1970th by electing first Carter and then Reagan and then
Clinton , allowing financial oligarchy to dismantle New Deal Capitalism. Clinton presidency was
especially destructive, In a way he should be views as the top villain in this story, a real
criminal boss.
Below I selected only more or less sane comment (which constitute probably less 1% of the
total)
Notable quotes:
"... How about a judicious Forrest management? ..."
"... So much for our useless 750 Billion dollar military budget. ..."
"... Amazing how ,close minded people become when, for them, everything is political. ..."
Wouldn't the conspiracy theories and concerns about antifa be lessened if progresses were as
vitriolic about violence committed in the name of equity, diversity and inclusion as they are
about violence committed in support of MAGA? Would the right have anything to crow about if
the NYT was as critical of physical altercations caused by social justice warriors as they
are of white supremacists? Wouldn't we all have more trust in MSM if they investigated the
facts before accusing Nick Sandman of racism or claiming a garbage pull was a noose? One
sided reporting and editorials like these fan the flames rather than squelch them.
It's amazing. You can write a column in the NY Times full of conspiracy theories -- all fully
believed by the left -- and accuse the right of being prone to believing conspiracy theories.
From Russia - collusion to rubes in the red states --a majority of dems share a set of
beliefs that are as delusional as anything a small group on the right might believe. But,
that's Kristof and the Ny Times for you.
People seemed to have lost a sense of what is plausible. While few of us know the news first
hand, we have to both trust and evaluate what is reported. Nothing is absolute. Jurors are
asked to decide cases beyond a reasonable doubt. That is how I feel taking in the news. But
within that sliver of doubt, within the fact that nothing is absolute is where conspiracy
theories begin to fester. It is where some have found solace to confirm what they want to
choose to believe despite how much there might be to question that. Events like this create
an opportunism to demonize those you hate and in doing so the essence of what we should be
debating is lost. How to prevent these fires in the first place? We will probably continue to
debate it despite the evidence on climate change, whether there is a deep state trying to
discredit Trump, whether the seriousness of covid is a hoax. Yes there is no absolute
certainty but there is taking an educated guess as opposed to an emotional response. I'll go
with the educated guess. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, I
will say it is a duck and accept that sliver of possibility I might be wrong.
Why do people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories?" It's actually quite simple. Take
QAnon for example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with
any religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while
offering a path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential
elements of cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever
you believe will be "validated." "Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories,
merely assertions. A theory is subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where
truth has no inherent monetary value, don't expect it. Why the rapid spread? To paraphrase
Bill Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability =
Profit That is the business model of the internet, a medium where "news" is whatever will
produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and until the youngest generation developes a
means of communication that does not depend on megacorporations, nothing will change. In the
Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had no honest access to the traditional media,
created its own, the "alternative press." Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their
own way to communicate that is reliable. It is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition"
becomes an actual threat to the profits of Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of
their ilk, they will be cut off.
The antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of
August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[73]
It is particularly present in the Pacific Northwest.[74] Wikipedia
In an age when the US Justice Department is anything but just, more closely resembling
something akin to "just us," I call to mind Thomas Jefferson, in a somewhat different
context: "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
We spend hundred of billions of dollars every year on the types of weapons that won WWII,
while the real threat to our Republic and yes, our civilization, is ,,, It's funny and
tragic, simultaneously.
Antifa has done a lot of things. They have chosen to step into the arena. Whether they did it
or not, this is accusation is a result of wading into the fight. If Antifa doesnt like to be
accused of things and cant handle it, then Antifa should step off. Or does Antifa only want
praise? Because that isnt going to happen. Many people dont like Antifa nor trust Antifa. And
rightfully so. Ask any career criminal how many times they've been wrongfully accused of
something. If an individual or group doesnt want to be accused of things, then dont get
involved from the start.
Except that about a dozen people have been arrested and charged with starting the forest
fires. Shouting "without evidence!" doesn't make it so. Facts matter.
@JQGALT There are always people who are setting fires whether accidentally or intentionally.
Do you have any proof that these arsonists were politically motivated I any way ?
Yet the Almeda fire in Oregon that destroyed more than 2,300 homes was, according to NYT
reporting, caused by human activity and is subject of a "criminal investigation." Perhaps it
would be wise to reserve total judgment until that investigation is completed.
Who needs rumors? The organization showed what it is made of when it created its free zone in
downtown Seattle and had the highest crime and murder rate per capita in its short life in
the country.
Rational people know that Antifa is not staring forest fires. However, burning and looting
and using fireworks as weapons in the recent riots make even the dumbest claims of Trump
supporters more believable.
Leftwing activists have literally been arrested for starting some of these fires. There is
video of arsonists being caught, yet the media ignores this, and actively denies it. Gee, why
could that be?
@LV Do you have any proof that these people were were left wing activist or just the kind of
people who are always starting fires ad they have in the past ?
The [neoliberal] left spends 24/7 preaching to their choir about Trump fascists dictatorship,
an illegal government installed by a foreign power, destroying the constitution while
preparing to seize power and ignore coming election results. There is a zero factual evidence
for it, such as a refusal to follow judicial injunctions for example, but their well educated
audiences are buying it whole day long. So what is so baffling that a rural audience after
watching night after night Portland burning by arson and accompanied by "peaceful protest"
graphics on TV would buy into arson speculations and rumors and ignore your disclaimers?
Facebook needs to be regulated since it has effectively organ-harvested the critical thinking
skills of a significant portion of the population. It'd be better if thinking people simply
deleted Facebook and let Facebook shrink and become the right-wing agit-prop tool that it
truly is. Mark Zuckerberg is happy to to destabilize society with his little toy invention.
You'd think with all that money, he could afford a conscience. What a wrecking ball Facebook
is.
"All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." Ya think?
@California Scientist Amen. We are more like an international terminal at this point. A bunch
of people gathered by happenstance, heading in different directions, and often with very
little in common.
@California Scientist: It is even worse than when Adlai Stevenson noted that there aren't
enough educated people to elect a liberal government in the US.
@LV - The point is that "urbanites" aren't able to boss anyone around. It's the low
population rural areas that have outsize political power thanks to the unfortunate design of
our government. Every state gets two senators, regardless of population, and that also
factors into the allocation of Electoral College votes, so that an EC vote from WY is worth 4
times as much as an EC vote from CA, for example. In 2016, Senate Democrats got 20 million
more votes than Senate Republicans, yet Republicans kept control. In 2018, Senate Democrats
got "only" 11.5 million more votes, and consequently lost seats. We're being governed by a
minority in may areas of the country, and nationally, yet the "rural rubes" or whatever you
want to call them, insist that they don't have nearly enough power.
Strange that anyone living in or just knowing the west would NOT know that arsonists could
not burn down huge chunks of forest if they where not so very dry.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
The ugly truth of Oregon's political past is asserting itself...we aren't in "Portlandia"
anymore Nick.
Ominous! There are two information ecosystems in this country and Americans increasingly live
in different realities. Much of the media is in the business of massaging the egos of their
readers by feeding them stories that confirm their biases and make them feel clever. There is
less and less fact based news and more and more propaganda. A lot of people aren't really
interested in facts. They just want to be told how right they are and how stupid and evil the
people who disagree with them are. Media corporations are providing the market with what it
desires, and what it desires is poisonous.
There is a reptilian brain need to believe this nonsense and to propagate it- because the
believers are so terrified of the facts of the truth (and the lack of knowing what might be
done to address those facts). The people who are true believers are pointless to discuss.
They are too frightened. They need to believe this stuff. It is hopeless to address them.
Dark times, indeed.
With the natural buildup of combustible matter, combined with houses everywhere now and
little land management, these fires will happen and will cause problems. Lots of things can
start them and they will.
You left out "a century of zero-tolerance policies toward wildland fires (creating
precariously dense underbrush), and resistance to traditional controlled burning at the
human/wilderness interface". It's not the whole story, but neither is climate change which,
due to global technological leveling, is evermore the responsibility of China and India than
Western civilization. Signed, a moderate progressive endlessly frustrated with breathless
liberalism
If only there were no arsonists. Here is a video of a woman who found a man on her property
with matches in his hand (and no cigarettes, which was his excuse for having matches in his
hand). She made a citizen's arrest. This happened in peaceful Oregon. Don't listen if you
can't handle harsh language by a woman who is trying to save her property. Arson is real, and
it is no joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJW_M4pBCnY
A man was arrested for arson in Southern Oregon. His fire damaged or destroyed numerous
homes.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-arson-connection-almeda-fire-southern-oregon/story?id=72960208
Rumors of antifa notwithstanding, people in Oregon were looking for arsonists because there
are arsonists.
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
" All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." You betcha.
(Palin doesn't look half bad compared to the current batch.) It's a simple formula: social
media driven disinformation + extreme capitalism which leaves us with no real will to address
it + legitimate grievances like racism and financial insecurity = craziness on all sides,
fanned by a president whose personal agenda takes precedence over absolutely everything. All
societies are constantly dealing with potentially destabilizing threats. Their institutions,
media, leadership, and understanding of a common good are their immune system. Ours is
compromised, we are destabilized.
How about a judicious Forrest management? We live in a period of global warming
because of our planet axis precision, aggravated by the presence of an unprecedented
population explosion needing more water, more food, the production of which needs more arable
land, cutting trees, displacing wild animals, exhausting the aquifer. Cutting trees increases
the CO2 in the atmosphere. More people in India, more cattle emitting methane, more old
fashioned way of cooking food and producing more CO2 ... Permanent frost melting also sends
more methane in the atmosphere ... The climate is extremely complex to permit exact modeling,
but it is clear that if we want to stay healthy, it is vital to regularly clear our western
forests of dead wood in order to prevent today's disaster of millions of people, particularly
children with asthma and old people breathing the heavily polluted air. It is time to move to
solar, wind power, electric trucks, cars etc. The technology is here. Let's hope that Biden
will support clean air as means to better health. If all these years instead of using
abstract terms like global warming or climate change, we have been appealing to people to
keep the air clean in order to have better health, perhaps they would have stopped buying the
behemoths cars, producing so much pollution?
As Nicholas and many readers on this page already know, this commentary is more evidence of
how needlessly and recklessly polarized our country has become. When tribal instincts push
people to look for anything - fact, fiction or fantasy - on social media or "rage commentary"
that supports and validates their identities they will glom onto it faster than maggots on
dead flesh. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people of all political persuasions
will not take the time - even a few minutes - to question and investigate the latest "truth"
being promoted. The new culture of low information consumers seems to be spreading as fast as
a pandemic despite the heroic efforts of honest journalism. I wonder if low information
consumption was so endemic to the citizens of Ancient Rome and Greece - long before Twitter,
Facebook and Rage TV? People, please take a moment to "click" one step further to see if the
latest conspiracy story is true. Why help propagate lies? It will only come back to haunt
you, or your children.
Antifa or not, at least some of the big fires have been started by arsonists. Of this fact we
have video proof. By downplaying or even denying it, the media are just as bad as the
conspiracy theorists in promoting disinformation.
This reminds me of a time when people saw "Reds" behind anything that was going wrong in the
country. Nothing new, but just as pathetically paranoid. I wonder how many people, or their
parents, fit into both groups?
Here's another urban myth. Ok, more a lefty myth. That we can just keep adding people to this
country (urban, suburban, rural, big city, anywhere and everywhere) and it won't have any
effect. With the corollary that it's just a matter of "green new deal" or everybody getting a
Prius or the dummies in the sticks realizing climate change is real and then we can just go
on like this forever. We can't. Not only is our much hated lifestyle, which from what I can
see, nobody really wants to give up, killing us, but believing 330 million Americans that add
2-3 million more a year is not a problem at all. Our entire way of life: endless population
and economic growth is unsustainable. We don't need to wait until 2050 to see it. Just step
outside.
It is very difficult to teach people that "research," doesn't mean you go to some TV show or
website you like and root around for stuff that tells you what you want to hear. One prob
seems to be really simple: it takes actual work to do it right. Another is that research,
done well, has an ugly habit of forcing you to think at least a little about whether your own
ideas make any sense. And a third is that people really, really don't like it when their
political views start getting contradicted by reality. It seems to be easier to change
reality than to change views, even a little. Oh, and another prob? Too few Americans really
read anything worth reading. I'm all for funsies (and I've probably read more crummy science
fiction than all y'all put together) but one of the joys of walking around in Paris is seeing
that the kiosks and bookstores still sell a ton of stuff on philosophy, lit, economics, and
that everywhere, people actually read them. Books teach thought. Newsmax don't.
@Beer Can Boyd: As a native-born American, I think the US fell down when the Congress put
"under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1953, ostensibly to preclude anyone thinking
about Godless communism, and gave itself a stroke.
The melting pot burned over. It is now a word salad. But appears there is a method to the
madness. It is hard for the world to tell the madness from the method
@Carolyn then there are the lies and the demonization of China and Russia by both parties to
top it off. How can voters believe anything and decide before they vote?
Supporting this atmosphere of potential violence are some of my republican friends. They are
mostly educated and not stupid. Yet they continue to support a man whom I think holds the
responsibility for most of the violence if it comes. Now I want to get down to my point about
these supporters. I believe they have succumbed to a cult-like dynamic. I say this because no
rational person could possibly support Trump. Religious cults create this same addiction and
irrationality. When my friends disagree with me, they try to put our friendship hostage to no
further discussion of politics. They are unwilling to even be confronted with objections to
their support of Trump. I have decided that I can always make new friends. What I do not want
to do is take on the task of building a new country because I stayed silent.
@Harcourt "They are mostly educated and not stupid." In my opinion, educated persons who
behave as you describe never benefited from their education. Even worse, to me it seems like
persons who behave like that are of the opinion that what they learnt in school is only for
the purpose of writing the exams they needed to pass to get out of school. It was all just
noise to them.
You nailed it. There is no longer "a shared reality" in America. So we have wildly different
views of who Joe Biden and Donald Trump are. And how serious climate change is. And whether
it's important to wear a mask. And if left-wing anarchists set forest fires. Thank you,
Internet. Thank you, social media barons who refuse to ban Russian propaganda and manipulated
videos. Thank you FCC that does not rein in Fox News and their promotion of lies. Who will
step in and stop this madness?
@CA I agree with you completely except for the refusal to stop Russian interference. We
can't. We can't unless we stop US interference in the process. The problem is that US
interference, and rumor mongering, are the business model of these platforms which happen to
be some of our largest companies. Extreme capitalism is preventing us from addressing any and
all issues propagated by these companies. Russia is just a speck.
Antifa adherents and wildfires ? Seems pretty far-fetched. Even ridiculous. But setting fire
to occupied apartment buildings in Portland ? Oh yes, definitely. It happened, and more is on
the menu, as well as municipal and federal buildings. Don't believe it ? Read the news
releases for yourself, on the Portland Police Bureau's website.
An excellent discussion of the perils of social media. Although newspapers, TV, radio,
magazines have a historical principal of "generally" telling the truth, social media has
opened up the world to every single Tom, Dick and Harry who with to spread their message. I
believe that how we, as a nation, as a species, handle social media will define what happens
over the next decade.
The state of this country is absolutely terrifying. While the shift to ever more
conservative, insular, xenophobic, coroporate-controlled government has been going on for
years, with the faux election of trump democracy is what has become fake, while common sense,
empathy, and both fiscal and environmental responsibility have virtually disappeared. The US
has gone off the deep end...
Years ago I read a science fiction short story that is unsettling in its analogy to this
situation. I starts with aliens visiting the Earth and accidently leaving behind a device
that can allow metal to be manipulated by softening it, then hardening it. The device gets
copied and mass produced. When they returned a year later, they come back and cannot fathom
how their device could have resulted in anarchy. THAT is the internet. 5 Recommend Share
Let me ask you all a question. If your neighbor told you the fire in a nearby Oregon town was
started by antifa, how would you disprove it? Since you cannot provide evidence for a
negative statement, it's difficult. There is actually some evidence that antifa did start the
fire: a voice said it on the radio, and tv showed them lighting fireworks in Portland. This
isn't very good evidence, but it is evidence, and you can't produce any evidence that antifa
did not do it (because there can't be any.) So you are in the position of asking your
neighbor to look at the quality of the evidence. This is something very few outside the legal
and scientific world are capable of. But that is all you have. Ultimately, it really does go
back to belief. How many of us could independently prove that the earth turns around the sun?
Those of us who aren't astronomers choose to accept this belief based on what we've been
told, and that's how it is with antifa starting the fires.
Kristof is afraid that fires in the West represent the new normal. The evidence suggests that
this fear is well-founded. He is concerned about the government's paralysis. That is partly
due to Trump, who stands a good chance of being reelected on November 3. He is worried about
ordinary citizens seeking oversimplified answers and finding them in the conspiracy theories
presenting the fire as the work of antifa. I am more worried about the breakdown in
credibility of news sources like the NY Times, which finds itself in competition with Fox
News and a host of online sources. Indeed, you-tube and facebook will select news stories for
you, confirming whatever bias you bring to your reading of the news. There is no guarantee
that democracy will survive. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the realization
that not only the right, but the left, is subject to oversimplified presentations of global
warming. Global warming is a consequence of too much population growth. But as we argue over
freedoms for LGBTQ minorities liberals have neglected the importance of freedom of speech.
And voices which have warned about population growth have been simply ignored by the left. It
isn't enough to shift from Fords using gasoline to Teslas running on electricity. We also
need to control population growth. The population of earth will double again by 2072 if
current rates continue. Population growth threatens to overwhelm the attempts to move to
clean energy. 2 Recommend
The scientific consensus will also conclude that not allowing wildfires to burn compounds the
problem. While what I am about to type is not science, continued development in fire prone
areas amplifies and compounds every aspect of the problem. From my perspective the system has
evolved to socializing cost and privatizing cost in every way. I don't see it getting better,
until such time as individuals are held accountable this should be considered normal.
@secular socialist dem PG&E just paid billions in fines and PLEADED GUILTY in starting
last year's Paradise fire. They also have already admitted fault in several fires started by
their faulty, untended grid. "Individuals" don't need to be held accountable unless there are
rules in place for them to follow regarding wildfire. There already are. Most already do. Why
do folks act so proud about their 'anti-science' opinion? It's not like this conversation
isn't ongoing; nobody argues that development in fire prone areas' carries risks. So does
rebuilding in Oklahoma, Florida and Louisiana..... You're right (although confused) about
socializing RISK and privatizing PROFIT. See PG&E above.
Unsure how people lighting fires directly indicates climate change is corroborated. The
fellow who was arrested in Tacoma, WA: https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-activist-charged-for-fire-set-in-washington
Looking to past wildfires, like the one's in Montana & Idaho in 2008, 5.5 million acres
were burned and certain interest groups advocated for them to burn out because it's apart of
the natural cycle. Federal government shouldn't send assistance unless it's possibly to
communities in threat of burning, who are humans to say we ought to stop mother nature? It's
natural to let these fires burn, if you try to hinder it's course you are stopping the cycle.
Doug Terry Maryland, Washington DC metro
Sept. 20 Times Pick
Why do people believe wild stupid things more than actual facts? Partly it is because they
like the wild stupid thing more, it gives them some weird comfort. It is also because people
are busying with their lives and don't have time to gather enough information to counter the
wild rumor that flies around faster than the speed of sound. The most important aspect of
successful conspiracy theories is they impart to the person holding them the idea that they
are smarter than other people and have "cracked the code" that explains everything or a lot
of big things that people don't understand. Reading, thinking, considering and re-considering
can seem like hard work, particularly if it is foreign to one's experience and life training.
Why not just lock on to a cool idea that comes around, even if it is weird? .
This story highlights for me an equally growing problem, the "selective framing" by media
outlets on the left and right (NYT and Fox as just two examples). To read Mr Kristof's
version, you may believe that arsonists are wild figments of the unhinged radical right
imagination. To read the same story on Fox, Antifa arsonists are working their way up your
street.
"...the shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." And
yet reality still exist. Normally, if someone starts to exhibit the kind of behavior that
these "vigilantes" are - screaming about boogeymen, thinking people are out to get them,
engaging in aggressive behavior based on paranoid fantasies, creating self-reinforcing
delusions, becoming obsessed with baseless conspiracy theories - we would rightly diagnose
them as being mentally ill, and to the extent that they represent a danger to others, confine
them. I don't think we can afford to see this as just a time of extreme differences of
opinion. Facts, truth and reality are still actual, tangible things. And those who have
become so disassociated from them that they are stopping vehicles and hunting down their
fellow citizen need to be dealt with appropriately.
We have been witnessing the start of the Second Civil War in America. If we accept the
definition of a civil war as a conflict between factions of citizens for either secession or
control of the government--including organizations within the existing government--then we
are in the beginning stages of a Second Civil War. The question is what the level of violence
will be (not will there be violence, but how much violence). We are beginning to see
indications of that level. When naturally or accidentally caused wildfires are attributed to
one faction as a way to stoke the fires of civil violence, then physical violence between
factions is a heartbeat away simply because of the falsity and extremity of the accusations.
The era of peaceful protest has passed because of the intensity of feelings on both sides;
the anger produced when a government begins denying civil rights, e.g., Freedom of Speech and
the Right to Assemble, through legal actions where protest organizers could be charged with
sedition (see Barr's comments, 9/16/2020, NYT), which then suggests that all protests become
illegal, the fires of violence are stoked. With a heavily-armed populace on both sides,
gunfire is a hair-trigger pull away. If Trump and the Republican's intention was to remake
America in their image (I leave it to you to supply that image), they are succeeding. If
Putin's intention was to bring down America, he is succeeding. If Xi's intention was to
dominate the world, he is on that path. Vote 33 Recommend Share
... There's an old saying "Those who the gods would destroy they first make mad." I have come
to the conclusion that America has gone qute a long way down that road.
And yet, Mr. Kristoff, you never make mention of the real threat that groups like Antifa and
other radical left rioters pose to this country (forgetting about attacks on federal
buildings in Portland? Attempts to firebomb courthouses? Violence against law enforcement
officers?). No, instead it's always Trump, or Trump supporters who are your focus. I do not
know whether Antifa has been involved in any of these recent fires, but I do know that these
violent elements on the left pose a massive danger to our democracy. You are correct about
one thing, though: We should brace ourselves. It's just "what" we need to brace for that is
off mark in your article...
It's heartbreaking to watch these three West Coast states burned. For days, the sky was red
and the air was unbreathable. But the saddest part was the feeling of helplessness.
40 years ago, I hitchhiked around the Pacific Northwest during the summer after Mt. St.
Helens blew up. Mt. Rainier was ash-coated, as were the wild blueberries I often ate. Epic
and Biblical are words inadequate to describe that destruction near Mt. St. Helens, with
millions of huge, old trees blown down, piles of mud, and rivers diverted. Yet I and others
knew that eventually, that land would regrow, and it did.
I see a lot of egotism and self-love on both sides. The so-called progressives in our
community are breeding at baby boom levels, driving SUVs, and, before the pandemic, you'd see
a dozen school buses idling outside every school. Development is out of control as people
flee from the city, and people flee from here, or downsize, and breed and breed and breed.
Two years ago, we had a flash flood and our street was under water, and there was a lot of
damage all over town. Hurricane Irene in 2011 left many with over a foot of water in their
basements. And let's not even start on Sandy. My friend lives in Pensacola; their downtown
area is under three or four feet of water from Hurricane Sally. It's not just fire, it's
floods, and it's not just the GOP which is the problem...
I don't blame anyone for guarding their roads if they think arsonists are about. The
Tillamook Burn was larger and more devastating than these fires but are we to blame climate
change ? Environmentalists and Liberals who do not even live out West, who did not rely upon
Logging, placed their concerns about the Spotted Owl and Virgin Forests about the danger of
Forest Fires and the livelihood of Loggers and the Towns and Peoples who depended upon
Logging. Managed Logging of Forests is not an inherently evil act. Clearing the bush and dead
trees is not bad in and of itself. Let Logging companies responsibly manage sections of the
Forrests, let Towns clear fire breaks around their perimeters. Place large Water towers in
strategic points throughout the Forests, huge mounds of dirt/sand/gravel next to them so that
the Firefighters have what they need to fight the fires. Force developers to build houses 50
feet apart. Require fireproof roofs, require thinning of trees in housing developments.
Require volunteer Fire Departments in every neighborhood so that if they do nothing else,
they can cut a fire break, water down the grasses around their neighborhoods, chase and
extinguish embers, something/anything versus fleeing their homes without putting up a fight.
"... dry conditions exacerbated by climate change coupled with an unusual windstorm ..." May
I add that a couple of other things have also contributed to making the fires worse or making
them harder to manage? For a century or so, in California, Oregon and Washington we have not
been letting the normal, periodic fires burn. Consequently, a great deal of fuel has built up
on the forest floor. Second, folks have increasingly been building homes or even
neighborhoods in places which have historically seen such normal, periodic fires.
@Robert Yes. But now controlled burns are a bit problematic, given the droughts, the heat,
the massive fuel loads from all the dead trees. It's just so easy for the controlled burns to
get out of control.
Hi, I am from Clackamas County metro. Every time a FaceBook "Friend" (and I personally know
all of mine) posted a rumor, I tried to find the footage from any of our 4 local news
stations to depute their post but they just shared another one. One said she didn't trust KGW
8 the local NBC station and when I told her the same story was on KPTV 12, the local Fox
station. She said, "I'm just stressed"
@David Biesecker Remember that half the people are of below average intelligence. That may
answer the existence of the small percentage of conspiracy theorists. One problem is social
media provides free and outsized loudspeaker systems that enables them to find each other.
@M.i. Estner First, let me identify myself as a liberal Democrat who has a masters degree. I
find it more than disheartening when half of the country, or half of rural or not formally
educated folks are said to have low intelligent quotas, critical thinking skills or
analytical abilities. You better believe that when a highly trained Eastern Oregon
firefighter is assessing how to save peoples lives, homes and land, has to quickly act with
their many faceted skill set and are calling on abilities you or I would not be able to
fathom. Same with farmers of large pieces of complicated crops and land. Same with city
managers, librarians, and social workers for the elderly--all having low city budgets. What
about the veterinarians, doctors and nurses in rural areas? This is exactly the same as
calling Black or Hispanics people of lower intelligence. And, there are different types of
intelligence. I know a literary critic, a liberal Democrat, who doesn't have the critical
thinking skills to run her own home or raise her children. If you look, you can see these
same differences in any group. It has to do with the way people are raised, what they are
using their skill sets for, what information they are used to consuming, money, ideology,
etc...And it has to do with being devalued for growing your food, producing your meat,
chicken and eggs. I'm not excusing the violence, guns, racism and hatred. These divides have
been with us for ages. Please don't stoke the fires.
If we have a selfish federal government, then we will have selfish states and people.
Everyone is for himself or herself. No one will think about other people or public good. It
all started from the top
In 2017, 2018, and 2019 northern California's new phenomenon of forceful 40 to 60 miles per
hour winds - in Fall, no less - caused old and aging electrical equipment to malfunction. As
a consequence, too much of Santa Rosa burnt to the ground, and the entire town of Paradise
ceased to exist. This year during the heat of a hotter than usual summer following yet
another dry winter, we had dry lightning strikes from Sonoma County to Santa Clara County and
beyond.
Yes, the science is clear and you fail to mention it. The forest fires reach critical mass
and spread because of the surplus of dead or dying trees. They are there because the federal
government essentially no longer allows logging on its vast landholdings and also fails to
allow controlled burns to clean out the tinderbox. I won't bother attaching a link because
any Google search proves the point. Why focus on hysteria and rumermongering among the
Deplorables? Come on, Mr. Kristof, you were a Deplorable once (when you were a kid growing up
in the countryside) as was I. Please defend them sometimes, particularly when the actual
causes are so well documented.
@Stuck on a mountain Western States are working to clear the brush from forests where, due to
our previous incomplete understanding of forest ecology, fires were suppressed for a century.
However, the cost is astronomical and there are millions of acres left to clear. Spending
their entire forest management budgets fighting current wildfires doesn't help. We've been
doing controlled burns for decades but in many areas, they're now too dangerous. Dry forests
and a dense understory can quickly turn a "controlled burn" into a conflagration. Many
ranchers and timber companies who profit from our state and national forests seem unwilling
to pay to keep those forests healthy. People who live in or near forests mostly have incomes
too low to pay for forest management. The National Forest Service, Department of the Interior
and USDA have made some progress, but the problem is huge. Saying we can prevent forest fires
by allowing larger timber harvests is an oversimplification. No solution to this complex
issue will be simple, perfect or cheap.
Wacky conspiracy theories to explain seemingly bizarre and unusual occurrences have been
around since the dawn of human cognition. But in an electronic/social media age, these get
spread even faster than a wind-blown fire climbs a canyon hillside. Previously, they were
spread one set of ears at a time; now millions of eyes can read them every second. And that
is a major part of the problem.
As a grad student in sociology, having lived through the 60s and participated in the
counterculture, I was deeply intrigued by the social construction of reality - how we come to
share a taken-for-granted world. This is a long-standing concern within sociological social
psychology. We examined how language, interpersonal communications, media and social
structure shaped ones perception of one's self, what is real, what's important. At the time,
however, this was considered theoretical and academic. 40 years later, understanding how
Americans' realities have come to diverge is no longer armchair social science. It's urgent
and in our faces, as is the question of how can we heal this terrible fracturing of our
world?
@DeHypnotist Yes. When studying for the degree in and then teaching sociology in my early
years, I learned that, too. But, I have to admit, it's actually taken all the decades of life
since then, and now the obvious confirmation of it by this current 'reality' to actually
realize, deep down in my guts, that we 'make up' our so-called 'social reality' simply to
serve the most basic of biological requirements: the need to dominate in the deadly
completion with the other 'tribes' of our species just to survive. We are, after all, animals
like all the others, no matter how much we blab about how much 'smarter' we are.
@Alex B The primal driver, deep in the core of our brain, is usefully thought of as
"reptilian." Cold-blooded. Egoistic. Hedonistic. And, in extreme cases, narcissistic, and,
heaven forbid when all three are present...
I lived for a few years in Brazil when it was a dictatorship. The similarities between Brazil
and what is happening in the US is startling. The police were being used to quell peaceful
protesters and the justice system co-opted by authorities, fear mongering were present, just
as now in the US....
I didn't live in the US from 1977-1999, only visiting on short trips. That enabled me to see
changes in society that were slow and not seen by those residing here. And when I came back
permanently I could feel immediately a deep change....
Perhaps an apt metaphor for the "danger sign ahead" is the approach of a Category three
hurricane and it's increasing in intensity. One of the stark disconnects is between the
message in an article like this and the politicians and citizens who are little concerned
about tempering rhetoric and elevating the importance of eschewing misinformation. We are in
the Misinformation Age and the victims of a cyber war, evolving into a civil war.
@ML What is happening here? These are the beginnings of what happened in Germany in the 30s.
Over there the reason was the loss of WWI. Here, is the obvious decline of the American
lifestyle and we have not seen anything yet. The range of the economic decline is covered by
7 trillion dollars in phony money. I fervently hope and pray that is not too late to stop the
process. All men and women of goodwill have to rally to restore a sane, and one, country .
Stay safe! It is going to get worse before it gets better.
@FunkyIrishman Right on. Water is an enormous issue waiting to happen here -- and Wisconsin
is estimated to have between 10 and 20 percent of the world's fresh water (depending on how
it's calculated and whether that includes some of Lakes Michigan and Superior. A Dept. of
Climate, Weather and Water would be a logical cabinet department.
@FunkyIrishman And polluting the potable water continues sometimes by the most resolvable
modern approaches: sewers and water treatment plants. Reagan ended federal funding for sewers
leaving septic systems (and now ancient sewers) where sewers would lead to protected fresh
water. All the medicines, chemicals, and toxins seep unseen but very real into fresh and also
salt water. We are not a modern nation any more.
As Americans pause to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001 which saw almost 3,000 innocents killed in the worst terror
attack in United States history, it might also be worth contemplating the
horrific wars and foreign quagmires unleashed during the subsequent 'war on terror'.
Bush's so-called Global War on Terror targeted 'rogue states' like Saddam's Iraq, but also consistently had a focus on uprooting
and destroying al-Qaeda and other armed Islamist terror organizations (this led to the falsehood that Baathist Saddam and AQ were
in cahoots). But the idea that Washington from the start saw al-Qaeda and its affiliates as some kind of eternal enemy is largely
a myth.
Recall that the US covertly supported the Afghan mujahideen and other international jihadists throughout the 1980's Afghan-Soviet
War, the very campaign in which hardened al-Qaeda terrorists got their start. In 1999 The Guardian in a rare moment of honest
mainstream journalism warned of the Frankenstein
the CIA created -- among their ranks a terror mastermind named Osama bin Laden .
But it was all the way back in 1993 that a then classified intelligence memo warned that the very fighters the CIA previously
trained would soon turn their weapons on the US and its allies. The 'secret' document was declassified in 2009, but has remained
largely obscure in mainstream media reporting, despite being the first to contain a bombshell admission.
"support network that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to supplement the Afghan mujahidin" in the war against the Soviets,
"is now contributing experienced fighters to militant Islamic groups worldwide."
The concluding section contains the most revelatory statements, again remembering these words were written nearly
a decade before the 9/11 attacks :
US support of the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not necessarily protect US interests from attack.
...Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims' wrath. Afghan war veterans, scattered throughout the world, could
surprise the US with violence in unexpected locales.
There it is in black and white print: the United States government knew and bluntly acknowledged that the very militants
it armed and trained to the tune of hundreds
of millions of dollars would eventually turn that very training and those very weapons back on the American people .
And this was not at all a "small" or insignificant group, instead as The Guardian wrote a mere
two years before 9/11 :
American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla
warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up .
But don't think for a moment that there was ever a "lesson learned" by Washington.
Instead the CIA and other US agencies repeated the 1980s policy of arming jihadists to overthrow US enemy regimes in places like
Libya and Syria even long after the "lesson" of 9/11. As War on The Rocks recounted :
Despite the passage of time, the issues Ms. Bennett raised in her
1993 work continue to be relevant today.
This fact is a sign of the persistence of the problem of Sunni jihadism and the "wandering mujahidin." Today, of course, the problem
isn't Afghanistan but Syria. While the war there is far from over, there is already widespread nervousness, particularly in Europe,
about what will happen when the
foreign fighters return from that conflict.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
Oregon's racial demographics White alone, percent 86.7% Black or African American alone,
percent 2.2% Alabama's racial demographics White alone, percent 69.1% Black or African American
alone, percent26.8%
"... Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level, some elements of the programs of socialist parties. ..."
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was
actually devoutly anti-socialist.
Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an
instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level,
some elements of the programs of socialist parties.
Hitler and Mussolini were important leaders, but their movements succeeded through gaining
the favor of the middle class masses and the ruling elites. They won that favor by their
basic program. Of course neither had a formal written platform (Nazism's "unalterable" 25
Points became a joke, while Mussolini boasted about the untheoretical nature of his movement
in its early years), but their basic intentions emerged clearly from their speeches and
even more so from the style and slogans of their movements.
They proposed to exalt national power by building a dictatorially integrated national
community on the model of methods and moods familiar from World War 1. They also benefited
from being in the right countries at the right time to advance a plausible alternative
political approach
But simultaneously it tried to attract some socialists into his ranks. BTW Mussolini was the
editor-in-chief of Avante, so he was the leading figure in Italian socialist movement before
his metamorphose into a fascist. From Wikipedia:
He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini
participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly
denounced Italy's "imperialist war", an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[38]
After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from the Socialist
Party, as they were two "revisionists" who had supported the war.
He was rewarded the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his
leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000.[39] John Gunther in 1940 called
him "one of the best journalists alive"; Mussolini was a working reporter while preparing for
the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935.[26]
Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his own writings he would not
only quote from well-known Marxist works but also from the relatively obscure works.[40]
During this period Mussolini considered himself a Marxist and he described Marx as "the
greatest of all theorists of socialism."[41]
While the world's attention is absorbed by tectonic shifts unfolding across America as "a
perfect storm of civil war, and military
coup threatens to undo both the elections and the very foundations of the republic itself ,
something very ominous has appeared "off of the radar" of most onlookers. This something is a
financial collapse of the trans-Atlantic banks that threatens to unleash chaos upon the world.
It is this collapse that underlies the desperate efforts being made by the neo-con drive for
total war with Russia, China and other members of the growing Mutlipolar Alliance today.
In recent articles, I have mentioned that the Bank of England-led "solution" to this
oncoming financial blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble is being pushed under the
cover of a "Great Global Reset" which is an ugly and desperate effort to use COVID-19 as a
cover for the imposition of
a new post-covid world order operating system. Since the new "rules" of this new system are
very similar to the 1923 Bank of England "solution" to Germany's economic chaos which
eventually required a fascist governance mechanism to impose it onto the masses, I wish to take
a deeper look at the causes and effects of Weimar Germany's completely un-necessary collapse
into hyperinflation and chaos during the period of 1919-1923.
In this essay, I will go further to examine how those same architects of hyperfinflation
came close to establishing a global bankers' dictatorship in 1933 and how that early attempt at
a New World Order was fortunately derailed through a bold fight which has been written out of
popular history books.
We will investigate in depth how a major war broke out within America led by anti-imperial
patriots in opposition to the forces of Wall Street and London's Deep State and we will examine
how this clash of paradigms came to a head in 1943-1945.
This historical study is not being conducted for entertainment, nor should this be seen as a
purely academic exercise, but is being created for the simple fact that the world is coming to
a total systemic meltdown and unless certain suppressed facts of 20 th century
history are brought to light, then those forces who have destroyed our collective memory of
what we once were will remain in the drivers seat as society is carried into a new age of
fascism and world war.
Versailles and the Destruction of Germany
Britain had been the leading hand behind the orchestration of WWI and the destruction of
the potential German-Russian-American-Ottoman alliance that had begun to take form by the late
19 th century as foolish Kaiser Wilhelm discovered (though sadly too late) when he
said: "the world will be engulfed in the most terrible of wars, the ultimate aim of which is
the ruin of Germany. England, France and Russia have conspired for our annihilation that is the
naked truth of the situation which was slowly but surely created by Edward VII".
Just as the British oligarchy managed the war, so too did they organize the reparations
conference in France which, among other things, imposed impossible debt repayments upon a
defeated Germany and created the League of Nations which was meant to become the instrument for
a "post-nation state world order". Lloyd George led the British delegation alongside his
assistant Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian), Leo Amery, Lord Robert Cecil and Lord John Maynard Keynes
who have a long term agenda to bring about a global dictatorship. All of these figures were
members of the newly emerging Round Table Movement, that had taken full control of Britain
by ousting Asquith in 1916 , and which is at the heart of today's "deep state".
After the 1918 Armistice dismantled Germany's army and navy, the once powerful nation was
now forced to pay the impossible sum of 132 billion gold marks to the victors and had to give
up territories representing 10% of its population (Alsace-Loraine, Ruhr, and North Silesia)
which made up 15% of its arable land, 12% of its livestock, 74% of its iron ore, 63% of its
zinc production, and 26% of its coal. Germany also had to give up 8000 locomotives, 225 000
railcars and all of its colonies. It was a field day of modern pillage.
Germany was left with very few options. Taxes were increased and imports were cut entirely
while exports were increased. This policy (reminiscent of the IMF austerity techniques in use
today) failed entirely as both fell 60%. Germany gave up half of its gold supply and still
barely a dent was made in the debt payments. By June 1920 the decision was made to begin a new
strategy: increase the printing press . Rather than the "miracle cure" which desperate
monetarists foolishly believed it would be, this solution resulted in an asymptotic devaluation
of the currency into hyperinflation. From June 1920 to October 1923 the money supply in
circulation skyrocketed from 68.1 gold marks to 496.6 quintillion gold marks. In June 1922, 300
marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42 trillion marks to get $1 US! Images are
still available of Germans pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, just to buy a stick of
butter and bread (1Kg of Bread sold for $428 billion marks in 1923).
With the currency's loss of value, industrial output fell by 50%, unemployment rose to over
30% and food intake collapsed by over half of pre-war levels. German director Fritz Lang's 1922
film Dr. Mabuse (The Gambler) exposed the insanity of German population's collapse into
speculative insanity as those who had the means began betting against the German mark in order
to protect themselves thus only helping to collapse the mark from within. This is very
reminiscent of those Americans today short selling the US dollar rather than fighting for a
systemic solution.
The dark effects of Versailles were not unknown and Germany's Nazi-stained destiny was
anything but pre-determined. It is a provable fact often left out of history books that
patriotic forces from Russia, America and Germany attempted courageously to change the tragic
trajectory of hyperinflation and fascism which WOULD HAVE prevented the rise of Hitler and WWII
had their efforts not been sabotaged.
From America itself, a new Presidential team under the leadership of William Harding quickly
reversed the pro-League of Nations agenda of the rabidly anglophile President Woodrow Wilson. A
leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip who had led in the world's largest
trade agreement in history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920 had called Wilson
"an autocrat at the inspiration of the British government." Unlike Wilson, President
Harding both supported the US-Russia trade deal and undermined the League of Nations by
re-enforcing America's sovereignty, declaring bi-lateral treaties with Russia, Hungary and
Austria outside of the league's control in 1921. The newly-formed British Roundtable Movement
in America (set up as the Council on Foreign Relations ) were not pleased.
Just as Harding was maneuvering to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an entente with
Lenin, the great president ate some "bad oysters" and died on August 2, 1923. While no autopsy
was ever conducted, his death brought a decade of Anglophile Wall Street control into America
and ended all opposition to World Government from the Presidency. This period resulted in the
speculation-driven bubble of the roaring 20s whose crash on black Friday in 1929 nearly
unleashed a fascist hell in America.
The Russia-Germany Rapallo Treaty is De-Railed
After months of organizing, leading representatives of Russia and Germany agreed to an
alternative solution to the Versailles Treaty which would have given new life to Germany's
patriots and established a powerful Russia-German friendship in Europe that would have upset
other nefarious agendas.
Under the leadership of German Industrialist and Foreign Minster Walter Rathenau, and his
counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, the treaty was signed in Rapallo, Italy
on April 16, 1922 premised upon the forgiveness of all war debts and a renouncement of all
territorial claims from either side. The treaty said Russia and Germany would "co-operate in
a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries."
When Rathenau was assassinated by a terrorist cell called the Organization Consul on June
24, 1922 the success of the Rapallo Treaty lost its steam and the nation fell into a deeper
wave of chaos and money printing. The Organization Consul had taken the lead in the murder of
over 354 German political figures between 1919-1923, and when they were banned in 1922, the
group merely changed its name and morphed into other German paramilitary groups (such as the
Freikorps) becoming the military arm of the new National Socialist Party.
1923: City of London's Solution is imposed
When the hyperinflationary blowout of Germany resulted in total un-governability of the
state, a solution took the form of the Wall Street authored "Dawes Plan" which necessitated the
use of a London-trained golem by the name of Hjalmar Schacht. First introduced as Currency
Commissioner in November 1923 and soon President of the Reichsbank, Schacht's first act was to
visit Bank of England's governor Montagu Norman in London who provided Schacht a blueprint for
proceeding with Germany's restructuring. Schacht returned to "solve" the crisis with the very
same poison that caused it.
First announcing a new currency called the "rentenmark" set on a fixed value exchanging 1
trillion reichsmarks for 1 new rentenmark, Germans were robbed yet again. This new currency
would operate under "new rules" never before seen in Germany's history: Mass privatizations
resulted in Anglo-American conglomerates purchasing state enterprises. IG Farben, Thyssen,
Union Banking, Brown Brothers Harriman, Standard Oil, JP Morgan and Union Banking took control
Germany's finances, mining and industrial interests under the supervision of John Foster
Dulles, Montagu Norman, Averill Harriman and other deep state actors. This was famously exposed
in the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremburg by Stanley Kramer.
Schacht next cut credit to industries, raised taxes and imposed mass austerity on "useless
spending". 390 000 civil servants were fired, unions and collective bargaining was destroyed
and wages were slashed by 15%.
As one can imagine, this destruction of life after the hell of Versailles was intolerable
and civil unrest began to boil over in ways that even the powerful London-Wall Street bankers
(and their mercenaries) couldn't control. An enforcer was needed unhindered by the republic's
democratic institutions to force Schacht's economics onto the people. An up-and-coming rabble
rousing failed painter who had made waves in a Beerhall Putsch on November 8, 1923 was
perfect.
One Last Attempt to Save Germany
Though Hitler grew in power over the coming decade of Schachtian economics, one last
republican effort was made to prevent Germany from plunging into a fascist hell in the form of
the November 1932 election victory of
General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor of Germany . Schleicher had been a co-architect
of Rapallo alongside Rathenau a decade earlier and was a strong proponent of the Friedrich List
Society's program of public works and internal improvements promoted by industrialist Wilhelm
Lautenbach. The Nazi party's public support collapsed and it found itself bankrupt. Hitler had
fallen into depression and was even contemplating suicide when "a legal coup" was unleashed by
the Anglo-American elite resulting in Wall Street funds pouring into Nazi coffers.
By January 30, 1933 Hitler gained Chancellorship where he quickly took dictatorial powers
under the "state of emergency" caused by the burning of the Reichstag in March 1933. By 1934
the Night of the Long Knives saw General Schleicher and hundreds of other German patriots
assassinated and it was only a few years until the City of London-Wall Street Frankenstein
monster stormed across the world.
How the 1929 Crash was Manufactured
While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America
which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized
that this was not inevitable, but rather a controlled blowout.
The bubbles of the 1920s were unleashed with the early death of President William Harding in
1923 and grew under the careful guidance of JP Morgan's President Coolidge and financier Andrew
Mellon (Treasury Secretary) who de-regulated the banks, imposed austerity onto the country, and
cooked up a scheme for Broker loans allowing speculators to borrow 90% on their stock. Wall
Street was deregulated, investments into the real economy were halted during the 1920s and
insanity became the norm. In 1925 broker loans totalled $1.5 billion and grew to $2.6 billion
in 1926 and hit $5.7 billion by the end of 1927. By 1928, the stock market was overvalued
fourfold!
When the bubble was sufficiently inflated, a moment was decided upon to coordinate a mass
"calling in" of the broker loans. Predictably, no one could pay them resulting in a collapse of
the markets. Those "in the know" cleaned up with JP Morgan's "preferred clients", and other
financial behemoths selling before the crash and then buying up the physical assets of America
for pennies on the dollar. One notable person who made his fortune in this manner was Prescott
Bush of Brown Brothers Harriman, who went onto bailout a bankrupt Nazi party in 1932. These
financiers had a tight allegiance with the City of London and coordinated their operations
through the private central banking system of America's Federal Reserve and Bank of
International Settlements.
The Living Hell that was the Great Depression
Throughout the Great depression, the population was pushed to its limits making America
highly susceptible to fascism as unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, industrial capacity collapsed
by 70%, and agricultural prices collapsed far below the cost of production accelerating
foreclosures and suicide. Life savings were lost as 4000 banks failed.
This despair was replicated across Europe and Canada with eugenics-loving fascists gaining
popularity across the board. England saw the rise of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists in 1932, English Canada had its own fascist solution with the Rhodes Scholar "Fabian
Society" League of Social Reconstruction (which later took over the Liberal Party) calling
for the "scientific management of society". Time magazine had featured Il Duce over 6 times by
1932 and people were being told by that corporate fascism was the economic solution to all of
America's economic woes.
In the midst of the crisis, the City of London removed itself from the gold standard in 1931
which was a crippling blow to the USA, as it resulted in a flight of gold from America causing
a deeper contraction of the money supply and thus inability to respond to the depression.
British goods simultaneously swamped the USA crushing what little production was left.
It was in this atmosphere that one of the least understood battles unfolded in 1933.
1932: A Bankers' Dictatorship is Attempted
In Germany, a surprise victory of Gen. Kurt Schleicher caused the defeat of the
London-directed Nazi party in December 1932 threatening to break Germany free of Central Bank
tyranny. A few weeks before Schleicher's victory, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in
America threatening to regulate the private banks and assert national sovereignty over
finance.
Seeing their plans for global fascism slipping away, the City of London announced that a new
global system controlled by Central Banks had to be created post haste. Their objective was to
use the economic crisis as an excuse to remove from nation states any power over monetary
policy, while enhancing the power of Independent Central Banks as enforcers of "balanced global
budgets". elaborate
In December 1932, an economic conference "to stabilize the world economy " was
organized by the League of Nations under the guidance of the Bank of International Settlements
(BIS) and Bank of England. The BIS was set up as "the Central Bank of Central Banks" in 1930 in
order to facilitate WWI debt repayments and was a vital instrument for funding Nazi Germany-
long after WWII began
. The London Economic Conference brought together 64 nations of the world under a controlled
environment chaired by the British Prime Minister and opened by the King himself.
"The conference considers it to be essential, in order to provide an international gold
standard with the necessary mechanism for satisfactory working, that independent Central Banks,
with requisite powers and freedom to carry out an appropriate currency and credit policy,
should be created in such developed countries as have not at present an adequate central
banking institution" and that "the conference wish to reaffirm the great utility of
close and continuous cooperation between Central Banks. The Bank of International Settlements
should play an increasingly important part not only by improving contact, but also as an
instrument for common action."
Echoing the Bank of England's modern fixation with "mathematical equilibrium", the
resolutions stated that the new global gold standard controlled by central banks was needed
"to maintain a fundamental equilibrium in the balance of payments" of countries. The
idea was to deprive nation states of their power to generate and direct credit for their own
development.
FDR Torpedoes the London Conference
Chancellor Schleicher's resistance to a bankers' dictatorship was resolved by a "soft
coup" ousting the patriotic leader in favor of Adolph Hitler (under the control of a Bank
of England toy named Hjalmar Schacht) in January 1933 with Schleicher assassinated the
following year. In America, an
assassination attempt on Roosevelt was thwarted on February 15, 1933 when a woman knocked
the gun out of the hand of an anarchist-freemason in Miami resulting in the death of Chicago's
Mayor Cermak.
Without FDR's dead body, the London conference met an insurmountable barrier, as FDR refused
to permit any American cooperation. Roosevelt recognized the necessity for a new international
system, but he also knew that it had to be organized by sovereign nation states subservient to
the general welfare of the people and not central banks dedicated to the welfare of the
oligarchy. Before any international changes could occur, nation states castrated from the
effects of the depression had to first recover economically in order to stay above the power of
the financiers.
By May 1933, the London Conference crumbled when FDR complained that the conference's
inability to address the real issues of the crisis is "a catastrophe amounting to a world
tragedy" and that fixation with short term stability were "old fetishes of so-called
international bankers". FDR continued "The United States seeks the kind of dollar which
a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt paying power as the dollar value we
hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than
a fixed ratio for a month or two. Exchange rate fixing is not the true answer."
The British drafted an official statement saying "the American statement on stabilization
rendered it entirely useless to continue the conference."
FDR's War on Wall Street
The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4 th
saying: "The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our
civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the
restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit".
FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the
Pecorra
Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities
of the top tier of Wall Street's power structure who manipulated the depression, buying
political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the
deep state when he said "this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very
springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United
States."
Pecorra's highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form
of 1)
Glass-Steagall bank separation , 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the
Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the
London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner
Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating
an "alternative" lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout
the 1930s.
One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment
of the gold standard. The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict
exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements
needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for
which no financial resources existed . It's manipulation by international financiers made
it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen
lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of
"controlled inflation" so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the
gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery
on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade.
FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: "the old fallacious notion of the
bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and
independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader,
must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including
bankers."
The Real New Deal
Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start
a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75%
of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were
given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed-
All funded through the RFC. FDR's first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the
government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers
don't want you to learn about.
From 1933-1939, 45 000 infrastructure projects were built. The many "local" projects were
governed, like China's Belt and Road Initiative today, under a "grand design"
which FDR termed the "Four Quarters" featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee
Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the
St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These
projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area's literacy
rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the
bedrock for America's aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower. As
I had already reported on the Saker , FDR was not a Keynesian (although it cannot be argued
that hives of Rhodes Scholars and Fabians penetrating his administration certainly were).
Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal
Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do
with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool
Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in
1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers.
Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks
loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by
1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen
to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real
economy.
When, in 1937, FDR's Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the
economy "could stand on its own two feet", Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy
collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years' worth of gain,
while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost
and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out
from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking
were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown
Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!
Coup Attempt in America Thwarted
The bankers didn't limit themselves to financial sabotage during this time, but also
attempted a fascist
military coup which was exposed by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his congressional testimony
of November 20, 1934. Butler had testified that the plan was begun in the Summer of 1933 and
organized by Wall Street financiers who tried to use him as a puppet dictator leading 500 000
American Legion members to storm the White House. As Butler spoke, those same financiers had
just set up an anti-New Deal organization called the American Liberty League which fought to
keep America out of the war in defense of an Anglo-Nazi fascist global government which they
wished to partner with.
The American Liberty league only changed tune when it became evident that Hitler had become
a disobedient Frankenstein monster who wasn't content in a subservient position to Britain's
idea of a New World Order. In response to the Liberty League's agenda, FDR said "some speak of
a New World Order, but it is not new and it is not order".
FDR's Anti-Colonial Post-War Vision
One of the greatest living testimonies to FDR's anti-colonial vision is contained in a
little known 1946 book authored by his son Elliot Roosevelt who, as his father's confidante and
aide, was privy to some of the most sensitive meetings his father participated in throughout
the war. Seeing the collapse of the post-war vision upon FDR's April 12, 1945 death and the
emergence of a pro-Churchill presidency under Harry Truman, who lost no time in dropping
nuclear bombs on a defeated Japan, ushering in a Soviet witch hunt at home and launching a Cold
War abroad, Elliot authored 'As He Saw It' (1946) in order to create a
living testimony to the potential that was lost upon his father's passing.
As Elliot said of his motive to write his book:
"The decision to write this book was taken more recently and impelled by urgent events.
Winston Churchill's speech at Fulton, Missouri, had a hand in this decision, the growing
stockpile of American atom bombs is a compelling factor; all the signs of growing disunity
among the leading nations of the world, all the broken promises, all the renascent power
politics of greedy and desperate imperialism were my spurs in this undertaking And I have seen
the promises violated, and the conditions summarily and cynically disregarded, and the
structure of peace disavowed I am writing this, then, to you who agree with me that the path he
charted has been most grievously -- and deliberately -- forsaken."
The Four Freedoms
Even before America had entered the war, the principles of international harmony which FDR
enunciated in his January
6, 1941 Four Freedoms speech to the U.S. Congress served as the guiding light through every
battle for the next 4.5 years. In this speech FDR said:
"In future days, which we seek to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms.
"The first is the freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
"The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in
the world.
"The third is the freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants
-- everywhere in the world.
"The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in
a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the
world.
"That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the
so-called new order of tyranny which dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
"To that new order, we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society
is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
"Since the beginning of American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a
perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself
to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The
world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly,
civilized society.
"This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of millions of free
men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy
of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or to
keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose."
Upon hearing these Freedoms outlined, American painter
Norman Rockwell was inspired to paint four masterpieces that were displayed across America
and conveyed the beauty of FDR's spirit to all citizens.
FDR's patriotic Vice President (and the man who SHOULD have been president in 1948) Henry
Wallace outlined FDR's vision in a passionate video address to the people in 1942 which should
also be watched by all world citizens today:
Elliot's account of the 1941-1945 clash of paradigms between his father and Churchill are
invaluable both for their ability to shed light into the true noble constitutional character of
America personified in the person of Roosevelt but also in demonstrating the beautiful
potential of a world that SHOULD HAVE BEEN had certain unnatural events not intervened to
derail the evolution of our species into an age of win-win cooperation, creative reason and
harmony.
In As He Saw It, Elliot documents a conversation he had with his father at the beginning of
America's entry into WWII, who made his anti-colonial intentions clear as day saying:
"I'm talking about another war, Elliott. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if
after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery!
"Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if
it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we
allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or
twenty years from now.
"One sentence, Elliott. Then I'm going to kick you out of here. I'm tired. This is the
sentence: When we've won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the
United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further
France's imperialistic ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial
ambitions."
This clash came to a head during a major confrontation between FDR and Churchill during the
January 24, 1943 Casablanca Conference in Morocco. At this event, Elliot documents how his
father first confronted Churchill's belief in the maintenance of the British Empire's
preferential trade agreements upon which it's looting system was founded:
"Of course," he [FDR] remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, "of course, after the war, one
of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of
trade."
He paused. The P.M.'s head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one
eyebrow.
"No artificial barriers," Father pursued. "As few favored economic agreements as possible.
Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition." His eye wandered innocently
around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. "The British Empire trade agreements" he began heavily,
"are -- "
Father broke in. "Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of
them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still
as backward as they are."
Churchill's neck reddened and he crouched forward. "Mr. President, England does not propose
for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made
England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England's ministers."
"You see," said Father slowly, "it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be
some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
"I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the
development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done,
obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now -- "
"Who's talking eighteenth-century methods?"
"Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of
a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration.
Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century
methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by
educating them, by bringing them sanitation -- by making sure that they get a return for the
raw wealth of their community."
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. Hopkins was grinning. Commander
Thompson, Churchill's aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to
look apoplectic.
"You mentioned India," he growled.
"Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time
not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy."
"What about the Philippines?"
"I'm glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've
gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down
"
"There can be no tampering with the Empire's economic agreements."
"They're artificial "
"They're the foundation of our greatness."
"The peace," said Father firmly, "cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of
the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost
freedom of competitive trade. Will anyone suggest that Germany's attempt to dominate trade in
central Europe was not a major contributing factor to war?"
It was an argument that could have no resolution between these two men
The following day, Elliot describes how the conversation continued between the two men with
Churchill stating:
"Mr. President," he cried, "I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire.
Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite
of that" -- and his forefinger waved -- "in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only
hope. And" -- his voice sank dramatically -- "you know that we know it. You know that we know
that without America, the Empire won't stand."
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to
precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was
acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to
dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R.
against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck. Or would have been, if Father had lived."
This story was delivered in full during an August 15 lecture by the author:
While FDR's struggle did change the course of history, his early death during the first
months of his fourth term resulted in a fascist perversion of his post-war vision.
Rather than see the IMF, World Bank or UN used as instruments for the internationalization
of the New Deal principles to promote long term, low interest loans for the industrial
development of former colonies, FDR's allies were ousted from power over his dead body, and
they were recaptured by the same forces who attempted to steer the world towards a Central
Banking Dictatorship in 1933.
The American Liberty League spawned into various "patriotic" anti-communist organizations
which took power with the FBI and McCarthyism under the fog of the Cold War. This is the
structure that Eisenhower warned about when he called out "the Military Industrial Complex" in
1960 and which John
Kennedy did battle with during his 900 days as president .
This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the November
elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is beginning
to be revived in America which may align with the 21 st Century international New
Deal emerging from China's Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian
alliance. French Finance Minister Bruno LeMaire and Marc Carney have stated their fear
that if the Green New Deal isn't imposed by the west , then the New Silk Road and yuan will
become the basis for the new world system.
The Bank of England-authored Green New Deal being pushed under the fog of COVID-19's
Great Green Global Reset which promise to impose draconian constraints on humanity's
carrying capacity in defense of saving nature from humanity have nothing to do with Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal and they have less to do with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. These
are merely central bankers' wet dreams for depopulation and fascism "with a democratic face"
which their 1923 and 1933 efforts failed to achieve and can only be imposed if people remain
blind to their own recent history.
Taras 77
Yes, a very interesting article, which explains much, but not everything. The question which
need’s to be asked is who was FDR and how did he become President, ie. why was he
permitted to become President. It should be taken into account that he was a 33 degree
freemason, just like Truman. So, what really happened during the 1930’s ? The
impression is that the US elite during that period was not united, being heterogeneous.
In 1917 Wall Street bankers finance the Russian “revolution”, when Lenin is
brought to Russia from Switzerland, where he was living the high life, and when he was given
20 million dollars in gold to start an insurrection known as a “revolution”. The
intent was to create a communist central government which would control Russian industry, raw
materials and finances, and present them on a silver platter to Western bankers. The
additional intent was the break up of Russia. The federal system was introduced, and
artificial states like Ukraine were created within that system. These banker aspirations
collapsed in 1924 when their puppet Lenin dies from syphilis and when Stalin assumes control,
introducing industrialization.
The bankers then turn to Germany, when in 1925 an obscure character by the name of Adolf
Hitler pops up. Before he is bestowed with power in 1933, the bankers in 1931 open the Bank
of International Settlements in Basel, right next to the German border. It was this Bank
which financed Hitler, his economic and banking “miracles”, as well as his
upcoming war. As for Wall Street corporations, they of course invested in Germany, like Henry
Ford, who built truck factories which provided the German Army with transport. Without
Anglo-American involvement, there is no way that Hitler could have started World War Two. And
what was the intention of Anglo-American bankers ? The break up and plundering of Russia,
something that Stalin prevented, and something that in our age Putin also prevented.
And the US ? The bankers were obviously impressed what their puppet Adolf Hitler achieved,
introducing dictatorship and at the same time placating the masses. They wanted the same
thing in the US. This of course had to be prevented, as had the bankers succeeded with their
planned fascist coup d’etat, then the game would have been up, as it would become
obvious who was financing and controlling Hitler. I think that over this issue the US elite
became divided. The group which backed FDR prevailed, as they wanted a covert modus
operandi.
And FDR ? When did he join World War Two ? In December of 1941, when Stalin brought more
than a million troops from Manchuria to Moscow, and when it became apparent that Hitler would
be defeated, as he was. The Anglo-American elites feared that Russian troops would end up in
Paris, as they did in 1814, when Napoleon was defeated. This, of course, had to be prevented.
Also Hitler, the banker puppet, needed to be saved. His suicide in 1945 was more than
suspicious, with historians “forgetting” to mention that his bunker had four
escape tunnels (Hitler ostensibly commits suicide, while all of his staff manage to escape,
with historians failing to explain how they did this. Did they, perhaps, use the four escape
tunnels ?).
And what do we have today ? Unfortunately we have more of the same. What began in 1917
with the Russian revolution is still active. The Anglo-American bankers cannot forget their
aim of breaking up and plundering Russia. Unfortunately for them, their little plan is taking
too long. Their Praetorian Guard, NATO, is costing them billions. In 1971 Nixon takes the
dollar off the gold standard, opening the way for mass printing and financial collapse, as
mentioned in this article. On the other hand, Russia and it’s ally China have been
stockpiling gold for years, preparing to introduce gold backed rubles and yuans, which of
course needs to be prevented. The latest political machinations with Belarus and with Navalny
in Russia are repeat performances of 1917, the West hoping for new insurrecions, ie.
“revolutions”, where “democratic” leaders would be installed, little
Guaidos. I think the West will see a financial crash first.
“This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the
November elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is
beginning to be revived in America which may align with the 21st Century international New
Deal emerging from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian alliance.”
I was with you until that sentence. Trump is in no way the new Franklin Roosevelt. He was
put into office by a cabal of Zionists and banksters, the very same “money
changers” that Roosevelt railed about in the 1930s, the very same that Jesus threw out
of the Temple. They never forgave him for that, to this very day.
With the likes of Sheldon Adelson throwing “thirty pieces of silver” at him in
the last days of the 2016 election and pulling strings with the Kosher Nostra to get him
elected, Trump reciprocated by cancelling the Iran nuclear deal. That has set the stage for
the war that will be the end of the USA as we know it. With the COVID-19 plandemic bearing
down on us as well, Heaven only knows how this will all turn out.
Agree with you 100%; Trump is part and parcel of the so called deep state and his actions
have verified his status, like you the article is very good until the second last paragraph
referring to Trump.
In fact it’s a rather Slippery Conceptual Slope and there are a great
many…especially Commonwealth Lefties that just can’t seem to keep their
footing….and slide right (or left, as the case may be) off The Path….so
reliably …as programmed by the Masters of Ideological Left/Right Mind Control.
But there’s HOPE:
Today’s Anti-Mask anti-Lockdown demonstration in London’s Trafalgar
Square:
You’re right, Bro, it is more complicated than that. It’s more complicated
than we could even begin to understand. But, understand this: We have troops in the Middle
East because Israel wants them there, pure and simple. Even Trump understands that. We are
threatening Iran because Israel wants us to. The Likudniks and Zionists who Trump has
surrounded himself with are driving the USA into a war with Iran and Russia that no one but
them really want. It’s all part of their crazy “end times” ideology. The
“synagogue of Satan” is prepared to march us all right over a cliff. Americans of
faith need to get their heads out their asses and put a stop to this madness.
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer?
The bad guys are godless bastards and don’t want to die in a firestorm I
wouldn’t think.
They are practicing divide and rule to the extent that we let them.
I’m thinking the “bad guys” aren’t even human anymore, maybe some
AI profit algorithm like what controls the hedge funds these days. They certainly have no use
for most humans, although they may keep a few of us around as pets.
absolutely agree. i’m not sure why ehert believes trump is anything but a tool but
he’s put this idea forth in several essays now. i also do not fully agree with cabal
signing on with the bri, yes, undoubtedly they will have to but china (russia as well) are
well acquainted with the cabal & will have no illusions about their ends. if or rather
when the cabal realizes it has no choice but to join it will be as a very controlled minor
player never to be trusted. neither china nor russia has suffered this long journey to
recovery to then hand its control over to the cabal yet again. i read last week
(middleeastmonitor i believe) that egypt is about to teach chinese in its schools. the world
is indeed changing.
Regarding Trump; the Saker has covered this issue well in a recent post. It is not a
matter of what we think of Trump. It is a matter of what the banking Cabal thinks of him.
They make it pretty obvious that they regard him as insufficiently under their own control.
They fear his loyalty to America. He is not as totally bought as the democrats. This for them
is a threat. The cabal wants a President that is totally under their control. For them Trump
does not cut it. So they cleverly provide as much ammunition in their controlled media as
they can find to reinforce the people’s dislike of him. Not a difficult task obviously.
Divide and rule works. Particularly in America where politics is reduced to a personality
contest.
It’s complicated? No, the truth is just obscured by all the theater. It’s
something like this …
For the first time in decades we have a potus that is not directly serving the ptb. This
is intolerable for the ptb, hence the deep state revolt against him.
Trump got into office because he promised the likudniks things that the ptb denied to them
because they conflicted with their interests
But on the issue of “the great replacement”, Trump is an obstacle to the
ptb.
nearly every name ,company,movement, politician mentioned in the article is connected by
freemasonry and “the money changers” . When individually looked at its readily
available to see. but when asked to step back and see a bigger world view. it becomes tin
foil time cognitive palsy for most.
trump ? just look at his photo ops with satans sidekick himself kissinger.
Thank you. Matthew Ehret, for your scholarly detail, and your persistence in trying to
present this story, in a world that has whitewashed it out of the culture. This long piece
was to my mind one of your best presentations yet. We should all be very grateful.
I had watched Wallace’s speech before, but this time, in the context you provided,
it became stunningly clear that the FDR school of thought regarded the socialist revolution
as a real thing around the world, and as a very American thing, ongoing for a century and a
half here, and not yet completed, as the revolution of the worker towards freedom from want
continued – and was intended to continue.
And this all should have continued, except that those who love money do not hesitate for
one second to kill anyone whom they deem it expedient to kill – perhaps this is the
truest lesson of all that the people must always hold in their thinking.
What a different world we could be living in today but for the greed of a few people who
all along have regarded the rest of humanity as nothing. No wonder they hate China, for
continuing that revolution that they killed in the United States – IF, in fact, it has
been killed.
Our revolution continues – the President’s man told us so. And they will kill
anyone they have to in order to defeat this revolution – our best general told us
so.
Thank you for the continual reminders, Matthew Ehret.
The hatred of China is recent, and currently over-dramatized by Trump, mostly for own
reasons. And the neocons still think there are means to “contain” China’s
economic growth (they will fail’), while Russia’s sabotage of an increasing
number of their evil plots around the world is hard to prevent.
Consequently, Russia remains the greater threat for the empire, as Putin has been
increasingly frustrating their second biggest tool for control after the $ – regime
change. Belarus, Venezuela, Syria, to which should be added Turkey, and other less known
spanners in the wheels.
And of course, Crimea, which the regime-changers refuse to get over…
Worse of all: the new weapons.
And to add insult to injury, the vaccine with the nose-thumb name, Sputnik V.
The cumulative effect of these steps is proving so irritating that Matthew Ehret’s
warning about a neocon-driven “total war with Russia, China…” should be
taken seriously.
Certainly Putin does, if this statement is anything to go by:
“And since Dec. 2019, the first strategic missile regiment with the Avangard system has
been on full combat alert.” (See here for context: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64058
)
Excellent historical link up of City of London + Wall st + JSOC/CIA/Deep state. At present
it seems to be the Left is Right and the Right is Left. Again like it was over 90+ years ago
the distraction of a DEM v GOP ensures we lose sight of the bigger picture.
the adverts are a bit annoying but it looks as though there is no other way to view this
film other than the link provided.
The info on how sovereign wealth (gold) was stolen is incredible. Just moved from one
vault to the other at either the BIS or the Bank of England!! And gold stolen from
Czechoslovakia, Austria, and POland was used by the Reich to make interest and dividend
payments to the Bank of England!
Really great film WW2 footage that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and interviews with
members of the Greatest Generation, many of them intelligent women who were on the scene.
A great companion film to The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire.
The takeaway: Don’t trust bankers! Especially not international bankers. The summary
at the end is: They like to have a quiet life, just keep making money regardless of who is in
power or who wins. They all fraternized throughout the war. Especially Chase. That is
Rockefeller, in case you forgot . . .
Thank you. Amazing text and great insights into original documents. I have learned a lot
from the text and the links. Many things mentioned in the text, I have heard before, by
reading Episodes on Oriental Review (it is on the list of news sources on the top of this
page), written by Nikolay Starikov. However, Starikov being a Russian, can hardly be used as
a reference in discussions with readers from US. Now I have another source to point to
– a fellow Canadian, eh :-)
History all very well, but I believe we have a situation in the world today unlike
anything mankind has experienced in the past. Thus, most unfortuneately there exists no
guidance, no lessons that could be learned from. In the course of the last century world
population has exponentially grown to a size that the planet cannot comfortably support.
Energy, nature, social, and economic systems are being stressed beyond their limits as
humankind is out to drown in its own guano. The problem is not in our ability to produce, but
in our inability to get rid of the excess, i.e. the byproducts. The West’s culture of
glutten provides no avail. Scientists know this, and have been warning for quite a long time,
but too few are listening. So yes, as Mr. Ehret points out we are in a slow motion world
order meltdown in many dimensions, but not because of political machinations (although the
political machinations certainly aid the quandary.) Rather, at the root, it is because of
technical-biological formations overwhelming the world’s natuaral orders, and these
formations also promise to overwhelm any world order that the planet’s oligarchies are
willing to accept . Our world leaders are totally lost. They do not know what to do as there
is no past history they can grasp on to even if they cared to do so. China’s belt and
road inititive is hardly a solution as it will only exasperate the basic problem of a world
seriously overpopulated wanting to live like one hundred million gluttonous Americans did
fifty years ago.
I only feel for the young people who will inherit this mess as the older generations have
become too decrepit to even acknowledge the situation.
In 1949 when Chairman Mao came to power, the population numbered about 1.0 billion, the
average life expectancy was 42 years, literacy was about 2%, opium addiction was about 25%.
Health care was non-existant except to a privileged few. Children had to look after their
elderly parents.
Today the population is 1.4 billion, average life expectancy is 78 years, literacy is
about 98% and opium addiction is almost irrelevant.
You will not read this from the priests at the Club of Rome. It is not in their
interest.
You should be celebrating one of the most extra-ordinary successes in history. Over 500
million people have been lifted from a life of abject poverty to a decent standard of living
with education, health care and a pension, in other words, a life worth living.
The world population will obviously have to rise as people live longer. This was one
reason for the one child policy that was persistently applied in China for decades. This does
create a burden on the care of elderly. Technology makes it less so.
China is converting its electricity plants from coal to gas and nuclear, greatly reducing
air and water pollution. China is not just a low wage country. It has learned over the last
decades to be the most efficient, high quality producer of goods and services.
Above all their belt and road initiative offers a great deal for its partners, a win-win
situation. No other developed nation offers so much hence the trade war.
”In June 1922, 300 marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42
trillion marks to get $1 US!”
Matthew Ehret doesn’t mention it, but what started the monstrous hyperinflation
instantly was the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops (January 1923)
as ”due compensation” for Germany defaulting on war reparation payments. Germany
found herself asset-stripped of her own industry and, without any colonies to rob blind,
resorted to print money with no backing. This is something which ominously haunts the
collective West ever since: What will happen if and when the Oppressor Nations — now
deindustrialised and with abysmal birth stats (except in immigrant communities) —
can’t coerce other countries and peoples into upholding any of this
’post-industrial’ nonsense anymore? Fascism is a consummate expression of
militant parasitism, with or without any racist depravities pertaining to it.
Matthew Ehret is dead right about the remedy: Kick out rapacious speculative finance and
join the BRI project which will eradicate poverty, hunger, and war by creating durable
infrastructure. The neocon filth doesn’t even qualify as fascists. They are anti-Life,
pure and simple.
I remember reading years ago a sentence from Keynes about the disaster that was
Versailles:
“Men will not always die quietly…In their distress they may overturn the
remnants of organization, and submerge civilization itself.”
and further:
“but who can say… in what direction men will seek at last to escape their
misfortunes.”
Unbelievable, how bankers gamble with the worlds population and then came what? The
nuclear deterrent, “MAD” lol and the cry for a one world government.
and now O look their all pointing their ICBM’s at us?
Right, Con-911 was the 21st century Reichstagsbrand. And it has been followed as the night
follows the day by Con-19, the 21st century version of Gleich-Gestaltung (Uniform Viewpoint)
with Lockdown, Mass Incarceration of suspects, and biological Reprogramming with forcible
injection of genetic material.
Please would you link, point to any reference for this:
“A leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip ….agreement in
history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920”
Washington Baker Vanderclip was seemingly president of the Elkhart Masonic Mutual Life
Association from Elkhart, Indiana ( https://tinyurl.com/y2vnjktc ).
I guess the guy in question is not Vanderclip but a business man named ‘Washington
Baker Vanderlip’.
Vanderlip was also known as ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’.
He was often confused by the Russians with the banker Frank Vanderlip from the First
National City Bank. Might well be the case they were under the impression dealing with the
banker when matter of fact they were talking to the business man.
W.B. Vanderlip acted as a kind of semi-official US ambassador before the US established
diplomatic relations with the back then Soviet Union in 1933.
You shall find numerous references by searching for ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’
in history books from the time of the Russian revolution.
Absolutely brilliant. To be read and reread. I will recommend it to my family and friends.
A must to understand the dangers and opportunities of the current situation. Thank You Mr
Ehret.
Is there any chance that someone put together in the same format of article, connection
between City and catholic Kuria in Vatikan. This would than cover everything.
Yeah sure, lots of details but also lots none factual details that have been randomly
connected to events at the author’s discretion without any references to back up the
claims, especially when it comes to National Socialistic Germany and Hitler. Usually, a topic
that has been willfully ignored academically as well as scientifically since its
destruction.
Hence, we always get to hear the same nonsense over and over
Reading this article one gets the impression it was exclusively foreign money that funded
the rise of Hitler.
Why is there no mention of prominent domestic funding?
For example:
Kurt von Schroeder a German banker from Cologne who participated in the financing of the Nazi
party and was a director of the Keppler Circle (together with Hjalmar Schacht ) which grouped
together German businessmen who were sympathetic to the Nazis.
August Thyssen the German industrialist bought the “Brown House” in Munich
which became the Nazi HQ. The imposing building basically functioned as “state within a
state” in the Weimar Republic.
Albert Voegler, the founder of Vereinigte Stahlwerk AG funded the Nazis and was one of the
main beneficiaries of re-armament.
Also, not sure how one can describe Kurt Von Schleicher, a Nazi who paved the way for
Hitler to become Chancellor, as a “patriot”?
It makes it hard for me to continue reading this. I’m sick to death of this total
refusal to take a tiny bit of trouble to examine what is meant by “Britain”. The
Island of Britain holds 3 people; the Cymraeg, the Gaelic and the AngloSaxon.
Since the AngloSaxon, more accurately designated from genetic studied as Franco-Germanic
hybrids – invaded the land before the turn of the millenia under the pretext of coming
to aid the Cymraeg who inhabited and owned the entire island up to the northern border with
Pictish and Gaelic tribes, and were under attack by the same Picts – but took and
relabeled stolen land “Angle-Land”, the Island has been dominated by the
AngloSaxons and a few aristocratic Normans, known after a few hundred years as
“English”.
To the Cymraeg they are still “Saxons”.
Every ruling power over the island since those days has been English. Few Gaels or Celts
have been in any position of power, since the concept of Aristocracy was absorbed by the
English by their Norman forbears and to this day is clung to like immovable glue. The
attitude of English aristocracy towards us has been one of utter contempt and loathing. Only
one Cymraeg was ever Prime Minister and that was the highly charismatic David Lloyd George,
for whom English was a second language. He fought and fought against all those moneyed powers
stop WWI, and when he failed because of the power of group action, did all he could to
prevent the worst excesses.
The people being talked of here are primarily the English Aristocracy and Landed
“Gentry” as they call themselves, which includes the Royal Family line [primarily
Germanic, brought in by that Aristocracy to make sure the Gaelic or Scottish in line for the
throne didn’t inherit it], and the City of London, a city and power unto itself.
It’s the entire unimaginably wealthy class, which is not subject to most of the Laws of
Britain, being a power unto itself; it is comprised of Jewish, English and other
power-brokers and oligarchs.
There are NO “oligarchs ” who are Celtic or Gaelic.
So – forget we exist if you want, but for Gods sake stop just grouping us with our
first and only real enemy, the English, under the title THEY invented —-
“Britain”.
Just watched a movie about the IRA from the mid 80’s. How is it that they were
lamenting about the ”British” and not the ”English” and that on the
walls of Belfast it read ”Beware Brits”?
The people of Northern Ireland are Protestant Christians, who split off from the Roman
Catholics of Eire in 1920.
This has been the major cause of the violence in Belfast ever since. The Catholics wish to
unite with Eire (Southern Ireland), but the Protestants want to remain part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland having representation in Westminster.
That is partly correct.But the Catholic population is around 45% of the country.And the
Protestant around 55%.When the British kept the 6 counties they went too far. Fermanagh,and
Tyrone,were very majority Catholic.And Derry and Armagh,were close to half Catholic.Of the
other two,Down was around a third Catholic in its South region. And the industrial Antrim
with Belfast,had large workingclass Catholic ghetto’s in Belfast. Had they cut the
borders by a lot they could have had a mostly Protestant area.But to do so would leave only a
tiny area to them.And they wanted a bigger region.
I don’t think that Ehret has to undertake a genetic study of the British Isles
before he can write up this analysis of the role of the British ruling
class/oligarchy/monarchy in fomenting both WW1 and WW2.
I too would like to see more documentation of US-Russian cooperation between the wars.
From my recent reading I think Ehret does miss an important point regarding WW1, which is
the role of the hawk faction in Austro-Hungary and its failed plan to do a surgical
“cakewalk” type of punishment of Serbia for the assassination in Sarejevo (Franz
Ferdinand had actually been a “dove” re Serbia). But the fact was that
militarists in both Germany and Russia wanted war and put tremendous pressure on both Wilhelm
II and Tsar Nicholas, his cousin, to go to war. Possibly also in Britain. Britain certainly
did fear the growing clout of quickly industrializing Germany and wanted to nip it in the
bud. And Churchill was salivating over gaining territory and control for Britain from the
Ottoman Empire
Especially as Germany was already building the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, which would have
provided access to the newly discovered oil fields of the Ottoman Empire (now Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.). Germany certainly had the brainpower in chemistry, physics,
engineering, etc. to complete the railroad as far as the Persian Gulf and to develop the oil
fields and develop and manage all of the refinery infrastructure and processes.
Then there was that little issue of a Jewish homeland. Unfortunately David Lloyd George,
for all of his good deeds at home, can be practically be described as a militant Christian
Zionist. The Palestine idea was always there in the background as Britain teed up for the
Great One. Arguably the Balfour Declaration would have gone nowhere without the active
support of George to create a Jewish enclave, and British imperial toehold, in the Middle
East. Please, we should not assume that the imperialists were unable to read maps.
But back to Britain and the postwar era, a very relevant complement to Ehret’s
analysis is this excellent documentary film, about the creation of offshore tax havens by the
City of London:
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
Pamela, we seem to be “on same page” quite a few times and what is remarkable,
that is exactly what riles me when they say “British”, when the obvious evil
doers are the English! Plain and simple, but most people fail to make that distinction. By
the way, I have promised Saker another essay on that very subject – the global evil
that eminated and continues to eminate from that particular “race”, group or
whatever one can call them. That oppressive, domineering, imperialistic mindset that believes
only in subjugation and enslavement of others and that is why there is such deep,
all-consuming hatred towards Russia and Russians, who are radically opposite to them in their
understanding of living in this world. I want to address that and expand on it. Give me a
month or so. : )
If you truly want to understand the causes of Hyperinflation I can suggest no better
source than Mike Moloney’s “GoldSilver.com” site. He presents plenty of
graphs and economic history to show exactly how it is caused, what trends it is a part of ,
and why it is now totally unavoidable.
Regarding this piece, I have nothing to say for anyone who says that David Lloyd George,
the first and best true Socialist P.M. the people of the British Isle ever had, and who
formed what was the best Welfare state before it was ruined, was part of a drive for Global
domination. He was in a position of power as P.M. and therefor was a part of many
Committee’s but to suggest this ardent socialist and fighter for the rights of man was
a side kick to Globalism is just beyond discussion.
This article is an excellent narrative concerning international politics. However,
contrary to accepted financial wisdom, the rise of Germany from 1933 onwards under Hitler was
not financed by international bankers. Quite the opposite in fact,
The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had imposed draconian war reparations on Germany, because
they had just lost the 1914-18 world war and had to be punished by the international bankers.
It was they who caused the hyperinflation of the German Mark that occurred in 1922 in order
to pay off the war loans incurred by France and England by printing more and more money that
Germany had to borrow at interest. This caused the breakdown of the German economy with
massive unemployment and the social discontent that led to the eventual rise of Adolf Hitler
as Chancellor of Germany.
In 1933 Hitler canceled Germany’s debts and created debt free money as Treasury
certificates that were paid to the German workforce for work done and/or materials supplied.
This enabled the rejuvenation of the German economy building railroads, autobahns and the
manufacture of war materiel resulting in full employment and prosperity to the nation.
The international bankers were aghast at this transformation and that is why Britain
declared war on Germany in 1939, since the rise of German power would threaten to destroy the
British Empire.
Kaprocorn, Hitler’s rise was fuelled by credit. Read up on MEFOBILLS. It was a
deferred payment system. He did not “create debt free money”. Credit will give
you an economic high for a while…Hitler milked it for what it was worth and then just
before the debts became due, he waged Blitzkrieg and stole his neighbors’ gold
reserves.
Jamshyd, since Hitler was financed by bankers how was he “against the
bankers”?? And, yes the Nazis were racist baby eaters.
Btw, Hitler also supported the cause of Zionism. Haavara agreement promoted the settlement
of Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Until now, I have never heard of FDR’s Four Freedoms (freedom of speech; freedom of
worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear (of war, e.g.)). My ignorance probably says
something about the overwhelming completeness of the Banksters’ Putsch that occurred
after FDR’s death.
Learning about the Four Freedoms reminds me of the soaring opening phrases of the United
Nations Charter:
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind
….
This is completely consistent with the Four Freedoms. I see now that FDR must have been
one of the primary creators of the UN — an enormous achievement. The UN Charter, and
the Four Freedoms, should be celebrated throughout the USA. I wonder why they
aren’t?
Allegations that a group or a political figure is neo-fascist are usually hotly contested,
especially when the term is used as a political epithet . The traits that provoke
such an epithet include usually includes ultranationalism, some kind of racial supremacy, extreme
authoritarianism, and xenophobia. Connection of the political movement or a politician to
intelligence service( in the USA to CIA) are more rarely used but Bush Senior was often called a
fascist.
From Fascism in North America -
Wikipedia "American intellectuals paid considerable attention to Mussolini, but few became
his supporters. He did have popular support in the Italian American community.[19][20]
In the so-called Business Plot in 1933, anti-war speaker Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy
businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup
d'état to overthrow American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified to
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack-Dickstein Committee") on these
claims. Dickstein, however, was a paid Soviet spy, and historians have not identified any
business leaders as a plotter.[21]
During the 1930s Virgil Effinger led the paramilitary Black Legion, a violent offshoot of the
Ku Klux Klan that sought a revolution to establish fascism in the United States.[22] Although
responsible for a number of attacks, the Black Legion was very much a peripheral band of
militants. More important were the Silver Legion of America, founded in 1933 by William Dudley
Pelley, and the German American Bund, which emerged the same year from a number of older groups,
including the Friends of New Germany and the Free Society of Teutonia. Both of these groups
looked to Nazism for their inspiration.
While these groups enjoyed some support, they were largely peripheral. A more prominent
leader, Father Charles Coughlin, sparked concern among some on the left at the time. Coughlin,
who publicly endorsed fascism, was unable to become involved in active politics because of his
status as a priest.[23] Other fascists active in the US included the publisher Seward Collins,
the broadcaster Robert Henry Best, the inventor Joe McWilliams and the writer Ezra Pound.
I try to avoid these terms like "fascism," but it has become clear that Donald J. Trump
actively seeks to become an at least authoritarian leader of the US...
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 3:49 pm
Fascism??? Nope. Zionism, yup. It's a form.
September 20, 2020 6:44 pm
We probably need to distinguish between fascism and neo-fascism. Those are two different
social models.
Fascism proper name is "national socialism." It is different from "national
neoliberalism" as advocated by Trump. In many ways, Classic Fascism strongly correlates
with the mental state of nation which is attacked by strong enemy, the enemy which has
supporters inside the country. It was also a revolt against financial oligarchy while
masking it with the particular national identity, due to historical for Europe
over-representation of Jews in financial industry. The distinct feature of fascism is its
strong aversion to the excessive financialization of economy and banking, which fascists
consider evil.
Often it is also connected with the attempt of modernization of the country "from
above."
The classic fascism involve charismatic leader, unhinged militarism, cult of the army,
unhinged nationalism and cult of personal scarifies in the name of the country, violence
against opponents and the rejection of parliamentary democracy.
National socialism model of the state was the first which emphasized the key role on
intelligence agencies in suppressing of the dissent and as a tool of infiltration into
opposition. Surveillance of the population became vital state function. It was fascism that
invented the role of intelligence agencies as the major part of oppressive apparatus of the
state. It re-invented "political police" on a new level in the form of Gestapo.
For the most part (and that's why many researchers do not consider Franco regime as a
proper fascist state) t also was defined by openly proclaimed goal of external expansion.
In this sense it is not unlike neoliberal states with the only difference in tools --
direct army occupation vs. indirect occupation via financial capital penetration and
subjugation of nation via debt and the control of its elite (debt slave mechanism)
Scapegoated ethnic minorities was typical only for selected national variants and first
of all for the German variant, (where it were Jews and Gypsies.)
BTW the formal program of NSDAP (not that they intended to implement it) was to the left
of the current Democratic Party Platform
.
The 25-point Program of the NSDAP
7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a
livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total
population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be
expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all
non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to
leave the Reich.
9.All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10.The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically.
The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but
must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
Consequently, we demand:
11.Abolition of unearned (work and labor) incomes. Breaking of debt
(interest)-slavery.
12.In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war
demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime
against the people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13.We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14.We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15.We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16.We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate
communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small
firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or
municipality.
17.We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free
expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and
prevention of all speculation in land.
18.We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to
the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to
be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
21.The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and
child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of
the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all
organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
Neo-fascism is something very different and less defined. It is unclear if Trump's
"national neoliberalism" can be classified as neo-fascism (which in a very simplified
meaning is fascism within the bounds of parliamentary democracy) . I am not an expert on
the topic. But clearly several things simply do not match. First of all is should strives,
at least on the level of program, to raise the standard of living of lower 80% of
population. This is not the case with Trump.
Terry , September 20, 2020 7:28 pm
...Mostly, I am concerned that SCOTUS will become a rubber stamp for the oligarchs...
I do not know whether it is fascism, neither whatever or just the " law of the jungle",
but it is bad.
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 8:26 pm
Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism. Soviet Russia went into this
as well by 1928, became known as social fascism as they starved nonrussian areas of the
Soviet to industrialize rapidly in roughly 10 years.
What's stupidly called neofascism now is just zionist/conservative authoritarianism.
Progressive authoritarianism is from Millsian liberalism, which many people do not get.
Fred C. Dobbs September 21, 2020 11:34 am
'Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism.'
Fascism, as instituted by Benito Mussolini, is certainly NOT 'just socialism'. Wikipedia: Italian Fascism (Italian:
fascismo italiano), also known as Classical Fascism or simply Fascism, is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy by
Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini. The ideology is associated with a series of two political parties led by Benito Mussolini
…
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) September 21, 2020 12:11 pm @Fred,
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was actually devoutly anti=socialist.
Also, congrats on your Boston Globe post given a thread.
That's naive take. Wary knows quite a bit about Antifa. Most probably the key people are
iether FBI agents or informants. The problem is that he find Antifa activities politically
useful. That's why he does not want to shut it down. This again put FBI in the role of kingmaker,
like under Comey.
Also don't forget that Brennan faction of CIA is still in power and that means the "deep
state" still is in control like was the case during Mueller investigation.
In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the
individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey
orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI
improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to
eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated
investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI
agents in an infamous White House interview.
Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice
when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any
meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing
the country.
In testimony on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray made a series of
remarkable claims. He stated that Antifa is not a group but is more of "an ideology or maybe a
movement." He also refused to identify Chinese efforts to interrupt the 2020 election and again
focused attention on activities from Russia.
With these remarks, Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking
points. Regarding Antifa violence, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY),
claimed it was a "myth."
Nadler has been in his congressional cocoon for too long. Antifa has been active for several
years, but since the death of George Floyd on May 25, it has intensified its activities around
the country. Millions of Americans have seen the frequent and disturbing video footage of
rioting and looting throughout the country. According to U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX),
"there have been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists, Antifa and the BLM
(Black Lives Matter) organization."
In his comments to Wray at the committee meeting, Crenshaw also noted the rioters have done
an extensive amount of damage. He stated that "between one and two billion dollars of insurance
claims will be paid out. That doesn't come close to measuring the actual and true damage to
people's lives, not even close."
Crenshaw is right as many of our urban areas, such as New York, Washington D.C.,
Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland among others have been devastated by a series of violent
protests. In the past few months, scores of monuments have been destroyed, and significant
damage has been done to businesses and public buildings. The group has also attacked innocent
civilians and targeted police officers. As Crenshaw asserted in this rebuttal to Wray, Antifa
matches the definition of a domestic terrorist organization.
"... He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish? ..."
"... And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries? ..."
"... My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. ..."
"... Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank. ..."
"... If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots. ..."
"... The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades. ..."
"... Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan. ..."
"... The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it. ..."
"... There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones. ..."
"... I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern. ..."
"... Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy. ..."
"... When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause. ..."
"... But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice. ..."
"... the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables ..."
"... The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. ..."
It is clear that the heat has gone away in the fabled "Arab Street" over the issue of
Israel. If that were not so, the rulers would not have dared to do this. That being so ... It
will be very interesting to see how many people from these two countries go to Israel to
visit holy sites like the al-Aqsa Mosque. There have not been many religious tourists from
Egypt and Jordan. This is what the Israelis call pilgrims. Trump thinks that he can bring
Saudi Arabia into such a deal? Good! Let's see it. He thinks that Iran can be brought into
such a deal? Wonderful! Let's see it.
He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that
something we should relish?
And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad
two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of
Pompeo and Jeffries?
I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the
UAE.
I suspect this has less to do with peace and more to do with lining up a coalition against
Iran. He's signing peace deals at the white house the same day he not only threatens Iran for
a make believe assassination plot against our South African Ambassador, but admits he wanted
to assassinate Assad.
He's making a big mistake though if he thinks Iranians will behave and respond similarly
to the Arabs, and they are certainly not North Koreans.
He's being frog marched into a war with Iran while his ego is being stroked under the
guise of a Nobel peace prize.
What say about Alastair Crooke's "Maintaining Pretence Over Reality: 'Simply Put, the
Iranians Outfoxed the U.S. Defence Systems'" at Strategic Culture Foundation?
My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how
much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and
Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. The other issue is the degree with which Arab
elites can "reroute" Anti Israeli into Anti Iranian sentiments on the Arab street.
Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza
=! West Bank.
If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit
Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress
and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the
higher helots.
I think this will be fairly hard though. Various Historical, religion and cultural issues
specific to the situation make it quite hard for Arabs to actually assimilate into Israeli
society. There is also a lack of a unifying foe to unite against. If you look at relatively
successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was
threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause.
The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a
little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and
away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades.
The TDS afflicted media couldn't bear that some lemonade was made. Wolf Blitzer
interviewing Jared Kushner was all about pandemic nothing about the implications or process
to having couple gulf sheikhs recognize Israel. The fact is that these gulf sheikhs only paid
lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in any case. This formalizes what was reality.
The "Arab Street" have always been a manifestation of whatever were powerful manipulations.
The manipulators have been coopted in the current lemonade making. In any case Bibi must be
very pleased. He didn't have to give up anything in his difficult domestic political
predicament.
The arabs simply do not care anymore, from Morocco to Oman. Their spirit totally broken by
the "Arab spring", youth disillusioned and jobless. The only dream left for most is to ape
the western lifestyle. The others are fighting in wars.
I can see one of two futures, a Clean Break: Securing the Realm-style one in which all of the arabs live life as helots under the
thumb of a Greater Israel. This would bring relative economic prosperity to most of the
helots.
I think I see the flaw in this article: ..."If that turns out to be the case and this
maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the
Palestinians,"...
Surely you don't believe that these maneuvers are intended to bring about a Palestinian
state?
The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab
states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but
closes to it.
There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst
the less accurate ones.
One running theme that I have been seeing from the former so-called neocon critics and ME
wars opponents (Michael Scheuer comes to mind) is their uncontrollable exhilaration for any
terrible so-called F.P. 'success' that the Trump admin achieves in the ME.
I also remember
when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it
a national security success. This is shameful pattern.
Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz
(Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians
United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American
interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this
outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy.
It it exactly what it is. Israel normalized relations with the most notorious
dictatorships and wants to implement Pegasus spying program and wide-scale surveillance
(among other nefarious things) in UAE and Bahrain. How is that a success for America? America
should stay out of these Israeli-first trouble making schemes and stay neutral or out of
there.
Let me tell you what a F.P. success is, OK? It would have been a huge success if America
was able to lure Iran into its orbit to fend of the Chinese communists out of the region and
out of our lives and have a stronger alliance with regards to its upcoming Cold War with
China.
It would have been successful for America to balance China out with Iran, India,
Turkey and Afghanistan, and not let China to invest billions in Haifa port (close to U.S.
military forces there) a major hub of its Belt and Road initiative and a huge blow to U.S.
new Cold war effort against China.
Think about it.
Allow me to raise a few points: first of all , every single one of these brutal backward
Arab dictatorships has had low key but crucial relations with Israel since the Cold War and
they just made it open, Big deal! Second, this joyfulness for a hostile anti-american country
is quite sad for two reasons:
1. that Larry touts it as a success for America, which is
anything but a success for America. It is a success for Bibi and Trump's evangelical/zionist
sugar daddies to cough up some Benjamins for Trump's campaign and his GOP/Likudniks. I guess
nowadays our judgement is so clouded and inverted that MAGA and MIGA are considered
inseparable.
2. The delusion that dems are bitterly angry and anti-Israel (because they are
anti-Trump) and therefore it automatically becomes an issue of partisan support for Trump and
whatever he does. This idea is so absurd that I won't get into it. Dems were the first to
congratulate Israel.
I would like Larry to tell me what he thinks of H.R. 1697 Israel Anti-Boycot Act which
punishes American citizens for practicing their god-given 2nd Amendment rights. or the 3.8
billion of aid, or the the gifting of Golan heights to Bibi? Are these big foreign policy
success too?
What the Arab-Israeli normalization means:
*The U.S. wants out of the ME to focus on China, a wet dream that Israel favors especially
post Cold War. It does not want secular, (semi) democratic sovereign states around it, and if
anyone pays attention close enough they do whatever they can to prevent any kind of political
reform and change of government to occur among Arab nations. Israelis are staunch supporters
of Saudi, Bahraini, UAE, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships in the MENA region.
Israel
will now be better positioned to roll-back any kind of grassroots reform in the ME with the
help of their now openly pro-Israeli Arab rulers by directing policies to these backward
rulers to divest from human development and political reform and instead invest more in
security, tech, surveillance.
This trend also explains Israeli constant opposition to the
Iran Deal, which would have had further ramifications for political reform and accelerated
weakening of Hardliners in Tehran and a better position for America to pivot to China with
the help of a moderated Iran. Israel does not want a powerful democratic nation near its
borders, and especially not in Iran. Just take a look at Israel's neighbors and tell me how
many of them are democratic and friendly with Israel and how does Israel behave when there
are secular Arab democratic states around it?
There is a developing coalition of powerful states as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli
normalization that observers call "the rejectionists". They are, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan
(impending), Malaysia (impending), Iran, and EU (impending).
It is true that Iran has now a target on its back and if it were smart, it would try its
best to develop some kind of alliance with the secular democratic humanists in EU to try to
remove itself from isolation, save what is left of the Iran Deal, and try to isolate and
condemn Israelis, Arab dictators and their cohorts internationally and through diplomacy back
portraying them as illiberal and anti-democratic or similar things. Although I am not too
hopeful that Iran is be able to do this for a number of obvious reasons.
This Arab-Israeli normalization is a MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) vision of very
tightly controlled development for the MENA region and extremely' special' attention has been
given to the cyber tech development (call it surveillance) to control the 'Arab Street' from
social revolt and the prevention of next rounds of Arab Springs, which again goes back to
Israel's long-standing regional doctrine of propping pro-U.S. and now pro-Israeli Arab
dictatorships in the region.
In the end, it's all just tribal superstition. Logically a spiritual absolute would be the
essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we
fell.
The fact we are aware, than the myriad details of which we are aware.
One of the reasons we can't have a live and let live world is because everyone thinks their
own vision should be universal, rather than unique. So the fundamentalists rule.
The reason nature is so diverse and dense is because it isn't a monoculture.
Irrespective of our technology, we are still fairly primitive, in the grand scheme of
things.
When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in
history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty
highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or
used as that cause.
If this all ends up in the longest run leading to today's and tomorrow's Israelis
accepting the lesser Israel that Rabin ended up deciding would be necessary for a
lesser-but-still-real Palestine to emerge as a real country resigned with both resigned
enough to that outcome that they would tolerate eachother's separate independence over the
long term, then this will go somewhere good.
But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is
totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for
ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That
outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice.
To have a two state solution Israel will have to leave enough of Palestine without Jewish
settlement for there to be room for another state. Their actions show that they have no
intention of doing that.
Larry: the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad
enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats.
Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never
going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and
water tables)
The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push
this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. The gerontocracy that rules the PA will soon pass away. The younger generation of
Palestinians are much more sophisticated.
As a trial lawyer, I see this type of behavior all the time. If you offer someone
essentially nothing, they lose nothing by rejecting it. The Arab dictators will not be around forever. And before Camp David, the Palestinians
have suffered far worse than they are suffering now.
In short: "We Jews know that Arabs (Palestinians) will never, ever voluntarily give up
hope of resisting Jewish demands, and Jews will never stop with Jewish demands: that all of
Palestine become Jewish.
Since 'voluntary' will not work, only force -- an Iron Wall -- will suffice.
Jabotinsky defines "Iron Wall" as the enforcement capacity of an outside power:
"we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their
voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the
natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say "no" and depart from Zionism.
Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in
defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue
and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population
– an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto,
our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.
Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power
committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be
deterred from interfering with our efforts."
Be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's administrative
assistant, then replacement, in New York; that Bibi is very much heir to the ideological
fervor of Jabotinsky & of Benzion; and that Benzion and Benjamin laid out the blueprint
for the GWOT at the Jerusalem Conference July 4, 1979 https://www.amazon.com/International-Terrorism-Challenge-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0878558942
Trump plays only a walk-on role in this carefully scripted 150 year old zionist drama.
"there isn't a lot of difference between KSA and these fiefdoms of uae and bahrain.." A
total crock. you obviously have never been to either of these places.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
...Amid all the pedantic squabbling over when it is and is not legal under US law for a
journalist to expose evidence of US war crimes, we must never lose sight of the fact that (A)
it should always be legal to expose war crimes, (B) it should always be illegal for governments
to hide evidence of their war crimes, (C) war crimes should always be punished, (D) people who
start criminal wars should always be punished, (E) governments should not be permitted to have
a level of secrecy that allows them to start criminal wars, and (F) power and secrecy should
always have an inverse relationship to one another.
The Assange case needs to be fought tooth and claw, but we must keep in mind that it is so
very, very many clicks back from where we need to be as a civilization. In an ideal situation,
governments should be too afraid of the public to keep secrets from them; instead, here we are
begging the most powerful government in the world to please not imprison a journalist because
he arguably did not break the rules that that government made for itself.
Do you see how far that point is from where we need to be?
It's important to remember this. It's important to remember that the amount of evil deeds
power structures will commit is directly proportional to the amount of information they are
permitted to hide from the public. We will not have a healthy world until power and secrecy
have an inverse relationship to each other: privacy for rank-and-file individuals, and
transparency for governments and their officials.
"But what about military secrets?" one might object. Yes, what about military
secrets? What about the fact that virtually all military violence perpetrated by the world's
largest power structures is initiated based on lies ? What about the utterly indisputable fact that the
more secrecy we allow the war machine, the more wars it deceives the public into allowing it to
initiate?
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't be trying to squint at
its own laws in such a way that permits the prosecution of a journalist for telling the
truth.
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't prosecute anyone for
telling the truth at all.
In a healthy world, governments would prosecute their own war crimes, instead of those who
expose them.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't commit war crimes at all.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't start wars at all.
In a healthy world, governments would see truth as something to be desired and actively
sought, not something to be repressed and punished.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't keep secrets from the public, and wouldn't have any
cause to want to.
In a healthy world, if governments existed at all, they would exist solely as tools for the
people to serve themselves, with full transparency and accountability to those people.
We are obviously a very, very far cry from the kind of healthy world we would all like to
one day find ourselves in. But we should always keep in mind what a healthy world will look
like, and hold it as our true north for the direction that we are pushing in.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Reality007 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:07 AM
Unfortunately, no criminals that have committed or covered up war crimes, decades ago to
present, will ever be indicted. They are all above the law while all innocents that revealed
the truths must pay highly. We can only pray and hope for the best for Julian Assange.
Fred Dozer Reality007 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:16 PM
I see nothing wrong with robbing banks in criminal controlled countries. These governments,
murder, cheat, lie, & steal.
T. Agee Kaye 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 11:10 AM
The right of a people to know what their government is doing, and the potential consequences
of those actions on the people, nation, and society, is inalienable. The exposure of war
crimes and any corruption is not illegal and cannot be made illegal. The trial of Assange is
not about the legality of Assange's actions. It is a display of the influence that criminal
interests have over the government and judiciary. It is an attempt to create legitimacy by
creating precedent. Murder has plenty of precedent. It will never be legitimate.
Jewel Gyn 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:21 AM
Agreed but having said that, we are not living in a perfect world. Bully with big fists exist
and the lesser countries just stood by frustrated and sucking their thumbs, silent lest they
be targeted for voicing out. And you can see clearly why US is walking away from any form of
organised voice eg UN.
Odinsson 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:51 AM
What we need in the case of Julian Assange is factual reporting. While the motivation to
prosecute Assange is most likely political, there would be no ability to prosecute him were
it not for his active support of PFC Manning's hacking of a DOD information system. It is not
unlawful to publish classified information which was provided to you, so long as you are not
involved in the criminal acts leading to the exfiltration of the data. Had Assange not aided
PFC Manning by looking up hash codes in spreadsheets of known password to hash code
translations then the grand jury would not have indicted him. FWIW, it is my opinion that the
statute of limitations expired long ago and this should be grounds for dismissal of all
charges against him.
jholf 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:04 PM
These world leaders, claim to be Christians, ... their God 'commands', "Thou shalt not kill."
Yet, for more than 6 decades, that is exactly what each of these Christian Commanders in
Chief, have done for no reason, other than to fill the pockets of the elite. A man is known
by his deeds, Assange gave us truth, while these world leaders gave us war and destructi
Who within the Deep state is supporting the riots? This is the question. Antifa would not
last a a couple of months, if all repressive power of the state fall on the head of its
brainwashed children of the middles class, who constitute the majority of it members. All members
probably are well known to FBI and the organization was infiltrated long ago.
America went through its own bout of Dionysian intoxication in the days following May 25,
when a Minneapolis cop by the name of Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of a 46-year-old Black
man by the name of George Floyd, causing his death. Corrupted by 66 years of bad education,
America's Black Lumpenproletariat erupted in an orgy of rioting that brought the rule
of law to an end in many of America's large cities. As of this writing, Antifa, a group which
Donald Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization, is still in control of a
six-square block section of downtown Seattle, which they have designated the "Capitol Hill
Autonomous Zone." In Minneapolis, the town where the rioting started, their Pentheus, Mayor
Jacob Frey, was denounced by one of the Bacchant women who spoke in the name of Black Lives
Matter after he refused to defund the Minneapolis police department. Frey was not torn limb
from limb, but he was expelled from the crowd and had to take refuge with the police he was
ordered to defund.
The race riots of May and June 2020 were only the latest installment of what might be called
the regime of governance by crisis which began four years ago, when the Deep State decided to
do whatever was necessary to depose Donald Trump. That campaign began with Russiagate, followed
by the impeachment, followed by the hate speech campaign of 2019 which sought to ban "unwanted
content" from the Internet, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic. What united all of these crises
was oligarch unhappiness with the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States
and a desire to replace the institutions of representative government with ad hoc committees of
crisis managers masquerading as scientific experts and/or aggrieved minorities.
By now it should be obvious that the racial narrative writes itself whenever a Black man
dies at the hands of a white cop. Floyd's body was still warm when the mainstream media took up
the story which had already been written and declared him a saint, complete with halo and
wings. In reality, Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in
his system, but the BBC described him as someone who "was simply trying to live life as any
other American, in search of betterment in the face of both personal and societal challenges."
[1] He then
became "the latest totem of the ills that plague the country in 2020." After growing in wisdom,
age, and grace, Floyd's life suddenly "took a different turn, with a string of arrests for
theft and drug possession culminating in an armed robbery charge in 2007, for which he was
sentenced to five years in prison." Missing from the BBC account was any mention of Floyd's
incarceration, drug dealing, violence against pregnant women or his role as a porn star,
[2] but no one
needed to tell a graduate of America's public school system that he was witnessing the latest
installment of the ongoing saga of American racism in action.
... ... ...
Both sides of the racial conflict which George Floyd's death ignited were controlled by
Jews. The ADL has consistently played a double game by condemning the racial violence that
their training seminars have created. According to the Democratic Socialists of America, "The
police violence happening tonight in Minneapolis is straight out of the IDF playbook," adding,
"US cops train in Israel." [20] After
the death of George Floyd, the ADL, eager to avoid any association with the violence their
police seminars wrought among Blacks, tweeted: "As we continue to fight for justice for
#GeorgeFloyd, we also need to fight for justice for #BreonnaTaylor, who was murdered in her own
home by police. We need justice for everyone who has been a victim of racist policing &
violence." [21]
At the same time that the ADL was demanding justice for George Floyd, they made no mention
of the death of Iyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man who was gunned down after pleading for
his life while on the way to his special education class in occupied East Jerusalem. [22] The
Electronic Intifada, which did mention Hallaq's death, then singled out the Anti-Defamation
league as "a major player in the industry of bringing US police junkets to Israel for
'counterterrorism' and other kinds of joint training." [23]
Docile Negroes at traditionally Jewish organizations like the NAACP routinely get praised
for their work against racism, but as soon as Black Lives Matter began its Black solidarity
with Palestine campaign, the Israeli government and its lobbies in America attempted to disrupt
the Black Lives Matter movement in retaliation. In 2018 Al Jazeera's documentary The
Lobby -- USA revealed how The Israel Project "pulled strings behind the scenes to
get a Black Lives Matter fundraiser at a New York City nightclub canceled." [24]
So on the one hand we have American policemen being trained to treat their fellow citizens
in the same way that Israelis treat Palestinians, including the knee holds that will subdue and
sometimes kill them. This explains the white cop side of the equation. But on the other hand,
we have George Soros funding Black Lives Matter and the insurrections which follow incidents of
police brutality as the black side of the equation. Taken together both Jewish-funded groups
perpetuate the cycle of increasing violent racial conflict in America, while remaining all the
while invisible.
Black Lives Matter was a reincarnation of the Black-Jewish Alliance, which began with the
founding of the ADL after the lynching of Leo Frank and has continued to this day, with
time-outs taken for the World Wars of the 20th century. Shortly after World War II, Louis
Wirth, a Jewish sociologist from the University of Chicago began implementing his plan to
"integrate" housing in Chicago. When Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods understood that
"integration" was a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, riots ensued, beginning with the Airport
Park riots of 1947 and culminating in the arrival of Martin Luther King in Marquette Park
almost 20 years later. As one more indication that Black Lives Matter was the reincarnation of
the Black-Jewish Alliance, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, was born in
1981 to a white Jewish father and a Black mother.
Black Lives Matter was funded by George Soros to promote race war in the United States, but
BLM also promoted sexual deviance, another cause dear to the heart of the world's most
prominent Hungarian Jewish philanthropist. In their recently published manifesto, BLM situates
its attempt to be "unapologetically Black in our positioning" within a matrix of sexual
deviance, including attempts "to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk," by
disrupting "the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" and putting in its place a
"queer-affirming network." [25]
If that jargon sounds familiar, it's because it stems from the university gender studies
programs which provide the matrix from which groups like BLM and Antifa get both their ideas
and their recruits. The ultimate cause of the uprising which took place in city after city in
the wake of George Floyd's death was bad education. Beginning in the late 1980s, literature
departments had been taken over by "tenured radicals" who have used critical theory, derived
from thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, and Gramsci, to undermine the validity of all structures
of authority. This essentially Nietzschean transvaluation of all values transferred moral
superiority to anyone who could claim oppression according to oligarchic endorsed categories
like race and gender, allowing the tenured radicals to take over one department after another
and, more importantly, allowing the proliferation of new departments, invariably ending in
"studies," as in gender studies, which drove the traditional liberal arts from academe turning
traditional universities into Maoist inspired re-education camps. The takeover of academe
reached its bitter culmination when Antifa led groups of disaffected, badly educated young
people, who were aware of nothing more significant than their grievances, into the streets in
what became an uncanny replication of the Chinese cultural revolution of 1966. One of the most
unlikely leaders of that revolution in China was an American Jew from Charleston, South
Carolina by the name of Sidney Rittenberg.
The academic pedigree of Rittenberg's successors became apparent when Antifa warlord Joseph
Alcoff got apprehended in Philadelphia in 2017 for assaulting a group of Hispanic Marines.
Alcoff's arrest shed light on one of the main figures in a society that remained literally
faceless because of their habit of wearing masks at the protests they disrupted by their
violence. Alcoff, who was known as the leader of Antifa in Washington, DC, was the child of
radical academics and had co-authored an academic paper with his mother Linda Alcoff in Volume
79 of Science and Society in the special issue on "Red and Black: Marxist Encounters
with Anarchism," entitled "Autonomism in Theory and Practice." [26] Radical
theory in the mind of Linda Alcoff led to violent praxis in the life of her son. As with Black
Lives Matter, the ADL has played a double game with Antifa, condemning its tactics while at the
same time defending it against accusations that it was morally equivalent to the "white
supremacists" it attacked in the streets of Charlottesville in 2017.
Continuity between the generations was made possible by the Jewish revolutionary spirit. The
fact that Alcoff was a Jew got suppressed in virtually every mainstream account of his
activity, [27] which
sanitized his communist connections by linking him to the Democratic Party through figures like
Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. Alcoff was more forthright when he spoke in his own voice,
saying on one Youtube video, "I'm a Communist, motherf***er," before spitting into the camera.
[28]
Christians for truth portrayed Alcoff as "a self-styled modern-day Leon Trotsky" and attributed
the suppression of his ethnic identity to the fact that "Antifa's political manifestations are
funded by the billionaire Jew, George Soros." [29]
Andy Ngo, who was severely beaten by Antifa thugs in Portland in the wake of the 2016
presidential election, claims that "prominent media figures and politicians glamorize and even
promote Antifa as a movement for a just cause. CNN's Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon have defended
Antifa on-air. Chuck Todd invited Antifa ideologue Mark Bray onto Meet the Press to
explain why Antifa's political violence is "ethical." [30] Ngo goes
on to mention Joseph Alcoff as one of the most visible figures in what is otherwise a
clandestine organization, and claims that he had access to Democrat Representative Maxine
Waters in 2016. [31] He also
mentions Adam Rothstein, who is associated with the Rose City Antifa group which assaulted him
in 2016. Rothstein conducted a series of "secret lectures" at a Portland bookstore where local
recruits learned how to "heckle" opponents and make them "look ridiculous, make them feel
outnumbered," and convinced that the "Trump thing is gonna go by the wayside." [32]
Armed with political clout of this magnitude, Antifa can easily overwhelm local police
forces, which is what happened in Portland in 2016. The result is that "city government and
police lack the political will to protect citizens." What happened in Seattle in 2020 with the
creation of the "Capital Hill Autonomous Zone" was only the logical conclusion to what began in
Portland in 2016 and spread all over the Pacific Northwest, "where Antifa is especially
active." In its attempt to destabilize and destroy the nation state and its sovereign borders,
Antifa drew support from "mainstream progressive politicians, such as Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who normalize hatred of border enforcement and sovereignty as such." [33]
Antifa has continued to be successful in disrupting local government and thwarting police
attempts to bring them under control because it is a Jewish organization which can always count
on favorable press from the Jewish-controlled mainstream media, which renders the connection
invisible. The same cannot be said for the Jewish press, which cites Antifa's Jewishness with
thinly-disguised ethnic pride.
When Donald Trump referred to Antifa as a terrorist organization, the Israeli newspaper
Ha'aretz came to their defense, "Trump's Attacks on Antifa Are Attacks on Jews."
[34]
According to an article which appeared in the Forward , Antifa activism "is an
affirmation of Jewish identity, both religious and secular" [35] which
stretches all the way back to 1897 with the founding of Bundism, which "sought to organize the
working-class Jews of Russia, Poland, and Lithuania." [36] After
members of a specifically Jewish Antifa group defaced a plaque in New York City honoring the
president of Vichy France Philippe Petain, they left a note which defended the rationale behind
their act of vandalism:
With Monday's actions, Jewish antifascists and allied forces have served notice that fascist
apologism will not be tolerated in our city in 2019; that anti-Semitic ideology and violence
will be confronted with Jewish solidarity and strength; and that the Holocaust will be
remembered not only with sadness and grief but also with righteous anger and action: 'We will
never forget. We will never forgive.' [37]
In the final analysis, Antifa is a Jewish organization in the same way that Bolshevism and
Neoconservatism were Jewish political movements. Not every member of Antifa is a Jew, but Jews
invariably find their ways into leadership roles in places like Portland, Washington, DC, and
even in China, as was the case during the Cultural Revolution of 1966, because they have an
advantage over non-Jews in embodying the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit which is the hidden
grammar of all revolutionary movements.
Interesting article, not the least surprising the Usual Suspects are playing both sides.
Like WW2?
One picky point is the Yanez shooting, the victim did have a gun, he had a permit for it.
He didn't show his hands and died with his hand near the gun. This was the one his GF put out
on Facebook Live to it incited two police massacres right away, the one everybody knows about
in Dallas (where they killed the shooter with a robot bomb) an another in Louisiana.
I'm a witness the SF Bay Area as a model of the racial obsession/gender bending schemes.
What a mess the place is–the signature of the Left-wing establishment that runs the
place is how the education system fails to fulfill the simple market demands for labor in
their own locale, at the high end Silicon Valley runs on Indian/Pakistani B-1s and at the
other the booming (until now) construction business runs on mostly imported Hispanics.
They spend more per pupil than the rest of the world and the whole system runs on
immigration.
I couldn't finish this article after reading this garbage:
"Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in his system"
It was announced two weeks ago that he had a lethal dose. His toxicology report was
finally made public and shows that he had a lethal dose of the dangerous pain killer fentanyl
in his system. This caused his lungs to fill with fluid, which explains why he told arriving
cops "I Can't Breath" and did not cooperate as he was delusional and dying. The cops wrestled
him to the ground and cuffed him as he died from a fentanyl overdose. Floyd would have died
right there even if the cops had not shown up.
This is why coroners wait for toxicology results before declaring the cause of death, but
in this case he bowed to political pressure and announced his death was caused by the knee to
the neck. This news is so big that our corporate media, which has promoted the riots, refuses
to air the truth. Details can be read here.
https://spectator.org/minnesota-v-derek-chauvin-et-al-the-prosecutions-dirty-little-secret/
In fair and normal world, the accused cops would be immediately freed and rehired with a
bad mark for Chauvin using an improper neck hold. Let's see what happens, but I don't expect
justice.
Floyd said "i can't breathe" several times BEFORE he was put on the ground. The cops did
nothing wrong and were trying to help him. It's all another monstrous media lie like the
mueller report and jussie smollett and rayshard brooks and the covington kids and bubba
wallace and the KY gun range video.
The American Deep State can destroy anti-fa if it wanted. Hunting down all the leaders of
this terrorist organization is not that hard. But of course the American Deep State will not
do so because anti-fa is a branch of the deep state, just like how Hollywood and the media
are (& have been for a long time) arms of the American (Globalist) deep state.
This is one of Jones' many indispensable articles. The opening alone is required reading
of anyone slightly bothered by what is going on. Dionysius sparks sexual revolution, and it
leads to debauched riot and murder and then to either social collapse or else brutal
tyranny.
The American Left and the Neocons both demand tyranny, as brutal as possible. They serve
anti-Christ.
It is either Christ and Christendom or the chaos of anti-Christ.
If Jones would realize that the Novus Ordo Mass and Vatican II are at best impotent before
Dionysius and return to Tradition, he could serve much better.
It cannot be repeated too much: we live in the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0. The first phase
of Anglo-Zionist Empire was the British Empire. The Brit WASP Empire spread philoSemitism
across the globe: cultural Zionism that was the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism,
which was a Judaizing heresy that was the final and most defining part of Modern English, and
Anglophone Protestant, culture.
The reality is that we are in the eyes of the Anglo-Zionist Empire's elites what Irish
Catholic were to archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell and what Palestinians are to Israelis. They
wish us exterminated or made serfs forever, and the base reason predates Freud, Darwin, Marx
and the French Revolution. It is Judaizing heresy birthing monsters to war against historic
Christianity and peoples who have any legacy in the building and maintenance of Christendom
and therefore do not serve Zionism.
WASP culture serves Zionism and always will.
When Kevin McDonald realizes all of that and the necessary inferences, his work will
become worth the effort.
There's a sure way to curb the influence that certain (((individuals))) have on American
culture and politics; it's called the "wealth tax." It's a tax on the assets of the rich and
also on foundations set up to circumvent the inheritance tax. Both Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren proposed a wealth tax but it is not included in Biden's platform. Instead,
he's proposed raising the maximum income tax rate to 39.6%. There are lots of loopholes that
individuals can utilize to reduce their income tax obligations. It won't stop their meddling
in social and political affairs. Only a very stiff wealth tax (at least 10% per year) will
curb their meddling.
While I agree with the statement, I can, with a degree of certainty, say nothing was
intercepted, and this is all face saving. As this article elucidates, no such iron dome,
exists, or cannot be overcome.
All empire's bases remain exposed in the region. This is why the empire is high tailing it out
of SW Asia. Zarif said so, himself.
Dr Rubin, the founder and first director of the Israel Missile Defence Organization, which
developed the state's first national missile defence shield, wrote in the wake of the 14
September attack on Abqaiq, (the Saudi Armco oil facility) that it was: "A brilliant feat of
arms. It was precise, carefully-calibrated, devastating yet bloodless -- a model of a
surgical operation the incoming threats [were not] detected by the U.S. air control systems
deployed in the area, nor by U.S. satellites
This had nothing to do with flaws in the air and missile defence systems; but with the
fact that they were not designed to deal with ground-hugging threats. Simply put, the
Iranians outfoxed the defense systems".
Katyusha rockets are normally fired in salvos of dozens. Two of them being launched against
the American fortress in Baghdad is just gentle prodding.
Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever
was used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi
militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford
to try to shoot them down.
Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever was
used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi
militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford
to try to shoot them down.
...As I have written, Antifa is more of a movement than a specific organization. However, it
has long been the
"Keyser Söze" of the anti-free speech movement , a loosely aligned group that employs
measures to avoid easy detection or association.
Wray stated "And we have quite a number - and I've said this quite consistently since my
first time appearing before this committee - we have any number of properly predicated
investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those
individuals self-identify with Antifa. "
Wray was adamant: "Antifa is a real thing. It's not a fiction" and, while it is not a
conventional organization as opposed to a movement, they have arrested people who admit that
they are Antifa.
... ... ..
George Washington University student Jason Charter has been charged as the alleged
"ringleader" of efforts to take down statues across the capital. Charter has been an active
Antifa member on campus for years.
The State Department can designate foreign organizations as terrorist organizations, but there is no law governing domestic
organizations. At the moment, it is unclear what President Trump's tweet refers to in concrete legal steps. The Patriot Act
defines domestic terrorism, but there are no federal crimes tied to domestic terror.
Trump said in July of 2019 that he was considering declaring Antifa an "Organization of Terror."
Antifa is known for its black-bloc protest tactics, where protestors wear all black and cover up their face so that they can't be
identified by police or right-wing opponents.
Antifa's name comes from the pre-World War 2 German group Antifaschistische Aktion, which resisted the Nazi German state, and
birthed the design of Antifa's now infamous flag.
Noted black clergyman and left-wing activist Cornel West told Democracy Now that Antifa protected him and other clergy from the
worst of the white nationalist violence.
"We would have been crushed like cockroaches were it not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists," he told Democracy Now. "You
had police holding back and just allowing fellow citizens to go at each other."
Trump, in his response to the Charlottesville protest, said that he blamed Antifa and the "alt-left" for violence as well.
AG Barr: "To identify criminal organizers and instigators, and to coordinate federal resources with our state and local partners,
federal law enforcement is using our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). "
It is unclear what other avenues the federal government may use to pursue enforcement actions against Antifa, but the FBI Agents
Association has been lobbying for the creation of a domestic terrorism law.
"... The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR. During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and grandson went on to become US Presidents. ..."
The CIA was founded by the same fascists who tried to enlist Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR.
During the post-war period, they smuggled their ideological brethren out of Germany with
operation Paperclip. Their founding fathers included Prescott Bush, a Nazi, whose son and
grandson went on to become US Presidents.
They have never stopped hating Russia, nor have
they ever stopped lying to the American Public.
Karlof 1 @ 32 attacks vk @4-- Your attempt to credit Karl Popper with the concept of public
opinion is just as false as the stories b wrote about. Click here for a history of that
concept. by: karlof1 | Sep 15 2020 17:04 utc | 32
What I like about what vk@ 4 said is that he has given this list a beginning to not only
understand our plight as members of the governed classes, but also to analyze our experience
with this stuff and to develop a set of rules that can allow us to defend our minds against
being controlled by invisible hands of mind control.
can we on this list develop a defensive strategy and use it to teach the governed
masses?
Around the globe and throughout history it can be observed that the oligarchs invent a
collection of values and stuff them into structures they call nation states, culture,
institutions and journalist are all designed to, and rewarded for supporting the values,
while media is charged to keep the propaganda circulating.
The H&C propaganda model pulls together from across the political communications
literature the variety of factors which essentially constrain journalist and means that they
don't actually play the independent autonomous and watchdog role that we expect them to in a
democracy ae Herman Chromsky talk about the importance oe size concentration ownership oe
mainstream media the way in w/e ownership of most oe media outlets w/people go to for their
information is essentially associated w/very large conglomerates w/h overlapping interests
and overlapping interests with government and this produces a large structural constraint oe
way the media operates.
The Interface between Propaganda and War: Prof.
The Propaganda Model: The filters (Herman & Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, the political
economy of the mass media).
The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries
across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of
distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive
from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the
shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war.
But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no
rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they
made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent
seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European
colonialism. The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced
by Hollywood.
These are slaves: human beings bought and sold for their labor. Some are bound for
construction sites while others for the fields. All face the certainty of forced servitude, a
waking nightmare that has become their daily reality.
This is Libya, the real Libya. The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the
US-NATO war that deposed Muammar Gaddafi and the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The
Libya now fractured into warring factions, each backed by a variety of international actors
whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian.
But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls. No,
it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice,
Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this
devastation. With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination, the First Black
President, along with his NATO comrades in France and Britain, unleashed the dogs of war on an
African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development.
But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes
carried out in the name of the American people. No, this is us, the antiwar left in the United
States, peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from
internal rot and political decay – to shine a light through the gloom named Trump and
directly into the heart of darkness.
There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the
desert sand.
To understand the depth of criminality involved in the US-NATO war on Libya, we must unravel
a complex story involving actors from both the US and Europe who quite literally conspired to
bring about this war, while simultaneously exposing the unconstitutional, imperial presidency
as embodied by Mr. Hope and Change himself.
In doing so, a picture emerges that is strikingly at odds with the dominant narrative about
good intentions and bad dictators. For although Gaddafi was presented as the villain par
excellence in this story told by the Empire's scribes in corporate media, it is in fact Barack
Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy, French
philosopher-cum-neocolonial adventurist Bernard Henri-Levy, and former UK Prime Minister David
Cameron, who are the real malevolent forces. It was they, not Gaddafi, who waged a blatantly
illegal war on false pretenses and for their own aggrandizement. It was they, not Gaddafi, who
conspired to plunge Libya into chaos and civil war from which it is yet to emerge. It was they
who beat the war drums while proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men.
The US-NATO war on Libya represents perhaps one of the most egregious examples of US
military aggression and lawlessness in recent memory. Of course, the US didn't act alone as a
wide cast of characters played a role as the French and British were keen to involve themselves
in the reassertion of control over a once lucrative African asset torn from European control by
the evil Gaddafi. And this, only a few years after former UK Prime Minister and Iraq war
criminal Tony Blair met with Gaddafi to usher in
a new era of openness and partnership.
The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist, and
amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. Having failed to
arrive in Egypt in time to buttress his ego by capitalizing on the uprising against former
dictator Hosni Mubarak, he quickly shifted his attention to Libya, where an uprising in the
anti-Gaddafi hotbed of Benghazi was underway. As Le Figaro
chronicled , Henri-Levy managed to talk his way into a meeting with then head of the
National Transition Council (TNC) Mustapha Abdeljalil, a former Gaddafi official who became
head of the anti-Gaddafi TNC. But Henri-Levy wasn't there just for an interview to be published
in his French paper, he was there to help overthrow Gaddafi and, in so doing, make himself into
an international star.
Henri-Levy quickly pressed his contacts and got on the phone with French President Nicholas
Sarkozy to ask him, rather bluntly, if he'd agree to meet with Abdeljalil and the leadership of
the TNC. Just a few days later, Henri-Levy and his colleagues arrived at the
Élysée Palace with TNC leadership at their side. To the utter shock of the
Libyans present, Sarkozy tells them that he plans to recognize the TNC as the legitimate
government of Libya. Henri-Levy and Sarkozy have now, at least in theory, deposed the Gaddafi
government.
But the little problem of Gaddafi's military victories and the very real possibility that he
might emerge victorious from the conflict complicated matters as the French public had become
aware of the scheme and was rightly lambasting Sarkozy. Henri-Levy, ever the opportunist,
stoked the patriotic fervor by announcing that without French intervention, the tricolor flag
flying over five-star hotels in Benghazi would be stained with blood. The PR campaign worked as
Sarkozy quickly came around to the idea of military intervention.
However, Henri-Levy had a still more critical role to play: bringing the US military
juggernaut into the plot. Henri-Levy organized the first of what would be several high-level
talks between US officials from the Obama Administration and the Libyans of the TNC. Most
importantly, Henri-Levy set up the meeting between Abdeljalil and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. While Clinton was skeptical at the time of the meeting, it would be a matter of months
before she and Joe Biden, along with the likes of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and others would
be planning the political, diplomatic, and military route to regime change in Libya.
The
Americans Enter the Fray
There would have been no war in Libya were it not for the US political, diplomatic, and
military machine. In this sense, despite the relatively meager US military involvement, the war
in Libya was an American war. That is to say, it was a war that could not have happened were it
not for the active collaboration of the Obama Administration with its French and British
counterparts.
As Jo Becker of the NY Times explained
in 2016, Hillary Clinton met with Mahmoud Jibril, a prominent Libyan politician who would go on
to become the new Prime Minister of post-Gaddafi Libya, and his associates, in order to assess
the faction now garnering US support . Clinton's job, according to Becker, was "to take measure
of the rebels we supported" – a fancy way of saying that Clinton attended the meeting to
determine whether this group of politicians speaking on behalf of a diverse group of
anti-Gaddafi voices (ranging from pro-democracy activists to outright terrorists affiliated
with global terror networks) should be supported with US money and covert arms.
The answer, ultimately, was a resounding yes.
But of course, as with all America's warmongering misadventures, there was no consensus on
military intervention. As Becker reported, some in the Obama Administration were skeptical of
the easy victory and post-conflict political calculus. One prominent voice of dissent, at least
according to Becker, was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Himself no dove, Gates was
concerned that Clinton and Biden's hawkish attitude toward Libya would ultimately lead to an
Iraq-style political nightmare that would undoubtedly end with the US having created and then
abandoned a failed state – exactly what happened.
It is important to note that Clinton and Biden were two of the principal voices for
aggression and war. Both were supportive of the No-Fly Zone from early on, and both advocated
for military intervention. Indeed, the two have been simpatico in nearly every war crime
committed by the US in the last 30 years, including perhaps most egregiously in support of
Bush's crime against humanity that we call the second Iraq War.
As former Clinton lackey (Deputy Director of Secretary of State Clinton's Policy Planning
staff) Derek Chollet explained, "[Libya] seemed like an easy case." Chollet, a principal
participant in the American conspiracy to make war on Libya who later went on to serve directly
under Obama and at the National Security Council, inadvertently illustrates in stark relief the
imperial arrogance of the Obama-Clinton-Biden liberal interventionist camp. In calling Libya an
"easy case" he of course means that Libya was a perfect candidate for a regime change operation
whose primary benefit would be to boost politically those who supported it.
Chollet, like many strategic planners at the time, saw Libya as a slam dunk opportunity to
turn the demonstrations and uprisings of 2010-2011, which quickly became known as the Arab
Spring, into political capital from the Democratic camp of the US ruling class. This rapidly
became Clinton's position. And soon, the consensus of the entire Obama
Administration.
Obama's War Off the Books
One of the more pernicious myths of the US war on Libya was the notion – propagated
dutifully by the defense lobbyists-cum-journalists at major corporate media outlets –
that the war was a cheap little war that cost the US almost nothing. There were no American
lives lost in the war itself (Benghazi is another mythology to be unraveled later), and very
little cost in terms of "treasure", to use that despicable imperialist phrase.
But while the total cost of the war paled in comparison to the monumental-scale crimes in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the means by which it was funded has cost the US far more than dollars;
the war on Libya was a criminal and unconstitutional endeavor that has further laid the
groundwork for the imperial presidency and unconstrained executive power. As the Washington
Post
reported at the time:
Noting that Obama had said the mission could be paid for with money already appropriated to
the Pentagon, [former House Speaker] Boehner pressed the president on whether supplemental
funding would be requested from Congress.
Unforeseen military operations that require expenditures such as those being made for the
Libyan effort normally require supplemental appropriations since they are outside the core
Pentagon budget. That is why funds for Afghanistan and Iraq are separate from the regular
Defense Department budget. The added costs for some of the operations in Libya are minimal But
the expenditures for weapons, fuel and lost equipment are something else.
Because the Obama Administration did not seek congressional appropriations to fund the war,
there is very little in the way of paper trail to do a proper accounting of the costs of the
war. As the cost of each bomb, fighter jet, and logistical support vehicle disappeared into the
abyss of Pentagon accounting oblivion, so too did any semblance of constitutional legality. In
essence, Obama helped establish a lawless presidency that not only has little respect for
constitutionally mandated checks and balances, but completely ignores the rule of law. Indeed,
some of the crimes that Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr are guilty of have their direct
corollary in the Obama Administration's prosecution of the Libya war.
So where did the money come from and where did it go? It's anybody's guess really, unless
you're one of those rubes who likes taking the Pentagon's word for it. As a Pentagon
spokesperson told CNN in 2011,
"The price tag for U.S. Defense Department operations in Libya as of September 30 [was] $1.1
billion. This included daily military operations, munitions, the drawdown of supplies and
humanitarian assistance." However, to illustrate the downright Orwellian impossibility of
discerning the truth, Vice President Joe Biden doubled that number when speaking on CNN,
suggesting that "NATO alliance worked like it was designed to do, burden-sharing. In total, it
cost us $2 billion, no American lives lost."
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to take
the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no clear
documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the idea that
there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a functioning
Constitution.
America's Dirty War in Libya
While the enduring memory of Libya for most Americans is the political theater that resulted
from the attack on the US facility in Benghazi that killed several Americans, including US
Ambassador Stevens, it is not nearly the most consequential. Rather, America's use of terrorist
groups (and the insurgents who emerged from them) as military proxies may perhaps be the real
legacy from a strategic perspective. For while the corporate media presented the narrative of
spontaneous protests and uprisings to overthrow Gaddafi, it was in fact a loose network of
terror groups that did the dirty work.
While much of this recent history has been buried by bad reporting, establishment
mythmaking, and conspiracist muddying of the truth, it was surprisingly well reported at the
time. For example, as the New York Times wrote of one of the
primary US-backed forces on the ground during the war in 2011:
"The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel
Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group's members
were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces Officially the
fighting group does not exist any longer, but the former members are fighting largely under
the leadership of Abu Abdullah Sadik [aka Abdelhakim Belhadj]."
Even at the time, there was considerable unease among Washington's strategic planners that
the Obama Adminstration's embrace of a terror group with known links to al-Qaeda could prove to
be a major blunder. "American, European and Arab intelligence services acknowledge that they
are worried about the influence that the former group's members might exert over Libya after
Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and they are trying to assess their influence and any lingering links
to Al Qaeda," the Times noted.
Of course, those in the know at the various US intelligence agencies already had a pretty
good sense of who they were backing, or at least the elements likely to be involved in any US
operation. Specifically, the US knew that the areas from which it was drawing anti-Gaddafi
opposition forces was a hotbed of criminal and terrorist activity.
"Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone.
Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the
Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to
Iraq may be linked with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) increasingly cooperative
relationship with al-Qa'ida which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qa'ida on
November 3, 2007 The most common cities that the fighters called home were Darnah [Derna],
Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 52 and 51 fighters respectively. Darnah [Derna] with a
population just over 80,000 compared to Riyadh's 4.3 million, has far and away the largest
per capita number of fighters in the Sinjar records."
It was known at the time that the majority of the anti-Gaddafi forces hailed from the region
including Derna, Benghazi, and Tobruk – the "Eastern Libya" so often referred to as
anti-Gaddafi – and that the likelihood that al-Qaeda and other terror groups were among
the ranks of the US recruits was very high. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Take the case of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, charged by the US with guarding the CIA
facility in Benghazi at which Ambassador Stevens was murdered. As the Los Angeles Times
reported in 2012:
"Over the last year, while assigned by their militia to help protect the U.S. mission in
Benghazi, the pair had been drilled by American security personnel in using their weapons,
securing entrances, climbing walls and waging hand-to-hand combat The militiamen flatly deny
supporting the assailants but acknowledge that their large, government-allied force, known as
the Feb. 17 Martyrs Brigade, could include anti-American elements The Feb. 17 brigade is
regarded as one of the more capable militias in eastern Libya."
But it wasn't just LIFG and al-Qaeda affiliated criminal groups entering the fray thanks to
Washington rolling out the blood-stained red carpet.
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A longtime asset of the US, General Khalifa Hifter and his so-called Libyan National Army
have been on the ground in Libya since 2011, and have emerged as one of the primary forces
vying for power in post-war Libya. Hifter has a long and sordid history working for the CIA in
its attempts to overthrow Gaddafi in the 1980s before being resettled conveniently near
Langley, Virginia. As the
New York Times reported in 1991:
The secret paramilitary operation, set in motion in the final months of the Reagan
Administration, provided military aid and training to about 600 Libyan soldiers who were
among those captured during border fighting between Libya and Chad in 1988 They were trained
by American intelligence officials in sabotage and other guerrilla skills, officials said, at
a base near Ndjamena, the Chadian capital. The plan to use the exiles fit neatly into the
Reagan Administration's eagerness to topple Colonel Qaddafi.
Hifter, leader of these failed efforts, became known as the CIA's "Libya point man,"
having taken part in numerous regime change efforts, including the aborted attempt to
overthrow Gaddafi in 1996. So, his arrival in 2011 at the height of the uprising signaled an
escalation of the conflict from an armed uprising to an international operation. Whether
Hifter was directly working with US intelligence or simply complimenting US efforts by
continuing his decades-long personal war against Gaddafi is somewhat irrelevant. What matters
is that Hifter and the Libyan National Army, like LIFG and other groups, became part of the
broader destabilization effort which successfully toppled Gaddafi and created the chaotic
hellscape that is modern Libya.
Such is the legacy of the US dirty war on Libya.
The Past is Prologue
It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist
criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects chaos
and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is the virus,
then surely Biden is the cure.
It is September 2020. Libya prepares to enter its eighth year of civil war. Slave markets
like the one in Bani Walid are as common as youth literacy centers were in Gaddafi's Libya.
Armed gangs and militias wield power even in areas nominally under government control. A
warlord regroups in the East as he looks to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab
Emirates for support.
It is September 2020 and the US-NATO war on Libya has faded to a distant memory as other
issues like Black Lives Matter and police murder of Black youth have captured the public
imagination and discourse.
But these issues are, in fact, united by the bond of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The
Libya once known as the "Jewel of Africa," a country that provided refuge for many sub-Saharan
African migrant workers while maintaining independence from the US and the former colonial
powers of Europe, is no more. In its place is a failed state that now reflects the kind of
vicious anti-Black racism forcefully suppressed by the Gaddafi government.
Libya as the global exemplar of the exploitation and disposability of the black body.
Squint a little and you can see President Joe Biden getting the old band back together.
Hillary Clinton welcomed into the Oval Office as an influential voice, someone to give words to
the demented thoughts of the living corpse serving as Commander-in-Chief. Derek Chollet and Ben
Rhodes laughing together as they buy another round at their favorite DC hangout, toasting to
the re-establishment of order in Washington. Barack Obama as the éminence grise behind
the political resurgence of the liberal-conservative dominant structure.
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
AVmaster , 13 hours ago
Number of wars the boy king and his minions started: 6, that we know of: Ukraine, Syria,
Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
(Not withstanding the proxy wars during the "muslim spring" like in egypt)
Number of wars Trump has started: 0
This is NOT including the ongoing wars that trump inherited but has dialed back
somewhat, like reduced troop presence in iraq/afghan.
fucking truth , 12 hours ago
Trump hasn't started any but he still feeds the beast, hopefully his next four will see
a correction to this behaviour,one can only hope.
ay_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Has no choice.
The economic reality is the MIC is a big part of the US domestic economy.
Shut that down and you would go into a full blown depression.
If you build bullets, missile, bombs, F35's etc. they have to be used or you have to
start scrapping them.
The issue though is not the MIC as such but the lack of any moral integrity and
disregard for human life by those mentioned in the article. Once the country was put into
this position by them it is much more difficult to extract.
Now I think those in the article should be prosecuted for not going to Congress to
declare a war and fund it correctly as this is supposed to be the check and balance of a
rogue president.
play_arrow
Bollixed , 2 hours ago
Regarding the MIC, many of those companies consist of manufacturing entities comprised
of engineers, factory infrastructure and logistics infrastructure funded by government
spending that could realistically be 'retooled' to produce things that could benefit
society instead of piss money away on the tools of destruction. America is in need of a
massive infrastructure overhaul from our electric grid to our transportation modes to name
just two. Nothing is preventing those MIC giants from refocusing their efforts toward a
better America versus the current focus they are paid to undertake. It's a matter of
priorities and right now I find their priorities misplaced and vulgar.
The money is available at their current funding rates, the manpower and brain power is
there, what is lacking is the will to turn the ship around and start putting humans before
profits. There is no need to go into a full blown depression as with the shut down of that
capacity if those entities are given a mandate to redirect their output for the good of
society and create things of lasting value. In other words, take the retooling mindset that
turned refrigerator factories into weapons factories like they did in WW2 and take the
weapons factories and turn them into entities for the betterment of society. And then wean
them off of the government teat.
DeepStateThrombosis , 3 hours ago
Unused funds from the Pentagon can be redirected to the Wall and other Defense
protections not known to the public at this time.
ay_arrow
DaiRR , 1 hour ago
DemoRats and NeoCons will try every way possible to keep the wars going.
The USA is incredibly blessed to have Donald J. Trump in the White House.
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1
muggeridge , 11 hours ago
To think Americans demonstrated in the millions to stop the Vietnam war exposed as a
fraud by Daniel Ellsberg in the PENTAGON PAPERS. Obama did admit that the removal of
Ghadaffy was his biggest foreign policy mistake. Clinton also in trouble over Tunisia while
Secretary of State with US ambassador killed in 2012. She took responsibility but was found
not to have acted improperly by US Congress. However her part in this tragedy remains an
open question. Today the only Middle Eastern country still standing IRAN supported by
China. Syria supported by Russia. Cold Wars never go away?
play_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Cold war is an inevitable consequence of a MIC that must continually produce and expend
munitions to keep its part of the economy going.
2 play_arrow
scaleindependent , 10 hours ago
Final Jeopardy, genius!
What is Syria and Iran?
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war.
lay_arrow
muggeridge , 10 hours ago
Regime Change as our modus operandi to serve the cause of military superiority as if
pre-set by computer.
How everything became war and the military became everything by Rosa Brooks Tales of the
Pentagon.
Something funny happened on the way to the forum; Broadway musical. Hail
Caesar?
play_arrow
CheapBastard , 7 hours ago
Hey, military contractors have to put food on the table also, even if it means murdering
millions of innocent people in Yugoslavia (like Clinton did) or in the middle east (like
Bush and Obama did).
play_arrow
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Yep some people don't get it.
With all the military contractors now moved into peaceful protests maybe we actually
need more war to keep them gainfully employed.
Get the picture?
2 play_arrow
SoilMyselfRotten , 3 hours ago
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war
Don't forget also blockading Venezuela
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
No Libya story is complete without mentioning David Shayler- the MI6 agent turned
whistleblower who was tasked with blowing up Gaddafi in his car - but refused to do so when
he was accompanied by his wife and children. (under the Tony Blair govt). -yep.
Shayler later went into a bizarre series of personas -which is understood by many as self
preservation tactic - (testimony of mentally unstable is not recognised in court - so no
threat).
Then there's the covert ratlines of gathering the ex-Libyan army weapons & shipping
them to ISIS Syria via Turkey and White Helmets (see James Corbett) organised by HRC via
Benghazi -so no rescue for US Ambassador & team (RIP) HRC prefer'd keep op covert.
Carrier 50 miles off coast -HRC killed US Diplomats & support team. -Biden knew.
Also check out the courageous Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who runs armswatch .com and some SM
in her name. for laypersons overview of extent of games-within-games &
wheels-within-wheels in arms trade/ chem weapons "research". She's currently researching
the Beirut bombings - which will be another revelation when it hits.
sauldaddy , 11 hours ago
That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought slavery BACK to
Africa .....Q- That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought
slavery BACK to Africa
_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 13 hours ago
Qaddafi kept African migrants out of the Mediterranean and away from Europe's
shores.
Sarkozy couldn't allow that knowing what was in store for Europe.
He predicted what would happen to Europe were he to be deposed. He was right. Macron's (and
Merkel's) policies are proof.
That and the gold dinar was his undoing.
.
P.S. Don't tell the leftists, but Libya was the only case of a successful socialist state.
On second thought, it might be funny to see them publicly defending Qaddafi.
Ms No , 13 hours ago
That may work for a while when you pull black gold out of the ground, for a while. Oil
declines and free **** armies breed faster. Then you are Saudi Arabia and we are about to
see how that ends up.
play_arrow
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
Libyan youth unemployment was over 30% because these spoiled kids with their families
getting oil checks in the mail every month refused to do menial jobs. Qaddafi kept the
black Africans out of the boats by letting them do the work the kids and other Libyans
thought was beneath them. A lot of the money the Africans made they sent home which was
spent in the local economies which increased jobs there. Libya also invested heavily in
Africa which created lots of jobs. These actions kept the number of Africans headed to
Europe a trickle. Once Qaddafi was gone so were all the jobs in Libya and the money that
flowed into Africa dried up and jobs were lost. A lot of businesses the Libyans created in
Africa were confiscated by the local governments and no doubt given to cronies who ran them
into the ground.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
Gaddafi thought wrongly that job description would save him. Also suggested trading oil
for €uro's over dollar$, which blew the lid on powder keg. In the end they say it was
the oil, though my thinking was DC think tanks didn't want a monied "Mexico" on south coast
of Euroland - could make Europe too financially powerful & too difficult to
control.
play_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 6 hours ago
I had heard about selling oil for Euros in relation to Saddam, but not to Qaddafi.
Qaddafi was about the gold Dinar.
??
No1uNo , 6 hours ago
Yep, it's what can happen if I'm not careful when I post and try to watch a documentary
at the same time.
Thanks for your vigilance.
Find the Libyan gold that dissapeard.... and one likely finds the source of the
overthrow....
quanttech , 13 hours ago
try the french treasury...
Bill300 , 12 hours ago
Look no further than Hillary's brother. General Gage, a former Special Forces Colonel,
had been hired by Hillary, et al, to assemble a merc army to secure Qaddafi's gold amidst
the fog of war and transport it to Haiti to be laundered thru Hugh Rodham's little gold
mine. Does anyone really think Obama sold enough books to buy a $12M seaside mansion in
Massachusetts and the Washington DC home?
These people are so evil.
Justapleb , 12 hours ago
That's certainly titillating. Do you have a source that puts these things together?
I tried some Google searches, but I already know those searches are censored so it is
not an easy thing to find
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to know whats in the soil
DaCrustyDad , 13 hours ago
Imagine if some country invaded us and slaughtered about 23.5 million (apples for apples
based on the 500k civilians killed out of 7,000,000)? Obama and the Clinton's should be
playing basketball at Pelican Bay the rest of their lives at best.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
It's mind boggling.
Trump dropped 7400 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019. That would be like 60,000 bombs
dropping on the US one year.
Arch_Stanton , 9 hours ago
Libya was a modern, secular Arab state. A model for the rest of Islam. Who the f@@k
decided it was appropriate to reduce Libya to a 19th century sh1thole?
Shifter_X , 9 hours ago
Hillary ******* Clinton
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
on instruction from the cabalist banksters who never permit a rival currency system.
Qaddafi's gold-backed dinar throughout Nth Africa would have exposed and displace their
petrodollar scam in which they infinitely print their cronies untold trillion$.
end the fed, and all central banks.
Best Satan in Town , 6 hours ago
That's the story in a nutsh-ell
desertboy , 10 hours ago
The petrodollar centrality gets monotonously overplayed. For anyone who cares to look,
the geopolitics of the West/NATO are the geopolitics of all its central bank owners as an
interlinked group, who are keeping all their options open.
Destroying Libya went beyond the petrodollar to the fight for influence in Africa's
future, where France's history in Africa has made it the designated hitter. Note the new
CFR-type buzz on a "resurgent France" due to this role.
No1uNo , 8 hours ago
I maintained elsewhere on this thread, was advice of DC think tanks he was taken out.
Because a well funded, well educated, low cost, labor factory resource state on south coast
of eurozone makes europe too competitive to DC tank's interests. (and open Africa's growing
economy to cheap - outside eurozone - euro profiting business interests).
Gaddafi was never a threat to Europe, but europe buying his oil and building his
economy......different story.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
B-I-N-G-O !
get your case of beer for that one!
not dead yet , 11 hours ago
Qaddafi would have not met with death if he only wanted to sell oil in the Gold Dinar.
Instead he wanted the Gold Dinar as the currency for all of Africa. The system was being
set up along with 4 central banks to manage African economic and monetary affairs when
Libya was attacked. Libya also invested heavily in Africa creating lots of jobs and
enhancing communications. Unlike the IMF and World Bank with their draconian edicts
attached to their loans, like no loans for fossil fueled power plants and other eco
garbage, almost guaranteeing default the Libyan Development Fund attached no such garbage
to their loans making success possible. Europe was charging Africa $500 million a year for
use of their satellites. Qaddafi ponied up $300 million of the $400 million needed to put
up Africa's first satellite screwing Europe out of $500 million a year. Qaddafi was also
the driving force for Africa for Africans and which kept US African command and it's troops
out of Africa. Now the US has troops all over Africa. Qaddafi really was bad. Bad for
Western exploitation of Africa.
At the time of Qaddafi's demise the Libyan Development Fund had $32 billion in banks
around the world. Western governments and media tried to claim it was money stolen by
Qaddafi. Last I knew the Libyan's, the rightful owners of that money, haven't seen a
penny.
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
great info.
got a good concise source?
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you have to dig deep to get little nuggets of truth about Libya since so many sides want
to tarnish and twist to push their agenda and greed on its riches
SmokeyBlonde , 12 hours ago
America, as a country, deserves whatever happens just for electing and re-electing
Obama.
Far too many grifters, Bolsheviks, pedocrats, and sub-moron IQ feral ghetto rats
oh-so-pleased with themselves for being so enlightened and bringing chaos to the whole F'n
world.
ReflectoMatic , 11 hours ago
The Democrats are working with the globalist at the United Nations & World Economic
Forum. The program being run is the destruction of the United States and elimination of
humans, per instructions from "The Cult of Rasur", which is located in the jungle at Mount
Rasur in Costa Rica but now renamed as the United Nations University For Peace. The
university teaches occult and meditation and only graduates 20 students per year, those
students then take positions of influence within the UN. The cult was founded by Maurice
Strong & Dr Muller, Strong also created the Agenda 21 & World Economic Forum, plus
in 1982, the more exclusive secret group of 300 called just "World Forum" which met in Vail
Colorado near his hippie commune at the Baca Grande in the San Luis Valley.
The GAIA Theory which was converted into GAIA Religion at the Maurice Strong Hippie
Commune in Colorado. David Perkins was there, apparently one of the first hippies to arrive
at the commune around 1978. In this podcast we get a rare look into the mindset of the
globalist and the creation of Agenda 21.
It's not clear if David Perkins & his partner, Chris O'Brian, are aware of Maurice
Strong & Klaus Schwab conducting the special and secret World Forum of 300 at Vail in
1982. At that 1982 event the concepts David Perkins describes, combined with concepts
gotten by paranormal activities at Mount Rasur in Costa Rica, were passed down to the 300
and thus began the creation that has brought the world to a standstill.
Chris O'Brian has an interesting podcast also, describing the Maurice Strong hippie
commune, in this he describes meeting Lawrence Rockefeller at the commune.
And finally, who the heck is this guy, the one in the middle? MJ-12 captured this photo
of him in Hollywood in 1972, he was then usually seen in company of Curtis LeMay, grandson
of the General who founded JPL NASA MJ-12, then in 1982 he was at that World Forum in Vail
and in charge of covertly poisoning them all with LSD. He was born in Berkley or Alameda in
1951 while his mother was at theater watching "Day The Earth Stood Still". Seems there is a
message which needs to be understood.
David Champaign, night manager at the Christie Lodge in Avon Colorado, can give further
description and verification that the ultra-secret World Forum did occur.
If you listened to that podcast, there was mention of the "group of psychics" at the
Baca hippie commune. The guy in the photo, the link just above, the photo was taken in the
presence of Allen J Funk MJ-12, Funk's only friend took the photo, Bob Custer. Bob shared
hotel rooms with the Stones & Monkeys while on concert tour as official photographer.
The guy in the photo and Bob were taken one night, in Allen's white Cadillac convertible,
to a house in the hills east of JPL Pasadena. There he met Bob's ex, Val, and Val's work
associates, the work Val and associates did was some secret psychic project in Central
America and perhaps in Colorado, usually Val just came over to Bob's house to visit when
Val was not off at those remote locations. Secret about it they were.
Shifter_X , 8 hours ago
These are self-loathing humans. Imagine wanting to destroy the human race.
SMH
bobroonie , 13 hours ago
Obama bombed Libya in defense of Islamic terrorists he sold weapons to. 600 requests for
more security from Ambassador Stevens unanswered.. But when defense contractor Osprey
Global's Sidney Blumenthal called Clinton gave him special treatment. Lots of money to be
made for a defense contractor and the Secretary of State that starts the war.
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
At the time Stevens died, he was not murdered he died of smoke inhalation as the
invaders set the place on fire and the safe room wasn't air tight, Benghazi was the most
dangerous place on earth for diplomats. Attempted murders and kidnappings of diplomats were
so rife that most governments closed their missions and evacuated their people. Stevens was
well aware of this and he went to Benghazi, the US Embassy is in Tripoli, anyway with his
last meeting running guns with the Turks. By doing so he signed his death warrant.
According to many at the time Stevens was begging for more security shortly before he left
for Benghazi he was offered a military security detachment that was already in Tripoli and
Stevens refused. Seems Stevens and Hillary didn't want the military to know what they were
up to.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
the ambassador got what was coming to him. he was a terrorist, plain and simple.
the rest of the Americans were rescued ... by Qadaffi loyalists. the Americans are shy
to admit this.
David2923 , 5 hours ago
Facts you probably do not know about Libya under Muammar Gaddafi:
• There are no electricity bills in Libya; electricity is free for all its
citizens.
• There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to
all its citizens at 0% interest by law.
• If a Libyan is unable to find employment after graduation, the state pays the
average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
• Should Libyans want to take up a farming career, they receive farm land, a house,
equipment, seed and livestock to kick start their farms – all for free.
• 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.
• A home considered a human right in Libya. (In Qaddafi's Green Book it states:
"The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not
be owned by others.")
• All newlyweds in Libya receive 60,000 Dinar (US$ 50,000 ) by the government to
buy their first apartment so to help start a family.
• A portion of Libyan oil sales is credited directly to the bank accounts of all
Libyan citizens.
• A mother who gives birth to a child receives US $5,000.
• When a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidizes 50% of the price.
• The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per liter.
• For $ 0.15, a Libyan local can purchase 40 loaves of bread.
• Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Libya can boast one of the
finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to
doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of charge.
• If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya,
the government funds them to go abroad for it – not only free but they get US
$2,300/month accommodation and car allowance.
• 25% of Libyans have a university degree. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were
literate. Today the figure is 87%.
• Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – though
much of this is now frozen globally.
You have explained why Libya was perfectly ripe for looting by the US Evil Empire and
its slave states.
dark pools of soros , 5 hours ago
Yes I've been shining a light on this for years. The true history of Libya should red
pill EVERYONE that can still think for themselves.
We are destroying George Washington statues while worshiping a black african american
president who destroyed the one rare prosperous socialist African nation.. which now has
slave trading!!!! all because it didn't share it's water to french/italian bottlers. And of
course the Gold Dinar becoming the African currency.
Lokiban , 11 hours ago
Gadhaffi's two mistakes leading to this war.
Threaten to sell his sweet oil in gold dinars
Threaten French president Sarkozy to pull out all of his money out of France and reveal
to the public the donations he made to the French presidential campaign of Sarkozy, which
we know is illegal because foreigners can't donate money.
That sealed his fate. America needed to stop this gold for oil scheme just like it did
in Iraq and French president Sarkozy's presidency was ont he line.
NuYawkFrankie , 12 hours ago
Slick Willy --> War Criminal
Chimp --> War Criminal
Obongo --> War Criminal
Hillarity --> War Criminal
Groper Joe --> War Criminal
Etc... etc... etc...
Are you at least BEGINNING to see a pattern here???
If not, you soon will do as 'the chickens come home to roost' and ZOG focusses it's
attention on YOUR a$$!
Apeon , 11 hours ago
Apparently you are not old enough to remember Johnson
NuYawkFrankie , 8 hours ago
I'm holding "Johnson" as we speak... and the most I can accuse him of is being a naughty
- sometimes a VERY naughty- boy. Looks like he's due for another spanking!
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
you know it makes sense , 5 hours ago
Who writes this crap and who believes a word of it ?.
No mention that Gaddafi planned to set up a new gold backed African money to sell his
oil rather than the euro or the dollar. 143+ tons of gold and 140 tons of silver went
missing.
It was because of this lie and NATO's involvement in the destruction of Libya that both
Russia and China vowed never again to allow this to happen to another country
taglady , 7 hours ago
Trump: "lock her up" became "she's been through enough." What has she been through
exactly? "Make America great again" became we need to bail out Boeing and the rest because
of an "invisible enemy." It's invisible alright, because it doesn't exist. The only
invisible enemy are the parasites shoveling our money into their own very deep pockets in
every conceivable way. Like Biden and his entire family and the Clintons and the Obamas and
many others have been doing for many years. Like Bush and Cheney made out so well after
911. That's how Gates and the pharmaceutical industry became so bloated while real
Americans have struggled to make ends meet.
taglady , 7 hours ago
Interesting coalition between finance, government and media. Like when Bush announced
the necessary, unconstitutional war and changes to our society after 911. We didn't get to
vote on these changes. No referendum ever happened. Just an announcement in the media and
media spin on public opinion, then preplanned actions by corrupt officials. This alliance
was never more obvious than during the cv response. We are censored and silenced while
liars and thieves are given the bully pulpit to beat us over the head with their idiocracy
to enrich very few parasites, again. Then the public is blamed for the rogue actions of
government/ business/media. America is bad. We just keep voting for these dummies. Except
our voting system is run by the same corrupt dummies who keep getting re-elected. Hmmm.
Just like they did to Kadafi and many others. Suddenly Libya is poor. What happened to all
of Kadafi's gold? Probably the same thing that happened to the Pentagon trillions and SS
"surplus" and public pensions across America. Taxation without representation leaves us
broke, without a voice and broken. What are we going to do about it?
Iconoclast27 , 1 hour ago
The problem is you believe imperialism and colonialism has ended in the African
continent when that clearly isn't the case, this Libyan regime change op being the latest
example of interference you are claiming no longer exists.
John C Durham , 1 hour ago
Actually the end of colonialism that FDR ("Winston, Colonialism is the Cause of this
War. This war is going to end all Colonialism".) wished for is hardly over. We got
Democratic Party's Truman, not the great Henry Wallace, remember?
Libya only proves this true.
LEEPERMAX , 5 hours ago
America's "BOTCHED CIA OPERATION OF THE CENTURY" as they funneled GADDAFI WEAPONS from
the PORT OF BENGHAZI into SYRIA as OBAMA & CO. completed their agenda to DESTABILIZE
THE MIDDLE EAST and eventually ALL OF EUROPE.
NO MORE . . . NO LESS
QABubba , 5 hours ago
This is the very reason I sat out the 2016 election. They say citizens don't vote
foreign policy but I did. The "We came, we saw, he died" statement illustrated that our
leaders didn't have a clue as to the geopolitical damage we had done. The US supported a
"no fly zone" in the UN Security Council. Russia supported it. Gaddafi declared his own,
stating that none of his air force would fly. The US and their allies quickly "redefined"
it to mean they could destroy his air force on the ground, and once destroyed, any of his
antiaircraft guns, and once destroyed, any of his tanks and artillery (which don't fly),
and his troop convoys.
Gaddafi's, Russia's, perhaps North Korea's big mistake was believing the US would stand
by their agreement in the UN Security Council. This and the Eastward creep of Nato may very
well be the deciding factor's in Putin's view that he has no responsible actors in the West
to deal with. North Korea was watching. Any dream of getting a denuclearized North Korea
just receded by about 50 years.
And of course, our presstitute media had a starring role as always. The average American
thinks this was a just war, and knows nothing of the slave markets, and nothing about the
flood of African immigrants, who are majority muslim, and have no plans whatsoever to
assimilate, into Europe. The leaders of France and supposedly Great Britain have stabbed
their citizens in the back, as they will now have to watch European culture destroyed.
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Many thanks are due to Draitser for this excellent report on the vile activities of the
US Evil Empire in Libya. The power motives have been laid bare, but the massive greed of
the US/EU imperial elites have not been detailed. The greed for Libyan oil by France and
Italy is well known but the US also looted Libyan gold, just as they looted Ukrainian gold
after the 2014 Maidan coup.
By removing Gaddaffi (and who can forget Clinton's evil words "We came, we saw, he
died") and looting the gold they scuppered the plans to create a gold-backed dinar for all
of Africa, that would have challenged the use of USD, French-controlled "Franc" and other
fiat currencies.
That would have been shocking for the US/EU imperial elite that regards Africa as their
private fiefdom to loot at will.
Combined with a lust for power, the US/EU imperial elites have an insatiable greed.
After all, what use is an empire if the elites can't gorge themselves at will?
lastugro , 10 hours ago
... and Medvedev led Russia abstained (did not veto the vote) at the UNSC session where
the intervention was approved. Russia bears a tacit responsibility.
Michael Norton , 11 hours ago
Obama supplied ISIS with leftover weapons from the Libya operation to take out Bashar
Assad in Syria. That didn't work out for him too well, did it? Got an ambassador and some
CIA spooks killed in Benghazi.
dogfish , 9 hours ago
And Trump steals the oil, the oil that is desperately needed by the suffering Syrians.
Trump is a real humanitarian.
Maghreb2 , 5 hours ago
Obama believed every word he was fed about the R2P Right to Protect fantasy concocted at
the U.N. At the same time if you knew how dangerous the man was with his Green Revolution
and Desert sorcery you would have had him killed.
The first step of his plan was the Libyan African Gold Dinar which would have been a
commodity backed gold cuerrency. This would have broken Rothschild and most of the colonial
banking systems. On its own it was a just move but not even the Chinese could have an
African Bloc form that fast with that much growth. Imploding the CFA system would have
destroyed France as we know it and made it poorer than Poland.
Second factor was his ruthless plans to deal with his Islamic Nationalist and Monarchist
"Brothers". Gaddafis Green revolution could have spread across the desert wastes and easily
overthrown the Al Sauds and trapped Arab natioanlists in their citites. Not a powerful
fighter but understood desert warfare. It was the cost of Soviet equipment and the French
adapted technicals that made him weaker. The Wars of the Sahara desert like those of
Polisario Front and Libyan Chad War were decided by mobility.
Finally there were reports amongst the occultists that the man was obsessed with the
Occult and the Djinn. Giving a warlord his own banking system and access to African black
Magic was enough even for the Jesuits to view the man as a threat to global peace. Rumours
the djinns warned him of advance of air strikes and gave strength to his soldiers in the
deserts made him a force to be reckoned with in his borders. The association with Abu Nidal
is rumoured to have revealed things about the nature of these desert beings. If he had the
innate gift for it his tribe probably would have joined us at some point. Reports he had
fallen out with the real Green a man a sage and advisor to the Islamic leaders point to a
major rupture with the Islamic creed.
Only God can really judge whether his plan to emancipate Africa was his own power grab
to free the continent or another mad man trying to join the global elite by enslaving
them.
It would appear, at this point in time, that regardless of motive of his plan, the
US-backed alternative has turned out far worse. The only positive result is more money in
the pockets of the MIC and the opportunity to play war games in the desert.
Maghreb2 , 2 hours ago
Like I said he was a dangerous man. It takes one to rock the boat like he did. End of
the day the system could have been put in place for the African Gold Standard to start to
expand into areas that were tired of the Central African Franc system but it would have
destroyed Rothschild and led to hundreds of million of Black Muslims having resources to
throw at Israel.
Making Chad, Senegal and Mali into something like Yugoslavia with Chinese and Russian
Weaponry was beyond the imaginings of Africom. Would have lowered the birth rates with the
development and solved the migration and economic crisis. Having these countries like
Sweden would have also created living space for white liberals who were highly educated.
Instead all the money vanished with the Kleptokrats. Its only insane Facists who want dead
Africans on their doorsteps in Berlin and on the television that agree with this
madness.
Euafrica, Eurabia could be avoided by making sure the Africans slow their birth rates
through development and saving wealth rather than following it to Europe when the big men
run with gold and dollars.
At the same time he was known as a devil to the Arabs and the dissidents. Sort of like
Rockefeller with the company towns and corporate face. You ask the bastards to resign and
why all these people has vanished and gives you statistics on how many electrical
appliances have been handed out and says he was never in charge and you don't know how the
system works.
Hard to say but he played the game. Robbed Bunker Hunt which was enough for us. Bunker
C%nt as we called him when he tried to bring down the Morgue in Texas. Stuff like that is
why the Illuminati are feared. Its hard for anyone to gauge what is going on and what the
domino effects are. He was trained by the Americans and British and supplied with Socialist
apparatus. Gianni Agnelli the suavest yid since Joseph kept NATO off his back. He had ties
to the U.S deep State as well but that goes back to Wheelus.
Like we said about the Occult everyone has a backer but that man had demons watching
over him. According to some. Thin line between a Djinn and Shaytan when politics and murder
get involved.
Failed nation states make a perfect platform for a profitable global criminal
enterprise.
voting machine , 6 hours ago
Allen Dulles couldn't have scripted this operation any better.
This is right out of the CIA hand book. Regime change 101
Jackprong , 7 hours ago
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to
take the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no
clear documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the
idea that there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a
functioning Constitution.
Got an answer for this: CUTBACKS!
bshirley1968 , 3 hours ago
" The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist,
and amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. "
The real reason is the threat against the `dollar`.
JeanTrejean , 6 hours ago
It's the Frenchmen Sarkozy and B.H. Levy who are responsible for this agression.
The USA and NATO (outside Europe) were just "dumb followers".
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Nothing dumb about Obomber: why did he loot and murder in Libya (or Yemen, Ukraine,
Syria etc)? Because he CAN!!!
Joiningupthedots , 21 minutes ago
Everything The West touches turns to rat ****.
Mercifully Russia recognised its mistake with Libya and stepped in to save Syria from
the same fate.
Every country, its military bandits politicians involved in the unprovoked attack and
subsequent destruction of Libya can be considered........WAR CRIMINALS.
Hopefully one day they will be stupid enough to attack Russia or China and be completely
destroyed for their stupidity.
OTBorder@CA , 1 hour ago
First of all, Gadhafi gave an unconditional surrender that was brokered by international
diplomatic channels over a month before our invasion. Obama & his minions ignored it.
We knew many pilots that flew "missions" over Libya during this war & were involved in
a massive bombing campaign. Don't forget the Wikileaks where France signed onto the war on
the condition they got a % of Libya's gold. My wish is that someday history will tell the
truth about the bastard Obama. Read the Lost Arab Spring by, Walid Phares to see all of the
other Countries Obama tried to overthrow & have radical Islamic Terrorists replace the
peaceful governments.
csc61 , 1 hour ago
The author gives these idiots far too much credit. People must come to the understanding
that presidents and politicians (on all sides) simply do as they're told. It is the hidden
hand, the international financiers, who are ruining the world. Politicians are mere pawns
... minions willing to sell their souls for a few short years of presumed power, only to
scurry off afterward to play the role of elder statesmen. Politicians are nothing more than
privileged degenerates who proved early in their political lives they could be easily
corrupted and compromised. It is not them who do the damage directly - these things would
happen no matter who's in charge. No, they're simply the ones pushed out front to sign
documents and take blame for the world's ruination ... a small price they are willing to
pay to feed their narcissistic appetites.
Mentaliusanything , 7 hours ago
I would caption that image as "Who is going first to the platform and rope... Biden
thinks he has won a Prize and is excited , The Kenyan says you first Bro (loser) and the
white Privileged woman is laughing as she says , You have nothing on Me... Bitches, I bury
mine deep and dead, I do not swing
Scipio Africanuz , 8 hours ago
Fair enough..
Now that we've completed stage 1 of the harvest, perhaps we ought boost the Republic of
Liberty, and hopefully, temper the anxious wrath of folks..
Libya was a catastrophic mistake, borne of hubris, vanity, intellectual rigidity,
vainglory, and confusion. Hubris on the part of some, Sarkozy comes to mind, vanity on the
part of some, Hillary Clinton comes to mind, confusion on the part of some, Obama comes to
mind, and Ideological rigidity on the part of some, Biden comes to mind, and vainglorious
pride on the part of some, the security establishment and their directors come to
mind..
Having cleared that, it's no use crying over spilt milk, what's necessary, if the
humility to acknowledge errors is available, is contributing rationally, and pernitently,
to fixing the errors, and not by the same thinking that led to the errors, but fresh
thinking that ought now understand that..
What's sown, is what's reaped, but MERCY it is, mitigates the harvests of depravity, via
the provision of energy to restitute, and make amends..
The caveat however, is that mercy is NEVER deployed without REPENTANCE and
RECALIBRATION,
which are the foundational pillars that make MERCY provide the energy to effect
RESTITUTION..
Having clarified that, it's pertinent to inform, that Providence is NOT interested, in
any way, shape, or form, in the damnation of anyone and why?
Well, which loving father is interested in the damnation of his children, no matter how
depraved?
Still, patience ought not be mistaken for coddling and why?
With one, patience, the intent is to provide time for change..
With the other, coddling, the gambit is the turning of blind eyes to depravity..
But seeing as God, the Almighty Father is CONSISTENTLY Just, we can conclude then, that
patience is the prerequisite for either Mercy or Damnation and how so?
Because if patience is deployed, and the depraved utilize it to change, then their
salvation is self directed..
And if not, utilized that is, then their damnation as well, is self obtained..
And thus is the Justice and Honor of Divine Providence satisfied..
It's that simple..
And on that note VP Biden, we'll no longer refer to you as that, but as Joseph..
That ought awaken in you the grave responsibility on your shoulders, like that of the
Biblical Joseph, whose father made for him, a "Coat of MANY colors.."
And if you be perceptive Joseph, you're now about to wear E Pluribus Unum (Coat of many
colors..), created as a singular garment (ONE NATION..), for a reason (the glorification of
Provident Divinity..
)
And the glorification?
That E Pluribus Unum (coat of many colors created as a singular garment..), ought
demonstrate to all who see it worn, the goodness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and
LOVE of the Provider of the Coat..
And considering Joseph, that in service of the Republic, you've not withheld the fruit
of your loins, it's appropriate then, that you ought now demonstrate that love for the
Republic, by putting it first, just as you'd put the fruits of your loins first, except
above Divine Providence, known to you, as God Almighty..
So then Joseph, as we begin the next stage of the harvest, remember your oath that "you
keep your promises..", you'll be judged by that oath..
And Joseph, "a promise is a debt..", it MUST be paid..
And to boost you energetically, here's Parton the Sweet Voiced Nightingale..
As Americans pause to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001 which saw almost
3,000 innocents killed in the worst terror attack in United States history, it might also be
worth contemplating the
horrific wars and foreign quagmires unleashed during the subsequent 'war on terror'.
Bush's so-called Global War on Terror targeted 'rogue states' like Saddam's Iraq, but also
consistently had a focus on uprooting and destroying al-Qaeda and other armed Islamist terror
organizations (this led to the falsehood that Baathist Saddam and AQ were in cahoots). But the
idea that Washington from the start saw al-Qaeda and its affiliates as some kind of eternal
enemy is largely a myth.
Recall that the US covertly supported the Afghan mujahideen and other international
jihadists throughout the 1980's Afghan-Soviet War, the very campaign in which hardened al-Qaeda
terrorists got their start. In 1999 The Guardian in a rare moment of honest mainstream
journalism warned of the Frankenstein the CIA created --
among their ranks a terror mastermind named Osama bin Laden .
But it was all the way back in 1993 that a then classified intelligence memo warned that the
very fighters the CIA previously trained would soon turn their weapons on the US and its
allies. The 'secret' document was declassified in 2009, but has remained largely obscure in
mainstream media reporting, despite being the first to contain a bombshell admission.
"support network that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to supplement the Afghan
mujahidin" in the war against the Soviets, "is now contributing experienced fighters to
militant Islamic groups worldwide."
During the war in Afghanistan, eager Arab
youths volunteered en masse to fight a historic "jihad"
against the Soviet •'infidel." The support network
that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to sup-
plement the Afghan mujahidin is now contributing
experienced fighters to militant Islamic groups world-
wide. Veterans of the Afghan jihad are being inte-
... ... ...
dump hundreds more devout fighters into the net-
work. exacerbating the problems of governments that
are accepting the wandering mujahidin.
* * *
When the Boys Come Home
The concluding section contains the most revelatory statements, again remembering these
words were written nearly a decade before the 9/11
attacks :
US support of the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not necessarily protect US
interests from attack.
...Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims' wrath. Afghan war veterans,
scattered throughout the world, could surprise the US with violence in unexpected
locales.
ue until wc throw India out," apparently is well armed
and operating about 80 miles southeast of Srinagar.
Mujahidin in Every Corner
Beyond the Middle East and South Asia, small
numbers of Afghan war veterans are taking up causes
from Somalia to the Philippines. Mujahidin connections
to the larger network heighten the chances that even
an ad hoc group could carry out destructive insurgent
attacks. Veterans joining small opposition groups can
contribute significantly to their capabilities; therefore,
some militant groups are actively recruiting returning
veterans, as in the Philippines where the radical Mus-
lim Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) reportedly is using muja-
hidin members' connections to the network to bolster
funding and broker arms deals. The ASG is believed
to have carried out the May bombings of Manila's
light rail system.
Focus on the United States
The alleged involvement of veterans of the Af-
ghan war in the World Trade Center bombing and the
plots against New York targets arc a bold example of
what tactics some fop^r mujahidin are willing in use
in their ongoing jihad (see box, p. 3). US support of
the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not neces-
sarily protect US interests from attack.
The growing perception by Muslims that the US
follows a double standard with regard to Islamic issues --
particularly in Iraq, Bosnia, Algeria, and the Isracli-
occupicd territories -- heightens the possibility that
Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims'
wrath. Afghan war veterans, scattered throughout the
world, could surprise the US with violence in unex-
pected locales.
(Gina BennoB. INfVTNA)
There it is in black and white print: the United States government knew and bluntly
acknowledged that the very militants it armed and trained to the tune of
hundreds of millions of dollars would eventually turn that very training and those very
weapons back on the American people .
And this was not at all a "small" or insignificant group, instead as The Guardian wrote a
mere two
years before 9/11 :
American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in
bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up
.
But don't think for a moment that there was ever a "lesson learned" by Washington.
So he found a different theatre for his holy war and achieved a different sort
of martyrdom. Three years ago, he was convicted of planning a series of
massive explosions in Manhattan and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Hampton-el was described by prosecutors as a skilled bomb-maker. It was
hardly surprising. In Afghanistan he fought with the Hezb-i-Islami group of
mujahideen, whose training and weaponry were mainly supplied by the CIA.
He was not alone. American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992,12,500
foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla
warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.
Instead the CIA and other US agencies repeated the 1980s policy of arming jihadists to
overthrow US enemy regimes in places like Libya and Syria even long after the "lesson" of 9/11.
As War on The Rocks recounted :
Despite the passage of time, the issues Ms. Bennett raised in her 1993 work continue to be
relevant today. This fact is a sign of the persistence of the problem of Sunni jihadism and
the "wandering mujahidin." Today, of course, the problem isn't Afghanistan but Syria. While
the war there is far from over, there is already widespread nervousness, particularly in
Europe, about what will happen when the
foreign fighters return from that conflict.
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The U.S. State Dept.'s own numbers at the height of the war in Syria: access the full
report at
STATE.GOV
19 June 2015, From US Department of
State, Country Report on Terrorism 2014:
"The rate of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria
[during 2014]- totaling more than 16,000 foreign
terrorist ficjhters from more than 90 countries as
of late December - exceeded the rate of foreign
terrorist fighters who traveled to Afghanistan and
Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in
the last 20 years"
By
Tony
Cox
, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.
The New York Times and CNN are desperate to paint Donald Trump as an enemy of the military, due to his desire not to get
involved in pointless wars. But this is simply not true, and Trump has the backing of many soldiers.
Someone should tell the
New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets that soldiers don't actually like getting killed or maimed for no good
reason. Nor do they like generals and presidents who spill their blood in vain.
Alas, ignorance of these
obvious truths probably isn't the issue. This is likely just another case of the biggest names in news pretending to not get
the point so they can take the rest of us along for a ride in their confidence game of alternative reality.
The latest example is the
New York Times spinning President Donald Trump's critique this week of Pentagon leadership and the military industrial complex
as disrespect for the military at large.
"Trump has lost the right and authority to be
commander in chief,"
the
Times quoted
retired US Marines General Anthony Zinni as saying. Zinni cited Trump's alleged
"despicable
comments"
about the nation's war dead – reported last week by
The
Atlantic
, citing anonymous sources – as one of the reasons Trump "must go."
Never mind that Trump and all on-the-record administration sources denied The Atlantic's report. The Times couldn't resist
when the pieces seemed to fit so well together for the military's latest propaganda campaign against Trump. First the
president disses the troops, calling them "losers" and "suckers," then he has the
temerity
to say
Pentagon leaders want to fight wars to keep defense contractors happy.
Except the pieces don't
fit. The many people who occupy so-called boots on the ground don't have the same interests as the few people who send them to
war. In fact, combat troops are given reason to hate the generals who send them to die when there's not a legitimate national
security reason for the war they're fighting. And the US has fought a long line of wars that didn't serve the nation's
national security interests. Even when a war is justified, the interests of top brass and front-line soldiers often clash.
Remember that great 1967
war movie, '
The
Dirty Dozen'
? A group of 12 soldiers who were condemned to long prison sentences or execution in military prison for their
crimes were sent on a 1944 suicide mission to kill high-ranking German officers at a heavily defended chateau far behind enemy
lines. After succeeding in the mission and escaping the Germans, the lone surviving convict, played by tough-guy actor Charles
Bronson, told the mission leader,
"Killing generals could get to be a habit with me."
So no, New York Times, speaking out against ill-advised wars does not equal bashing the military. And sorry, General Zinni,
but generals, defense contractors and their media mouthpieces don't get to decide who has the
"right
and authority"
to be commander in chief. The voters decided that already, and they expressed clearly that they don't want
senseless and endless wars and foreign interventions.
The Times cited General
James McConville, the Army's chief of staff, as saying Pentagon leaders would only recommend sending troops to combat
"when
it's required for national security and a last resort."
And no, it wasn't a comedy skit. What's the last US war or combat
intervention that measured up to that standard? Let's just say the late Bronson, who died in 2003 at the age of 81, was a
young man the last time that happened.
CNN tried a similar ploy
on Sunday, while trying to sell the "losers" and "suckers" story in an interview with US Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert
Wilkie. Host Dana Bash said the allegations fit a
"pattern of public statements
" by
the president because Trump called US Senator John McCain a "loser" in 2015 and said McCain shouldn't be considered a hero for
being captured in the Vietnam War. She repeatedly suggested to Wilkie, who didn't take the bait, that Trump's attacks on
McCain, who died in 2018, showed disrespect for the troops.
Apparently, this follows
the same line of propagandist thought which told us that saying there are rapists among the illegal aliens entering the US
from Mexico – which is undeniably true –
equals
saying
all Mexicans are rapists. In CNN land, a bad word about McCain is a bad word about all soldiers.
McCain was
a
warmonger
who didn't mind getting US troops killed or backing terrorist groups in Syria. If
he
had his way
, many more GIs would be dead or disabled, because the intervention in Syria would have been escalated and the
US might be at war with Iran. Soldiers wouldn't want their lives wasted in such conflicts.
All wars are hard on the
people who have to fight them, but senseless wars are spirit-crushing. An average of about 17 veterans commit suicide each day
in the US, according to Veterans Administration
data
.
Veterans account for 11 percent of the US adult population but more than 18 percent of suicides.
The media's deceiving
technique of trying to pretend that ruling-class chieftains and front-line grunts are in the same boat reflects a broader
campaign of top-down revolution against populism. The
military
is
just one of several pro-Trump segments of the population that must be turned against the president. Other pro-Trump segments,
such as
police
,
are demonized and attacked.
Trump has managed to keep
the US out of new wars and has drawn down deployments to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – despite Pentagon opposition. His rival,
Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, can be expected to rev up the war machine if he takes charge. His foreign policy
adviser, Antony Blinken, lamented in a May
interview
with CBS News
that Trump had given up US "leverage" in Syria.
Trump also has turned
around the VA hospital system, ending
decades
of neglect
that left many veterans to die on waiting lists.
Like past campaigns to
oust Trump, the notion that he's not sufficiently devoted to the troops might be a tough sell. No matter how good their words
may sound, the people who promote endless wars without clear objectives aren't true supporters of the rank and file.
This is surely the last thing the American people want to hear, but it does confirm
President Trump's
recent statements saying that top Pentagon brass essentially seeks out constant wars to
keep defense contractors "happy": the Department of Defense plans to cut major military
contractors a $10 billion to $20 billion COVID bailout check .
Defense One
reports : "With lawmakers and the White House unable to come to an agreement on a new
coronavirus stimulus package, it's unlikely that money requested to reimburse defense
contractors for pandemic-related expenses will reach these companies until at least the second
quarter of 2021, according to the Pentagon's top weapons buyer."
Defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, in recent statements has
indicated the private defense firm stimulus would cover the period from March 15 to Sept. 15
and is estimated at "between $10 and $20 billion."
"Then we want to look at all of the proposals at once," Lord said at a press briefing
Wednesday. "It isn't going to be a first in, first out, and we have to rationalize using the
rules we've put in place what would be reimbursable and what's not."
And strongly suggesting that it won't be the last of such stimulus for defense firms who
have already profited immensely off post 9/11 'wars of choice' launched under Bush and Obama,
Lord
said , "I would contend that most of the effects of COVID haven't yet been seen."
"I'm not saying the military's in love with me," Trump added , as he advocated for
the removal of U.S. troops from "endless wars" and lambasted NATO allies that he says rip off
the U.S. "The soldiers are."
"The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight
wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make
everything else stay happy," he added.
"Some people don't like to come home, some people like to continue to spend money," the
president said. "One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that's what it was."
The "outrage" that followed included reporters claiming that Trump's words were
"unprecedented".
But that's far from the truth, as Glen Greenwald reminded his fellow journalists:
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Well over a half-century ago, Eisenhower warned, "In the councils of government, we must
guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex . The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists
and will persist."
And further: "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry
can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Creepy Joe used to be a stanch neoliberal, who promoted open militarism, empowerment of
multinationals at the expense of working people; two feature of neofascism.
The Left justifies extreme and violent action by framing Trump as an existential threat to
America...
It might not seem immediately apparent that Joe Biden would have anything in common with
insurrectionary anarchists. After all, Biden has been deeply entrenched in the uppermost
echelons of American political power for nearly five decades straight -- whereas
insurrectionary anarchists generally seek to overthrow those systems, by violent force if
necessary.
The former Vice-President is not exactly the type you would imagine clad in all-black
combat-style street apparel, hurling commercial-grade fireworks at police officers. Rather, he
drafted the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill in concert with the National Association of Police
Organizations. He is even known to venerate the arcane institutionalist ethos of the US Senate
-- whereas to insurrectionary anarchists, such institutions could only be tools of
oppression.
But the Trump Era has an odd way of bringing about unexpected ideological convergences. In
the announcement video that formally kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden
paid homage to what he called the "courageous group of Americans" who descended upon
Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 to confront an assembly of Right-wing rally-goers. Among
that "courageous group" were Left-wing activist factions broadly classified under the banner of
"antifa".
For Biden, what transpired in Charlottesville was a "defining moment," and formed the basis
for his decision to launch a third campaign for the presidency at age 76. While Biden did
herald generic American idealism in that announcement video -- which would be anathema to most
insurrectionary anarchists -- in the gravity he assigned to the Charlottesville episode, he
also affirmed a core tenet of the "antifa" worldview: the notion that a uniquely pressing
fascistic threat has gripped the country, and crushing this threat is a matter of unparalleled
world-historic urgency.
Certainly, if you picked any "antifa" member at random, there'd be an almost 0% chance that
they would express any kind of personal enthusiasm for Joe Biden. But there'd be a virtually
100% chance that they'd express a great deal of enthusiasm for the theory that "fascism" is an
accurate characterisation of America's current state of governance. Biden would be similarly
enthused to present a variation of this analysis, albeit from a slightly different ideological
angle. He typically intones things like, "This is not who we are", rather than "All Cops Are
Bastards".
Still, where Biden is united with "antifa" is in assigning such outsized importance to the
role of small-time "fascist" agitators like the ones who gathered that weekend three years ago
in Charlottesville (despite ultimately being outnumbered by Left-wing activists) on account of
the validation they are purported to have received from Donald Trump. For both Biden and
"antifa," this dynamic constitutes the chief prism through which contemporary American
political affairs must be viewed.
And for both Biden and "antifa," this mode of analysis has been hugely successful. "Antifa"
has succeeded in stoking nationwide insurrectionary fervour on a scale unseen in decades. Given
their opposition to Trump as the alleged fascist-in-chief, as well as their appropriation of
the "Black Lives Matter" protest mantle, they've received an extraordinary amount of mainstream
liberal legitimation.
Democratic Party operatives have even gone so far as to exalt "antifa" activists as the
modern-day equivalents of US soldiers fighting in World War II -- while apparently exhibiting
no embarrassment for invoking this comparison.
Another clear beneficiary of the "fascism" panic, somewhat paradoxically, has been Biden. A
supreme irony of the outsized role that "anti-fascism" has played in post-2016 US political
discourse -- as popularised by both liberals and leftists, who often claim to be at odds with
each other but nonetheless overwhelmingly agree on the underlying "fascism" prognosis -- is
that it has ultimately limited the possibility of actual Left-wing policy reform.
Democratic presidential primary voters had been traumatised by the non-stop barrage of
Trump-related hysteria churned out each and every day by profit-driven corporate media outlets,
and laboured under the sincere belief that Trump's America bears some bonafide relation to
Weimar Germany. As such, a plurality were understandably uninterested in foundational reform to
the Democratic Party.
That was bad news for socialist Bernie Sanders, who ended up losing handily in the 2020
primaries to a former Vice President whose entire campaign was predicated on little more than
restoring the pre-2016 Democratic Party to power.
And in a way, you can't particularly blame those Biden voters. Because if your main sources
of information tell you for years on end that the reins of state have been seized by an
out-and-out fascist, who is fuelling a siege of "Nazi" street agitators, whatever deficiencies
the Democratic Party might have at the moment are of little or no concern. Now even Sanders
himself has called for a "united front" against Trump ahead of the election, seeming to suggest
that the precedent of Francisco Franco is historically apt. Wasn't the whole problem with
Franco that he couldn't be voted out?
Never mind that Trump would have to be quite a feckless fascist to allow himself to be
constantly maligned in the country's major media, plotted against by his own administration
underlings, and impeached. The decidedly unsexy reality is that Trump has been a fairly weak
executive, at least relative to his predecessors in the postwar era.
But his radically unorthodox communications style belies any dispassionate assessment of
this record, thus the fascism-mongering persists more-or-less unabated. And for all the
warnings of a Reichstag Fire moment always supposedly being around the corner, the past six
months of Covid and riots were a missed opportunity for any genuine fascist seeking to
consolidate power. Trump appears largely content with issuing inflammatory tweets.
So as riots continue around the country, and corporate news networks describe post-protest
scenes with raging infernos as "mostly peaceful", the temptation can be to write this off as
mere partisan side-taking. Certainly there's an element of that -- most journalists desperately
don't want to see Trump win in November.
But thanks to the prevailing "fascism" framework, their opposition to Trump isn't just a
matter of ordinary election-year preference. It's imbued with existential,
civilisation-altering significance. How could anyone in their right mind not do everything
within their capacity to ensure the defeat of fascism? Once you accept the premise that fascism
does in fact accurately describe the current state of American governance, all bets are off --
journalistically and otherwise.
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So even if the "anti-fascists" in the equation are burning down cities, they will still
never exist on the same moral plane as the actual "fascists" whose champion occupies the White
House. Hence, riots which result in the destruction of huge swaths of Kenosha, WI magically
become a "mostly peaceful" affair according to CNN and the New York Times .
Yes, journalists also presumptively ascribe a certain virtue to any protests that occur with
the imprimatur of "Black Lives Matter". But racial disparities have been a fact of American
life since the dawn of the republic. The unavoidable explanation for why they've taken on such
frantic energy in the past several months is the alleged spectre of fascism, namely Trump. With
a Democratic President, even one as vanilla as Biden, there will doubtless be future race-based
controversies. But they won't have the cosmic weight as those that occur when a "fascist"
president also looms.
Adding to the growing list of ironies, Trump's primary conception of the presidency has less
been Fuhrer, than "Pundit-in-Chief", whereby he proudly brandishes the role of world's loudest
media critic -- with media criticism having been one of his life-long passions. Given that
experience, Trump knows how to expertly pry at tensions in how pundit narratives get
constructed, and the "peaceful protest" cliché provides all the material that could ever
be desired in that respect. Kayleigh McEnany, in tweeting a photo of a
recent Trump air hanger rally in Pennsylvania, described the attendees (only half-jokingly) as
"peaceful protesters".
The reason she did this is because if one follows the recent patterns of media nomenclature,
any and all "peaceful protesters" should be painstakingly accommodated, even if their
gatherings produce widespread arson attacks or increase the Covid-19 infection rate. There is
no impartial explanation for why the "peaceful protests" of this past summer deserved praise,
adulation, and rousing defences from the standpoint of pandemic mitigation. Again, only does
this make sense when inserted into the blinkered fascism vs. anti-fascism context.
One wonders if these protesters and rioters have ever paused to consider why it is that so
many establishment media outlets are so consistently eager to advocate on their behalf, with
the phrase "largely peaceful" having been stretched well past the point of absurdity. And one
also wonders why so many powerful forces are so willing to join in affirming their
"anti-fascism" worldview -- up to and including, in his own way, Joe Biden. For all the talk
about dismantling systems of oppression, those who actually wield power in 2020 America seem to
view the "fascism vs. antifascism" dichotomy as awfully convenient to their own self-preserving
interests.
If after reading the headline you thought that is is one of the Russian universities got
financing from NED and is preparing to teach our grant-eaters "the science of color
revolutions", then you are mistaken.
It is the USA Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, which now offers 101 of
color revolution preparation in a course called "Overthrow the State" for its American students
and the subject of the course is the USA, not the xUSSR space.
According to the course description, it "puts every student at the head of a popular
revolutionary movement that seeks to overthrow the current government and create a better
society." Among questions discussed:
How will you gain power?"
How will you communicate with the masses?
How do you plan to improve people's lives?
How will you deal with the past?
These are the questions that the University course answers. To get a diploma in the course
"how to overthrow the state" you will need to pass 3 tests. It will be necessary to write your
"Manifesto" after studying historical examples and revolutionary thought from Franz Fanon to
Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi and representatives of the revolutionary movement. You will also
have to "write a compelling essay about rewriting history" and a "white paper" (white paper is
a kind of business plan, but it is written for an audience that is not related to
business).
Univrsity of Washington and Lee is so
progressive, that in July the faculty voted to remove the name of Robert Li from the name of
the University.
"... 'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing. ..."
"... Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who fear that are right ..."
"... he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. ..."
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Wednesday he hasn't done enough to focus on damages caused
by some city protests over the last three months and the fallout from coronavirus. He
called on the community to help him come up with better solutions to city issues.
During the last months the Magnificent Mile in Chicago
was looted - twice. Yesterday new riots and looting occurred in Minneapolis after a rumor
of another police killing incited some people :
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo tried to dispel rumors that spread on social media about the
death of the unidentified Black man, who was suspected in a Wednesday afternoon homicide
and fatally shot himself on the Nicollet Mall as officers approached several hours later.
His death, which was captured on city surveillance video and released by police within 90
minutes, nonetheless sparked protests and unrest in the heart of downtown.
The video confirmed the police account of what happened and showed the man glancing over
his shoulder before pulling out the gun and firing, then collapsing to the ground as a
half-dozen witnesses ran away with their hands in the air. The officers, one of whom had
his gun drawn, shooed a remaining witness away and kicked the suspect's gun away before
performing chest compressions.
Last Sunday police in Kenosha, Wisconsin proved to be too incompetent to arrest a man
they had already had under control . They shot him 7 times into the back when he was
trying to get into his car. Nights of rioting followed. Buildings were burned down and businesses
were looted.
Yesterday a white teen with a semi-automatic weapon had the stupid idea to join others in
'protecting the businesses' in Kenosha from further looting. He ended up killing two people
and wounding more after he was attacked by some of
the rioters. The teen was arrested and he is facing charges but I doubt that he is guilty of
more than sheer stupidity and manslaughter in self defense.
The cycle of violence will likely continue. There are too many racist in the police and the level
of U.S. police training seems to be abysmal. There is also too much tolerance for violence
within the general community.
Politically this plays into Trump's law and order campaign. The Democrats have lauded
Black Live Matters and the protests but have hardly spoken out against the rioting and
looting that comes with them.
This CNN chyron from yesterday
evening is an expression of their position:
'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda
constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and
whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing.
Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side
has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored.
This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which
plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who
fear that are right :
"There's no doubt it's playing into Trump's hands," said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor
of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. "There's a significant number of
undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to
the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections.
And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers
in murdering African Americans, and ... for the safety of their communities."
Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. "So let me be
clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha," Vice President
Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking
on. "We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every
race and creed and color."
Republicans had chided Joe Biden and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in
the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn't
condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.
Despite Trump's failure to bring the pandemic under control his job approval rating
continues to be high
while Biden's lead in the polls
is shrinking . The United States seem to have a higher tolerance for avoidable death by
guns or viruses than other societies have. It is not the only point that makes it exceptional .
Posted by b on August 27, 2020 at 17:39 UTC |
Permalink
thanks b... it really looks like an empire in fast decline.... i don't believe the usa
constitution took into consideration the idea of corporations... also as you note - the
tolerance for violence or death as with covid is indeed much greater... i guess more people
have to have guns as it is in their constitution, and so much for public medicare... it is
like a dream about public finance and somewhere way off in the distant future... i don't
believe it is going to matter who wins this coming election, as the divisiveness is so
pronounced, it will be hard to build bridges.. it seems like no one is interested in building
bridges between the opposing sides either... all the politicians are mostly looking after
corporations and special interest lobbies - israel and etc. etc... sad kettle of fish...
Very fair analysis, I enjoyed this piece. You are absolutely right, the terrible training
and general ineptitude of the police is at the core of the problem. The protesters recognize
this and there are many salient examples to fuel the outrage. However, the solutions they
call for don't address this root problem and alienate many moderate voters. Defund the
police? This will make the police more responsible? The whole thing is a mess with no real
solutions in sight.
In my opinion, the problem is the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments.
Police officer is a critical job, you must often make snap judgments in tense situations, and
you have the power to do violence to others. But police officers are paid similarly to car
mechanics, not even as much as many private security guards! The most responsible and wise
Americans do not become police officers, they pursue other careers where their talents are
better rewarded. Then, if a great person makes it into the police force, there is no way to
distinguish themselves by excellent performance and rise quickly through the ranks. The red
tape in the personnel system is suffocating. The best officers leave for private
opportunities, leaving the police force to make do with the rest.
Given the US political system, where decisions are made based on which simple slogan can
rally the crowd, I don't see any hope of this improving. It would take a redesign of the org
structure and personnel management of the entire system. Far more likely that leaders make
some symbolic, token changes so they can claim to have "done something." The dysfunction of
the US government is starting to be noticeable in almost every area...
Thanks for this insightful essay and thanks for the last link to the chilling must read
essay by Larry Romanoff on the Unz Review. I simply don't know the answer to the multiple
problems faced by the US but isn't that the job of the professional politicians? It seems
none would even begin to address any of the mind blowing issues raised by Romanoff. In a
previous era many of those crucial issues would be career ending third rail, touch and die.
Times have been forever changed by events. I have the feeling the general populace won't put
up with the present archaic and parasitical structures for long. Hang on for a bumpy
ride.
The conclusion is unfortunately correct, but t he sole focus on Antifa as the problem
Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. Who do you
believe is more dangerous, Antifa or White Supremacist militias? The Feds are well aware that
WS groups are using the protests to destroy property and trying to set off a race war, but
the media and politicians are remarkably silent about the role of White Supremacists in the
violence, unless something happens that is too hard to ignore, like 'Umbrella Man.'
... as for antifa, what exactly have they done? who are they? is there an
organization?
My pet theory is that they are an off-shoot of JDL. Ready to turn any legitimate protest into
a riot for the evening news. Because Zionists need to protect the Zionist asshats that run
USA/Empire.
That's why they're (still) so mysterious. That's why the US government can never seem to
understand who they are. Antifa are the domestic "White Helmets" ready to support YOUR
protest. Except not.
the problem is
a. the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments by sabre <= @ 5.
b. the inner economic contradictions arising from secular decline. <= vk @ 7
c. media focus on Antifa <= according to B.
d. events and failures orchestrated to heightened economic oppression <= norecovery @
21
e. Business as usual while the country burns AU1 @ 34
f. repressive authoritarian state militancy and Trump @ 37..
g. All three shooting victims <= self-defense<= white, <= felons. gm 48
h. A JDL offshoot.. Jackrabbit @ 58
I say the problem of "unsatisfied rising discontent" is to be expected When anyone in a
democratic society fails to be heard, by all concerned, little recourse remains to those with
a grievance but to ....XXXXX
A very strong constitutional issue exists in these riots =>. The First Amendment
<=was not in the Federalist construct of Aristocrats and the corporate empires they owned.
The effort to control America is hidden deep inside the words and court interpretations since
the Constitution of the United States of America was imposed on Americans.
The Aristocrats in America wanted a British Colonial government without British
Aristocrats ; they wanted a government with a strong army so it could protect them from
Angry Americans! The Aristocrats and their corporations still in America after Britain was
defeated wanted to control the profits that could be made in America, much in the same
fashion as the British Colonial Government had helped its corporations, investors, and
bankers before the war to control who got the profits that were made in America.
The Federalist wanted a government the Aristocracy could use to exploit America ;
the federalist wanted to govern the behaviors and direct the toils of those in America in
such a way that only one federal government could do. In fact the so called Framers wanted a
royal government, tried to make George Washington, King.
Remember the Declaration of Independence was in 1776 , the America states defeated
the British Government in 1778, the Constitution of the USA did not come into being until
1788. During that 10 years John Hanson was the first President of the United States of
America.. Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKeeny, and others were President of the United States
of America. The British were gone, George Washington was appointed general to remove the
British corporations, Investors, and bankers from America, that was accomplished in 1778. The
American Aristocrats wanted to own America. George Washington was selected to be the general
of the Army because his wealth made him famous enough to attract mercenaries to fight the
British at Valley Forge. At the time the Constitution in Philadelphia was developed, George
was in Mt. Vernon.
The Aristocratic Convention in Philadelphia, was a meeting, designed to terminate
involvement by the newly emancipated American in American politics. The result of the
Convention in Philadelphia was a document which outlined how control of America could be
returned to the American Aristocrats, a document which would make the Aristrocrat powerful
again, the same Aristocrats who had previously used the British Government, to control
Americans. Check it out what were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and the
like doing in America while America was a British Colony (before 1776)? The Aristocrats
wanted a government that would allow America Aristocrats to direct and a government they
could use to control Americans.
The anti-federalist tried to refuse ratification of the denial to be against the
peoples involvement in their own government but the best the anti-federalist could do
against, the strong powers behind the Constitution, was to force the Federalist to add to
their regime change Constitution ten basic promises, <=these promises were in the form of
amendments and are known as the Bill Of Rights [BOR]: Anyway the first amendment of the BOR
reads.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances.. But, but but it does not say Congress will make every law necessary to
enforce the protection of the first Amendment.
So why can't those who are protesting be allowed to live so they can be heard? Why can't
their grievances be listed and placed on the national ballot? Let everyone be heard.. explore
every aspect of their concerns and accommodate those with a Grievance to rejoin our
democratic society, ask the nation to settle the issues dissenters have ? When the
Aristocrats use the government to impose their will on risings, they do so by eliminating
bystander awareness and deny everyone but a few to be involved; worse, they allow media to
promote, one side of the issue (no must carry rule).. this narrowing of participants happens
until nothing remains but conflict between bottom up grievance . . and top down power.. and
believe me that is the goal.. to divide and conquer.
"... BLM and Antifa having corporate sponsers makes them a little fascist, too, not to mention ideologically intolerant. The daughtets and sons of the spoiled upper-middle class. ..."
"... he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. ..."
BLM is not a protest movement, it's not even a civil rights movement. It's a Trojan
Horse funded by sinister globalist troublemakers
BLM is blamed for Antifa violence.
The Democrats and the media have encouraged this madness from the very beginning by
praising the protests while downplaying the magnitude of the damage.
That the rioting helps Trump and that establishment Democrats (Republican-lite)
support Trump is completely overlooked.
But it will change and change won't be pretty. The state will deploy all its assets
to reclaim its monopoly on violence. You can bet on that. Security will be reestablished
with brute force and an iron fist. A Crackdown is coming and the innocent are going to be
crushed along with the guilty.
Just as I said @Aug28 13:47 #199. Antifa+militia violence are a prescription for a
stronger police state.
@102 Karlof...i agree, your analysis is spot on, but where does a leftist put their
political energy when the two options are right-wing fascist and right-wing fascist-lite?
BLM and Antifa having corporate sponsers makes them a little fascist, too, not to
mention ideologically intolerant. The daughtets and sons of the spoiled upper-middle
class.
I would love a more sharing society, don't know how to get there. USA is probably a lost
cause, and as VK states, that is probably a good thing for the rest of the world.
Here is something to chew on. I live in portland and the first time I saw Antifa spring up
was back in 2009. Rose City Antifa organized a boycott of a local cooperatively owned bike
shop. They plastered the town and all the bike racks in the city saying to boycott the worker
owned business. What was it's crime you ask?, to get such treatment. The bike shop hosted a
meeting and speakers forum held by Portlanders for 911 truth. Draw your own conclusions
here.
What many are doing here, in the heat of battle, is forgetting that this is not a "civil
war," it is class war. The ruling class is pursuing its classic tactic of "divide and
conquer." Those divided are under the influence of the propaganda of the ruling class, and
continue to damage each other, rather than their true enemy the ruling class. This must be
made clear, in order to unite the working class, that they may exercise there true power and
crush the ruling class. There is no other way.
The conclusion is unfortunately correct, but t he sole focus on Antifa as the problem
Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. Who do you
believe is more dangerous, Antifa or White Supremacist militias? The Feds are well aware that
WS groups are using the protests to destroy property and trying to set off a race war, but
the media and politicians are remarkably silent about the role of White Supremacists in the
violence, unless something happens that is too hard to ignore, like 'Umbrella Man.'
... as for antifa, what exactly have they done? who are they? is there an
organization?
My pet theory is that they are an off-shoot of JDL. Ready to turn any legitimate protest into
a riot for the evening news. Because Zionists need to protect the Zionist asshats that run
USA/Empire.
That's why they're (still) so mysterious. That's why the US government can never seem to
understand who they are. Antifa are the domestic "White Helmets" ready to support YOUR
protest. Except not.
actually, there is NO such thing as "Antifa". Antifa is as made up as ISIS/Ali Queda is.
Antifa is a vague term loosely applied toward a group of people who are fed up with all the
fake "Capitalism" and are willing to fight against it.
Some may even not be "Antifa" but fake "Antifa" created for propaganda purposes. Exactly how
the notorious "red brigade" in Italy who kidnapped Aldo Moro and killed him. And the Red
Brigade was supposed to be Communist also; finny that, since Aldo Moro was about to create a
coalition with the Communists and he is prevented from accomplishing that by
"Communists".
But b is essentially correct, the average American moron™ is now fed up with all the
riots and looting and is siding with trump. But that's only because the Average American
moron™ (I have trademarked it, so dont try to steal it) is so stupid, they cannot even
think about anything, they live in a very simple good vs bad world.
"... The neo-liberal ideology, like many of its predecessor bodies of ideas and alibis for theft, teaches people that poverty is a mark of personal failure and moral turpitude. It also teaches that crime pays and that it is a constant temptation for the poor who, left unregulated, would help themselves to the wealth that members of the ruling class worked so hard for, from the very earliest age, by choosing the right fallopian tubes to crawl into. ..."
"... If such a reaction takes place it will lead to the formation of self defence militias where they are needed on the communities of the poor. And the failure of Biden /Harris would be a positive development in the discrediting of the corrupt "misleadership" class exemplified in the campaign to defeat Sanders and nominate Biden, which was based on the sense, in the Black community, that the Democrats- headed by the author of incarceration laws and one of the most evil prosecutors California has seen in the modern era-are their only protection. ..."
"...the terrible training and general ineptitude of the police is at the core of the
problem."
You are missing the point: the Police are very well trained, and indoctrinated. There is
nothing accidental in their behaviour. And the police culture is pretty well
internationalised. It is very similar in Canada and the UK for example. And, as we have seen
during the past year in France too.
It is a fascistic culture in which racism is an inherited and central but by no means
essential part. The Police are an crucial part of the neo-liberal system. And part of the
reward they get for doing as they are told, busting strikes, kettling demonstrators,
terrorising poor neighbourhoods and protecting private property, is a loose rein: they can do
more or less anything that they want. No Judge will do more than slap their wrists, the
Juries will thank them for their service. For certain personalities, in which US culture is
richly endowed, the right to run wild as part of the biggest biker gang in the world, is a
marvellous reward.
They are not only heavily armed but recruited, in large measure from the imperial armed
forces; there is nothing like a tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq to demonstrate impunity
in action.
The cops are the iron fist in the class system, defended by the judiciary, the
legislatures and the broad ideological apparatus, from the media to the educational system.
And backed up by armed and civilian militias, in most of which off duty cops and 'veterans'
of imperial adventures play leading roles. The police stations are gang headquarters in which
violence and contempt for democracy and legality are celebrated. And bullying is the secret
to success and advancement.
To put the matter in perspective- cops shoot about 1000 US civilians a year, about 25 a
week. And most of them are poor people, a constituency in which Black people are over
represented after centuries of discrimination and exploitation regimes enforced by
violence.
The neo-liberal ideology, like many of its predecessor bodies of ideas and alibis for
theft, teaches people that poverty is a mark of personal failure and moral turpitude. It also
teaches that crime pays and that it is a constant temptation for the poor who, left
unregulated, would help themselves to the wealth that members of the ruling class worked so
hard for, from the very earliest age, by choosing the right fallopian tubes to crawl
into.
It may be that b is right in his analysis. But it is also possible that-given the stark
nature of the facts surrounding these cases- public opinion will recognise that the one
constant in all these problems is the police system and the Gulags for private profit which
not only dwarf anything the Soviet Union ever developed, in terms of numbers, but in terms of
licence, unregulated violence and disregard for natural law hark back to the worst days of
the plantation culture.
If such a reaction takes place it will lead to the formation of self defence militias
where they are needed on the communities of the poor. And the failure of Biden /Harris would
be a positive development in the discrediting of the corrupt "misleadership" class
exemplified in the campaign to defeat Sanders and nominate Biden, which was based on the
sense, in the Black community, that the Democrats- headed by the author of incarceration laws
and one of the most evil prosecutors California has seen in the modern era-are their only
protection.
I agree with whoever wrote that it come down to culture.
The culture in the US and the West are the the result of the social contract that has
finance be a private owned and controlled element. It created the top/bottom class structure
which has been glossed over with left/right brainwashing.
The elite have manufactured the ignorance underpinning the misdirected protesting we are
seeing and all the "undesirables" who have been created by the system of inequality of
opportunity. The manufacturing of ignorance is called agnotology and came out of the study of
the decades long propaganda by the nicotine industry about cancer......are we sure, we are
sure, we are sure, we are sure that smoking causes cancer?
There are a few of us out here saying that private banking causes the culture you are
seeing in America and China is showing the way with purely sovereign central banking and
finance. We see the rest of you as victims of agnotology.
Among the most notable highlights at last night's Republican National Convention, Senator
Rand Paul delivered a blistering take down of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's
foreign policy, which Paul linked to multiple wars under Democrat administrations spanning
decades (going back to Clinton's bombing of Serbia).
"I fear Biden will choose war again," Paul
asserted . "He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our
blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home."
"If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to
Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home , you need
to support President Trump for another term," said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of
former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert
action toward destabilizing Syria.
He slammed Biden as a hawk who has "consistently called for more war" and with no signs
anything would be different.
Interestingly, Sen. Paul has also in the recent past led foreign policy push back against
President Trump - especially over the two times Trump has bombed Syria following alleged Assad
chemical attacks, which Paul along with other anti-interventionists across the aisle like Tulsi
Gabbard questioned to begin with.
But it appears Paul is firmly supportive of Trump's newly
released 50-point agenda for his second term outlining the Commander-in-Chief will "stop
endless war" and ultimately bring US troops "home." The plan still emphasized, however, the
administration will "maintain" US military strength abroad while 'wiping' out global
terrorism.
"President Trump is the first president in a generation to seek to end war rather than start
one. He intends to end the war in Afghanistan. He is bringing our men and women home. Compare
President Trump with the disastrous record of Joe Biden, who has consistently called for more
war ," Paul
said further.
Back during the primaries in 2016, Paul and Trump sparred intensely over national security
questions:
He also highlighted Biden's unrepentant yes vote to go to war in Iraq .
"I'm supporting President Trump because he believes as I do that a strong America cannot
fight endless wars. We must not continue to leave our blood and treasure in Middle East
quagmires," Paul concluded.
Elsewhere in the approximately four-minute speech, Paul said Trump will fight "socialists
poisoning our schools and burning our cities."
Cluster_Frak , 7 hours ago
Obama was a warmonger and so is Biden. They love war and doing everything possible for the
next war to be on the home ground.
Davidduke2000 , 7 hours ago
Obama had skeletons in his closet, he did what the neocons want, Trump gave them the
embassy and other shenanigans.
Izzy Dunne , 2 hours ago
And so is Trump. They are all warmongers, because war is what the US does...
Weihan , 7 hours ago
Paul is right.
Biden knows who butters his bread. At least candidate Trump - in principle - stood for
opposition to the deep state's monstrous agenda.
Biden, Clinton, Bush, Obama are despicable warmongers. Their administrations were
responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and the list
would have gone on and on had it not been for Trump.
Remember Biden's 1992 Wall Street Journal article titled:
"How I Learned to Love the New World Order."
JUICE E SMALL IT EMPIRE , 7 hours ago
Rand was the only guy I watched last night and he was on point. I did not disagree with
anything he said.
kulkarniravi , 8/26/2020, 2:33:07 PM
You can diss Obama all you want, but he signed a peace accord with Iran and Trump reneged
on it. Iran is not the villain, at least not when compared to the likes of Saudi Arabia. And
what's the deal with Cuba?
d_7878 , 6 hours ago
Rand on Trump:
"Are we going to fix the country through bombast and empty blather?
"Unless someone points out the emperor has no clothes, they will continue to strut about,
and then we'll end up with a reality TV star as our nominee."
"Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag"
"Have you ever had a speck of dirt fly into your eye?""[It is] annoying, irritating and
might even make you cry.
"If the dirt doesn't go away, it will keep scratching your cornea until eventually it
blinds you with all its filth. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president."
Trump is a "fake conservative."
mike_1010 , 7 hours ago
Trump might be talking peace, but he has increased US military spending significantly more
than previous presidents. He also tore up the US peace agreement with Iran and nearly
triggered a US war with Iran by assassinating one of their top generals.
If any president is going to start a war with Iran, then it's Trump. And such a war would
dwarf any recent wars USA has fought. Because Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in terms
of their population, and they've been preparing for a possible US attack for decades.
Perhaps Biden might start a small war here or there. But Trump goes big on anything he
does. If he starts a war, then it's going to be either with China or Iran.
So, neither Biden nor Trump is to be trusted, when it comes to war. But I'd say that Trump
is the bigger danger compared to Biden. Because if Trump starts a war, then it might end up
being a nuclear war.
Airstrip1 , 6 hours ago
Rand Paul needs to ask himself if the pot is blacker than the kettle.
How can he expect people to believe this disingenuous claptrap ?
The USA is an Empire-building Crime Cartel.
Dims or Reps are just frontmen managers for the Mob.
chopsuey , 7 hours ago
Ron and Rand. The dog and pony show. The alternative. They say what you want to hear.
I say
Phuck OFF Ron and Rand. You had many many years to do something (anything) about the
endless "wars" and in reality, they are not really wars. They are ruthless invasions of
vulnerable countries whereupon natural resources are contained, the culture and its symbolic
treasures are destroyed/stolen and thousands to millions are killed in the name of USA. These
unwarranted invasions are justified with lies and fraud and deceit.
Washington DC is the military capital of the world doing the dirty work of the elite. And
its soldier are your kids and grandkids.
Wake the Phuck UP people. It will not end until they have achieved their objectives. You
are fodder for their cannon.
Dragonlord , 7 hours ago
Biden voted for war in Iraq and supported Obama aggression in Libya, Syria, etc and he is
disappointed that Trump did not help Kurd to wage war against Turks for their
independence.
ConanTheContrarian1 , 7 hours ago
Not sure. Trump has to play ball with established Deep State interests while he tries (I
hope) to set things right. So, yes, questions will abound for some time.
takefive , 7 hours ago
whatever the reason, he is now part of the swamp. and that's why he's in a tough
re-election battle with a stiff.
Ex-Oligarch , 3 hours ago
You have it exactly wrong. If Trump were really part of the swamp, they wouldn't be
fighting so desperately to prevent his re-election. They wouldn't have spent three years on
the Russiagate failed coup, they wouldn't have gone through the ridiculous partisan
impeachment exercise, they wouldn't have torpedoed the economy over coronavirus, and we
wouldn't have organized race riots in all the democrat strongholds.
LaugherNYC , 3 hours ago
Rand Paul is just about the only grown-up in American politics.
How much bettter off would the USA be with a Paul/Gabbard ticket?
But ANYTHING is better than Joe Biden. Literally ANYTHING.
Well...assuming Hillary were dead or incapacitated,
DaVinciCode , 7 hours ago
It's happening. Yugoslavian girl give dire warning to Americans.
This all happened in her country the same way.
PLEASE LISTEN - it is coming to the USA and the West
I agree with the Yugoslav girl's premise that the powers that be have been deceptively
employing a divide-and-conquer strategy to get the American people to fight among themselves
rather than confront their own corrupt government, but I do not buy into the conclusion drawn
that the solution lies in trusting the head of the government (in this case Trump) to do
right by the people.
As George Carlin famously said, "it's a big club, and you ain't in it!" The American
people are not going to be able to fix the problems now confronting them by voting for one
uniparty politician over another any more than the Yugoslav people were
wick7 , 7 hours ago
The Democrats will get their regime change war no matter what. If Biden is elected they'll
continue the Syrian war that has cost 800,000 innocent lives so far. If Trump is elected
they'll try to have one here to take him down.
yojimbo , 7 hours ago
Afghani GDP - $20bn. US military spending - $50bn.
They must have the best services in the world!
yesnomaybe , 7 hours ago
That video clip from the 2016 GOP debate is classic... as Paul questions Trump attacking
personal appearances, Trump flat out denies it, and then proceeds to do just that in his next
breath.
In all seriousness, Rand is a stand up guy and would make a great president.
Maghreb2 , 7 hours ago
Ru Paul has as much chance of stopping this war as Rand Paul. If he was a threat to the
people starting it he would be getting the **** bashed out of him or shot dead by a mad man.
Don't see many people talking about auditing the Fed outside of Texas anymore.
He's got a point. Biden's son is in Ukraine milking it high on crack cocaine like a
senators son should in the new Roman Emperor. Ukrainian color revolution and CIA long war
strategy means he has set up shop there permanently like a little princeling. Same as
princess Kushners wonderful tour of the Middle Eastern courts to meet his boyfriends. Old
days they would both have be poisoned to death or strangled as children for disrespecting the
senate.
Real rules of Eastern European politics are Nationalist winding up dead in dust bins
behind the American Embassy and Russians threatening to switch of the gas and freeze everyone
to death every winter. Footage of hard man dictator Lukashenko showing up at opposition
protests with an assault rifle is broadcast to school children. I'd like to see Hunter Biden
and Jared Kushner show up to something like that.
Truth is Trump is a ******* liar. the Moment they started to shut down Rammenstein airbase
they moved forces close to the Belarus border to pull another color revolution right in front
of Putin. Trump and the Republicans are just stooges for the Zionist mafia. They are playing
war scare but its too piss take for anyone now. Polish and Baltic States are NATO and have
their own prerogative. They just push people closer to war.
Rand Paul should worry about the Civil War that should come after the election.
Aint no senators sons for that game....
DEDA CVETKO , 5 hours ago
Thank you, Rand, for remembering the little Serbia -- twice (in both World Wars) America's
fiercest and most loyal ally, and now a roadkill of the Clinton Foundation and Madeleine
Albright,
the new owner of Kosovo.
The nations that sadistically massacre and dismember their friends and allies do not have
a future, nor the right to claim any.
Scipio Africanuz , 5 hours ago
Again Senator Paul, we don't do self deception..
In almost four years, how many legions have been repatriated home, or how many of the
existing wars have been ended?
All we've observed, is an escalation of hybrid wars, reducing in some, kinetism, and
increasing death tolls via other means, and in some, increased covert kinetism..
Your candidate brazenly murdered a top general of a nation not at war with the US..
Imagine Senator Paul, if Iran had murdered Petraeus, would the US not have declared
war?
That the Iranians didn't significantly escalate, was NOT due to fear, but back channel
advocacy and energetic remonstrations by adult folks..
If you believe Biden is worse than your candidate who's done worse, in terms of brazen law
abrogation, then why aren't you a candidate, or is it that you'd prefer partisanship to
patriotism?
Look within your party for corollary and accomplice warmongers, and leave Biden alone
after all, you do have a rabid warmongering Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton as party
colleagues, no?
Senator Paul, there's principle, character, and integrity and then there's opportunism,
partisanship, and betrayal..
Of nobility..
Anyhow, you're sovereign and thus, fully entitled to your choices, we simply point out
inconsistencies between what you espouse, and what you support..
Character, Senator Paul, is destiny..
Cheers...
Anthraxed , 4 hours ago
Trump has dropped more bombs than Obama at the same time in his term.
You're in complete denial if you think Trump has stopped any of the wars. And yes, he is
expanding the wars to a much larger country.
Trump's first veto was a bill that would have stopped the Yemen war.
Reality is like Cryptonite for Trumptards.
quanttech , 4 hours ago
lol, 10 minutes ago I was being accused of being Antifa, and now I'm a Trumptard.
Definitely doing something right.
Yes, Trump is a war criminal extraordinaire. He dropped a MOAB. He removed controls on
civilian casualties. He dropped 7400+ bombs on Afghanistan in 2019.... 60% of the casualties
were civilians, mostly children.
He also stupidly listened to his generals when they told him to kill Sulemani. BUT... when
the Iranians retaliated (and they DID retaliate, injuring dozens of US soldiers) Trump
de-escalated. Similarly, when the Iranians downed a drone, the generals wanted to retaliate -
Trump asked how many Iranians would die. The generals said 150. Trump said it didn't make
sense to kill 150 people for downing a drone.
Trump is a moron who is completely out of it most of the time. But when he pays attention
for a moment, he's against a a war with Iran.
Now, if I'm a Trumptard, then you're a Hillaryhead. My question to you is... where would
we be if Hillary was president? Answer: at war with Iran. Another question: where will we be
if Biden is president?
Dull Care , 3 hours ago
How much authority do you think Trump has over the foreign policy? Not a rhetorical
question but I have yet to see an American president run for office advocating a more
interventionist foreign policy yet it doesn't change greatly no matter who is in office.
Trump often carries a big stick but he's nowhere near as reckless as his predecessors.
The one thing we know is Trump is hostile to the Chinese government and hasn't turned
around relations with Russia.
quanttech , 1 hour ago
"... I have this feeling that whoever's elected president when you win, you go into this
smoky room with the twelve industrialists capitalists scum-***** who got you in there. And a
big guy with a cigar goes: 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy Assassination from
an angle you've never seen before - It looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. Then the
screen comes up, and they go to the new president: 'Any questions?'"
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor (1993)
Observer 2020 , 5 hours ago
The spiritual, moral, ethical, philosophical, intellectual and cultural bankruptcy of
Biden and his fellow death cult reprobates is depthless. One need know nothing more about
them that they have become so detached from reality as to regard abortion, partial birth
abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, generational genocide, genocide, of the white race,
unremitting sociocultural warfare and the balkanization of this nation as being virtues.
Anyone who would even begin to contemplate supporting Biden or any of his fellow Fifth
Columnists should be regarded as being too demented or otherwise Bidenesque to be competent
to vote.
12Doberman , 5 hours ago
Biden has a record showing him to be a Neocon...and that's why we see the neverTrumpers
supporting him.
Musum , 5 hours ago
And Pompeous is 10X worse than Biden. And he serves as Trump's Sec. of State.
Of course, he's just a viceroy serving on behalf of the kosher people.
ted41776 , 8 hours ago
it's not what the president chooses
it's what chooses the president
conraddobler , 8 hours ago
This has lost all it's entertainment value.
Hollywood and the Postman was a more realistic view, in that movie I believe the warlord
was a former copier either salesman or technician, can't remember but it's more likely a guy
like that would have leadership capabilities than these clowns would.
invention13 , 1 hour ago
It saddens me that people can just go about their business in this country without giving
a thought about the men and women who are getting injured and coming home stressed out and
addicted to painkillers. Also that the real motive for continued military involvement in the
ME is that some people are making tons of money off it. We need our own version of Smedley
Butler these days.
It is all decadent beyond belief.
mrjinx007 , 1 hour ago
That MF no good SOB war mongering no good neocon SOB Shawn did everything he could to get
RP to agree with him that we need to continue with the policy of regime change.
Rand just basically told him to shut the f up and stop blowing the Neo-cons' erections. It
was precious. You know how people like this ******* Hannity get their funding from. Deep
state, MIC, and all the f'king Rino's like Tommy Cotton.
gm_general , 2 hours ago
Thanks to Hillary and Obama, Libya is a complete mess and black people are being sold as
slaves there. Let that sink in.
@HarvardSqEddy pinion, because of all the wars and belligerence plus the undeniable fact
that DOD and HUD have stolen $21 Trillion ( https://missingmoney.solari.com/ ) in recent decades
and there's no recognition of this fact on the evening news and there are no congressional
hearings to find out where that currency went. That tells me the figureheads in the visible
gov't are just actors and they aren't interested because they were told to ignore it.
What comes out the other end, according to what they want, is a much lower standard of
living for the masses, a much reduced population and much more corporate/fascist control.
Think North Korea.
Wow. a very precise shot at America's most underlying problem:
These individuals are vital for the success of the transformation of the US to a fascist
state, with the elites dependent upon them to execute their policies, yet they also
profit from their positions in terms of attractive salaries and protection from much of the
law . These are the people who best know of all the crimes and social injustices, being
in fact a willing part of their execution process, but least likely to blow the whistle for
fear of damaging their careers.
It is the middle level of educated executives, lawyers, accountants and managers in
government, criminal corporations, Foundations, think tanks, the media, and so many others,
who are directly responsible for knowingly inflicting the vast damage on their own people
and nation
A very illuminating description of modern day America, no punches pulled by Larry
Romanoff.
Another fact goes unmentioned: the US has the largest number of unindicted war criminals
in the post-WW II world, a fact that allows for an escalation of war crimes committed. For
those here who refuse to accept the racist nature of our country, they need only look at the
ethnic makeup of the millions of victims of our unprovoked foreign wars of aggression.
Former Congressman Ron Paul and his colleague Dan McAdams recently conducted a fascinating interview with
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which focused in part on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,
who was Kennedy Jr.'s uncle. The interview took place on their program the Ron Paul Liberty
Report.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_kJdOtnBUcw
Owing to the many federal records that have been released over the years relating to the
Kennedy assassination, especially through the efforts of the Assassination Records Review Board
in the 1990s, many Americans are now aware of the war that was being waged between President
Kennedy and the CIA throughout his presidency . The details of this war are set forth in FFF's
book
JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas
Horne.
In the interview, Robert Kennedy Jr. revealed a fascinating aspect of this war with which I
was unfamiliar. He stated that the deep animosity that the CIA had for the Kennedy family
actually stretched back to something the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy, did in the 1950s
that incurred the wrath of Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA.
Kennedy Jr. stated that his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, had served on a commission that
was charged with examining and analyzing CIA covert activities, or "dirty tricks" as Kennedy
Jr. put them. As part of that commission, Kennedy Jr stated, Joseph Kennedy (John Kennedy and
Bobby Kennedy's father) had determined that the CIA had done bad things with its regime-change
operations that were destroying democracies, such as in Iran and Guatemala.
Consequently, Joseph Kennedy recommended that the CIA's power to engage in covert activities
be terminated and that the CIA be strictly limited to collecting intelligence and empowered to
do nothing else.
According to Kennedy Jr.,
"Allen Dulles never forgave him -- never forgave my family -- for that."
I assumed that the war between President Kennedy and the CIA had begun with the CIA's
invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The additional information added by Kennedy Jr. places
things in a much more fascinating and revealing context.
Upon doing a bit of research on the Internet, I found that the commission that Kennedy Jr.
must have been referring to was the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence
Activities, which President Eisenhower had established in 1956 through
Executive Order 10656 . Eisenhower appointed Joseph Kennedy to serve on that
commission.
That year was three years after the CIA's 1953 regime change operation in Iran which
destroyed that country's democratic system. It was two years after the CIA's regime-change
operation in Guatemala that destroyed that country's democratic system.
Keep in mind that the ostensible reason that the CIA engaged in these regime-change
operations was to protect "national security," which over time has become the most important
term in the American political lexicon. Although no one has ever come up with an objective
definition for the term, the CIA's power to address threats to "national security," including
through coups and assassinations, became omnipotent.
Yet, here was Joseph P. Kennedy declaring that the CIA's power to exercise such powers
should be terminated and recommending that the CIA's power be strictly limited to intelligence
gathering.
It is not difficult to imagine how livid CIA Director Dulles and his cohorts must have been
at Kennedy. No bureaucrat likes to have his power limited. More important, for Dulles and his
cohorts, it would have been clear that if Kennedy got his way, "national security" would be
gravely threatened given the Cold War that the United States was engaged in with the Soviet
Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist nations.
Now consider what happened with the Bay of Pigs. The CIA's plan for a regime-change invasion
of Cuba, was conceived under President Eisenhower. Believing that Vice President Nixon would be
elected president in 1960, the CIA was quite surprised that Kennedy was elected instead. To
ensure that the invasion would go forth anyway, the CIA assured Kennedy that the invasion would
succeed without U.S. air support. It was a lie. The CIA assumed that once the invasion was
going to go down in defeat at the hands of the communists, Kennedy would have to provide the
air support in order to "save face."
But Kennedy refused to be played by the CIA. When the CIA's army of Cuban exiles was going
down in defeat, the CIA requested the air support, convinced that their plan to manipulate the
new president would work. It didn't. Kennedy refused to provide the air support and the CIA's
invasion went down in defeat.
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Now consider what happened after the Bay of Pigs: Knowing that the CIA had played him and
double-crossed him, John Kennedy fired Allen Dulles as CIA director, along with his chief
deputy, Charles Cabell. He then put his younger brother Bobby Kennedy in charge of monitoring
the CIA, which infuriated the CIA.
Now jump ahead to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which Kennedy resolved by promising that the
United States would not invade Cuba for a regime-change operation. That necessarily would leave
a permanent communist regime in Cuba, something that the CIA steadfastly maintained was a grave
threat to "national security" -- a much bigger threat, in fact, than the threats supposedly
posed by the regimes in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.
And then Kennedy did the unforgivable, at least insofar as the CIA was concerned . In his
famous Peace Speech at American University in June 1963, he declared an end to the entire Cold
War and announced that the United States was going to establish friendly and peaceful relations
with the communist world.
Kennedy had thrown the gauntlet down in front of the CIA. It was either going to be his way
or the CIA's way. There was no room for compromise, and both sides knew it.
In the minds of former CIA Director Allen Dulles and the people still at the CIA, what
Kennedy was doing was anathema and, even worse, the gravest threat to "national security" the
United States had ever faced, a much bigger threat than even that posed by the democratic
regimes in Iran and Guatemala. At that point, the CIA's animosity toward President Kennedy far
exceeded the animosity it had borne toward his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, several years
before.
Joe A , 2 hours ago
And Allen Dulles, the CIA director that Kennedy fired, was on the Warren Commission that
concluded that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin who was a poor marksman using a crappy
rifle.
USGrant , 2 hours ago
The Warren Commission exhibits show that the Carcano after the scope was shimmed to make
it usable, shot about 10 inches to the right and high at 25 yards with terrible accuracy.
Presumably this was one of the carbines whose barrel was cut down from rifle length taking
much of the progressive rifling with it. The cartridges placed on the 6th floor were
clearly reloads not the supposed new Western cartridges of circa 1953. As reloads then the
question arises where were .267 bullets to be obtained since only .264 were manufactured at
the time which would make accuracy suffer.
Joe A , 1 hour ago
Yes, but these bullets were magic bullets according to the Warren Commission. There was
one bullet that entered Kennedy's throat and left it, then traversed through air, changing
course, hanged suspended in mid air for about a second or so and then continued to hit the
governor that was sitting in front to the left of Kennedy. That bullet traversed 15 layers
of clothing, seven layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of muscle tissue, struck a
necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone and was found virtually
intact. Some bullet!
USGrant , 1 hour ago
And the found bullet changed from a spitzer according to the first hospital worker who
was alerted to it, to a round nose.
WingedMessenger , 19 minutes ago
You have missed several TV episodes that have successfully recreated the magic bullet
scenario, including Myth Busters. The bullet is not magic, the actual seating geometry and
sight line of the shooter all contribute to the bullet path being actually very straight.
The 6.5mm 150-160 grain bullets have a very high sectional density that gives them a lot of
penetration. In one test the spent bullet was found resting on the leg of the second ("John
Connally") dummy just like it did in real life.
They used the same Cacarno rifle for the tests. The shot is not difficult. The car is
moving directly away from the shooter at the time of this shot, so no real lead is
required. The range is less than a 100 yards so you just aim dead on and shoot. Hunters do
it all the time.
ThirteenthFloor , 1 hour ago
When Allen Dulles passed away, the CIA sent someone to Dulles' Georgetown home to get
'missing' and incriminating JFK autopsy photos from his safe and destroy them. That person
was James Jesus Angleton, who admitted late in his life. Read last chapter in "Devils
Chessboard" - David Talbot.
USGrant , 1 hour ago
If I recall, he was the one found searching in her studio for Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary
after she was killed . (Cord Meyer's ex-wife)
cornflakesdisease , 10 minutes ago
He also had a huge hand in the political beginings of the UN.
Bay of Pigs , 2 hours ago
Allen Dulles, LBJ and the CIA murdered JFK. It's that fu#king simple.
MontCar , 1 hour ago
LBJ likely abetted the cover up. Placing Allen Dulles, recently fired from the CIA
directorship by JFK, on the since disgraced Warren Commission. Mossad may have partnered
with CIA in the assassination. JFK evidently opposed Israel's nuclear weapons acquisition
efforts - an existential issue for Israel. Clear motive.
USGrant , 1 hour ago
Allan Dulles then danced on JFK's grave.
Angular Momentum , 1 hour ago
Kennedy also supported the right of return for the Palestinians refugees who left Israel
for Jordan. Also an existential issue for Israel. I think in Ben Gurian's mind either
Kennedy lived or Israel survived as a Jewish state. It was one or the other. I have no
doubt the CIA covered for Israel because they had their own beef with Kennedy.
Yen Cross , 1 hour ago
It wasn't some flunkie Soviet reject from the bell tower.
There's no way Oswald could bounce a high velocity round of lead off a light post, in
front of the Limousine, still carrying enough muzzle velocity to cave in the back side of
POTUS cranium.
There were other players, at the very least.
WingedMessenger , 5 minutes ago
I have been to the 6th floor museum in Dallas several times and reviewed the various
theories on where other shooters might have been located. All of the them are worse than
the 6th floor of the Book Depository. Some are down right stupid, like the one supposed in
the sewer by the curb. It would be impossible to shoot a rifle in there at the angle needed
to hit above the wheel well of the limo, much less be able to see the limo before it was
right on you. You could not even see Kennedy from there, You would have to shoot through
the bottom of a door or the floor boards just to hit him in the leg or foot.
The 6th floor is the only location that allows the shooter to see the limos coming
before they arrive in the target zone and allow him to prepare to shoot. All the other
locations give only a tiny window to ID the target and loose off a round before the limo
disappears out of view. A competent assassin would have chosen the 6th floor window. If
Oswald was not the best shot, there is always the possibility that he just got lucky on
some easy shots, or maybe someone else was in the 6th floor window. We don't have any
evidence for either case.
NewDarwin , 3 hours ago
The CIA has it in for anyone who tries to dismantle the deep state...
sj warrior , 2 hours ago
jfk tried to stop izzy from getting nuclear bombs
rfk tried to force the forerunner to aipac to register as foreign agent, thus subject to
gov monitoring
both of these stances failed after the assassinations
Pandelis , 26 minutes ago
plus the Secret Societies speech ... that was a biggie showing he was into them (cia was
just one of octopus arms)....
and the executive order issued by Kennedy on using silver as currency ... that was
really going after the owners ... in all fairness, not sure he knew what he was up against
... his son was killed without giving him a chance to shine yet ...
desertboy , 2 hours ago
The CIA is the direct product of, and works directly for, the same parties that own the
Fed (the primary shareholders of its shareholders).
The CIA is even typically headed by bankers.
This is simply the history.
eatapeach , 2 hours ago
Nope, Trump is an insider. Should be pretty obvious given his behavior toward Syria,
Iran, and Israel. He's no different than all those in the long line since after
Kennedy.
Dzerzhhinsky , 2 hours ago
The CIA Versus The Kennedys
We all know who won that fight. Not a single American President has dared to disobey the
CIA since.
revjimbeam , 2 hours ago
Nixon ended Viet nam and opened China- liddy(FBI) and hunt(CIA) set the administration
up by breaking into the watergate then finished him of with anonymous leaks to the
Washington post by felt (deepthroat) the no.2 at fbi....sound familar?
Impeachment doesn't leave agency fingerprints and is less messy than Dallas Memphis and
LA
Gospel According To Me , 2 hours ago
Interesting theory and very plausible.
That is why to this day the Deep State poses such a grave danger to our democracy. They
want Trump out of their way, period. If Trump pardons Snowden he better head for his WH
bomb shelter. They will really go after him with everything they have. And they still have
plenty of sick like-minded people in place in every agency. They spy on Trump and work to
sabotage every good idea he has to Make America Great Again. Pray he prevails and the USA
survives.
eatapeach , 2 hours ago
Please. Snowden is a feeble US analog of Baryshnikov et al and Russia knows it.
Moreover, the contrived Trump v. Deep State narrative reads like a Hardy Boys novel, soft
and weak. If 'deep state' wants someone gone, they don't dilly dally. What are you, 13
years old?
2hangmen , 2 hours ago
Well, that explains the CIA involvement with the Deep State in trying to take down
candidate Trump, then President Trump. Whether someone can bring them into line will
determine if we keep our nation as founded.
ComradePuff , 22 minutes ago
Kennedy didn't even make one full term, let alone stand for re-election. In the
meantime, the CIA has only gotten stronger and spun off into a dozen other agencies. You're
deluding yourself.
FlKeysFisherman , 2 hours ago
WTF, I like a Kennedy now!!!
Earth Ling , 2 hours ago
Then you'll love this!
RFK JR's org Children's Health Defense is suing Zuckerberg and Facebook:
I fear for RFK Jr, to be perfectly honest. It's amazing he can even walk with balls that
big.
Eastern Whale , 2 hours ago
shows that politicians are all rotten to the core even in a "democratically" elected
government
communism in 20th century is a joke, Oligarch from Russia is buying soccer teams in UK,
Chinese is lined up at Chanel and LV in every city. communism is just a concept and name
now.
anyhow, all politicians should be at the bottom of the ocean
presterjohn1198 , 2 hours ago
The cia has always been the shadow government of the USSA. Those clever Ivy League boys
think that they always knew better about screwing up world affairs than our elected
government. Pretty much the same kind of club as the legacy media, whom the cia frequently
collaborates with.
Fools!
Arising , 1 hour ago
... the CIA's 1953 regime change operation in Iran which destroyed that country's
democratic system.
There's one for all the Republican fan boys that hate Iran because their leaders tell
them to.
buckboy , 1 hour ago
Pres. Trump are well aware of these facts. Main reason why he has his own private
security. Amazing he is getting this far. This man knows how to win than anyone else.
He made Brennan, Clapper, Comey Clintons like real clowns instead.
Call it conspiracy, the terrorism, blm antifa racism and non sense chaos are supported
by the cia. CIA is the main and most dangerous enemy of the world. To control is the main
objective.
Like the JFK family and now Trump, if you are against them, they'll discredit you
through the history.
USGrant , 2 hours ago
Listen to Douglas Horne's interview of Dino Brugioni and how the Zupruder film was
doctored to make it seem that the head shot came from the back. No surprise with the head
movement-it came from the front.
USGrant , 2 hours ago
Those frames were cut out which not only exaggerated the head movement but it made it
impossible for 3 shots to come from the crappy Carcano in the shortened time as gauged from
the film. So there is only one frame of the head shot but Dino remembered several as he was
the one charged with making the briefing board on Saturday night prior to the film being
altered on Sunday at the Kodak Hawkeye Works.
Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago
Richard
Dolan has a nice set of interviews with Phillip Lavelle (a walking JFK encyclopedia) on
the topic at his youtube channel. ...
Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago
And Tracey too, being that smart and good looking is almost unfair
fucking truth , 1 hour ago
And yet trump promised and reneged on releasing all the Kennedy docs, it's a big swamp
and i think Trump's in it, ribbit.
Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago
It's like trying to drain an ocean. Eventually you fall in
mcmich , 1 hour ago
The people in power now is the people behind JFK's murder..
Soloamber , 38 minutes ago
So does everyone else . Jackie Kennedy knew too . She said they finally got him . Johnson told his mistress the same day .
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
The only worthwhile human beings in the entire Kennedy clan were JFK and Jr.
(notwithstanding Jackie, whom I count as Onassis). The rest - particularly Bobby Kennedy -
were scum of the earth and sycophants of the Matrix, the lowliest kind of elitist
wire-carrying police informants and apron-wearers. To this day I don't understand how
anyone in the right mind could venerate Bobby Kennedy. The man was three tiers below even
his fuhrer-sucking daddy.
Would United States have been better off had Kennedy survived? Probably, but not by much
and only in the short term. We might have avoided Vietnam (highly questionable - JFK had
already sent our troops there and the whole thing was already on the verge of dangerous
escalation). But as soon as his second term ended, the Deep State would have installed a
more desirable and obedient puppet (most likely Nixon, possibly LBJ) in the White House and
we would have continued where LBJ left off in January 1969.
"... The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ..."
"... "The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/ imperialism ..."
Yesterday the US
ordered an airstrike on Syrian forces, killing one, when they refused to let the illegal
occupying force past a checkpoint in northern Syria.
In both cases an arm of the US-centralized empire used wildly disproportionate force
against people who stood against a hostile occupation of their own country. In both cases the
more powerful and violent occupiers claimed they were acting in "self-defense". In both cases
dropping explosives from the sky upon human beings barely made the news.
Bombs should not exist. Explosives designed to blow fire and shrapnel through human bodies
should not be a thing. In a sane world, there wouldn't be bombs, and if some mentally
unbalanced person ever made and used one it would be a major international news story.
Instead, bombs are cranked out like iPhones at
enormous profit , and nearly all bombings are ignored. Many bombs
are being dropped per day by the US and its allies, with a massive
civilian death toll , and almost none of those bombings receive any international
attention. The only time they do is generally when a bombing occurs that was not authorized
by the US-centralized empire.
This is one of those absolutely freakish things about our society that has become
normalized through careful narrative management, and we really shouldn't allow it to be.
The fact that explosives designed to rip apart human anatomy are dropped from the sky many
times per day for no other reason than to exert control over foreign countries should horrify
us all.
An interesting social experiment when you talk to someone might be to tell them solemnly,
"There's been a bombing." Then when they say "What?? Where??", tell them "The Middle East
mostly. Our government and its allies drop many bombs there per day in order to keep a
resource-rich geostrategic region balkanized and controllable."
Then watch their reaction.
You will probably notice a marked change in demeanor as the person learns that what you
meant is different from what they thought you meant. They will likely act as though you'd
tricked them in some way. But you didn't. You just called a thing the thing that it is, and
let their assumptions do the rest.
When someone gravely tells you "There's been a bombing," what they almost always mean is
that there has been a suspected terrorist attack in a western, majority-white nation. They
don't mean the kind of bombing that kills exponentially more people and does exponentially
more damage than terrorism in western nations. They don't mean the kind of terrorism that our
government enacts and approves of.
There's a lot of pushback nowadays against the racism and prejudices that are woven
throughout the fabric of our society, and rightly so .
But what doesn't get nearly enough attention in this discourse is the fact that while some
manifestations of bigotry may have been successfully scaled back somewhat in our own
countries, it was in a sense merely exported overseas.
The violence that is being inflicted overseas in our name by the US-centralized empire is
more horrific than any manifestation of racism we're ever likely to encounter at home. It is
more horrific than the pre-integration American South. It is more horrific than even slavery
itself. Yet even the more conscious among us fail to give this relentless onslaught of
violence a proportionate degree of recognition and condemnation, even while the consent for
it is largely born of the unexamined
bigoted notion that violence against people in developing and non-western countries does
not matter.
Like many other forms of bigotry, this one has been engineered and promulgated by powerful
people who benefit from it. If the mainstream news media were what it purports to be, namely
an institution dedicated to creating an informed populace about what's truthfully going on in
the world, we would see the bombings in foreign nations given the same type of coverage that
a bombing in Paris or London receives.
This would immediately bring consciousness to the unconscious bigotry that those in the
US-centralized empire hold against people in low and middle income countries, which is
exactly why the plutocrat-owned media do not report on it in this way. The US-centralized
empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire.
When people set out to learn what's really going on in their world they often start
cramming their heads with history and geopolitics facts and figures, which is of course fine
and good. But a bigger part of getting a clear image of what's happening in the world is
simply turning your gaze upon things you already kind of knew were happening, but couldn't
quite bring yourself to look at.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
From the Ramparts, 17 hours ago
"The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/
imperialism.
The AmeriKKKan Empire is the reigning heir to that legacy of Western thuggery, plunder and pillage.
"... To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations. ..."
"... By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. { Go Deep } ..."
"... In a similar fashion the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos . ..."
"... The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier. ..."
"... In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize. ..."
"... It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S. ..."
"... All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump's orbit. ..."
"... Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate . ..."
"... The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham is now unraveling. ..."
"... Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill. "Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year's presidential election," Rohrabacher said, "Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails." ..."
"... Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017. ..."
"... The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements. ..."
"... The predicate for Robert Mueller's investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor. ..."
"... The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative. ..."
"... This Russian "hacking" claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus ..."
According to reports in November of 2019, U.S Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General
Bill Barr were spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016
presidential election. One recent quote from a
media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:
"One British official with knowledge of Barr's wish list presented to London commented
that "it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite
robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services"". (
Link )
It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there appears to
be evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services. In
addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with
both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control. In this
outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.
To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to
understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network
of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge
between the CIA and FBI operations.
By now people are familiar with the construct of
CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally
admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John
Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy
(Rome) and London. {
Go Deep }
In a similar fashion the CIA tasked
U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter
Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor Stefan Halper also targeted General
Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra
Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos
.
The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This
seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.
One of the more interesting aspects to the Durham probe is a possibility of a paper-trail
created as a result of the tasking operations. We should watch closely for more evidence of a
paper trail as some congressional reps have hinted toward documented evidence (transcripts,
recordings, reports) that are exculpatory to the targets (Page & Papadop). HPSCI Ranking
Member Devin Nunes has strongly hinted that
very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA
application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. I digress
However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints
of the CIA; only this time due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S. the CIA
aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies starts
to become important.
Remember, it's clear in the text messages Strzok has a working relationship with what he
called their "sister agency", the CIA. Additionally, Brennan
has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)
which outlines the Russia narrative; and it is almost guaranteed the July 31st, 2016,
"Electronic Communication" from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation "Crossfire
Hurricane" was co-authored from the CIA by Strzok . and Strzok immediately used that EC to
travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K.
Alexander Downer.
In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond
wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career
agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.
Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the
end of 2015 ; at appropriately the same time as "
FBI Contractors " were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on
a specific set of U.S. persons.
It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian
lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named
Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was
directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing
her inside the U.S.
Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump
Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with
public reporting back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan
fell out of a helicopter to his death (just before it crashed).
Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using
a young Russian named Maria Butina
tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates . According to Patrick Byrne,
Butina's handler, it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where
to send her. {
Go Deep }
All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing
a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump's orbit.
International operations directed by the CIA, and domestic operations seemingly directed by
Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [ Strzok gets CIA service
coin ]
Recap :
Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA).
Halper tasked against
Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA).
Azra Turk , pretending to be Halper
asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI).
Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr
(CIA, Fusion-GPS).
Butina tasked against Trump, and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).
Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to
assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot
forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was
recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation
against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska
refused to participate .
All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence; and all of this intended to
give a specific Russia impression. This predicate is presumably what John Durham is currently
reviewing.
The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the
constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by
extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham
is now unraveling.
We also know specifically that John Durham is looking at the construct of the Intelligence
Community Assessment (ICA); and
talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that
bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important
because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange
indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal
since March 6th, 2018 : (Link to pdf)
On Tuesday April 15th more
investigative material was released . Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, * December of 2017
* This means FBI investigation prior to .
The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the
Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand
jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation,
April 2019 .
Why the delay?
What was the DOJ waiting for?
Here's where it gets interesting .
The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman
Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: "Assange told a U.S. congressman
he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents did not come from Russia."
(
August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon ) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on
Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year's
election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks
in the near future.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an
important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet
with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where
the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.
Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill. "Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure
of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year's presidential election,"
Rohrabacher said, "Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the
hacking or disclosure of those emails."
Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had
information to share privately with President Trump. (
read more )
Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative,
it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between
Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to
Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.
Within three months of the grand jury the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March
2018. The EDVA sat on the indictment while the Mueller probe was ongoing.
As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort
between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from
the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (
link ).
As a person who has researched this three year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016
Russian hacking/interference narrative: "17 intelligence agencies", Joint Analysis Report
(JAR) needed for Obama's anti-Russia narrative in December '16; and then a month later the
ridiculously political Intelligence Community
Assessment (ICA) in January '17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.
It doesn't take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian
Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is
contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.
This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller
report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the
Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by
WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian
Assange on-the-record statements.
The predicate for Robert Mueller's investigation was specifically due to Russian
interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the
intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that
Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer
analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor.
The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim.
The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries
whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested
self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.
Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of
the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.
This Russian "hacking" claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K
intelligence apparatus . Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon
intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.
Now, if we know this, and you know this; and everything is cited and factual well, then
certainly AG Bill Barr knows this.
The $64,000 dollar question is: will they say so publicly?
Non-Corporate Entity , 7 minutes ago
Former NSA chief Bill Binney has forensic evidence that it was a download not a hack!!!
Hello?!?!
exige42 , 22 seconds ago
I believe this all holds true. My only hesitation is why Assange hasn't retaliated. He
was holed up in an Embassy for how many years because of these bastards? He had to have
known they were going to make a move on him sooner or later. Where is his dead plan? I hate
how these corrupt evil bastards have gotten their way forever. There has got to be a turn
on these SOBs. Where is the fight from these people who they are destroying
ffs???!!!
play_arrow
Dolar in a vortex , 1 minute ago
Jabba Barr and Bulldog Durham are a complete joke until they prove otherwise with
significant indictments. And no, Steve Bannon doesn't count.
IMO NATO should have ended with the fall of the USSR. It now "confronts" a largely
imaginary threat, concocted for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in US government
expenditures for defense and supporting the imperial dreams of the neocons.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? Really?
Isn't the western alliance for all intents & purposes already dead?
It is a shame as it could work together to counter the totalitarian CCP. But Mama Merkel
it seems would rather get a few yuan from the communists and turn a blind eye to CCP
authoritarianism until it becomes obvious that the CCP are ruthless and will be competing
with Germany around the world for machine tools and autos by undercutting them on price and
heavily subsidizing their companies until German industry is destroyed.
I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but have yet to meet one, so
am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many divisions do they
have?
If anything drives the US and Europe apart, it will be trade, not security. Germany is
clearly chafing under the US bit, which sacrifices European industry to US interests --
sanctions on Nordstream 2, trade with Russia, trade with Iran, and China and Huawei. The US
clearly prioritizes it's own LNG , finance, technology and arms industries over European
prosperity. It amazes me that it has taken Europe so long to wake up.
Biden will do nothing to change that dynamic, since he is beholden to the same interests
as Trump.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? The Baltics and most
likely the Poles do with past history in mind. I would like to see them and the Ukrainians
transition into something like the Finns who acknowledge Russian power but maintain their
independence. Right now they are looking at NATO as their guarantee of independence in the
future. Who can blame them when looking at history.
The Trump admin's (and for that matter, Trump's own instincts) are and have continuously
been quite correct with regards to EU's defense expenditures agenda. The European 'humanists'
take advantage of the American defense umbrella inside their own countries so they can afford
to NOT spend on defense and instead spend more on domestic and economic development. So while
America continues to pay for the EU's defense it cannot afford to invest in its own domestic
programs (infrastructure, etc.) adequately. These Europeans then with the collaboration of
their Atlanticist fellows on the other side of the pond do nation-building and
democratization projects (call it endless wars) abroad, such as in Afghanistan. Just don't
ask them about their track record in this department.
However, the thing is when their immediate interests are in danger they forget about
America in a heartbeat. Examples, Germany's Nordstream pipeline with Russia, 5G
infrastructure and development, trade with China, Paris climate accord, etc.
I tend to believe that EU knows best how to make an existential threat out of Russia.
Anyone still remembers the novichok incident back in 2018? The thing with Russia is that from
the POV of EU, they view their Eastern neighbor as a solid and stable illiberal system that
is not within the ideological orbit of the western liberal democracy and thus they feel
threatened by that ideologically, NOT a scenario in which from Tallinn to Toulouse is invaded
and captured by Putin. In this endeavor they also have found willing partners in
'anti-authoritarian' hawks such as Bob Kagan, Hilary, Sam Power et.al that tow the same line
and advocate for NATO expansion and other similar projects.
The EU in definitely terrified of a scenario in which the U.S. (under a nationalist
conservative administration) starts de-funding NATO or withdraws its troops from Europe. In
this case they need to cut public spending and allocate more on defense which has a clear
impact on the 'democratic spirit' of EU's over-hyped social democracy.
In the past few years we have seen the rise of right-wing populsit nationalist parties in
pretty much every single major EU country. I believe there are strong tendencies in the Trump
admin-if DJT manages to stay in power for another 4 years- to do a little *something
something* about EU's decades-long nefarious free-riding of U.S. defense umbrella and I don't
think the effeminate EU leaders will gonna like it very much.
Barbara Ann - You say "I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but
have yet to meet one, so am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many
divisions do they have?"
The term "European" has become disputed territory. As an Englishman I regard myself fully
as "European" as any German or Frenchman but for many the term now seems to mean exclusively
"Member of the European Union". Tricky, that one.
Me, I prefer the term "Westerner". It takes in the so-called "Anglosphere" as well and
therefore covers all the ground without going into the fact that some parts have become
considerably less powerful over the last century and others considerably more. Also
accommodates without fuss the fact that the cultural centre of gravity, at some indeterminate
time in that last century, moved across from Paris, Vienna and Berlin to New York and parts
west.
Not always to your advantage, to you as an American that is, because a fair chunk of the
Frankfurt mob moved over your way with it. You caught from Old Europe the destructive and
vacuous tenets of "Progressivism" and are now sharing the disease in its full vigour with
us.
I mention that last because the violent TDS you see across the Atlantic isn't specifically
European. It's merely that it's natural for progressives to detest Trump or rather, not the
man himself but the "populist" forces he is taken to represent. It's garlic to the vampire
for the progressive, the Little House on the Prairie or its various European equivalents, and
the allergic reaction will become stronger yet. That "smug superiority" you will therefore
find in the States as readily as you will find it here. America or here we live on sufferance
in occupied territory, if we are not progressives ourselves, and should not the occupiers
always be superior and smug?
I went hunting for the Telegraph article the Colonel discusses above. I didn't like that
article at all. It gets the "freeloading" part right but in the context of a Russophobia
that's seemingly set in stone. And the Telegraph is not so much a progressive newspaper as
one that, while throwing a few token bones to its mainly Conservative readership, buys the
progressive Weltanschauung just as much as the Guardian or New York Times.
"How many divisions do they have?" A few more than the pope but maybe that's not
the point. I recently tried to follow the twists and turns of Mrs May's negotiations with the
EU as they related to defence. I got the impression that in the matter of defence the supply
of divisions could safely be left to the Americans. It was the allocation of defence
contracts that they were all concerned about.
Residing in Europe in the late 1960's at a US joint NATO military attachment in Northern
Italy, we mused were we there to keep our eye on the Russians, or in fact keep our eyes on
the Germans. One still saw in the back rooms, AXIS memorabilia.
As an aside: the only reason Michelle Obama chose as one of her FLOTUS projects - support
of military families -- was so she could get Uncle Sam to jet her around to all those US
military bases still in Europe for tea with the commander's wife and then on to her real
purpose - shopping and having fun with friends and families she was able to drag along. On
our dime.
My last visit to Europe found there are now more Turks, than former "Europeans; except in
France where they were more Algerians, than native French. And of course UK has long been
little more than the entrenched polyglot of their vast far flung Empire.
Indeed, who is a "European" today. Birth rate demographics from the former colonies, boat
people or import of cheap labor has now taken over anything we used to call "European". Can a
resident Turk really serve up a perfect plate of raclette in Switzerland? One word answer:
no. And that is a sad loss. One must instead shift their tastes to shwarma, if one wants
European food today.
In regard to Europeans--and perhaps some Australians whom I've met--I have often felt that
they in some ways did feel a bit superior to Americans.
Their sense of superiority, however, seemed more rooted in a sense of cultural
superiority. Those on the blog who viewed the comic rendition of the Three Little Pigs that
was recently posted here might think of that and its wonderful ending about the house that
was "American made." it was a wonderful ending for that well-known tale and a great defense
of our culture's current limited and plain vocabulary in some groups.
As an English major and English teacher, so much of the great literature that we taught
did come from England. I took three Comps when I earned my Masters: English literature from
Beowulf (which I read in Old English) to Chaucer's Catterbury Tales (which I read in Middle
English) and then to Virginia Woolf.
For my comp in American literature, I read from Washington Irving to the modern American
writers at the time I was in college.
My third comp was in Modern Linguistic Theory.
Of course we taught Shakespeare and Dickens---English writers--to our junior high and high
school classes. We studied mostly American writers in regard to short stories, as short
stories are considered the American genre. Our teaching of poetry covered both English and
American poets. As far as novels go, we taught both English and American novels.
Russian and German novelists were also on our list of reading for our comps. (We read them
in English translation.)
In summary, American culture was often overshadowed by the many longer centureies of
European culture in much of my college career.
What the Europeans can't deny, though they may want to, is that the tehcology and
innovation in things like automobile production, electricity, telephones, and into space
expoloration ---many things like that--is where we can indeed be quite proud.
They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes them feel better. I defy
them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II.
A European was understood, in Iran, to be a Christian. A Turk in Germany or and Algerian
in France is just that, a Turk, an Algerian, i.e. another Muslim.
There are professional and managerial middle class French Muslims in Paris and elsewhere,
but are they French? I do not know how assimilated they are.
" he will follow some Trump-era objectives, because that is what American interests
demand, thus showing that Trump was no extremist on China."
So if Biden and Trump both want something, that shows that it isn't extreme. How does that
work again?
The drive for confrontation with Russia contradicts Europe's desire to do buisness with her.
Hence the end of the Western Alliance.
"The US faces a rapidly escalating political crisis. The losing party in November will
undoubtedly go to the federal courts to claim that their opponents cheated in the
process."
They all went along with electronic voting and postal ballots. Now they're all going to
complain about the consequences.
Of course NATO should have disappeared together with the Berlin Wall, but it is alive,
kicking and ever looking for trouble, Belarus comes to mind.
The problem with propaganda is that the emitter ends up believing it, Europe does not need
any protection, we have the means to protect ourselves.
The US is an occupation force, and on top of it demands payment for it. Pick up your gear and
go home, and by the way, Europe should worry about countries armed to their teeth by the US,
I'm thinking about Morocco for instance, since I live in Spain. The beautiful line of the
Sierra that I contemplate every morning while stretching has been contaminated with a radar
station of the Aegis system, and that means we in our quite and beautiful Andalusian town are
a target for the biggies. Stop believing your propaganda, pick up your gear and let everybody
take care of themselves, the benefits will be for the US population in the first place, and
the world will rejoice.
The reason German military contribution to the "western alliance" is what it is is very
simple.
It is according to the incentives that threats that German leadership perceives.
First: Objective strategic things:
Essentially, noone is going to invade Germany. This removes one major reason to have a large
army. Secondly, Germany is not going to productively (in terms of return of investment)
invade anyone else. This removes the second major reason to have a large army. There is
something to be said to have a cadre army that can be surged into a real army if conditions
change.
Second: Incentives of German political leaders.
While the degree of German vassal stateness concerning the USA is up to a degree of debate,
that the USA has a lot of influence over Germany is in my view not. Schröder got elite
regime changed over his Iraq war opposition (it was amazing that literally all the newspaper
were against him, had a big impact on me growing up during this time).
Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some adventure.
If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some confrontation in the
middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you are unlucky. Your
population is not going to like this, and you may face losing elections over this. It is also
expensive in terms of life and material (although not very expensive compared to actual wars
against competent enemies).
If you say no, Uncle Sam will be displeased with you and will make this known for example by
sicking the entire "Transatlantic leadership networks" on you, which can also make you lose
the next election.
Essentially, if Uncle Sam comes asking, you lose the next election if you say yes, and you
also lose if you say no. Saying no is on balance cheaper, because you dont incurr the
financial and human costs of joing a random US adventure on top of the risk of losing the
next election.
The winning play is to get your army in such a state that Uncle Sam will not even ask.
Germany basically did create condition that enabled this.
Its a reasonably happy state for Germany to be in.
We are basically doing Brave Soldier Schweijk on the national level.
Solutions from a US pov:
1: Do less military adventures. If you do less adventures, people will fear being
shanghaied along less. This will decrease the drawbacks associated with having a reasonable
military as a Nato state.
2: Dont soft regime change governments that say no to your foreign adventures. Instead,
maybe listen to them. Had the US listend to French and German criticism regarding the wisdom
of going to war with Iraq, the US and also a lot of others would have been much better
off.
3: Make it clear that particpation in foreign adventures is actually voluntary instead of
"voluntary", make also clear that participation in defensive operations is not voluntary and
is what Nato was created for and that you expect a considerable contribution towards this.
Also, do some actual exercises. For example, if Germany claims that its military expenditure
is sufficient, stress test this premise by having a realistic exercise in which a German
divisions goes up against an American one. Yes, do some division size exercizes pretty
please. Heck, after ensuring that this exercize wont be a failfest, have some Indian be the
referee.
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. My jest about never having met a European
was of course designed to illustrate that "Europe" is a secondary construct. Never has a
person, upon meeting me, introduced themselves as a "European".
Europe is a moveable feast and even territorial definitions are slippery. "Europeans" I
think, must be characterized by short memories, for was it not less than 25 years ago that
European NATO planes bombed their fellow Europeans in Bosnia? It can't have been an accident
either, as I understand the op. was called "Operation Deliberate Force".
If Europe is synonymous with the EU it has precisely zero divisions and though you
yourself may remain "Western", you are as a consequence of Brexit no longer "European". No, I
think you and Polish Janitor are close by identifying "European" as a progressive/liberal,
democratic (read "globalist") value system. An insufficiency of "European-ness" can thus be
used to justify NATO involvement across various geographies - from Bosnia to Afghanistan
(& shortly Belarus?).
But of course the "European" members of NATO are hardly on the same page. It looks not at
all unlikely that two of its members may go to war in the Eastern Mediterranean.
I agree with you re the Telegraph article btw. "European" smugness is well represented in
that organ.
No. They did NOT all go along with "electronic voting and postal ballots." The 50 states
each run federal elections in any way they please. The US Constitution requires that. There
are a wide variety of voting machines in use and only a few states use mailed in ballots. the
Republican Party particularly opposes mail in voting.
You should be complaining to the politicians you elect. They're the ones requesting US
military protection. Prior to Trump, our governments were quite happy to provide that
protection. He's now asking for some cost sharing.
Be careful though, before you know it Spain could become a vassal of the Chinese
communists as many countries in Africa are finding out now. Hopefully you can continue to
extract euros from the Germans and Dutch while battling the separatists in Catalonia. There's
a thin veneer between stability & strife.
Paco, with a huge cost of lives and treasure the US was twice asked to clean up Europe's
self-inflicted messes in the past century. Promise you won't call on us again, and we can
talk. I know, past is not necessarily prologue but do at least meet us half way. It is only
good manners.
Barbara Ann - Lots of Europes of course. "My" Europe may no longer be on the active list.
Traces here and there. Few green shoots that are visible to me. Many rank growths overlaying
it.
Also many "European Unions". They exist all right, in uneasy company.
So many "EU's". A ramshackle Northern European trading empire - I think that's too
unstable to be long for this world but I could be wrong. A nascent superpower, that denied by
many but for some their central aim.
A bureaucratic growth. A handy market place for all. A Holocaust memorial centre; when the
EU politicians find themselves in a tight spot they can always call on Auschwitz and all fall
back in line. I saw Mrs Merkel pull that trick at the last but one Munich Security Conference
and all there, because Mrs Merkel was at that time in a very tight spot, applauded with
relief.
A Progressive Shangri-La, all the more enticing for never being defined. Those adherents
of that "EU" do actually call themselves "EU citizens" and I see the term is becoming more
common usage. Maybe those are the self proclaimed "European citizens" you have not met.
And the producer of reams of lifeless prescription that seek to force all into the same
mould and tough on the poor devils who can't fit the model. And on their families.
Lots of "EU's". I like none of them. While we wait for that edifice of delusion to
collapse I hope the damage it does to "My" Europe is not irreparable.
@ Diana Croissant: "They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes
them feel better. I defy them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II."
Jack, with all due respect, the politician who committed treason and gave away Spanish
territory for a foreign power to install bases died in 1975, nobody voted for him, general
Franco, an ally of Hitler, someone who sent over 50k troops to the siege of Leningrad, one of
the greatest crimes in the history of mankind, a million casualties, mainly civilians, dead
by hunger and disease, that fascist ally of Hitler we had to endure for 40 years, the price
to close your eyes and your nose not to smell the stench were bases, an occupying force
watching one of the strategic straights in Rota, close to Gibraltar, plus other bases inland.
I could go on, and remind you of 4H bombs dropped over Palomares after a broken arrow
incident, one of them broke and plutonium is still poisoning an area that your government is
not willing to clean. So that is what foreign occupation looks like, if something goes wrong,
well, we are protecting you . they say. History should be taught with a bit more detail in
the USA.
I'm afraid you're reading the dynamics of the European/US relationship quite incorrectly.
Bluntly, you have the facts wrong.
This site, and particularly the Colonel's committee of correspondence, is packed with
experts who have lived in this field and know their way around it. So I don't venture a
comprehensive rebuttal myself - my knowledge is partial and I do not have the background to
be sure of getting it dead right. But here -
"Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some
adventure. If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some
confrontation in the middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you
are unlucky."
That is transparent nonsense.
Obama has stated that it was the Europeans, including the UK, who pushed him into some
middle East interventions. I don't think he was shooting a line. The leaked Blumenthal emails
confirm that and we merely have to look at the thrust of French military actions to
understand that the French in particular push continually for intervention in the ME.
They are still doing so, and not for R2P purposes. They would see the ME and parts of
Africa as part of the EU sphere of influence and their initial reaction to Trump's abortive
attempt to withdraw from Syria shows they would be more than prepared to go it alone there if
they could.
A squalid bunch, and here I must include my own country in that verdict. Reliant on US
logistics and military strength they seek to pursue their own interests and could they but do
so they would do so unassisted. Don't pretend that it's the Americans who force them into
these genocidal adventures.
As for the Ukraine, we see from Sakwa's unflattering study of the EU adventure there that
that was building up well before 2014. The dramatic rejection of the EU deal was the prelude
to the coup. The Ashton tape shows an astonishing degree of EU intervention in Ukrainian
internal affairs before that coup. And from the Nuland tape we get a glimpse of the EU regime
change project that shows it was deeply implicated.
Pushed into the Ukrainian adventure by the US? Rubbish. The EU and its constituent members
were attempting to play their own hand and were not merely following the US lead
submissively.
We hear little of European neocon ventures. But what little has surfaced about them shows
that your picture of peace loving Europeans dragged into these conflicts by an overbearing
"Uncle Sam" is dishonest and misleading.
So I tell my German friends and relatives when they push the same line. They look at me
with disbelief and go off and hunt around the internet themselves. And then come back and do
not disagree. I suggest you do the same. The facts are all there, even for those of us
without inside knowledge or who lack the requisite background.
Democrats are in bed with the deep state, take billions from the largest corporations, and
conduct the most undemocratic nominating process ever seen in the US, but thank god they are
not fascists!
Trezrek500 , 2 hours ago
It is amazing, Bezos becomes the richest guy in the world and the delivery of his packages
is subsidized by tax payers. The USPS should triple their rates to AMZN. Problem solved.
William Binney is the former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency who
worked at the agency for 30 years. He is a respected independent critic of how American
intelligence services abuse their powers to illegally spy on private communications of U.S.
citizens and around the globe.
Given his expert inside knowledge, it is worth paying attention to what Binney says.
In a media
interview this week, he dismissed the so-called Russiagate scandal as a "fabrication"
orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Many other observers have come to
the same conclusion about allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections with
the objective of helping Donald Trump get elected.
But what is particularly valuable about Binney's judgment is that he cites technical
analysis disproving the Russiagate narrative. That narrative remains dominant among U.S.
intelligence officials, politicians and pundits, especially those affiliated with the
Democrat party, as well as large sections of Western media. The premise of the narrative is
the allegation that a Russian state-backed cyber operation hacked into the database and
emails of the Democrat party back in 2016. The information perceived as damaging to
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was subsequently disseminated to the Wikileaks
whistleblower site and other U.S. media outlets.
A mysterious cyber persona known as "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the alleged hacker. U.S.
intelligence and news media have attributed Guccifer as a front for Russian cyber
operations.
Notably, however, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement
in alleged hacking or other interference in the 2016 U.S. election, or elections
thereafter.
William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove
the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data
released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous
data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These
independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been
hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from
inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a
disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That
means the "Russian hacker" claims are baseless.
Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an
extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained
that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence.
As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the
organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior
Democrat party corruption.
William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the
mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression
that the files came from Russian sources. It is known from information later disclosed by
former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7
– which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems
that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks
and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative.
"So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator
[of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA I'm pointing to that group as the
group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the
entire story of Russiagate," concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news
outlet.
This is not the first time that the Russiagate yarn has been debunked . But it is crucially important to make Binney's expert
views more widely appreciated especially as the U.S. presidential election looms on November
3. As that date approaches, U.S. intelligence and media seem to be intensifying claims about
Russian interference and cyber operations. Such wild and unsubstantiated "reports" always
refer to the alleged 2016 "hack" of the Democrat party by "Guccifer 2.0" as if it were
indisputable evidence of Russian interference and the "original sin" of supposed Kremlin
malign activity. The unsubstantiated 2016 "hack" is continually cited as the "precedent" and
"provenance" of more recent "reports" that purport to claim Russian interference.
Given the torrent of Russiagate derivatives expected in this U.S. election cycle, which is
damaging U.S.-Russia bilateral relations and recklessly winding up geopolitical tensions, it
is thus of paramount importance to listen to the conclusions of honorable experts like
William Binney.
The American public are being played by their own intelligence agencies and corporate
media with covert agendas that are deeply anti-democratic.
Well - who set up them up, converted from the OSS? The banksters.
"Wild Bill" Donovan worked for JP Morgan immediately after WWII.
"our" US intelligence agencies were set up by, and serve, the masters of high finance.
Is this in dispute?
meditate_vigorously , 11 hours ago
They have seeded enough misinformation that apparently it is. But, you are correct. It
is the Banksters.
Isisraelquaeda , 2 hours ago
Israel. The CIA was infiltrated by the Mossad long ago.
SurfingUSA , 15 hours ago
JFK was on to that truth, and would have been wise to mini-nuke Langley before his
ill-fated journey to Dallas.
Andrew G , 11 hours ago
Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as
Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman
vova.2018 , 7 hours ago
Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as
Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman
The CIA & MOSSAD work hand in hand in all their clandestine operations. There is not
doubt the CIA/MOSSAD are behind the creation, evolution, training, supplying weapons,
logistic-planning & financing of the terrorists & the destruction of the Middle
East. Anybody that believes the contrary has brain problems & need to have his head
examined.
CIA/MOSAD has been running illegal activities in Colombia: drug, arms, organs &
human (child-sex) trafficking. CIA/MOSAD is also giving training, logistic & arms to
Colombia paramilitary for clandestine operation against Venezuela. After Bolsonaro became
president, MOSSAD started running similar operation in Brazil. Israel & Brazil also
recognizes Guaido as the legit president of Venezuela.
CIA/MOSSAD have a long time policy of
assassinating & taking out pep who are a problem to the revisionist-zionist agenda, not
just in the M-East but in the world. The CIA/MOSSAD organizations have many connections in
other countries like the M-East, Saudi Arabia, UAE, et al but also to the UK-MI5.
The Israelis infiltrated the US to the highest levels a long time ago - Proof
Israel has & collects information (a database) of US citizens in coordination
with the CIA & the 5 eyes.
Israel works with the NSA in the liaison-loophole operations
Mossad undercover operations in WDC & all over the world
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC
People with 2 citizenships (US/Israel) in WDC/NYC (the real Power)
From Steve Bannon a christian-zionist: Collusion between the Trump administration and
Israel .
Funny how a number of the right wing conspiracy stories according to the MSM from a
couple years back were true from the get go. 1 indictment over 4 years in the greatest
attempted coup in this country's history. So sad that Binney and Assange were never
listened to. They can try to silence us who know of the truth, but as Winston Churchill
once said, 'Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice
may distort it. But there it is.' KDP still censors my book on their advertising platform
as it
promotes conspiratorial theories (about the Obama led coup) and calls out BLM and Antifa
for what they are (marxists) . Yet the same platform still recommends BLM books stating
there is a pandemic of cops killing innocent blacks. F them!!!! #RIPSeth #FreeJulian
#FreeMillie
smacker , 11 hours ago
Yes, and we all know the name of the DNC leaker who downloaded and provided
WikiLeaks
with evidence of CIA and DNC corruption.
He was assassinated to prevent him from naming who Guccifer 2.0 was and where he is
located.
The Russia-gate farce itself provides solid evidence that the CIA and others are in bed
with DNC
and went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed, they
instigated
a program of x-gates to get him out of office any way they could. This continues to this
day.
This is treason at the highest level.
ACMeCorporations , 12 hours ago
Hacking? What Russian hacking?
In recently released testimony, the CEO of CrowdStrike admitted in congressional
testimony, under oath, that it actually has no direct evidence Russia stole the DNC
emails.
Nelbev , 9 hours ago
"The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The
analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have
been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. ... a disgruntled
staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a
huge amount of data could have been released. ... William Binney says forensic analysis
of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted
digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian
sources. ... "
Any computer file is a bunch of 1s and 0s. Anyone can change anything with a hex editor.
E.g. I had wrong dates on some photographs once, downloaded as opposed to when taken, just
edited the time stamp. You cannot claim any time stamp is original. If true time stamps,
then the DNC files were downloaded to a thumb drive at a computer on location and not to
the internet via a phone line. However anyone can change the time stamps. Stating a
"mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital [Russian] 'fingerprints' " is a joke if
denying the file time stamps were not tampered with. The real thing is where the narrative
came from, political spin doctors, Perkins Coie law firm hired by DNC and Hillary campaign
who hired Crowdstrike [and also hired Fusion GPS before for pissgate dossier propaganda and
FISC warrants to spy on political opponents] and Perkins Coie edited Crowdstrike report
with Russian narrative. FBI never looked at DNC servers. This is like your house was broken
into. You deny police the ability to enter and look at evidence like DNC computers. You
hire a private investigator to say your neighbor you do not like did it and publicise
accusations. Take word of political consultants hired, spin doctor propaganda, Crowdstrike
narrative , no police investigation. Atlantic Council?
Vivekwhu , 8 hours ago
The Atlantic Council is another NATO fart. Nuff said!
The_American , 15 hours ago
God Damn traitor Obama!
Yen Cross , 14 hours ago
TOTUS
For the youngsters.
Teleprompter Of The United States.
Leguran , 6 hours ago
The CIA has gotten away with so much criminal behavior and crimes against the American
public that this is totally believable. Congress just lets this stuff happen and does
nothing. Which is worse - Congress or the CIA?
Congress set up the system. It is mandated to perform oversight. And it just sits on its
thumbs and wallows in it privileges.
This time Congress went further than ever before. It was behind and engaged in an
attempted coup d'état.
Know thy enemy , 10 hours ago
Link to ShadowGate (ShadowNet) documentary - which answers the question, what is the
keystone,,,,,
It's time for Assange and Wikileaks to name the person who they rec'd the info from. By
hiding behind the "we don't name names" Mantra they are helping destroy America by
polarizing its citizens. Name the damn person, get it all out there so the left can see
that they've been played by their leaders. Let's cut this crap.
freedommusic , 7 hours ago
...all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0.
Yep, I knew since day one. I remember seeing Hillary Clinton talking about Guccifer . As
soon as uttered the name, I KNEW she with the CIA were the brainchild of this bogus
decoy.
They copy. They mimic. These are NOT creative individuals.
Perhaps hell is too good a place for them.
on target , 4 hours ago
This is old news but worth bringing up again. The CIA never wanted Trump in, and of
course, they want him out. Their fingerprints were all over Russiagate, The Kavanaugh
hearings, Ukrainegate, and on and on. They are just trying to cover their asses for a
string of illegal "irregularities" in their operations for years. Trump should never have
tried to be a get along type of guy. He should have purged the entire leadership of the CIA
on day one and the FBI on day 2. They can not be trusted with an "America First" agenda.
They are all New World Order types who know whats best for everyone.
fersur , 7 hours ago
Boom, Boom, Boom !
Three Reseachable Tweets thru Facebook, I cut all at once, Unedited !
"#SusanRice has as much trouble with her memory as #HillaryClinton. Rice testified in
writing that she 'does not recall' who gave her key #Benghazi talking points she used on
TV, 'does not recall' being in any meetings regarding Benghazi in five days following the
attack, and 'does not recall' communicating with anyone in Clinton's office about
Benghazi," Tom Fitton in Breitbart.
"Adam Schiff secretly subpoenaed, without court authorization, the phone records of Rudy
Giuliani and then published the phone records of innocent Americans, including
@realDonaldTrump 's lawyers, a member of Congress, and a journalist," @TomFitton .
BREAKING: Judicial Watch announced today that former #Obama National Security Advisor
and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, admitted in written responses given
under oath that she emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Clinton's
non-government email account and that she received emails related to government business on
her own personal email account.
STONEHILLADY , 7 hours ago
It's not just the Democrats, the warmongering neocons of the Republican party are also
in on it, the Bush/Romney McCain/McConnell/Cheney and many more. It's called "Kick Backs"
Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying
companies that span the 5eyes to Israel. It seems our POTUS has got his hands full swimming
up stream to get this stopped and actually get rid of the CIA. It's the number 1 reason he
doesn't trust these people, they all try to tell him stuff that is mis-directed.
Liars, leakers, and thieves are running not only our nation but the world, as George
Carlin said, "It's a Big Club, and we ain't in it." If you fall for this false narrative of
mail in voting and not actually go and vote on election day, you better start learning
Chinese for surely Peelosi and Schumer will have their way and mess up this election so
they can drag Trump out of office and possible do him and his family some serious harm, all
because so many of you listen to the MSM and don't research their phony claims.
Max21c , 7 hours ago
It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up
working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel.
American Generals & Admirals are a lot more corrupt today than they were a few
generations back. Many of them are outright evil people in today's times. Many of these
people are just criminals that will steal anything they can get their banana republic
klepto-paws on. They're nothing but common criminals and thieves. No different than the
Waffen SS or any other group of brigands, bandits, and criminal gangsters.
Max21c , 7 hours ago
The CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, Pentagon Gestapo, defense contractors are
mixed up in a lot of crimes and criminal activities on American soil against American
citizens and American civilians. They do not recognize borders or laws or rights of liberty
or property rights or ownership or intellectual property. They're all thieves and criminals
in the military secret police and secret police gangsters cabal.
BandGap , 7 hours ago
I have seen Binney's input. He is correct in my view because he
scientifically/mathematically proves his point.
The blinded masses do not care about this approach, just like wearing masks.
The truth is too difficult for many to fit into their understanding of the world.
So they repeat what they have been told, never stopping to consider the facts or how
circumstances have been manipulated.
It is frustrating to watch, difficult to navigate at times for me. Good people who will
not stop and think of what the facts show them.
otschelnik , 8 hours ago
It could have been the CIA or it could have been one of the cut-outs for plausible
deniability, and of all the usual suspects it was probably CrowdStrike.
- CGI / Global Strategy Group / Analysis Corp. - John Brennan (former CEO)
- Dynology, Wikistrat - General James L. Jones (former chairman of Atlantic Council, NSA
under Obama)
- CrowdStrike - Dmitri Alperovich and Shawn Henry (former chief of cyber forensics
FBI)
- Clearforce - Michael Hayden (former dir. NSA under Clinton, CIA under Bush) and Jim
Jones Jr. (son Gnrl James Jones)
- McChrystal Group - Stanley McChrystal (former chief of special operations DOD)
fersur , 8 hours ago
Unedited !
The Brookings Institute – a Deep State Hub Connected to the Fake Russia Collusion
and Ukraine Scandals Is Now Also Connected to China Spying In the US
The Brookings
Institute was heavily involved in the Democrat and Deep State Russia collusion hoax and
Ukraine impeachment fraud. These actions against President Trump were criminal.
This institute is influenced from foreign donations from entities who don't have an
America first agenda. New reports connect the Institute to Chinese spying.
As we reported previously, Julie Kelly at American Greatness
released a report where she addresses the connections between the Brookings Institute,
Democrats and foreign entities. She summarized her report as follows: Accepting millions
from a state sponsor of terrorism, foisting one of the biggest frauds in history on the
American people, and acting as a laundering agent of sorts for Democratic political
contributions disguised as policy grants isn't a good look for such an esteemed
institution. One would be hard-pressed to name a more influential think tank than the
Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit routinely ranks at the top of
the list
of the best think tanks in the world; Brookings scholars produce a steady flow of reports,
symposiums, and news releases that sway the conversation on any number of issues ranging
from domestic and economic policy to foreign affairs.
Brookings is home to lots of Beltway power players: Ben
Bernanke and Janet Yellen, former chairmen of the Federal Reserve, are Brookings fellows.
Top officials from both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations lend political
heft to the organization. From 2002 until 2017, the organization's president was Strobe
Talbott. He's a longtime BFF of Bill Clinton; they met in the 1970s at Oxford University
and have been tight ever since. Talbott was a top aide to both President Bill Clinton and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Kelly continued:
Brookings-based fellows working at Lawfare were the media's go-to legal "experts" to
legitimize the concocted crime; the outlet manipulated much of the news coverage on
collusion by pumping out primers and guidance on how to report collusion events from
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment to his final report.
Now, testimony related to a defamation lawsuit against Christopher Steele, the author of
the infamous "dossier" on Donald Trump, has exposed his direct ties to Talbott in 2016 when
he was still head of Brookings. Talbott and Steele were in communication before and after
the presidential election; Steele wanted Talbott to circulate the dossier to his pals in
John Kerry's State Department, which reportedly is what Talbott
did . Steele also briefed top state department officials in October 2016 about his
work.
But this isn't the only connection between the Brookings Institute and the Russia
collusion and Ukrainian scandals. We were the first to report that the Primary Sub-Source
(PSS) in the Steele report, the main individual who supplied Steele with bogus information
in his report was Igor Danchenko.
In November 2019, the star witness for the Democrat Representative Adam Schiff's
impeachment show trial was announced. Her name was Fiona Hill.
Today we've uncovered that Hill is a close associate of the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) for
the Steele dossier – Igor Danchenko – the individual behind most all the lies
in the Steele dossier. No wonder Hill saw the Steele dossier before it was released. Her
associate created it.
Both Fiona Hill and Igor Danchenko are connected to the Brookings Institute.
They gave a presentation together as Brookings Institute representatives:
Kelly writes about the foreign funding the Brookings Institute partakes:
So who and what have been funding the anti-Trump political operation at Brookings over
the past few years? The think tank's top benefactors are a predictable mix of family
foundations, Fortune 100 corporations, and Big Tech billionaires. But one of the biggest
contributors to Brookings' $100 million-plus annual budget is the Embassy of Qatar.
According to financial reports, Qatar has donated more than $22 million to the think tank
since 2004. In fact, Brookings operates a satellite center in Doha, the
capital of Qatar. The wealthy Middle Eastern oil producer
spends billions on American institutions such as universities and other think
tanks.
Qatar also is a top state sponsor of terrorism, pouring billions into Hamas, al-Qaeda,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name a few. "The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has
historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," President Trump said in 2017. "We
have to stop the funding of terrorism."
An email from a Qatari official, obtained by WikiLeaks, said the Brookings
Institution was as important to the country as "an aircraft carrier."
The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a
Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China's intelligence and
spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents.
The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank's hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of
understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the
institution said . The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal
government that has raised flags within the FBI.
The partnership raises questions about potential Chinese espionage activities at the
think tank, which employs numerous former government officials and nearly two dozen
current foreign policy advisers to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
It is really frightening that one of two major political parties in the US is tied so
closely with the Brookings Institute. It is even more frightening that foreign enemies of
the United States are connected to this entity as well.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
One thing for sure is these guys have far to much of our money to spend promoting their
own good.
fersur , 7 hours ago
Unedited !
Mueller Indictments Tied To "ShadowNet," Former Obama National Security Advisor and
Obama's CIA Director – Not Trump
According to a report in the Daily Beast, which cited the Wall Street Journal's
reporting of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into two companies, Wikistrat
and Psy Group, "The firm's advisory council lists former CIA and National Security Agency
director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser James L. Jones."
According to numerous reporting from major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and
Daily Beast, both Wikistrat and Psy Group represent themselves as being social media
analysts and black PSYOP organizations. Both Wikistrat and Psy Group have foreign ownership
mixed between Israeli, Saudi (Middle East) and Russian. Here is what the Wall Street
Journal, The Daily Beast and pretty much everyone else out there doesn't know (or won't
tell you).
The fact Obama's former National Security Advisor, General James Jones, and former Obama
CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, are both on Wikistrat's advisory board may not seem
suspicious, but both of these general's have another thing in common, and that is the
ShadowNet. The ShadowNet, and its optional companion relational database, iPsy, were both
originally developed by the small, family owned defense contracting company, Dynology. The
family that owns Dynology; Gen. James Jones. I would add Paul Manafort and Rick Davis was
Dynology's partner at the time we were making the ShadowNet and iPsy commercially
available.
After obtaining the contract in Iraq to develop social media psychological warfare
capabilities, known in military nomenclature as Interactive Internet Activities, or IIA,
Gen. Jones kept the taxpayer funded application we developed in Iraq for the 4th
Psychological Operation Group, and made it commercially available under the trademark of
the "ShadowNet" and the optional black PSYOP component, "iPsy." If you think it is
interesting that one of the companies under Mueller's indictment is named, "Psy" Group, I
did as well. In fact, literally everything both publicly described in news reports, and
even their websites, are exactly the same as the ShadowNet and iPsy I helped build, and
literally named.
The only thing different I saw as far as services offered by Wikistrat, and that of
Dynology and the ShadowNet, was described by The Daily Beast as, "It also engaged in
intelligence collection." Although iPsy was a relational database that allowed for the
dissemination of whatever the required narrative was, "intelligence collection" struck
another bell with me, and that's a company named ClearForce.
ClearForce was developed as a solution to stopping classified leaks following the Edward
Snowden debacle in 2013. Changes in NISPOM compliance requirements forced companies and
government agencies that had employees with government clearances to take preventive
measure to mitigate the potential of leaking. Although the NISPOM compliance requirement
almost certainly would have been influenced by either Hayden, Jones or both, they once
again sought to profit from it.
Using components of the ShadowNet and iPsy, the ClearForce application (which the
company, ClearForce, was named after,) was developed to provide compliance to a regulation
I strongly suspect you will find Jones and Hayden had a hand in creating. In fact, I
strongly suspect you will find General Jones had some influence in the original requirement
for our Iraq contract Dynology won to build the ShadowNet – at taxpayer expense!
Dynology worked for several years incorporating other collection sources, such as
financial, law enforcement and foreign travel, and ties them all into your social media
activity. Their relationship with Facebook and other social media giants would have been
nice questions for congress to have asked them when they testified.
Part 1 of 2 !
fersur , 7 hours ago
Part 2 of 2 !
The ClearForce application combines all of these sources together in real-time and uses
artificial intelligence to predictively determine if you are likely to steal or leak based
on the behavioral profile ClearForce creates of you. It can be used to determine if you get
a job, and even if you lose a job because a computer read your social media, credit and
other sources to determine you were likely to commit a crime. It's important for you to
stop for a moment and think about the fact it is privately controlled by the former CIA
director and Obama's National Security Advisor/NATO Supreme Allied Commander, should scare
the heck out of you.
When the ClearForce application was complete, Dynology handed it off to ClearForce, the
new company, and Michael Hayden joined the board of directors along with Gen. Jones and his
son, Jim, as the president of ClearForce. Doesn't that kind of sound like "intelligence
collection" described by the Daily Beast in Wikistrat's services?
To wrap this all up, Paul Manafort, Rick Davis, George Nader, Wikistrat and Psy Group
are all directly connected to Mueller's social media influence and election interreference
in the 2016 presidential election. In fact, I believe all are under indictment, computers
seized, some already sentenced. All of these people under indictment by Mueller have one
key thing in common, General James Jones's and Michael Hayden's social media black PSYOP
tools; the ShadowNet, iPsy and ClearForce.
A recent meeting I had with Congressman Gus Bilirakis' chief of staff, Elizabeth Hittos,
is confirmation that they are reviewing my DoD memorandum stating the work I did on the IIA
information operation in Iraq, the Dynology marketing slicks for the ShadowNet and iPsy,
along with a screenshot of Goggle's Way-Back Machine showing Paul Manafort's partnership
with Dynology in 2007 and later. After presenting to her these facts and making clear I
have much more information that requires the highest classification SCIF to discuss and
requires being read-on to the program, Elizabeth contacted the office of Congressman Devin
Nunez to request that I brief the intelligence committee on this critical information
pertaining directly to the 2010 Ukrainian elections, Michael Brown riots, 2016 election
interference and the "Russia collusion" hoax. All of that is on top of numerous
questionable ethical and potentially illegal profits from DoD contracts while servings as
NATO Commander and Obama's National Security Advisor.
We also need to know if the ShadowNet and iPsy were allowed to fall into foreign hands,
including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I'm pretty sure South America is going to have a
few questions for Jones and Obama as well? Stay tuned!
Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago
Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially
'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and
will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.
Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will
always be the Americans themselves.
Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago
Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially
'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and
will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.
Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will
always be the Americans themselves.
The neoliberals own the media, courts, academia, and BUREAUCRACY (including CIA) and
they will do anything to make sure they retain power over everyone. These control freaks
work hard to create all sorts of enemies to justify their existence.
LaugherNYC , 15 hours ago
It is sad that this information has to be repeatedly published, over and over and over,
by SCI and other Russian. outlets.
Because no legit AMERICAN news outlet will give Binney or Assange the time of day or any
credence, this all becomes Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and denials. People roll their
eyes and say "Oh God, not the whole 'Seth Rich was murdered by the CIA' crap again!! You
know, his FAMILY has asked that people stop spreading these conspiracy theories and
lies."
SCI is a garbage bin, nothing more than a dizinformatz machine for Putin, but in this
case, they are likely right. It seems preposterous that the "best hackers in the world"
would forget to use a VPN or leave a signature behind, and it makes far more sense that the
emails were leaked by someone irate at the abuses of the DNC - the squashing of Bernie, the
cheating for Hillary in the debates - behavior we saw repeated in 2020 with Bernie shoved
aside again for the pathetic Biden.
Would that SOMEONE in the US who is not on the Kremlin payroll would pick up this
thread. But all the "investigative journalists" now work indirectly for the DNC, and those
that don't are cancelled by the left.
Stone_d_agehurler , 15 hours ago
I am Guccifer and I approve this message.
Sarc/
But i do share your opinion. They are likely right this time and most of the pundits and
media in the U. S. know it. That's what makes this a sad story about how rotten the U. S.
system has become.
Democrats will sacrifice the Union for getting Trump out of office.
If elections in Nov won't go their way, Civil War II might become a real thing in
2021.
PeterLong , 4 hours ago
If " digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from
Russian sources" were inserted in the leak by "Guccifer", and if the leak to wikileaks came
from Seth Rich, via whatever avenue, then the "Guccifer" release came after the wikileaks
release, or after wikileaks had the files, and was a reaction to same attempting to
diminish their importance/accuracy and cast doubt on Trump. Could CIA and/or DNC have known
the files were obtained by wikileaks before wikileaks actually released them? In any case
collusion of CIA with DNC seems to be a given.
RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago
Because Seth had already given it to Wikileaks. There is no 'Fancy Bear'. There is no
'Cozy Bear'. Those were made up by CrowdStrike, and they tried the same crap on Ukraine,
and Ukraine told them to pound sand. When push came to shove, and CrowdStrike was forced to
say what they really had under oath, they said: "We have nothing."
novictim , 4 hours ago
You are leaving out Crowd Strike. Seth Rich was tasked by people at the DNC to copy data
off the servers. He made a backup copy and gave a copy to people who then got it to Wiki
leaks. He used highspeed file transfers to local drives to do his task.
Meanwhile, it was the Ukrainian company Crowd Strike that claimed the data was stolen
over the internet and that the thieves were in Russia. That 'proof" was never verified by
US Intelligence but was taken on its word as being true despite crowd strike falsifying
Russian hacks and being caught for it in the past.
Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago
The "five eyes" are convinced they run the world and try to.
That is what Brennan counted on for these agencies to help get President Trump.
As I said, it is time for the UK and the US to have a serious conversation about their
current and ex-spies being involved in US elections.
Southern_Boy , 5 hours ago
It wasn't the CIA. It was John Brennan and Clapper. The CIA, NSA FBI, DOJ and the
Ukrainian Intelligence Service just went along working together and followed orders from
Brennan who got them from Hillary and Obama.
Oh, and don't forget the GOP Globalist RINOs who also participated in the coup attempt:
McCain, Romney, Kasich, Boehner, Lee and Richard Burr.
With Kasich now performing as a puppy dog for Biden at the Democrat Convention as a
Democrat DNC executive, the re-alignment is almost complete: Globalist Nationalist
Socialist Bolshevism versus American Populism, i.e. Elites versus Deplorables or Academics
versus Smelly Wal-Mart people.
on target , 5 hours ago
No way. CIA up to their eyeballs in this as well as the State Department. Impossible for
Russiagate or Ukrainegate without direct CIA and State involvement.
RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago
Following Orders? How did that argument go at Nuremberg? (hint: not very well)
LeadPipeDreams , 6 hours ago
LOL - the CIA's main mission - despite their "official" charter, has always been to
destabilize the US and its citizens via psyops, false flags, etc.
Covid-1984 is their latest and it appears most successful project yet.
Iconoclast27 , 5 hours ago
The CIA received a $200 million initial investment from the Rockefeller and Carnegie
foundations when it was first established, that should tell you everything you need to know
how who they truly work for.
A_Huxley , 6 hours ago
CIA, MI6, 5 eye nations.
All wanted to sway the USA their own way.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
Almost as frightening as the concentrated power held by companies such as Facebook and
Google is the fact Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world's richest man, is the person who
owns and controls the Washington Post. It is silly to think Jeff Bezos purchased the
Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence.
It is more likely he purchased the long-trusted U.S. newspaper for the power it would
ensure him in Washington when wielded as a propaganda mouthpiece to extend his ability to
both shape and control public opinion. More on this subject in the article below.
How it is the Democrats, the Deep State, and the legacy media are still able to cling to
the remnants of these long discredited narratives is a mystery.
avoiceofliberty , 6 hours ago
At the official level, you have a point.
However, even before Mueller was appointed, a review of the materials in the extant
public record of both the DNC "hack" and the history of Crowdstrike showed the narrative
simply did not make sense. A detailed investigation of materials not made public was not
necessary to shoot down the entire narrative.
Indeed, one of the great scandals of the Mueller probe is the way it did not bring
prudential skepticism to the question of the DNC "hack". When building a case, either for
public debate or for public trial, a dose of skepticism is healthy; it leads to a careful
vetting of facts and reasoning.
Alice-the-dog , 6 hours ago
The CIA has been an agency wholly independent of the US government almost since its
inception. It is not under any significant control by the government, and has its own
agenda which may occasionally coincide with that of the government, but only
coincidentally. It has its own view of how the world should look, and will not balk at any
means necessary to achieve such. Including the murder of dis-favorable members of
government.
snodgrass , 6 hours ago
It's the CIA and the FBI, Obama and people in his administration who cooked up
Russiagate.
Floki_Ragnarsson , 7 hours ago
The CIA whacked JFK because he was going to slow the roll to Vietnam AND disband the CIA
and reform it.
It is broken and needs to be disbanded and reformed along lines that actually WORK! The
CIA missed the fall of the USSR, 9/11, etc. HTF does THAT happen?
DeportThemAll , 6 hours ago
The CIA didn't "miss" 9/11... they participated in it.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
The CIA is a tool that when improperly used can do great damage.
Anyone who doesn't believe that countries use psychological warfare and propaganda to
sway the opinions of people both in and outside of their country should be considered
naive. Too many people America is more than a little hypocritical when they criticize other
countries for trying to gain influence considering our history of meddling in the affairs
of other countries.
Americans have every reason to be concerned and worried considering revelations of just
how big the government intelligence agencies have grown since 9-11 and how unlimited their
spying and surveillance operations have become. The article below explores this growth and
questions whether we have lost control.
The idea of Binney and Jason Sullivan privately working to 'secure the vote' is
something that I actually consider to be very eyebrow raising and alarming.
Son of Captain Nemo , 8 hours ago
Bill Binney under "B" in the only "yellow pages" that show a conscience and a
soul!...
This is the dumbest article ever. Russiagate is a total fabrication of the FBI as per
Clinesmith, CIA provided information that would have nipped it at the bud. Read the real
news.
bringonthebigone , 9 hours ago
Wrong. this article is one small piece of the puzzle. Clinesmith is one small piece of
the puzzle. The Flynn entrapment is one small piece of the puzzle. The Halper entrapment
was one small piece of the puzzle.
Because Clinesmith at the FBI covered up the information saying Page was a CIA source
does not mean it was a total FBI fabrication and does not mean the CIA was not involved and
does not mean the DNC server hack is irrelevant.
Sundance does a better job pulling it all together.
PKKA , 14 hours ago
Relations have already soured between Russia and the United States, and sanctions have
been announced. Tensions have grown on the NATO-Russia border. The meat has already been
rolled into the minced meat and it will not be possible to roll the minced meat back into
the meat. The CIA got it. But the Russian people now absolutely understand that the United
States will always be the enemy of Russia, no matter whether socialist or capitalist. But I
like it even more than the feigned hypocritical "friendship". Russia has never reached such
heights as during the good old Cold War. All Russians have a huge incentive, long live the
new Cold War!
smacker , 12 hours ago
More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and
Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to
world peace.
It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the
Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over
Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.
Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never
accept that.
Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will
be.
smacker , 12 hours ago
More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and
Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to
world peace.
It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the
Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over
Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.
Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never
accept that.
Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will
be.
hang_the_banksters , 31 minutes ago
the best proof thAt Guccifer 2 was CIA hacking themselves to frame Wikileaks is
this:
Guccifer has not yet been identified, indicted and arrested.
you'd think CIAFBINSA would be turning over every stone to the ends of the earth to bust
Guccifer. we just had to endure 4 years of hysterical propaganda that Russia had hacked our
election and that Trump was their secret agent. so Guccifer should be the Most Wanted Man
on the planet. meanwhile, it's crickets from FBI. they arent even looking for him. because
Guccifer is over at Langley. maybe someone outta ask Brennan where G2 is now.
remember when DOJ indicted all those GRU cybersoldiers? the evidence listed in the
indictment was so stunning that i dont believe it. NSA so thoroughly hacked back into GRU
that NSA was watching GRU through their own webcams and recording them doing Google
searches to translate words which were written in Guccifer's blog posts about the DNC email
leaks. NSA and DOJ must think we are all stupid, that we will believe NSA is so powerful to
do that, yet they cant identify Guccifer.
i say i dont believe that for a second because no way Russian GRU are so stupid to even
have webcams on the computers they use to hack, and it is absurd to think GRU soldiers on a
Russian military base would be using Google instead of Yandex to translate words into
English.
lay_arrow
ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago
As a confirmed conspiracy theorist since I came back from 'Nam, here's mine: The
European nobility recognized with the American and French revolutions that they needed a
better approach. They borrowed from the Tudors (who had to deal with Parliament) and began
to rule by controlling the facade of representative government. This was enhanced by
funding banks to control through currency, as well as blackmail and murder, and morphed
into a complete propaganda machine like no other in history. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, the
mainstream media, deep plants in bureaucracy and "democratic" bodies all obey their
dictates to create narratives that control our minds. Trump seems to offer hope, but
remember, he could be their latest narrative.
greatdisconformity , 1 hour ago
A Democracy cannot function on a higher level than the general electorate.
The intelligence and education of the general electorate has been sliding for
generations, because both political parties can play this to their advantage.
It is no accident that most of the messages coming from politicians are targeted to
imbeciles.
America's actions have already caused Beijing and Moscow to put aside historic enmity and
increase its partnership on economic issues and increasingly frequent joint
military drills . China and Iran recently completed the basics of an energy and military
cooperation agreement. Moreover, President Xi Jinping has become increasingly effective at
deepening ties with European, African, and Latin American states.
Today, Washington is saturated with China hawks. Unfortunately, andy voices that champion
keeping America strong by avoiding conflict with China are reflexively smeared as
"appeasement." I fear America may one day find out to its harm that rejecting sober diplomatic
engagement, which could have extended its security and prosperity well into the future, was
dismissed in favor of an unnecessary military-first tactic of coercing China.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after twenty-one years, including four combat
deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.
Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.
Coincidence? I think not.
This was the blueprint used three years ago in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 , when the city
regularly cited as being one of the happiest places in America , became ground zero for a
heated war of words -- and actions -- over racism, "
sanitizing history ," extremism (both right and left), political correctness, hate speech,
partisan politics, and a
growing fear that violent words will end in violent actions.
It was a setup : local police deliberately engineered a situation in which protesters would
confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to
call in the bigger guns.
In Charlottesville, as in so many parts of the country right now, the conflict was over how
to reconcile the nation's checkered past, particularly as it relates to slavery, with the push
to sanitize the environment of anything -- words and images -- that might cause offense,
especially if it's a Confederate flag or monument .
That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a
statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82
years.
That's when everything went haywire.
In attempting to pacify one particularly vocal and righteously offended group while
railroading over the concerns of those with alternate viewpoints, Charlottesville attracted the
unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on
the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be
disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.
When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.
On August 12, 2017, what should have been an exercise in free speech quickly became a brawl
that left one dead and dozens more injured.
As the New York Times reported, "Protesters began to mace one another, throwing
water bottles and urine-filled balloons -- some of which hit reporters -- and beating each
other with flagpoles, clubs and makeshift weapons. Before long, the downtown area was a melee.
People were ducking and covering with a constant stream of projectiles whizzing by our faces,
and the air was filled with the sounds of fists and sticks against flesh."
And then there was the police, who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence.
They failed to do either.
Indeed, a 220-page
post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government's response by former U.S.
attorney Timothy J. Heaphy merely corroborates our worst fears about what drives the government
at all levels: power, money, ego, politics and ambition.
"The City was unable to protect the right of free expression and facilitate the permit
holder's offensive speech. This represents a failure of one of government's core functions --
the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and
protect citizens from harm, injury, and death. Charlottesville preserved neither of those
principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this
community."
In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates. The police
failed to carry out their duties as peace officers. And the citizens found themselves unable to
trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring
their safety.
Despite the fact that 1,000
first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard) --
many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months -- had been called on to work
the event, despite the fact that police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three
sides, and despite the fact that Charlottesville had had what reporter David Graham referred to
as "
a dress rehearsal of sorts " a month earlier when 30 members of the Ku Klux Klan were
confronted by 1000 counterprotesters, police failed to do their jobs.
In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police "seemed to watch as groups beat each other
with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields At one point,
police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end
the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured."
Instead of establishing clear boundaries -- buffer zones -- between the warring groups and
protecting the First Amendment rights of the protesters, police established two entrances into
the permit areas of the park and created barriers "guiding rallygoers single-file into the
park" past lines of
white nationalists and antifa counterprotesters .
This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.
Commissioned by the City of Charlottesville, this Heaphy report
was intended to be an independent investigation of what went right and what went wrong in the
government's handling of the protests.
Heaphy found very little to commend.
What went right on Aug. 12 according to Heaphy:
1) Despite the presence of firearms, including members of the militia, and angry
confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters, no person was shot and no
significant property damage occurred;
2) Emergency personnel did their jobs effectively and treated a large number of people in
a short period of time; and
3) Police intelligence gathering was thorough (that's the best he had to say about
police).
Now for what went wrong, according to the report:
1. Police failed to get input from other law enforcement agencies experienced in handling
large protests.
2. Police failed to adequately train their officers in advance of the protest.
3. City officials failed to request assistance from outside agencies.
4. The City Council unduly interfered by ignoring legal advice, attempting to move the
protesters elsewhere, and ignoring the concerns of law enforcement.
5. The city government failed to inform the public about their plans.
6. City officials were misguided in allowing weapons at the protest.
7. The police implemented a flawed operational plan that failed to protect public
safety.
8. While police were provided with riot gear, they were never trained in how to use it,
nor were they provided with any meaningful field training in how to deal with or de-escalate
anticipated violence on the part of protesters.
9. Despite the input and advice of outside counsel, including The Rutherford Institute,
the police failed to employ de-escalation tactics or establish clear barriers between warring
factions of protesters.
10. Government officials and police leadership opted to advance their own agendas at the
expense of constitutional rights and public safety.
11. For all intents and purposes, police abided by a stand down order that endangered the
community and paved the way for massive civil unrest.
12. In failing to protect public safety, police and government officials undermined public
faith in the government.
The Heaphy report focused on the events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it
applies to almost every branch of government that fails to serve "we the people."
This isn't America, land of the free, where the government is "of the people, by the people
[and] for the people."
Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.
What you smell is the stench of a dying republic. Our dying republic.
The American experiment in freedom is failing fast.
Through every fault of our own -- our apathy, our ignorance, our intolerance, our
disinclination to do the hard work of holding government leaders accountable to the rule of
law, our inclination to let politics trump longstanding constitutional principles -- we have
been reduced to this sorry state in which we are little more than shackled inmates in a prison
operated for the profit of a corporate elite.
We have been saddled with the wreckage of a government at all levels that no longer
represents the citizenry, serves the citizenry, or is accountable to the citizenry.
"We the people" are not the masters anymore.
It doesn't matter whether you're talking about the federal government, state governments, or
local governing bodies: at all ends of the spectrum and every point in between, a shift has
taken place.
"We the people" are not being seen, heard or valued.
We no longer count for much of anything beyond an occasional electoral vote and as a source
of income for the government's ever-burgeoning financial needs.
Everything happening at the national level is playing out at the local level, as well: the
violence, the militarization, the intolerance, the lopsided governance, and an uneasy awareness
that the citizenry have no say in how their communities are being governed.
As I have warned repeatedly, the architects of the police state have every intention of
manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.
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Predictably, the police state is allowing these protests, riots and looting to devolve into
a situation where enough of the voting populace is so desperate for a return to law and order
that they will gladly relinquish some of their freedoms to achieve it. And that's how the
police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House, and "we the
people" will continue to lose.
So what's the answer?
As always, it must start with "we the people."
I've always advised people to think nationally, but act locally.
Yet as Charlottesville made clear, it's hard to make a difference locally when the local
government is as deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its constituents as the national
government.
Charlottesville much like the rest of the nation has had its fair share of government
leaders who are tone-deaf, focused on their own aggrandizement, and incapable of prioritizing
the needs of their constituents over their own personal and political agendas; law enforcement
officials for whom personal safety, heavy-handed militarized tactics, and power plays trump
their duty to serve and protect; polarized citizens incapable of finding common ground,
respecting each other's rights, or agreeing to disagree; and a community held hostage by
political correctness, divisive rhetoric and a growing intolerance for any views that may be
unpopular or at odds with the mainstream.
It was a perfect storm just waiting for the right conditions to wreak havoc, a precursor of
the rage, frustration and fear that is erupting all over the country.
No matter what forces are manipulating these present riots and violent uprisings, however --
and there are definitely such forces at play here -- none of this would be happening without
the government having laid the groundwork.
Clearly, it's time to clean house at all levels of government.
Stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism,
lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality,
depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of
an institution that is rotten through and through.
Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.
Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.
You've got rights. We've all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one
can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.
You've got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your
own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common
ground with your fellow citizens.
Incredible interview with Hassan Nasrallah ("The Old Man of The Mountain" as I think of
him) providing insight into his tactical and strategic thinking processes w.r.t the conflict
with Israel:
Do some research it becomes clear quickly what the real story is. Hillary and her bunch
stink to high heaven and have or YEARS. Started with her and husband. They sold this country
o or personal gain.Just search a little and make sure to use factual information. It is there
for anyone to find.
– Stansfield Turner, Jimmy Carter's CIA director, on the extreme level of civilian
casualties in the CIA's covert war in Afghanistan.
The first indelible image of the war in Afghanistan for many Americans was probably that of
CBS anchorman Dan Rather, wrapped in the voluminous drapery of a mujahedin fighter, looking
like a healthy relative of Lawrence of Arabia (albeit with hair that seemed freshly blow-dried,
as some viewers were quick to point out). From his secret mountainside "somewhere in the Hindu
Kush," Rather unloaded on his audience a barrowload of nonsense about the conflict. The
Soviets, Rather confided portentously, had put a bounty on his head "of many thousands of
dollars." He went on, "It was the best compliment they could have given me. And having a price
put on my head was a small price to pay for the truths we told about Afghanistan."
Every one of these observations turned out to be entirely false. Rather described the
government of Hafizullah Amin as a "Moscow-installed puppet regime in Kabul." But Amin had
closer ties to the CIA than he did to the KGB. Rather called the mujahedin the "Afghan freedom
fighters who were engaged in a deeply patriotic fight to the death for home and hearth." The
mujahedin were scarcely fighting for freedom, in any sense Rather would have been comfortable
with, but instead to impose one of the most repressive brands of Islamic fundamentalism known
to the world, barbarous, ignorant and notably cruel to women.
It was a "fact," Rather announced, that the Soviets had used chemical weapons against Afghan
villagers. This was a claim promoted by the Reagan administration, which charged that the
extraordinarily precise number of 3,042 Afghans had been killed by this yellow chemical rain, a
substance that had won glorious propaganda victories in its manifestation in Laos a few years
earlier, when the yellow rain turned out to be bee feces heavily loaded with pollen. As Frank
Brodhead put it in the London Guardian, "Its composition: one part bee feces, plus many parts
State Department disinformation mixed with media gullibility."
Rather claimed that the mujahedin were severely underequipped, doing their best with
Kalashnikov rifles taken from dead Soviet soldiers. In fact the mujahedin were extremely
well-equipped, being the recipients of CIA-furnished weapons in the most " "expensive covert
war the Agency had ever mounted. They did carry Soviet weapons, but they came courtesy of the
CIA. Rather also showed news footage that he claimed was of Soviet bombers strafing defenseless
Afghan villages. This footage was staged, with the "Soviet bomber" actually a Pakistani air
force plane on a training mission over northwest Pakistan.
CBS claimed to have discovered in Soviet-bombed areas stuffed animals filled with Soviet
explosives, designed to blow Afghan children to bits. These booby-trapped toys had in fact been
manufactured by the mujahedin for the exclusive purpose of gulling CBS News, as an entertaining
article in the New York Post later made clear.
Rather made his heroically filmed way to Yunas Khalis, described as the leader of the Afghan
warriors. In tones of awe he normally reserves for hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, Rather
recalls in his book, The Camera Never Blinks
Twice , "Belief in 'right' makes 'might' may have been fading in other parts of the
world. In Afghanistan it was alive and well, and beating the Soviets." Khalis was a ruthless
butcher, with his troops fondly boasting of their slaughter of 700 prisoners of war. He spent
most of his time fighting, but the wars were not primarily with the Soviets. Instead, Khalis
battled other Afghan rebel groups, the object of the conflicts being control of poppy fields
and the roads and trails from them to his seven heroin labs near his headquarters in the town
of Ribat al Ali. Sixty percent of Afghanistan's opium crop was cultivated in the Helmand
Valley, with an irrigation infrastructure underwritten by USAID.
In his dispatches from the front Rather did mention the local opium trade, but in a
remarkably disingenuous fashion. "Afghans," he said, "had turned Darra into a boom town,
selling their home-grown opium for the best available weapons, then going back into Afghanistan
to fight."
Now Darra is a town in northwest Pakistan where the CIA had set up a factory to manufacture
Soviet-style weapons that it was giving away to all Afghan comers. The weapons factory was run
under contract to Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Much of the opium trucked into
Darra from Afghanistan by the mujahedin was sold to the Pakistani governor of the northwest
territory, Lieutenant General Fazle Huq. From this opium the heroin was refined in labs in
Darra, placed on Pakistani army trucks and transported to Karachi, then shipped to Europe and
the United States.
Rather belittled the Carter administration's reaction to the Soviet-backed coup in 1979,
charging that Carter's response had been tepid and slow in coming. In fact, President Carter
had reacted with a range of moves that should have been the envy of the Reagan hawks who, a
couple of years later, were belaboring him for being a Cold War wimp. Not only did Carter
withdraw the United States from the 1980 Olympics, he slashed grain sales to the Soviet Union,
to the great distress of Midwestern farmers; put the SALT II treaty hold; pledged to increase
the US defense budget by 5 percent a year until the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan; and
unveiled the Carter doctrine of containment in southern Asia, which CIA historian John Ranelagh
says led Carter to approve "more secret CIA operations than Reagan later did."
Carter later confessed in his memoirs that he was more shaken by the invasion of Afghanistan
than any other event of his presidency, including the Iranian revolution. Carter was convinced
by the CIA that it could be the start of a push by the Soviets toward the Persian Gulf, a
scenario that led the president to seriously consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Three weeks after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Carter's secretary of defense, Harold
Brown, was in Beijing, arranging for a weapons transfer from the Chinese to the CIA-backed
Afghani troops mustered in Pakistan. The Chinese, who were generously compensated for the deal,
agreed and even consented to send military advisers. Brown worked out a similar arrangement
with Egypt to buy $15 million worth of weapons. "The US contacted me," Anwar Sadat recalled
shortly before his assassination. "They told me, 'Please open your stores for us so that we can
give the Afghans the armaments they need to fight.' And I gave them the armaments. The
transport of arms to the Afghans started from Cairo on US planes."
But few in the Carter administration believed the rebels had any chance of toppling the
Soviets. Under most scenarios, the war seemed destined to be a slaughter, with civilians and
the rebels paying a heavy price. The objective of the Carter doctrine was more cynical. It was
to bleed the Soviets, hoping to entrap them in a Vietnam-style quagmire. The high level of
civilian casualties didn't faze the architects of covert American intervention. "I decided I
could live with that," recalled Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner.
Prior to the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan barely registered as a topic of interest for the
national press, surfacing in only a handful of annual newspaper stories. In December 1973, when
détente was near its zenith, the Wall Street Journal ran a rare front-page story on the
country, titled "Do the Russians Covet Afghanistan? If so, It's Hard to Figure Why." Reporter
Peter Kann, later to become the Journal's chairman and publisher, wrote that "great power
strategists tend to think of Afghanistan as a kind of fulcrum upon which the world balance of
power tips. But from close up, Afghanistan tends to look less like a fulcrum or a domino or a
steppingstone than like a vast expanse of desert waste with a few fly-ridden bazaars, a fair
number of feuding tribes and a lot of miserably poor people."
After the Soviet Union invaded, this wasteland swiftly acquired the status of a precious
geopolitical prize. A Journal editorial following the Soviet takeover said Afghanistan was
"more serious than a mere stepping-stone" and, in response, called for stationing of US troops
in the Middle East, increased military outlays, expanded covert operations and reinstatement of
draft registration. Drew Middleton, then a New York Times Defense Department correspondent,
filed a tremulous post-invasion analysis in January 1980: "The conventional wisdom in the
Pentagon," he wrote, "is that in purely military terms, the Russians are in a far better
position vis-à-vis the United States than Hitler was against Britain and France in
1939."
The Pentagon and CIA agitprop machine went into high gear: on January 3, 1980, George Wilson
of the Washington Post reported that military leaders hoped the invasion would "help cure the
Vietnam "never again' hangover of the American public." Newsweek said the "Soviet thrust"
represented "a severe threat" to US interests: "Control of Afghanistan would put the Russians
within 350 miles of the Arabian Sea, the oil lifeline of the West and Japan. Soviet warplanes
based in Afghanistan could cut the lifeline at will." The New York Times endorsed Carter's call
for increased military spending and supported the Cruise and Trident missile programs, "faster
research on the MX or some other mobile land missile," and the creation of a rapid deployment
force for Third World intervention, calling the latter an "investment in diplomacy."
In sum, Afghanistan proved to be a glorious campaign for both the CIA and Defense
Department, a dazzling offensive in which waves of credulous and compliant journalists were
dispatched to promulgate the ludicrous proposition that the United States was under military
threat. By the time Reagan assumed office, he and his CIA director William Casey saw support
for their own stepped-up Afghan plan from an unlikely source, the Democrat-controlled Congress,
which was pushing to double spending on the war. "It was a windfall [for the Reagan
administration]," a congressional staffer told the Washington Post. "They'd faced so much
opposition to covert action in Central America and here comes the Congress helping and throwing
money at them, putting money their way and they say, 'Who are we to say no?' "
As the CIA increased its backing of the mujahedin (the CIA budget for Afghanistan finally
reached $3.2 billion, the most expensive secret operation in its history) a White House member
of the president's Strategic Council on Drug Abuse, David Musto, informed the administration
that the decision to arm the mujahedin would misfire: "I told the Council that we were going
into Afghanistan to support the opium growers in their rebellion against the Soviets. Shouldn't
we try to avoid what we'd done in Laos? Shouldn't we try to pay the growers if they will
eradicate their opium production? There was silence."
After issuing this warning, Musto and a colleague on the council, Joyce Lowinson, continued
to question US policy, but found their queries blocked by the CIA and the State Department.
Frustrated, they then turned to the New York Times op-ed page and wrote, on May 22, 1980: "We worry
about the growing of opium in Afghanistan or Pakistan by rebel tribesmen who apparently are the
chief adversaries of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Are we erring in befriending these
tribes as we did in Laos when Air America (chartered by the Central Intelligence Agency) helped
transport crude opium from certain tribal areas?" But Musto and Lowinson met with silence once
again, not only from the administration but from the press. It was heresy to question covert
intervention in Afghanistan.
Later in 1980, Hoag Levins, a writer for Philadelphia Magazine, interviewed a man he
identified as a "high level" law enforcement official in the Carter administration's Justice
Department and quoted him thus: "You have the administration tiptoeing around this like it's a
land mine. The issue of opium and heroin in Afghanistan is explosive In the State of the Union
speech, the president mentioned drug abuse but he was very careful to avoid mentioning
Afghanistan, even though Afghanistan is where things are really happening right now Why aren't
we taking a more critical look at the arms we are now shipping into gangs of drug runners who
are obviously going to use them to increase the efficiency of their drug-smuggling
operation?"
The DEA was well aware that the mujahedin rebels were deeply involved in the opium trade.
The drug agency's reports in 1980 showed that Afghan rebel incursions from their Pakistan bases
into Soviet-held positions were "determined in part by opium planting and harvest seasons." The
numbers were stark and forbidding. Afghan opium production tripled between 1979 and 1982. There
was evidence that by 1981 the Afghan heroin producers had captured 60 percent of the heroin
market in Western Europe and the United States (these are UN and DEA figures).
In 1971, during the height of the CIA's involvement in Laos, there were about 500,000 heroin
addicts in the United States. By the mid- to late 1970s this total had fallen to 200,000. But
in 1981 with the new flood of Afghan heroin and consequent low prices, the heroin addict
population rose to 450,000. In New York City in 1979 alone (the year that the flow of arms to
the mujahedin began), heroin-related drug deaths increased by 77 percent. The only publicly
acknowledged US casualties on the Afghan battlefields were some Black Muslims who journeyed to
the Hindu Kush from the United States to fight on the Prophet's behalf. But the drug casualties
inside the US from the secret CIA war, particularly in the inner cities, numbered in the
thousands, plus untold social blight and suffering.
Since the seventeenth century opium poppies have been grown in the so-called Golden
Crescent, where the highlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran all converge. For nearly four
centuries this was an internal market. By the 1950s very little opium was produced in either
Afghanistan or Pakistan, with perhaps 2,500 acres in these two countries under cultivation. The
fertile growing fields of Afghanistan's Helmand Valley, by the 1980s under intensive opium
poppy cultivation, were covered with vineyards, wheat fields and cotton plantations.
In Iran, the situation was markedly different in the early 1950s. The country, dominated by
British and US oil companies and intelligence agencies, was producing 600 tons of opium a year
and had 1.3 million opium addicts, second only to China where, at the same moment, the western
opium imperialists still held sway. Then, in 1953, Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran's nationalist
equivalent of China's Sun Yat-sen, won elections and immediately moved to suppress the opium
trade. Within a few weeks, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was calling Mossadegh a
madman, and Dulles's brother Allen, head of the CIA, dispatched Kermit Roosevelt to organize a
coup against him. In August 1953 Mossadegh was overthrown, the Shah was installed by the CIA,
and the oil and opium fields of Iran were once again in friendly hands. Production continued
unabated until the assumption of power in 1979 of the Ayatollah Khomeini, at which point Iran
had a very serious opium problem in terms of the addiction of its own population. Unlike the
mujahedin chieftains, the Ayatollah was a strict constructionist of Islamic law on the matter
of intoxicants: addicts and dealers faced the death penalty. Opium production in Iran dropped
drastically.
In Afghanistan in the 1950s and 1960s, the relatively sparse opium trade was controlled by
the royal family, headed by King Mohammed Zahir, The large feudal estates all had their opium
fields, primarily to feed domestic consumption of the drug. In April 1978 a populist coup
overthrew the regime of Mohammed Daoud, who had formed an alliance with the Shah of Iran. The
Shah had shoveled money in Daoud's direction – $2 billion on one report – and the
Iranian secret police, the Savak, were imported to train Daoud's internal security force. The
new Afghan government was led by Noor Mohammed Taraki. The Taraki administration moved toward
land reform, hence an attack on the opium-growing feudal estates. Taraki went to the UN, where
he requested and received loans for crop substitution for the poppy fields.
Taraki also pressed hard against opium production in the border areas held by
fundamentalists, since the latter were using opium revenues to finance attacks on the Afghan
central government, which they regarded as an unwholesome incarnation of modernity that allowed
women to go to school and outlawed arranged marriages and the bride price.
By the spring of 1979 the character of Dan Rather's heroes, the mujahedin, was also
beginning to emerge. The Washington Post reported that the mujahedin liked to "torture their
victims by first cutting off their noses, ears and genitals, then removing one slice of skin
after another." Over that year the mujahedin evinced particular animosity toward westerners,
killing six West Germans and a Canadian tourist and severely beating a US military
attaché. It's also ironic that in that year the mujahedin were getting money not only
from the CIA but from Libya's Moammar Qaddaffi, who sent $250,000 in their direction.
In the summer of 1979, over six months before the Soviets moved in, the US State Department
produced a memorandum making clear how it saw the stakes, no matter how modern-minded Taraki
might be, or how feudal the mujahedin: "The United States' larger interest would be served by
the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future
social and economic reforms in Afghanistan." The report continued, "The overthrow of the DRA
[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third
World, that the Soviets' view of the socialist course of history as being inevitable is not
accurate."
Hard pressed by conservative forces in Afghanistan, Taraki appealed to the Soviets for help,
which they declined to furnish on the grounds that this was exactly what their mutual enemies
were waiting for.
In September 1979 Taraki was killed in a coup organized by Afghan military officers.
Hafizullah Amin was installed as president. He had impeccable western credentials, having been
to Columbia University in New York and the University of Wisconsin. Amin had served as the
president of the Afghan Students Association, which had been funded by the Asia Foundation, a
CIA pass-through group, or front. After the coup Amin began meeting regularly with US Embassy
officials at a time when the US was arming Islamic rebels in Pakistan. Fearing a
fundamentalist, US-backed regime pressing against its own border, the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in force on December 27, 1979.
Then began the Carter-initiated CIA buildup that so worried White House drug expert David
Musto. In a replication of what happened following the CIA-backed coup in Iran, the feudal
estates were soon back in opium production and the crop-substitution program ended.
Because Pakistan had a nuclear program, the US had a foreign aid ban on the country. This
was soon lifted it as the waging of a proxy war in Afghanistan became prime policy. In fairly
short order, without any discernible slowdown in its nuclear program, Pakistan became the third
largest recipient of US aid worldwide, right behind Israel and Egypt. Arms poured into Karachi
from the US and were shipped up to Peshawar by the National Logistics Cell, a military unit
controlled by Pakistan's secret police, the ISI. From Peshawar those guns that weren't simply
sold to any and all customers (the Iranians got 16 Stinger missiles, one of which was used
against a US helicopter in the Gulf) were divvied out by the ISI to the Afghan factions.
Though the US press, Dan Rather to the fore, portrayed the mujahedin as a unified force of
freedom fighters, the fact (unsurprising to anyone with an inkling of Afghan history) was that
the mujahedin consisted of at least seven warring factions, all battling for territory and
control of the opium trade. The ISI gave the bulk of the arms – at one count 60 percent
– to a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who
made his public debut at the University of Kabul by killing a leftist student. In 1972
Hekmatyar fled to Pakistan, where he became an agent of the ISI. He urged his followers to
throw acid in the faces of women not wearing the veil, kidnapped rival leaders, and built up
his CIA-furnished arsenal against the day the Soviets would leave and the war for the mastery
of Afghanistan would truly break out.
Using his weapons to get control of the opium fields, Hekmatyar and his men would urge the
peasants, at gun point, to increase production. They would collect the raw opium and bring it
back to Hekmatyar's six heroin factories in the town of Koh-i-Soltan
One of Hekmatyar's chief rivals in the mujahedin, Mullah Nassim, controlled the opium poppy
fields in the Helmand Valley, producing 260 tons of opium a year. His brother, Mohammed Rasul,
defended this agricultural enterprise by stating, "We must grow and sell opium to fight our
holy war against the Russian nonbelievers." Despite this well-calculated pronouncement, they
spent almost all their time fighting their fellow-believers, using the weapons sent them by the
CIA to try to win the advantage in these internecine struggles. In 1989 Hekmatyar launched an
assault against Nassim, attempting to take control of the Helmand Valley. Nassim fought him
off, but a few months later Hekmatyar successfully engineered Nassim's assassination when he
was holding the post of deputy defense minister in the provisional post-Soviet Afghan
government. Hekmatyar now controlled opium growing in the Helmand Valley.
American DEA agents were fully apprised of the drug running of the mujahedin in concert with
Pakistani intelligence and military leaders. In 1983 the DEA's congressional liaison, David
Melocik, told a congressional committee, "You can say the rebels make their money off the sale
of opium. There's no doubt about it. These rebels keep their cause going through the sale of
opium." But talk about "the cause" depending on drug sales was nonsense at that particular
moment. The CIA was paying for everything regardless. The opium revenues were ending up in
offshore accounts in the Habib Bank, one of Pakistan's largest, and in the accounts of BCCI,
founded by Agha Hasan Abedi, who began his banking career at Habib. The CIA was simultaneously
using BCCI for its own secret transactions.
The DEA had evidence of over forty heroin syndicates operating in Pakistan in the mid-1980s
during the Afghan war, and there was evidence of more than 200 heroin labs operating in
northwest Pakistan. Even though Islamabad houses one of the largest DEA offices in Asia, no
action was ever taken by the DEA agents against any of these operations. An Interpol officer
told the journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, "It is very strange that the Americans, with the size
of their resources, and political power they possess in Pakistan, have failed to break a single
case. The explanation cannot be found in a lack of adequate police work. They have had some
excellent men working in Pakistan." But working in the same offices as those DEA agents were
five CIA officers who, so one of the DEA agents later told the Washington Post, ordered them to
pull back their operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the duration of the war.
Those DEA agents were well aware of the drug-tainted profile of a firm the CIA was using to
funnel cash to the mujahedin, namely Shakarchi Trading Company. This Lebanese-owned company had
been the subject of a long-running DEA investigation into money laundering. One of Shakarchi's
chief clients was Yasir Musullulu, who had once been nabbed attempting to deliver an 8.5-ton
shipment of Afghan opium to members of the Gambino crime syndicate in New York City. A DEA memo
noted that Shakarchi mingled "the currency of heroin, morphine base, and hashish traffickers
with that of jewelers buying gold on the black market and Middle Eastern arms traffickers."
In May 1984 Vice President George Bush journeyed to Pakistan to confer with General Zia al
Huq and other ranking members of the Pakistani regime. At the time, Bush was the head of
President Reagan's National Narcotics Border Interdiction System. In this latter function, one
of Bush's first moves was to expand the role of the CIA in drug operations. He gave the Agency
primary responsibility in the use of, and control over, drug informants. The operational head
of this task force was retired Admiral Daniel J. Murphy.
Murphy pushed for access to intelligence on drug syndicates but complained that the CIA was
forever dragging its feet. "I didn't win," he said later to the New York Times. "I didn't get
as much effective participation from the CIA as I wanted." Another member of the task force put
it more bluntly, "The CIA could be of value, but you need a change of values and attitude. I
don't know of a single thing they've ever given us that was useful."
Bush certainly knew well that Pakistan had become the source for most of the high-grade
heroin entering Western Europe and the United States and that the generals with whom he was
consorting were deeply involved in the drug trade. But the vice president, who proclaimed later
that "I will never bargain with drug dealers on US or foreign soil," used his journey to
Pakistan to praise the Zia regime for its unflinching support for the War on Drugs. (Amid such
rhetorical excursions he did find time, it has to be said, to extract from Zia a contract to
buy $40 million worth of gas turbines made by the General Electric Co.)
Predictably, through the 1980s the Reagan and Bush administrations went to great lengths to
pin the blame for the upswing in Pakistani heroin production on the Soviet generals in Kabul.
"The regime maintains an absolute indifference to any measures to control poppy," Reagan's
attorney general Edwin Meese declared during a visit to Islamabad in March 1986. "We strongly
believe that there is actually encouragement, at least tacitly, over growing opium poppy."
Meese knew better. His own Justice Department had been tracking the import of drugs from
Pakistan since at least 1982 and was well aware that the trade was controlled by Afghan rebels
and the Pakistani military. A few months after Meese's speech in Pakistan, the US Customs
Office nabbed a Pakistani man named Abdul Wali as he tried to unload more than a ton of hash
and a smaller amount of heroin into the United
States at Port Newark, New Jersey. The Justice Department informed the press that Wali
headed a 50,000-member organization in northwest Pakistan – but Deputy Attorney General
Claudia Flynn refused to reveal the group's identity. Another federal official told the
Associated Press that Wali was a top leader of the mujahedin.
It was also known to US officials that people on intimate terms with President Zia were
making fortunes in the opium trade. The word "fortune" here is no exaggeration, since one such
Zia associate had $3 billion in his BCCI accounts. In 1983, a year before George Bush's visit
to Pakistan, one of President Zia's doctors, a Japanese herbalist named Hisayoshi Maruyama was
arrested in Amsterdam packing 17.5 kilos of high-grade heroin manufactured in Pakistan out of
Afghan opium. At the time of his arrest he was disguised as a boy scout.
Interrogated by DEA agents after his arrest, Maruyama said that he was just a courier for
Mirza Iqbal Baig, a man whom Pakistani customs agents described as "the most active dope dealer
in the country." Baig was on close terms with the Zia family and other ranking officials in the
government. He had twice been a target of the DEA, whose agents were told not to pursue
investigations of him because of his ties to the Zia government. A top Pakistani lawyer, Said
Sani Ahmed, told the BBC that this was standard procedure in Pakistan: "We may have evidence
against a particular individual, but still our law-enforcing agencies cannot lay hands on such
people, because they are forbidden to act by their superiors. The real culprits have enough
money and resources. Frankly, they are enjoying some sort of immunity."
Baig was one of the tycoons of the Pakistani city of Lahore, owning cinemas, shopping
centers, factories and a textile mill. He wasn't indicted on drug charges until 1992, after the
fall of the Zia regime, when a US federal court in Brooklyn indicted him for heroin
trafficking. The US finally exerted enough pressure on Pakistan to have him arrested in 1993;
as of the spring of 1998 he was in prison in Pakistan.
One of Baig's partners (as described in Newsweek) in his drug business was Haji Ayub Afridi,
a close ally of President Zia, who had served in the Pakistani General Assembly. Afridi lives
thirty-five miles outside Peshawar in a large compound sealed off by 20-foot-high walls topped
with concertina-wire and with defenses including an anti-aircraft battery and a private army of
tribesmen. Afridi was said to be in charge of purchasing raw opium from the Afghan drug lords,
while Baig looked after logistics and shipping to Europe and the United States. In 1993 Afridi
was alleged to have put out a contract on the life of a DEA agent working in Pakistan.
Another case close to the Zia government involved the arrest on drug charges of Hamid
Hasnain, the vice president of Pakistan's largest financial house, the Habib Bank. Hasnain's
arrest became the centerpiece of a scandal known as the "Pakistani League affair." The drug
ring was investigated by a dogged Norwegian investigator named Olyvind Olsen. On December 13,
1983 Norwegian police seized 3.5 kilos of heroin at Oslo airport in the luggage of a Pakistani
named Raza Qureishi. In exchange for a reduced sentence Qureishi agreed to name his suppliers
to Olsen, the narcotics investigator. Shortly after his interview with Qureishi, Olsen flew to
Islamabad to ferret out the other members of the heroin syndicate. For more than a year Olsen
pressured Pakistan's Federal Investigate Agency (FIA) to arrest the three men Qureishi had
fingered: Tahir Butt, Munawaar Hussain, and Hasnain. All were associates of Baig and Zia. It
wasn't until Olsen threatened to publicly condemn the FIA's conduct that the Agency took any
action: finally, on October 25, 1985 the FIA arrested the three men. When the Pakistani agents
picked up Hasnain they were assailed with a barrage of threats. Hasnain spoke of "dire
consequences" and claimed to be "like a son" to President Zia. Inside Hasnain's suitcase FIA
agents discovered records of the ample bank accounts of President Zia plus those of Zia's wife
and daughter.
Immediately after learning of Hasnain's arrest, Zia's wife, who was in Egypt at the time,
telephoned the head of the FIA. The president's wife imperiously demanded the release of her
family's "personal banker." It turned out that Hasnain not only attended to the secret
financial affairs of the presidential family, but also of the senior Pakistani generals, who
were skimming money off the arms imports from the CIA and making millions from the opium
traffic. A few days after his wife's call, President Zia himself was on the phone to the FIA,
demanding that the investigators explain the circumstances surrounding Hasnain's arrest. Zia
soon arranged for Hasnain to be released on bail pending trial. When Qureishi, the courier,
took the stand to testify against Hasnain, the banker and his co-defendant hurled death threats
against the witness in open court, prompting a protest from the Norwegian investigator, who
threatened to withdraw from the proceedings.
Eventually the judge in the case clamped down, revoking Hasnain's bail and handing him a
stiff prison term after his conviction. But Hasnain was just a relatively small fish who went
to prison while guilty generals went free. "He's been made a scapegoat," Munir Bhatti told
journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, "The CIA spoiled the case. The evidence was distorted. There
was no justification in letting off the actual culprits who include senior personalities in
this country. There was evidence in this case identifying such people."
Such were the men to whom the CIA was paying $3.2 billion a year to run the Afghan war, and
no person better epitomizes this relationship than Lieutenant General Fazle Huq, who oversaw
military operations in northwest Pakistan for General Zia, including the arming of the
mujahedin who were using the region as a staging area for their raids. It was Huq who ensured
that his ally Hekmatyar received the bulk of the CIA arms shipments, and it was also Huq who
oversaw and protected the operations of the 200 heroin labs within his jurisdiction. Huq had
been identified in 1982 by Interpol as a key player in the Afghan-Pakistani opium trade. The
Pakistani opposition leaders referred to Huq as Pakistani's Noriega. He had been protected from
drug investigations by Zia and the CIA and later boasted that with these connections he could
get away "with blue murder."
Like other narco-generals in the Zia regime, Huq was also on close terms with Agha Hassan
Abedi, the head of the BCCI. Abedi, Huq and Zia would dine together nearly every month, and
conferred several times with Reagan's CIA director William Casey. Huq had a BCCI account worth
$3 million. After Zia was assassinated in 1988 by a bomb planted (probably by senior military
officers) in his presidential plane, Huq lost some of his official protection, and he was soon
arrested for ordering the murder of a Shi'ite cleric.
After Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was deposed, her replacement Ishaq Khan swiftly released
Huq from prison. In 1991 Huq was shot to death, probably in revenge for the cleric's death. The
opium general was given a state funeral, where he was eulogized by Ishaq Khan as "a great
soldier and competent administrator who played a commendable role in Pakistan's national
progress."
Benazir Bhutto had swept to power in 1988 amid fierce vows to clean up Pakistan's
drug-sodden corruption, but it wasn't long "before her own regime became the focus of serious
charges. In 1989 the US Drug Enforcement Agency came across information that Benazir's husband,
Asif Ali Zardari, may have been financing large shipments of heroin from Pakistan to Great
Britain and the United States. The DEA assigned one of its agents, a man named John Banks, to
work undercover in Pakistan. Banks was a former British mercenary who had worked undercover for
Scotland Yard in big international drug cases.
While in Pakistan, Banks claims he posed as a member of the Mafia and that he had met with
Bhutto and her husband at their home in Sind. Banks further claims that he traveled with Zadari
to Islamabad, where he secretly recorded five hours of conversation between Zadari, a Pakistani
air force general and a Pakistani banker. The men discussed the logistics of transporting
heroin to the US and to Britain: "We talked about how they were going to ship the drugs to
America in a metal cutter," Banks said in 1996. "They told me that the United Kingdom was
another area where they had shipped heroin and hashish on a regular basis." The British Customs
Office had also been monitoring Zadari for dope running: "We received intelligence from about
three or four sources, about his alleged involvement as a financier," a retired British customs
officer told the Financial Times. "This was all reported to British intelligence." The customs
official says his government failed to act on this report. Similarly, Banks asserts that the
CIA halted the DEA's investigation of Zardari. All this emerged when Bhutto's government fell
for the second time, in 1996, on charges of corruption lodged primarily against Zardari, who is
now in prison for his role in the murder of his brother-in-law Murtaza. Zardari also stands
accused of embezzling more than $1 billion in government funds."
In 1991 Nawz Sharif says that while he served as prime minister he was approached by two
Pakistani generals – Aslam Beg, chief of staff for the army, and Asad Durrani, head of
the ISI – with a plan to fund dozens of covert operations through the sale of heroin.
"General Durrani told me, 'We have a blueprint ready for your approval,' Sharif explained to
Washington Post reporter John Ward Anderson in 1994. "I was totally flabbergasted. Both Beg and
Durrani insisted that Pakistan's name would not be cited at any place because the whole
operation would be carried out by trustworthy third parties. Durrani then went on to list a
series of covert military operations in desperate need of money." Sharif said that he rejected
the plan, but believes it was put in place when Bhutto resumed power.
The impact of the Afghan war on Pakistan's addiction rates was even more drastic than the
surge in heroin addiction in the US and Europe. Before the CIA program began, there were fewer
than 5,000 heroin addicts in Pakistan. By 1996, according to the United Nations, there were
more than 1.6 million. The Pakistani representative to the UN Commission on Narcotics, Raoolf
Ali Khan, said in 1993 that "there is no branch of government where drug corruption doesn't
pervade." As an example he pointed to the fact that Pakistan spends only $1.8 million a year on
anti-drug efforts, with an allotment of $1,000 to purchase gasoline for its seven trucks.
By 1994 the value of the heroin trade in Pakistan was twice the amount of the government's
budget. A Western diplomat told the Washington Post in that year that "when you get to the
stage where narco-traffickers have more money than the government it's going to take remarkable
efforts and remarkable people to turn it around." The magnitude of commitment required is
illustrated by two episodes. In 1991 the largest drug bust in world history occurred on the
road
from Peshawar to Karachi. Pakistani customs officers seized 3.5 tons of heroin and 44 tons
of hashish. Several days later half the hashish and heroin had vanished along with the
witnesses. The suspects, four men with ties to Pakistani intelligence, had "mysteriously
escaped," to use the words of a Pakistani customs officer. In 1993 Pakistani border guards
seized 8 tons of hashish and 1.7 tons of heroin. When the case was turned over to the Pakistani
narcotics control board, the entire staff went on vacation to avoid being involved in the
investigation. No one was disciplined or otherwise inconvenienced and the narco-traffickers got
off scot free. Even the CIA was eventually forced to admit in a 1994 report to Congress that
heroin had become the "life blood of the Pakistani economy and political system."
In February 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev pulled the Soviet troops out of Afghanistan, and asked
the US to agree to an embargo on the provision of weapons to any of the Afghan mujahedin
factions, who were preparing for another phase of internecine war for control of the country.
President Bush refused, thus ensuring a period of continued misery and horror for most Afghans.
The war had already turned half the population into refugees, and seen 3 million wounded and
more than a million killed. The proclivities of the mujahedin at this point are illustrated by
a couple of anecdotes. The Kabul correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review reported in
1989 the mujahedin's treatment of Soviet prisoners: "One group was killed, skinned and hung up
in a butcher's shop. One captive found himself the center of attraction in a game of buzkashi,
that rough-and-tumble form of Afghan polo in which a headless goat is usually the ball. The
captive was used instead. Alive. He was literally torn to pieces." The CIA also had evidence
that its freedom fighters had doped up more than 200 Soviet soldiers with heroin and locked
them in animal cages where, the Washington Post reported in 1990, they led "lives of
indescribable horror."
In September 1996 the Taliban, fundamentalists nurtured originally in Pakistan as creatures
of both the ISI and the CIA, seized power in Kabul, whereupon Mullah Omar, their leader,
announced that all laws inconsistent with the Muslim Sharia would be changed. Women would be
forced to assume the chador and remain at home, with total segregation of the sexes and women
kept out of hospitals, schools and public bathrooms. The CIA continued to support these
medieval fanatics who, according to Emma Bonino, the European Union's commissioner for
humanitarian affairs, were committing "gender genocide."
One law at odds with the Sharia that the Taliban had no apparent interest in changing was
the prophet's injunction against intoxicants. In fact, the Taliban urged its Afghan farmers to
increase their production of opium. One of the Taliban leaders, the "drug czar" Abdul Rashid,
noted, "If we try to stop this [opium farming] the people will be against us." By the end 1996,
according to the UN, Afghan opium production had reached 2,000 metric tons. There were an
estimated 200,000 families in Afghanistan working in the opium trade. The Taliban were in
control of the 96 percent of all Afghan land in opium cultivation and imposed a tax on opium
production and a road toll on trucks carrying the crop.
In 1997 an Afghan opium farmer gave an ironic reply to Jimmy Carter's brooding on whether to
use nuclear weapons as part of a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Amhud
Gul told a reporter from the Washington Post, "We are cultivating this [that is, opium] and
exporting this as an atom bomb." CIA intervention had worked its magic once again. By 1994,
Afghanistan, according to the UN drug control program had surpassed Burma as the world's number
one supplier of raw opium.
Note: This story was more than two years in the making. I started reporting it in 1995
for the premier issue of a Portland-based magazine called Serpent's Tooth: Reporting the Drug
War, which was meant to be a cross between Ramparts and Paul Krassner's The Realist, with
plenty of sex ads to pay the bills. In fact, Krassner also wrote a scathingly funny piece for
that issue, some ribald tale involving three of his favorite subjects: Bill Clinton, LSD and
the virtues of masturbation. Alas, a few weeks before the magazine was ready to go to press,
the trust-fund publisher pulled the plug on the entire venture after getting into a brawl with
the editorial collective. In my experience, any time there's an "editorial collective" in
charge, the publication is destined for a ventilator, especially when cocaine is involved. So,
after spending more than a year working on my big piece on the Afghan war and the opium trade,
it was orphaned. Portions of the story later appeared in CounterPunch, the Anderson Valley
Advertiser and the Twin Cities weekly, City Pages. And a version of it ended up as a chapter in
our book Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs
and the Press .
Belgrade has been razed 44 times. In the 20th century, it was bombed thrice. In World War
II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs were mass murdered by Croats, an undisputed fact still
little known.
From the taxi into town, I was reintroduced to the concrete housing blocks that are typical
of the former Eastern Bloc. Belgrade's few high-rises are left over the 1970's, perhaps the
worst decade for architecture ever. Its gorgeous buildings from the late 19th and early 20th
centuries have been crumbling for decades.
I passed a monstrously huge banner of Serbian soldiers, with the lead one a stern female
saluting, with accusation in her eyes. This draped the former Yugoslav Defense Ministry
. Bombed
by NATO in 1999, its mauled remains
are left as
is .
At a nearby park days later, I'd chance upon a bronze statue of a small
girl holding a rag doll. Framed by a black marble slab resembling butterfly wings, she
stood on a grave-like marker that's partly inscribed, "DEDICATED TO THE CHILDREN KILLED BY NATO
AGGRESSION 1999."
Most of the world, though, don't see Serbians as victims so much as perpetrators of
genocide, as recently evidenced by the Siege of Sarajevo and, even more so, Srebrenica.
During the mid 1990's, the world turned its back on the massacres of Muslims in Bosnia.
The UN would not call it genocide because that would have demanded military intervention.
Most shamefully, the Muslim world also closed its eyes as up to 160,000 Bosnian Muslims were
slaughtered, starved and tortured in Serb-run concentration camps. At least 10,000 Muslim
girls and women were gang raped, some in special rape camps.
A hundred-and-sixty-thousand is an atrociously high number of victims, but how many were
actually slaughtered, as opposed to tortured or starved? Surely, Margolis didn't mean they were
all starved, tortured then slaughtered? It's an oddly ambiguous passage for a seasoned
author.
In any case, Margolis had seen it coming:
In 1988, I wrote warning that Milosevic would create disaster in Bosnia and Kosova, the
Albanian-majority region of southern Serbia. I was denounced in Belgrade and declared an
enemy of the Serbs. In truth, I had always been an admirer of Serbs as courageous,
intelligent people. But the Serbs that Milosevic rallied were the scum of the gutter,
criminals, racists, brutal pig farmers, fanatical priests.
On December 8th, 2017, The Saker presented an entirely different take :
Truly, that war had it all, every dirty trick was used against the Serbs: numerous false
flags attacks, pseudo-genocides, illegal covert operations to arm terrorists groups, the
covert delivery of weapons to officially embargoed entities, deliberate attacks against
civilians, the use of illegal weapons, the use of officially "demilitarized zones" to hide
(fully armed) entire army corps – you name it: if it is disgusting it was used against
the Serbian people. Even deliberate attacks on the otherwise sacrosanct journalistic
profession was considered totally normal as long as the journalists were Serbs. As for the
Serbs, they were, of course, demonized. Milosevic became the "New Hitler" (along with Saddam
Hussein) and those Serbs who took up arms to defend their land and families became genocidal
Chetniks.
Brigadier-General Pierre Marie Gallois of the French Army has condemned the NATO
destruction of Yugoslavia, and has gone on record stating that the endless stories of Serb
atrocities, such as mass rapes and the siege of Sarajevo were fabricated. Gallois also argues
that the German elite sought revenge for the fierce Serb resistance during the two world
wars, especially with regard to the Serb partisans that held up German divisions that were
headed towards Leningrad and Moscow during Operation Barbarossa. While relentlessly
demonized, the Serbs were in many ways the greatest victims of the NATO-orchestrated Balkan
wars, as hundreds of thousands of Serbs were forcibly expelled from both Croatia and Kosovo
while Serbia was turned into a free-fire zone by NATO for over seventy days. Washington took
advantage of the conflict to solidify control over its European vassals.
The Saker's parents fled to Belgrade as Russian refugees, and he even had a Serbian
godmother, so there is a strong emotional attachment here, which The Saker freely admits.
Still, The Saker at his website has rebutted the inflated hooey of Srebrenica with some
hard facts
.
It's entirely unclear, even approximately, how many were intentionally executed, instead of
being killed in battle, whether by Serbs or other Muslims, or who died because of starvation,
suicide or illness.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's star witness, and the only
one convicted of direct participation in the Srebrenica "genocide," was not a Serb, but a
Bosnian Croat, Drazen Erdemovic.
On June 27th, 1996, the ICTY itself declared Erdemovic mentally impaired, yet, on July 5th,
1996, it put him on the witness stand anyway.
Even more incredibly, Erdemovic admitted he had fought for all three sides during that
conflict, Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Dude couldn't decide whom he was trying to kill or
defend.
In exchange for his testimonies against Serbs, Erdemovic was jailed for just five years,
then given a new identity and whisked to a new country, so who knows, he might be living next
to you as John Smith.
It's just a neighborhood squabble, you might be thinking. Who cares about Montenegroes? I've
got my own black asses to kiss. I'm already kneeling, massa.
As always, though, there are lessons aplenty from the Balkans.
Serbs didn't have a country for five centuries, and Croats went stateless for eight, yet
neither lost their fierce sense of nationhood, that is, their nationalism. It's not a debatable
concept, but a deeply felt necessity, for how can any population with a unique history,
heritage and identity not have its own homeland?
In the 21st century, such tribal thinking is not just deemed barbaric, but evil, Nazism, in
short, except in Israel, of course. Gas chambers, remember?
When nations are contorted, tortured or simply enticed into any supranational entity, a
correction, often violent, is inevitable, and that's exactly what has happened, repeatedly, in
the Balkans. Wholesome pig farmers convulsed against the Ottomans, Austro-Hungarian Empire and
Communists, etc. There is no progress beyond this.
This innate nationalism can only be purged when a population has been thoroughly cowed
and/or brainwashed into renouncing itself, but the Serbs, for all for their defeats and
humiliations down the centuries, never did. There's a magnificent lesson there.
Rebecca West, "So in the first battle of Kossovo the Serbs learned the meaning of defeat,
not such defeat as forms a necessary proportion of all effort, for in that they had often been
instructed during the course of their history, but of total defeat, annihilation of their
corporate will and all their individual wills. The second battle of Kossovo taught them that
one may live on such a low level of existence that even defeat cannot be achieved. The third
taught them that even that level is not the lowest, and that there is a limbo for subject
peoples where there is neither victory nor defeat but abortions which, had they come to birth,
would have become such states."
Repeatedly butchered, suffocated and written off, Serbs have rebirthed themselves, thanks to
their nationalism.
When the Turks were in Belgrade, they embellished this city with 273 beautiful mosques, so
where the hell are they?! Only one is left, unfortunately, and the Bajrakli Mosque
almost joined all the rest when it was torched in 2004, in retaliation for the burning of
Serbian churches in Kosovo.
Built in 1575, it is elegant, intimate and handsomely proportioned, with the only false note
the jivey, concrete minaret, clearly a recent replacement. Inside , I
admired its minbar ,
octagonal wooden tablets etched with calligraphy and, especially, the stone, baroque frame around
some verse, a nice East meets West touch. Light angled in from high windows . The
darkened dome soothed.
It's an active mosque. Half a dozen suited Muslims milled outside, until they all left, so
that I could have cleared out their mosque had I wanted to, and started World War III. Outside
the gate, there was an old beggar
, but she too disappeared, because I had already given her sixty cents.
Leaving the Bajrakli Mosque, I walked by Dukat, a Turkish restaurant, then Zein, a Lebanese
one. The Arabic Zuwar was also nearby. Though not nearly as cosmopolitan as, say, Busan,
contemporary Belgrade is no xenophobic backwater. Chinese
takeouts dot the city, and there's even a Chinese shopping center at Blok 70, in New
Belgrade.
I'm writing this in a bar, Dzidzi Midzi
, where American pop music is played nonstop. On its walls are mostly photos of American icons,
such as Hitchcock, Dylan, Hendrix, Buffalo Bill, Jack Nicholson, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd,
Louis Armstrong and Bruce Lee (who was born in San Francisco, graduated from the University of
Washington, married an American and is buried in Seattle). Though imploding, America
still mesmerizes. Tellingly, there's just one Serb, Nicolas Tesla, and one Russian, Yuri
Gagarin, who's depicted as a generic, faceless astronaut, with a quotation in English, "I see
no god up here "
This is no touristy brewpub, but a Janko Janković joint in Hadžipopovac, a
neighborhood of drab buildings, frankly. I'm paying $1.90 for a pint of Staropramen, and a
flatbread sandwich with prosciutto and gouda is just $2.50.
Although Vietnam doesn't have an embassy here, there's a Vietnamese at the University of
Belgrade. Here nine years and working on his second degree, this young man's so in love with
Serbia, he's changed his name to Hoan Zlatanovic. Odder still was the Japanese who fought
alongside Serbs and Russians in Bosnia. A self-declared "Japanese cheknik," he risked his life
while forgoing a salary and his monthly cigar.
Oddest, perhaps, is Serbia's yearning to join the European Union, though not NATO, which
already includes Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro. They're all
leaning West. Last to board, they'll get to enjoy some choppy sailing with the big boys.
Bombing Serbia, America gave Russia and China a wakeup call, and forced them towards a new
understanding. Everything changed after 1999. Again, this tiny nation played an outsized role
in remaking our world.
Balkanizing, Americans can look here for warnings and inspiration. Five hundred years from
now, a Serbian nation will still exist.
"Gallois also argues that the German elite sought revenge for the fierce Serb resistance
during the two world wars, especially with regard to the Serb partisans that held up German
divisions that were headed towards Leningrad and Moscow during Operation Barbarossa"
I wonder whether this french general has talked to some actual Germans. Everybody who knows
just a little bit about german elites in the nineties knows that this an abstruse idea.
Balkanizing, Americans can look here for warnings and inspiration. Five hundred years from
now, a Serbian nation will still exist.
Beautiful tail on a beautiful essay. Thanks, Linh.
As also, the Serbs had no choice in any Balkanization, but their American counterparts look
on sheepishly as their plutocrat masters are inflicting it on the USA. Our end won't be
justice: The same scum who used 1999 as practice are just using what they learned in
California, etc. They won't be happy till the whole world is stateless and landless. Except
them.
"Balkanization" is a curiously old subject. As a true wet-behind-the-ears nipper the first
public speech I ever heard was during the one (and only) week I ever spent in New England. Ayn
Rand gave her speech, entitled Global Balkanization at Boston's Ford Hall Forum in 1977. Just
as a curiosity I wanted to see if it has any of it held up. She might have been on everyone's
brown list by then, but her energy levels were still high:
I put these comments on the open thread about the same time b started this one
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1289724554982629377
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil to
US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White
House."
Trump a few months back "We've kept the oil". Well, he hasn't had a problem hanging onto
it and getting an American company involved.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil
to US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White
House."
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 2 2020 14:35 utc | 2
Very likely the Kurds were under pressure from Trump, and the act wasn't voluntary. It's
not even the Kurds' oil to sign a deal on (except one well). We'll see whether the
operation actually succeeds. At the moment, everybody is waiting to see whether Trump is
re-elected in November. Signing a piece of paper now is of no significance.
How a US military doctrine became Colombia's 'origin of evil' | Part 1: "Popeye" : What is known in Latin America as the National Security Doctrine [is] not defense against
an external enemy, but a way to make the military establishment the masters of the game
[with] the right to combat the internal enemy : it is the right to fight and to exterminate
social workers, trade unionists, men and women who are not supportive of the establishment,
and who are assumed to be communist extremists. And this could mean anyone, including human
rights activists such as myself.
Colombia's former Foreign Minister Alfredo Vasquez
"... Does the mass media think they can “hide the ball” while Seattle turns into a war zone? Seriously–in the Internet age? They _can’t_ be that stupid, can they? ..."
Does the mass media think they can “hide the ball” while Seattle turns
into a war zone? Seriously–in the Internet age? They _can’t_ be that
stupid, can they?
(When I put on the tin foil hat it whispers to me “they know, they are lying on
purpose, they want Trump re-elected to improve their ratings, and they want to anger voters
by lying about Seattle”. Then I take off the tin foil hat and I say
“Na–they really are that stupid.”)
@Big Dan
were Bolsheviks, they'd be out burning down BANKS, Corporatized Giants like Target, Walmart,
Amazon warehouses and MOST of Silicon Tech Giants.
We know these protesters are funded by:
George Soros
The Ford Foundation
Amazon
Big Tech
Big Banks
Nike
Adidas
T-Mobile
Amazon
and ALL the other vulture capitalists that thrive in this environment.
Whitney, needs to start reading about the history of Socialism; Marx' acute hatred against
Capitalism, Lenin, Others. Then and ONLY THEN will his preposterous statements reveal him as
the usual ILLITERATE American.
@Robert
Dolan d come out to a modernistic building on York U's Keele Campus in Toronto to hear
the stories of former Israeli soldiers.
York U's Vari Hall had been the scene of some ugly confrontations in the past, but no one
had expected 500 BDS and Antifa bigots to show up screaming hatred and attacking Jewish
students on campus.
Some of these Bolsheviks can be the most disgusting racists in the world. Some months
back, a bunch of anti-fa criminal baffoons attacked two Hispanics, who they mistook to be
members of the Conservative group 'The Proud Boys' and called them spics and beaners. So much
for anti-racism.
Note to
readers:This essay is an edited and abridged version, with content reformatted, of that
originally posted here. It is updated with some new material and full references. A list of the
most important references is at the end of the essay, before the notes. I deleted the small
portion on P. W. Botha because I was unable to locate my primary reference which was text
extracted from the Truth and Reconciliation hearings held in South Africa. The content was
testimony by one of Botha's underlings at a hearing that Botha refused to attend. Rather than
leave questions about the validity of statements, I deleted that section.
The United States government funded and performed countless psychological experiments on
unwitting humans, especially during the Cold War era, perhaps partially to help develop more
effective torture and interrogation techniques for the US military and the CIA, but the
almost unbelievable extent, range and duration of these activities far surpassed possible
interrogation applications and appear to have been performed from a fundamental monstrous
inhumanity . To simply read summaries of these, even without the details, is almost
traumatising in itself.
In studies that began in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the US Military began identifying
and testing truth serums like mescaline and scopolamine on human subjects, which they claimed
might be useful during interrogations of Soviet spies. These programs eventually expanded to a
project of vast scope and enormous ambition, centralised under the CIA in what would come to be
called Project MK-ULTRA, a major collection of interrogation and mind-control projects.
Inspired initially by delusions of a brainwashing program, the CIA began thousands of
experiments using both American and foreign subjects often without their knowledge or against
their will, destroying countless tens of thousands of lives and causing many deaths and
suicides. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations and jointly operated by
the CIA, the FBI and the intelligence divisions of all military groups, this decades-long CIA
research constituted an immense collection of some of the most cold-blooded and callous
atrocities conceivable , in a determined effort to develop reliable techniques of
controlling the human mind.
MK-ULTRA was an umbrella for a large number of clandestine activities that formed part of
the CIA’s psychological warfare research and development, consisting of about 150
projects and sub-projects, many of them very large in their own right, with research and human
experimentation occurring at more than 80 institutions that included about 50 of
America’s best-known colleges and universities , 15 or 20 major research Foundations
including Rockefeller, dozens of major hospitals, a great many prisons and mental institutions,
and many chemical and pharmaceutical companies. At least 200 well-known private scientific
researchers were part of this program, as were many thousands of physicians, psychiatrists,
psychologists and other similar. Many of these institutions and individuals received their
funding through so-called “grants” from what were clearly CIA front companies.
In 1994 a Congressional subcommittee revealed that up to 500,000 unwitting Americans were
endangered, damaged or destroyed by secret CIA and military tests between 1940 and 1974.
Given the deliberate destruction of all the records, the full truth of the MK-ULTRA victims
will never be known, and certainly not the death toll. As the inspector general of the US Army
later stated in a report to a Senate committee: “In universities, hospitals and research
institutions, an unknown number of chemical tests and experiments … were carried out
with healthy adults, with mentally ill and with prison inmates.” According to one
government report, “In 149 separate mind-control experiments on thousands of people, CIA
researchers used hypnosis, electroshock treatments, LSD, marijuana, morphine, Benzedrine,
mescaline, seconal, atropine and other drugs.” Test subjects were usually people who
could not easily object – prisoners, mental patients and members of minority groups
– but the agency also performed many experiments on normal, healthy civilians without
their knowledge or consent.
There were 149 subprojects listed under the umbrella of MKULTRA. Project MONARCH has not
been officially identified by any government documentation as one of the corresponding
subprojects, but is used rather, as a descriptive “catch phrase” by survivors,
therapists, and possible “insiders”. MONARCH may in fact, have culminated from
MKSEARCH subprojects such as operation SPELLBINDER, which was set up to create
“sleeper” assassins (i.e. “Manchurian candidates”) who could be
activated upon receiving a key word or phrase while in a post-hypnotic trance. Operation OFTEN,
a study which attempted to harness the power of occult forces was possibly one of several cover
programs to hide the insidious reality of Project MONARCH. There were also operations BLUEBIRD,
ARTICHOKE, MKNAOMI, and MKDELTA.
Another CIA Operation called Midnight Climax consisted of a network of CIA locations to
which prostitutes on the CIA payroll would lure clients where they were surreptitiously plied
with a wide range of substances including LSD, and monitored behind one-way glass. [1] [2]
Several significant operational techniques were developed in this theater, including extensive
research into sexual blackmail, surveillance technology, and the possible use of mind-altering
drugs in field operations. In the 1970s, as another part of its mind control program, the
CIA conspired with Eli Lilly and Company to produce one hundred million doses of the illegal
drug LSD, enough to send almost everyone in the United States on a trip. No explanation was
ever given as to what the CIA did with a hundred million doses of acid but, since much of this
activity was exported, reviewing international political events during this period may bring
interesting possibilities to mind.
Another part of the CIA mind-control project was aimed at finding a “truth
serum” to use on spies. Test subjects were given LSD and other drugs, often without their
knowledge or consent, and some were tortured. Many people died – or were killed –
as a result of these experiments, and an unknown number of government employees working on
these projects were murdered for fear they would tell what they had seen, perhaps the
best-known being Frank Olson whose death I have described below. [3] The project was
steadfastly denied by both the government and the CIA, but was finally exposed after
investigations by the Rockefeller Commission. When this information became known, the US
government paid many millions of dollars to settle the hundreds of claims and lawsuits that
resulted. There exists much evidence that these programs had never been
terminated.
As already noted, MK-ULTRA and its brethren grew out of Operation Paperclip in which more
than 10,000 Japanese and some German scientists of all stripes were smuggled into the US after
the Second World War, to provide the government with information on torture and interrogation
techniques. It isn’t widely known but, as part of Operation Paperclip, the CIA
recruited for MK-ULTRA Shiro Ishii, the head of Japan’s Unit 731 which conducted some of
the most horrendous human atrocities in history, including the live vivisection of
children. It also imported at the same time at least ten thousands of the staff from Unit
731, housed them on US military bases and gave them full immunity from prosecution for their
war crimes and crimes against humanity. [4]It is for this
reason almost no Japanese faced trial for their crimes: they were all in America, contributing
their skills to MK-ULTRA. The CIA also imported some Germans who had performed human
experimentation. It also isn’t widely-known, but this entire project had its birth not in
the US but at The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the UK, an institute with an
exceptionally cold-blooded past. I will return to Tavistock in later chapters.
The CIA leadership had concerns about discovery of their unethical and illegal behavior, as
evidenced in a 1957 Inspector General Report, which stated:
“Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to enemy
forces but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general. The
knowledge that the agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious
repercussions in political and diplomatic circles”.
The CIA’s MK-ULTRA activities continued until well into the 1970s when CIA director
Richard Helms, fearing that they would be exposed to the public, ordered the project terminated
and all of the files destroyed. However, a clerical error had sent many documents to the wrong
office, so when CIA workers were destroying the files, some of them remained and were later
released under a Freedom of Information Act request by investigative journalist John Marks.
Nevertheless, because the records have almost all been destroyed, the numbers and identities of
the victims will never be known.
The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) describes its mission as “creating
world-changing solutions to make people safer, healthier, and more productive.” Wikipedia
tells us the trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as “a center of
innovation to support economic development in the region”. I have no evidence that SRI
has made anyone safer or more productive and, whatever the original purpose of this
institution, supporting economic development of the region wouldn’t appear to have been
very high on the list. From my research, there are few institutions in America that have had
their histories more thoroughly sanitised than SRI. Certainly all references to participation
in the CIA’s MK-ULTRA and other inhuman projects have evaporated from the narrative. In
August of 1977, the Washington Post exposed some of these projects; there were likely many
more.
One of SRI’s past activities involved contracts awarded by the CIA and the US Navy to
research and develop long-distance mind control using radio waves. The CIA had already funded
MK-ULTRA projects at Honeywell for “a method to penetrate inside a man’s mind and
control his brain waves over long distance”. In the 1960s, then-Director of the CIA,
Richard Helms, was excited about what was termed “biological radio communication”,
and the Washington Post published concrete evidence that electronic mind control was a major
object of study at SRI at the time. The theory was that extremely low frequency electromagnetic
waves from the brain could be used to control individual subjects, sometimes called
“empaths”, a great many of whom (inexplicably) were drawn from L. Ron
Hubbard‘s Church of Scientology.
Experiments also under the SRI, in what was sometimes called “Stargate
Research”, [5] done entirely with a
military biotechnology focus, the American Institutes of Research (AIR) in Washington was also
involved in researching and evaluating what was called “remote viewing” or the
potential use of psychic phenomena (ESP) in military and domestic applications. For all of
this, declassified government files disclosed the vastness of several series of mind control
and behavior modification experiments conducted in prisons, mental hospitals and campuses from
1950 through the early 1970s, with about 45 institutions and laboratories engaged in this
secret and inhumane brain research, of which SRI was an integral part.
The project was under the direct command of a Dr. Sidney Gottlieb and received undisclosed
but almost unlimited millions of dollars for hundreds of experiments on human subjects at
hundreds of locations across the United States, Canada and Europe, the eventual budget for this
program apparently having exceeded $1 billion per year. The evil in some of these MK-ULTRA
documents is almost palpable, one such document from 1955 stating openly of a search for
“substances which will cause (temporary or) permanent brain damage as well as loss of
memory” . Part of the intent was to develop “techniques that would crush the
human psyche to the point that it would admit anything”. In a US government memo from
1952, a program director asked, “Can we get control of an individual to the point
where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such
as self-preservation?” It also listed the wide range of horrid abuses to which the
victims would be subjected. These people were not bashful about their intent.
The mechanics included primordial sex programming for women in attempts to eliminate
learned moral convictions and stimulate primitive sexual instinct devoid of inhibitions, to
create a kind of sex machine – the ultimate prostitute for diplomatic espionage.
Several researchers have claimed the sexual appetite of these women was developed in young
girls their formative years through constant incest with a government employee who had been
deliberately developed as a father figure to the girls. In part, these programs involved
conditioning the human mind through torture, with one portion of this program intended to train
special agents as fearless terrorists lacking self-preservation instincts and who would
willingly commit suicide if caught. They even experimented with electronic implants, inaudible
sounds, messages embedded in the subconscious mind, mind altering drugs and much more. One
portion of this extensive operation involved an attempt to create an assassins program, to
learn if it were possible to kidnap a national in another country, conduct hypnosis and other
techniques, then return them home to assassinate their leaders.
There was also a Dr. John Gittinger who was Sidney Gottlieb’s protégé
and who developed an astonishing complex of personality and psychological tests that were
apparently quite accurate in guiding the CIA in determining the best approach toward
manipulating and compromising individuals, including turning patriots into spies, as well as
converting housewives, nurses, and high-priced fashion models into very effective espionage
prostitutes, killers, and so much more. [6] [7] Gittinger was so
successful the CIA built him a special party room walled with one-way mirrors where CIA
psychologists could watch these compromised people at work. Gittinger was apparently a
“specialist” at making his victims lose touch with external reality, no doubt in
conjunction with Gottlieb’s LSD. He also was apparently quite expert at identifying those
individuals who could be easily hypnotised, those who would quickly go into a trance compared
to those who would not, and also those who would faithfully comply with any and all
post-hypnotic suggestions and experience total amnesia afterward. Perfect assassins.
Gittinger applied his “personality” tests to at least 30,000 people, since he
had files on at least that many, so this was not a trivial exercise for the CIA. And, since
this was the CIA, he was especially interested in deviant personalities, or those that could be
made deviant, those with vices or with weaknesses that could be further programmed, especially
to become traitors, and those who would be most susceptible to the influence of psychedelic
drugs. He worked closely with Harris Isbell, who ran the MKULTRA mind-control drug program at
the Lexington, Kentucky detention hospital, who would send him hundreds of people who could
be pushed to “uncontrollable urges”, especially of a sexual or a murderous nature.
Or both. This was one main use of the party room with the one-way mirrors. Ironically, it
was Gittinger who inadvertently put the wheels in motion for the impeachment and resignation of
then-US President Richard Nixon. When Daniel Ellsberg [8] released the Pentagon
Papers, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s personal assistant, arranged for the CIA to break into
the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to obtain a copy of Gittinger’s personality
and emotional test on this man, meant to be used by the CIA “as a kind of psychological
road map to compromise Ellsberg”, just as they did in exploiting the weaknesses of so
many others. Unfortunately, the burglars bungled the job.
There was one documented story of an American nurse who, after completing her training by
Gottlieb and Gittinger, “had volunteered her body for her country”, and who was
being programmed as the personal Mata Hari of a particular Russian diplomat and either get him
to defect to the US or to become so compromised they could blackmail him into becoming an
American spy. And, when necessary, “terminate” him. A great many of these
encounters with what were called “recruitment targets” occurred in the room with
the one-way mirrors and all recorded on film, one part of the sexual technology developed in
the CIA safe houses in San Francisco as part of Operation Midnight Climax. Gottlieb’s
Technical Services staff apparently amassed quite a wealth of experience and an abundance of
“volunteers” in these sexual entrapment operations, claiming, “We had
women ready – call them a stable” , who were quite adept at not only seduction
but all manner of sexual activity and murder for the national security of their country.
Another portion of this same program designed to control individuals totally, “I was
sent to deal with the most negative aspects of the human condition. It was planned
destructiveness. First, you’d check to see if you could destroy a man’s marriage.
If you could, then that would be enough to put a lot of stress on the individual, to break him
down. Then you might start a minor rumor campaign against him. Harass him constantly. Bump his
car in traffic. A lot of it is ridiculous, but it may have a cumulative effect.” The
theory, according to Gittinger’s personality tests, was that the creation of sufficient
stress from destructive personal loss, combined with other programming including the
application of psycho-chemical drugs, would either turn an enemy or render him totally
neutralised.
The CIA did all of these not only in America, but around the world, using Gittinger’s
personality profiles to identify those military and other leaders in nations the US wanted to
control. The psychological testing, combined with all the other dirty tricks of the trade, and
certainly including the nurses, housewives and models who could be persuaded to develop
“uncontrollable urges” to “volunteer her body for her country”, greatly
assisted the US government in placing into power those who could be counted on to obey their
colonial master. South Korea and Japan are two good examples of this, as are many countries in
Latin America. The CIA, with the immense assistance of Gottlieb and Gittinger, could always
spot those “who were most likely to succumb”.
Louis Jolyon (Jolly) West, M.D. (1924-1999) [9] [10] was a well-known
Los Angles psychiatrist who served as the chair of UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and as
director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute from 1969 to 1989. He was an expert on
cults, coercive persuasion (“brainwashing”), alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, and
terrorism, not in preventing these but in causing them. His “Violence Project”
is famous.
From the reports, the CIA was so excited about the possibilities in these experiments at SRI
that a great many millions of dollars were diverted to these projects, augmented by
parapsychology experiments simultaneously undertaken at Fort Meade by the NSA. Medical
oversight for this enormous range of experiments was under the control of yet another CIA
pervert, Dr. Louis Jolyon West, then a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, one of the most
notorious CIA mind-control specialists in the country. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that these people were all crazy , since the CIA, NSA and even INSCOM and
military intelligence (and of course the Church of Scientology) all cooperated with SRI in
research that included Tarot cards, the channeling of spirits, communing with demons, and
more.
But according to SRI itself, Dr. West’s work included not only radio waves and
parapsychology, but the creation of dissociative personalities “that enabled the subjects
of mind-control conditioning to adapt to trauma”. West referred to these people as
“changelings” who produced alternate but actually schizophrenic insane mental
states (multiple induced personalities) to permit them to deal with what was termed
“prolonged environmental stress”, i.e. forced drug injections, physical, mental and
sexual abuse, and psychic programming, all usually utilising large dosages of LSD,
Gottlieb’s chemical of choice. There is adequate documentation that many individuals who
were subjected to this CIA-sponsored “research”, developed multiple personalities,
many of which were forcibly induced at a young age. There are documented stories by a few
survivors who tell of enormous abuse of every kind being inflicted upon them from four or five
years of age, and of having to deal with the terror of what appeared to be many different
people living inside their minds. Dr. Jolyon West became a kind of research expert in these
dissociative states and much of his work for the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program centered on their
creation. The records reveal success in creating amnesia, false memories, altered personas,
pseudo-identities, and much more, all horrifying and tragic to the individuals involved, all
from West’s research in methods to “disrupt the normally integrative functions of
personality”, and render people totally subject to remote control.
In Sid Gottlieb’s group there were also scientists who implanted electrodes into human
and other brains in yet more mind-control experiments, even done on children as young as four
or five years of age, all with the intention of creating a perfect ‘Manchurian
Candidate’, as well as erasing memories and creating artificial ones and, of course,
total control of the individual. This research into electrode implants was funded by the CIA
and MKULTRA in conjunction with the Office of US Naval Research, and mostly supervised by our
famous Dr. West. In fact, West began what was called the “UCLA Violence Project” at
the Vacaville Prison where Donald Defreeze was apparently programmed. The projects received a
great deal of funding, as I recall, much of it including West.
Many early interrogation studies were conducted by the Cornell University Medical School
under the direction of a Dr. Harold Wolff [11] who requested
from the CIA any information regarding “threats, coercion, imprisonment, deprivation,
humiliation, torture, ‘brainwashing’, ‘black psychiatry’, and hypnosis,
or any combination of these, with or without chemical agents”. According to Wolff,
the research team would then: “…assemble, collate, analyze and assimilate this
information and will then undertake experimental investigations designed to develop new
techniques of offensive/defensive intelligence use … Potentially useful secret drugs
[and various brain damaging procedures] will be similarly tested in order to ascertain the
fundamental effect upon human brain function and upon the subject’s mood …”.
He further, and rather chillingly, wrote, “Where any of the studies involve potential
harm of the subject, we expect the Agency to make available suitable subjects and a proper
place for the performance of the necessary experiments.”
Among the many other prominent universities and institutions participating in this travesty
was Tulane University where both the CIA and the US military had funded what appeared to be
very large-scale programs of trauma-based mind control experiments on children. In 1955, the US
Army reported on studies in which their researchers had implanted electrodes into the brains of
mental patients to assess the effects of LSD and a host of other untested drugs. It was at
Tulane that some of the earliest sensory-deprivation experiments were conducted, isolating
individuals in these chambers where they would be helplessly hallucinating for as long as one
week at a time while being injected with drugs and bombarded them with taped messages, to see
if individuals could be “converted to new beliefs”. These were all helpless victims
who had no idea of what was happening to them. There is a long list of other famous American
universities and hospitals that participated in similar human destruction, all of which have
carefully santised their histories.
When West died in 1999, the New York Times, again true to form, published a delightful
obituary written by a Philip J. Hilts, [12] who described West
as “a charismatic leader in psychiatry”, a man whose work “centered on people
who have been taken to the limits of human experience, like “brainwashed” prisoners
of war, kidnapping victims and abused children”, without bothering to mention that
West’s supposed centering on these people did not mean he was caring for them, but that
he created those conditions. West was in fact the man who was doing the brainwashing and
abusing of children, not repairing their damage. Hilts told us West once witnessed an execution
and was forever after against the death penalty for prisoners. It would seem unfortunate he
wasn’t against a death penalty for his own victims. The NYT tells us West was “a
colorful figure, an alive person”. How nice. All obituaries tend to be complimentary when
written by family or friends, though when the compliment-only obituaries are written by the
primary news media that has a powerful effect on whitewashing, air-brushing and re-writing
history – which would certainly be the intent of the New York Times. Nothing else could
account for the glowing description.
... ... ...
Many of the victims were drawn from children that had been placed in Cameron’s care,
and most were sexually abused as part of the experimentation and “therapy”, many of
them being used sexually by several men in one session. One of the children was filmed numerous
times performing sexual acts with high-ranking federal government officials, in a scheme set up
by Gottlieb’s MKULTRA team to blackmail the officials to ensure further funding for the
experiments. Massive lawsuits ensued when the existence of this project became public. It
should be noted that Dr. Cameron had been a member of the Nuremberg Tribunal that judged
harshly and severely punished human experiments less evil than his own. But in fact
Cameron, as well as Gottlieb, and as well as the related perverts at Fort Detrick and Edgewood,
patterned these experiments in part on what they had learned from the Germans, then greatly
embellished them.
In the 1980s, the CIA and the US State Department launched a vicious public counterattack on
the Canadian government for questioning the propriety of CIA activities. In press briefings,
interviews and Court pleadings, the CIA repeatedly stated that Canada funded Cameron too, and
the atrocities were therefore Canada’s fault. One US Attorney claimed,
“We’re going to wrap the Canadian Government financing of Cameron right around
their necks”. Initially, the Canadian government intended to file charges against US
and the CIA at the International Court of Justice at the Hague, but the Americans so bullied
Canada into submission that the matter was whitewashed and forgotten.
The CIA was also responsible for many LSD experiments conducted in a mental hospital in
Weyburn, Canada, [60] which is where the
word “psychedelic” originated. According to former staff members, the CIA
supplied the hospital with enormous amounts of LSD because it wanted to learn the effects on
individuals of large and repeated doses of this drug. It was noted for its “cutting
edge” treatments and “psychiatric drug research” at the time. The hospital
has since been closed, and all records appear to have been destroyed, but both hospital staff
and patients were often used in these experiments and over time the Weyburn hospital acquired a
deeply sinister reputation. I was personally aware of the existence of that hospital during my
youth, as were a great many of us, and all spoke only in hushed tones of the horror stories
that sometimes leaked out of that institution. There is a website today for the cemetery of
all those who died during their “courses of treatment” at the Weyburn hospital,
[61] but the only
remaining records are of the names and dates of death. Everything else was destroyed by the
government, and for good reason.
The effects of sensory deprivation came to light from a series of quite innocent experiments
conducted in Canada at McGill University by a Dr. Donald Hebb [62] who had paid a group
of his own psychology students to remain isolated in a room, deprived of all senses, for an
entire day, in an attempt to determine a link between sensory deprivation and the vulnerability
of cognitive ability. Hebb was described as “a gifted man whose ingenuity revolutionized
psychology as a science”, and who was nominated for a Nobel Prize, though I’m not
certain the prize would have been a fitting recognition for his work. On September 6,2012, the
McGill Daily published an article by Juan Camilo Velasquez titled, “MK-ULTRA
Violence”, [63] which confirms that
on June 1, 1951 “a secret meeting [was held] in the Ritz Carlton Hotel … to launch
[an] effort led by the CIA to fund studies on sensory deprivation”, this being a meeting
attended by Hebb who had to understand what was happening, and that these “studies”
would inevitably lead to “techniques of psychological torture and interrogation”,
with Dr. Ewen Cameron a few years later completing what Hebb had begun. The article
continued:
“Cameron’s research was based on the ideas of “re-patterning” and
“re-mothering” the human mind. Dr. Cameron wanted to de-pattern patients’
minds with the application of highly disruptive electroshock twice a day … patients
would be put into a state of prolonged sleep for about ten days using various drugs, after
which they experienced an invasive electroshock therapy that lasted for about 15 days. But
patients were not always prepared for re-patterning and sometimes Cameron used extreme forms
of sensory deprivation as well. Following the preparation period and the de-patterning came
the process of “psychic driving” or re-patterning … in which Cameron would
play messages on tape recorders to his patients … up to half a million times.
The experiments done at McGill were part of the larger MK-ULTRA project led by Sidney
Gottlieb of the CIA … compiled all the research into a torture manual called the
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Handbook. [64] Yes, a
“torture manual” that would eventually define the agency’s interrogation
methods and training programs throughout the developing world. The Kubark, which is nowadays
readily available, cites the experiments conducted at McGill as one of the main sources of its
techniques for sensory deprivation. An excerpt from the instructions to CIA interrogators
reads, “Results produced only after weeks or months of imprisonment in an ordinary cell
can be duplicated in hours or days in a cell which has no light, which is sound-proofed, in
which odors are eliminated, et cetera”. In essence, the psychological paradigm taken by
the CIA would not have been possible without Hebb and Cameron’s research on sensory
deprivation and psychic driving.” You will recall John Cunningham Lilly whom I briefly
discussed earlier, he of the exploding dolphin fame, and how his combination of sensory
deprivation and hallucinogenic compounds could work wonders in programming individuals. Lilly
too, learned well from Hebb and Cameron.
In the Spring of 2016 the UK media (BBC, Telegraph, Mirror) revealed that former patients of
Aston Hall, a childrens’ hospital in Derbyshire, had begun coming forward with claims
that the hospital’s head physician, a Dr. Kenneth Milner, had been carrying out similar
experiments on them in the early 1970s. [65] [66]The stories
have all been consistent, the women claiming that as children they were regularly stripped
naked and tied down, then subjected to various drug experiments, most often enduring forced
sexual intercourse as well. Apparently one of the drugs commonly administered to the
children was sodium amytal, which is a strong barbiturate often used clinically to circumvent
inhibitions. It appears at least 100 children and perhaps a great many more – most being
10 to 12 years old at the time – were regularly and repeatedly used for a range of drug
experiments involving high dosages of various anti-psychotics and anesthetics. Many report
having been placed in a straitjacket prior to receiving the injections. Complaints of
experiments and abuse apparently began against the hospital and Dr. Milner from multiple
sources more than 20 years ago, but the authorities neglected to investigate. I have
suspicions, and some firm indications, that Australia experienced similar atrocities which also
await uncovering.
It appears increasingly possible the CIA was either outsourcing experiments or at least
working in cooperation with institutions in countries other than Canada and the UK. On this
note, I would add my strong suspicions that the most horrid experiments, those that have not
yet come to light, were outsourced to Haiti and Puerto Rico . It is not a secret that
the US has for decades used Haiti as a private biological laboratory and, since that small
nation has been under the absolute control of the US and under an absolute media embargo, the
US military and the CIA have been able to conduct operations there without reservation or
inhibition.
Haiti is also a center for the worldwide pedophilia rings operated formerly for CIA
experimentation and subsequently for purposes similar to those of Jeffrey Epstein –
personal enjoyment and entrapment of politicians. An Italian social agency recently traced 640
of 1,000 pedophilia websites to a Haiti location, these websites offering not only live videos
of the sexual abuse (some of it horrific) of children as young as 0 to 2 years of age, but also
of the torture of these children as well as snuff films. [67]
Also, very recently Italian police busted a major “psycho-sect” that practiced
child sex abuse for over 30 years. [68] And again very
recently, there was a damning report by Germany’s University of Hildesheim revealed that
the Berlin Senate orchestrated a scheme that saw vulnerable children being placed in the care
of known pedophiles for decades. [69] This was in fact
much of the work of MK-ULTRA and it appears that, while the Project may have been officially
terminated, it has continued unabated by being outsourced. In 2018, a Dr. Faculty of Medicine,
of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru, published an article titled The secret
program of US mind control weapons: is it developing in latin America? [70] [71] [72] The man
appears to know whereof he speaks, tracing the interest in mind control from the
Rothschild’s Tavistock Institute in the UK through various steps to the CIA, listing many
details of the projects and tracing mind control from the Nazis to DARPA.
Drug experiments were high on Gottlieb’s agenda from the very first days of his
appointment, his main handicap being a lack of supply of available victims. As part of a
strategy to solve this shortage, he first went to the obvious sources of helpless victims as in
prisons, mental hospitals, orphanages, military hospitals and other institutions, but supplies
appeared modest for his needs. Gottlieb then, with Dulles’ assistance, enlisted the help
of all sections of the military, the CDC and Health Departments and other sources to arrange
victims from ordinary civilian patients, and especially those in private hospitals and
psychiatric clinics since they would be the most likely to accept experimental treatment
without intelligent challenge and whose testimony would be least likely to be accepted without
question when things went wrong – as they often did.
One such event was perhaps Gottlieb’s first murder, that of a famous American tennis
pro named Harold Blauer who was visiting a private psychiatrist for depression following a
divorce. [73] [74] [75] [76]
Gottlieb, through the auspices of the US military, had arranged highly secretive and classified
contracts with many such private psychiatrists to conduct drug studies without the knowledge of
the patients, the chemicals in question being partially examined for their value as mass
bio-warfare weapons for the military as well their more narrow potential with the CIA. In the
case of Blauer, he was injected with increasingly large doses of a highly-toxic mescaline
derivative, the last shot being an astonishingly huge overdose that killed him almost
instantly. Of course, the cover-up was extreme and successful for a time, his medical records
having been not only tampered with, but completely rewritten to describe Blauer as
schizophrenic and insane, and attributing his death to “a weak heart “. It was
only after 30 years that the truth leaked out and a court awarded Blauer’s family some
$700,000 in damages for his death , the CIA and military denying and protesting to the very
end until the leakage of classified documents exposed the facts.
This was a template Gottlieb and the CIA would follow for decades , inflicting death
on an unknown but certainly very large number of individuals, the events always carefully
planned without loose ends and with plausible deniability. There is a very distinct trail of at
the very least hundreds, and very possibly thousands, of curious, questionable, suspicious and
unexplained deaths that followed Gottlieb and his group around America and the world, for at
least two decades. One, as related below, was the death of Frank Olson, in whose murder
Gottlieb took a more active role, personally administering an overdose of LSD then initiating
psychiatric treatment and finally Olson’s murder at the hands of Lashbrook, another
conspiracy that was finally revealed only after many decades of denial. Since Helms had
virtually all the MK-ULTRA records destroyed, the world will never know the sum of
Gottlieb’s gruesome inhumanities.
Frank Olson was a scientist who had been working on the CIA’s MK-ULTRA Project,
involved in experiments to assess the efficacy of certain bacterial strains on human beings,
including the US military’s use of biological pathogens. But the CIA expanded far beyond
lab experiments and progressed to testing these pathogens as part of an interrogation program,
using “expendable” human subjects – Korean prisoners of war, apprehended
foreign espionage agents, and even CIA agents who were suspected of disloyalty. Olson had the
very highest security clearance and had been a witness to many programs and experiments in the
US, the UK and Europe, but had never seen the direct results of his work. Then one summer, he
visited a CIA “safe house” in Germany and the UK’s Frankenstein House at
Porton Down where he witnessed “terminal interrogations”, men tortured and drugged
until they died in agony from the weapons he had made. He had also been a part of the mass
experiment in Pont St. Esprit, France, where the CIA had arranged to administer LSD to a whole
town. Olson also claimed he had seen documented proof of US government use of biological
weapons in North Korea during the Korean War – as the US had also done in China.
Olson began having serious problems with his conscience and had been expressing moral
misgivings about his work. He told colleagues he was disturbed about CIA torture-to-death
interrogations in Germany and the use of bacteriological warfare on North Korea. He became
increasingly vocal in his criticisms of these projects, and it was this that sealed his fate.
CIA director Allan Dulles decided Olson was a dangerous whistleblower and a security risk. At
that point, Olson resigned his job, and a few days later he was dead. Gottlieb had personally
administered a huge overdose of LSD to Olson, then arranged for ‘psychiatric’
counseling from his right-hand man Lashbrook. Olson was in a hotel room with Lashbrook, who
claimed he killed himself by running across the room, throwing himself through a plate-glass
window, and falling ten stories to his death. [77] The CIA’s
initial story was that Olson’s death had simply been a tragic “accident” by a
distressed individual, and for 22 years the family believed the official narrative. Then, in a
US Congressional investigation into CIA atrocities and crimes, a declassified document
contained information about a CIA agent who had been given LSD without his knowledge, and then
escorted to New York in the company of another agent, where he committed suicide by jumping
from a window. His family immediately recognised the circumstances of their father’s
death and began a detailed investigation. In the end, the CIA admitted responsibility, the
Olson family was invited to the White House to meet with President Ford who apologised and
agreed to pay the family $750,000 in compensation – on the condition that they cease all
further investigation and never try to determine any further facts about the Olson death.
[78]
[79] [80]
But the family didn’t cease their investigation, and finally had Olson’s body
exhumed and examined. The forensic pathologist determined that Olson had suffered a severe blow
to the head before he fell from the window. Many of the discrepancies surrounding his death
were finally made fully public, and it was eventually revealed that Olson had been ordered
killed by CIA Director Allen Dulles, and was executed by Gottlieb and Lashbrook, that the death
was neither an accident as first claimed, nor a suicide as in the later story, but a deliberate
murder to prevent the man from disclosing secrets of CIA crimes to the media. And in
particular, the US government was fearful their use of biological weapons in North Korea would
become public knowledge. It was only in 2012 that all investigations were completed, and the
family has since filed a massive lawsuit against the CIA and the US government for
Olson’s murder. Later transcripts revealed that the family was invited to meet with
President Ford in a bid to stave off “a devastating PR problem”, and the money paid
to the family was intended only to purchase their silence. But Olson’s son was never
satisfied with the official explanation and spent two decades researching the events of his
father’s death. Interestingly, the two people who were primarily responsible for the
cover-up of the truth of Olson’s death were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who would
later become, respectively, George Bush’s Vice-President and his Secretary of
Defense.
MK-ULTRA also had a foreign component under the code name of MK-DELTA which was a similar
program with similar intent, but with the horrifics inflicted surreptitiously on unwitting
citizens of other countries. Often, a CIA agent would strike up a conversation with a stranger
at a sidewalk cafe somewhere in Europe, offer to buy the person a drink, and spike it with a
huge dose of LSD as practice for disabling foreign diplomats or heads of state in future
clandestine operations. A great many lives were ruined in this way, many of them by Gottlieb
personally. And it wasn’t only individuals; Gottlieb and the US military were also
interested in the mass deployment of drugs and their accompanying insanities. Here are two
stories of many:
A young American artist named Stanley Glickman was sitting at a sidewalk cafe in Paris in
1952 when another friendly American began a conversation and brought Glickman a drink that was
heavily spiked with LSD. [87] [88] The overdose
was too much, and triggered a frightening psychotic episode. Glickman went into convulsions,
suffered wild hallucinations, and had to be hospitalised. But that must have been part of the
plan because he was taken to a local hospital where American doctors were apparently awaiting
his arrival and where he claimed to have suffered substantial physical, mental and sexual abuse
that included re-injections of LSD. He claimed that after his collapse at the cafe, one of the
first actions by the American doctors was to insert a metal catheter into his penis and
administer violent electro-shocks there, as well as repeatedly injecting him with additional
hallucinogenic drugs. By the time of his release from the hospital, Glickman had suffered a
mental breakdown from which he never recovered. He never painted again and his life remained in
ruins.
But when the news began to break about the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program and details emerged
from Congressional hearings, Glickman realised he had been one of the victims and, perhaps more
importantly, he was able to conclusively identify Gottlieb as the man who had spiked his drink
and who had supervised the ‘mind control’ torture in the Paris hospital. He filed a
lawsuit, [89] which the CIA and
the US government obstructed and delayed for 16 years, until Glickman died. But his sister
carried on the lawsuit and it finally reached the courts. As luck would have it, Gottlieb was
in the US at the time, having returned from his home in India to the US for medical treatment.
However, immediately prior to his having to testify in court, Gottlieb died suddenly in the
hospital, with the New York Times cryptically stating his family “refuses to disclose the
cause of his death”. Gottlieb was apparently being treated for minor pneumonia when he
“suddenly lapsed into a coma” from which he never recovered. You can imagine the
fun conspiracy theorists had with this one.
It gets better. The trial proceeded without Gottlieb, but then suddenly the judge –
who was anti-CIA and clearly heading for a substantial judgment against the government and
Gottlieb’s estate – suddenly died of a claimed ‘heart attack’ in a gym
near the courthouse on the day prior to issuing his judgment. [90] The US government
immediately claimed authority to appoint a new judge to the case, and did so, with this new
judge oddly enough being Kimba Wood, [91]
the same judge who had dismissed this same case two years earlier, claiming it to be
nonsense. Naturally, she ruled against Glickman. But there was more that emerged later, with
Glickman’s hospital records proving that two of the Paris doctors tending to him (along
with Gottlieb) had for some time been engaged in Gottlieb’s LSD experiments on
individuals. Perhaps there will be another chance for Glickman to receive some posthumous
closure. In the meantime, we can perhaps content ourselves with the delicious prospect it was
the CIA itself who silenced Gottlieb lips forever.
A 65-year-old mystery was finally solved by investigative journalists. In 1951, almost
the entire population of the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit in Southern France was driven to mass
hysteria and insanity , hallucinations and suicide. [92] [93] A great many
people died and dozens were put into strait jackets and sent to mental asylums, in one of the
world’s most bizarre mysteries. Many people tried to fly out of windows or from roofs of
buildings. One man shouted “I am a plane” before jumping out of a second-floor
window and breaking his legs. One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was
being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old boy tried to strangle his grandmother. Another saw his
heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Time magazine wrote at the
time: “Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds,
screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to
molten lead”. In the end, most everyone either died or was committed to a mental
institution. For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with
a psychedelic compound, speculating that the largest local baker had unwittingly contaminated
his flour with ergot, a hallucinogenic mould that sometimes infects rye grain. But a journalist
uncovered evidence that the tragic event resulted from a covert experiment by the CIA and the
US Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division, where CIA operatives peppered local
food with massive amounts of LSD as part of a mind control experiment.
As I wrote earlier, by 1950 the US military and CIA had already produced well-developed
plans to ‘outsource’ the field testing of various pathogens to other nations,
friend and enemy alike, with much of the surreptitious testing of LSD and other hallucinogens
conducted in Europe and Asia under the code names of “Project Third Chance” and
“Project Derby Hat”. For Pont St. Esprit, the CIA sent scientists from Sandoz, the
supplier of the LSD, to concoct a plausible story as to the cause. The CIA concocted and
executed many such plans to infect many locations both in the US and in foreign countries with
a wide variety of pathogens. The journalist referred to above, was investigating the death of
Frank Olson, the CIA biochemist we have already met, and discovered transcripts of a
conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz pharmaceutical official who mentioned the
“secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit”, explaining that it was not caused by mould but by
LSD. Two colleagues of Olson further confirmed that that the Pont-Saint-Esprit incident was
part of a mind control experiment run by the CIA and US army, having sprayed LSD into the air
throughout the town as well as contaminating local bread and other food products. The final
proof was in a White House document sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission during its
investigation of CIA abuses. The document contained the names of those employed by the CIA for
this job, and made direct reference to the “Pont St. Esprit incident”, and the
culprit was of course none other than Gottlieb.
One of the more enduring propaganda myths about America is the one about exposing and facing
sins, unlike other nations who cover up everything. The Boston Globe published an article by
Stephen Kinzer [94] who wrote in part:
“Release of the long-delayed US Senate report on CIA abuses should make Americans proud
…”, stating it is “reasonable for Americans to be proud when reading this
report since other countries abuse people and lie about it, but it is only America that
publishes reports of its crimes.” And the Senate report will “serve as an example
to other countries wrestling with the challenges of facing their past”, that admitting
their wrongdoing “is a sign of strength and maturity”, that “It is better to
come clean than to leave questions of responsibility hanging forever”.
There was indeed some media exposure that revealed at most a few dozen, mostly minor,
instances of illegalities out of the several hundred thousand horrors that actually occurred.
There were indeed Congressional hearings, prior to which almost all incriminating documents had
already been destroyed, and at which hearings everybody lied. There was the almost obligatory
admission that “at least one person died” during these transgressions, but with the
provision that he probably expired not from the programs themselves but “from related
medical causes”. Then, like the tail end of a flu epidemic, the topic one day simply
disappeared from sight.
The Church Committee Investigation on CIA activities: contains 23 downloadable .pdf files by
topic. [95]
Then the Washington Post published an article in June of 2005, long after the truths of
MK-ULTRA were well-known, repeating only this summary [96] : “In
congressional testimony, Gottlieb acknowledged that the agency had administered LSD to as many
as 40 unwitting subjects, including prison inmates and patrons of brothels set up and run by
the agency. At least one participant died when he jumped out of a 10th-floor window in a
hotel.”
The nation, having achieved its catharsis and absolution from all the media hype, could now
re-envelop itself in national pride, secure in the knowledge its halo was still intact and that
Americans were still superior to all other beings. Of course, one element in this tragic
scandal – as in all others prior – was that nothing real actually happened. Nothing
changed and nobody was punished. All the culprits, the murderers, the torturers, the inhuman
monsters who planned and perpetrated this decades-long series of horrors on hundreds of
thousands of innocent people, simply walked free. Gottlieb retired from the CIA with a medal
and a huge pension, with all other participants doing something similar. And that was the end.
The countless thousands whose lives were destroyed, were simply abandoned to their
fate.
Sidney Gottlieb [97] was a
Jewish-American chemist who joined the CIA in his early 30s and within two years was appointed
by Allen Dulles the designer and head of the agency’s vast and top-secret MK-ULTRA
program, which was initiated to explore mind control, human programming, assassination and much
more. Gottlieb was an expert in poisons, especially those with psycho-active effects and
quickly became known as “The Black Sorcerer” and “The Dirty Trickster”.
It was Gottlieb, with virtually unlimited CIA financing who initiated a truly massive program
involving psycho-active drugs, psychic driving, the most evil portions of psychiatry and
psychology, and a great many lethal poisons, to research and develop “techniques that
would crush the human psyche to the point that it would admit anything”. Torture,
“terminal interrogations” and a sickeningly-wide array of inhuman inflictions, were
all part of MK-ULTRA under Gottlieb.
He not only created, managed and directed this decades-long human abomination but played an
active part in its activities. It was Gottlieb who personally overdosed Frank Olson on LSD, and
it was Gottlieb’s right-hand man who rendered Olson unconscious and threw him out the
13th-floor window of his hotel room, to rid the CIA of a potential whistle-blower. It was
Gottlieb who arranged the cooperation with the similarly-perverted animals at the UK’s
Porton Down, where they executed their ‘terminal interrogations’ safely away from
American soil, and where Frank Olson witnessed such horrors that he planned to leave the CIA
and go public with his knowledge.
It was Gottlieb who traveled to the Congo with poisoned toothpaste which he delivered
personally to Larry Devlin, the CIA’s station chief, to administer to Prime Minister
Patrice Lumumba, though Devlin managed to kill him by other means. It was Gottlieb, acting
through Allen Dulles on orders from US President Eisenhower to “eliminate” Lumumba
and thus open the country to American business. [98] [99] [100] [101] It
was Gottlieb who hatched the hundreds of plans to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro,
especially including all the poison-related attempts, such as cigars, wet suits and fountain
pens. In case you didn’t know, Castro set a Guinness World record for surviving 638
assassination attempts by the Americans. [102] [103] [104]
[105]
It was Gottlieb who arranged for Iraq’s General Abdul Karim Qassim’s
handkerchief to be contaminated with Botulinum in yet another assassination attempt. [106] He
developed poisoned chocolates and cigarettes intended for Jamal abd an-Nasir of Egypt.
[107] He regularly
traveled with his diplomatic bag containing CIA-developed bio-toxins designed to mimic a
disease endemic to that area, or with specifically-cultured lethal viruses.
It was Gottlieb who planned and financed the activities of Dr. Ewen Cameron in Canada in his
so-called psychic driving experiments that totally destroyed the lives of so many people and in
the end cost the Canadian government tens of millions of dollars in compensation. It was
Gottlieb who was responsible for the thousands of Duplessis children who were tortured and
killed, and who financed Dr. Harris Isbell in his research experiments in human psychiatric
programming. Isbell is best known for once giving huge doses of LSD to a group of men for 77
days in succession, and for “testing” more than 800 toxic chemical compounds on
captive victims for Gottlieb. It was Gottlieb, working with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara,
who helped to conceive and execute the massive torture and human experimentation program in
Vietnam known as Phoenix Program[108] and his genocidal
“Project 100,000” , [109] with teams of CIA
operatives performing a wide range of Gottlieb’s torture and other experiments followed
by executions. Gottlieb also planned and financed much of the human experimentation by Lauretta
Bender [110] , Albert Kligman
[111] , Eugene Saenger
[112] and Chester
Southam [113] , and no doubt a
great many more.
It was Gottlieb, being so fascinated with the mind-control potential psychotropic and
hallucinogenic compounds, who was responsible for the contamination of food and the aerosol
spraying of a lethally-potent LSD compound in the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit, France in
August, 1951, that caused a powerful mass psychosis that left nearly the entire village
population either dead or permanently confined to mental institutions. Gottlieb was so
enthralled with the prospects of hallucinogens that he arranged with the pharma company Eli
Lilly to produce one consignment of more than one hundred million doses of LSD.
Gottlieb designed and approved the sexual-related programs of the CIA, like Operation
Midnight Climax and so many more, many of which involved the effective capture of female
children or young women, subjected them to years of physical, sexual and psychological abuse,
then turned them loose as robotic tools. Gottlieb arranged for many ‘safe houses’
where his programmed women would lure victims to be unwittingly fed large doses of LSD and
engage in all manner of inhuman activity besides sex. There have been recurring stories,
apparently credibly documented, of the walls of these houses covered with photos of naked
and handcuffed women being whipped and tortured.Gottlieb was an inhuman predator of the
worst kind. He deliberately sought out and typically selected for his thousands of test
subjects and victims, children, prisoners, poor people, petty criminals, and the mentally ill,
since they were “the least likely to be taken seriously should they have the temerity to
complain” about being drugged, abused and tortured by US government officials.
It was Gottlieb, or his group, responsible for much of the programming of people like Sirhan
Sirhan and Ted Kaczynski, and it is likely that Gottlieb’s group was also responsible for
the conception and programming of the “Zebra murders” that resulted in a sudden
wave of nearly 100 senseless random murders lacking any semblance of motivation, that swept
California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These, and many of the serial killing sprees
that plagued California for the better part of a decade, all had patterns too similar to be
coincidence, all linked to too many of the same people and institutions to be considered random
events.
Although involved in designing and executing some of the CIA’s most covert and deadly
– and obscenely inhuman – missions, Gottlieb did not appear to be the least bit
troubled by the immoral dimensions of his work. He testified to a Senate Committee that though
his MK-ULTRA activities might “sound harsh in retrospect”, and that some might call
them murder, they were justified as issues of national security.
And Tim Wiener, writing his obituary in the New York Times (March 10, 1999), [114]
[115] identifies Gottlieb simply as “the man who brought LSD to the CIA”,
telling us he was “a genius” who was only “striving to explore the frontiers
of the human mind for his country”, while at the same time “searching for
religious and spiritual meaning in his life” . According to Wiener, Gottlieb
“spent his later years caring for dying patients”, in a pretty village in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, noting that the CIA awarded Mr. Gottlieb the
Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Wiener did note that with his experiments on unwitting
subjects, Gottlieb violated the Nuremburg standards under which the same Americans executed
Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, but he failed to note that Gottlieb was certainly
much more of a monster than the Nazis ever produced , that his crimes were also against
humanity and were more extensive in scope, duration and degree than anything done in Germany.
However, instead of being prosecuted and executed, Gottlieb was rewarded with praise and
medals. Such is the hypocrisy of America. And of the fabled NYT, who once again produced their
traditional glowing obituary of a Jewish psychopath.
The UK Independent couldn’t be left out of this parade, telling us so poignantly that
“Gottlieb’s life after the CIA resembled a quest for atonement. With his wife
Margaret, he spent 18 months in India running a leper hospital. He then moved back to rural
Virginia, where he indulged two longstanding hobbies, folk dancing and goat herding. He devoted
his final years to work in a hospice, looking after the dying.” [116] John Marks, too,
in his book ‘The Search for the Manchurian Candidate’, stupidly claimed Gottlieb
was “unquestionably a patriot, a man of great ingenuity” who never performed his
actions “for inhumane reasons”, but instead “He thought he was doing exactly
what was needed. And in the context of the time, who would argue?” So, just “a
loyal servant of American government”. [117]
I have not been able to research one aspect of this to my complete satisfaction, but the
results are sufficient to state that Project MK-ULTRA appears to have been almost in
entirety a Jewish program. Gottlieb was Jewish, as were most of the individuals I could
identify as being project leaders or sub-leaders, people like Dr. John Gittinger, Harris
Isbell, James Keehner, Lauretta Bender, Albert Kligman, Eugene Saenger, Chester Southam, Robert
V. Lashbrook, Harold Abramson, Charles Geschickter, Ray Treichler, and so many more. I have a
list of more than 100 names. Likewise, many of the individuals conducting these human
“experiments” at America’s top colleges and universities, hospitals, research
foundations and mental institutions, were virtually all Jews, as were almost all of the
physicians and psychiatrists whom I have been able to identify.
I would add something to this. The creation of MK-ULTRA coincided with the importation of
the 500,000 German POWs to the US from Germany. You may or may not know of
Eisenhower’s Death Camps where it is now proven (thanks to James Bacque’s
‘Other Losses‘) that the American military, following orders from its NWO masters,
killed between 10 million and 14 million Germans in US concentration camps in Germany –
in the years after the war ended, from about 1944 to 1948. About one million were shot dead,
the remainder worked and starved to death. The photos that many of us have seen of huge piles
of severely emaciated dead bodies that were purported to be Jews killed by the Germans were in
fact of Germans killed by the Americans, and almost certainly on orders from a group of
European Jews. Eisenhower issued orders that any German civilians attempting to bring food to
these prisoners would be shot on sight, and many were. It was during this time that the 500,000
German POWs were transferred to the US from these camps in Germany on the stated pretense of
“being able to better feed them”. With my best efforts over years, I have been
unable to locate any credible documentation of these prisoners ever having left the US. The
American government claims they were all shipped back to Germany in 1948, but there is no
evidence to support this claim and the neither the International Red Cross, who were in charge
of all such movements, nor US military records, nor anyone else, has any record of any Germans
returning to anywhere in Europe from the US.
This coincides with the transfer to the US of Shiro Ishii’s entire Unit 731 staff who
were tasked with experiments similar and related to MK-ULTRA, and also with the creation of the
US CDC which, unknown to most Americans, was (and I believe still is) a unit of the US military
and not a civilian health organisation. In fact, the CDC functions as the US military’s
distributor of biological pathogens, among other things, and many of Ishii’s staff were
seconded to the CDC on its formation. This all leads to the conclusion that the German POWs
in the US were all used as ‘experimental material’ somewhere under the overall
MK-ULTRA umbrella and that all died. I have written a separate article on this latter topic
[118] , which I
recommend you read. It ties together very closely with the topic of this
essay.
This contains the full text (downloadble in chapters) of The Search for the Manchurian
Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control – John Marks (c)1979; Published by Times Books ISBN
0-8129-0773-6
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual; CIA Human Resources Exploitation Training
Manual – 1983
This CIA interrogation manual, “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual”
[1983] is an updated version of KUBARK manual [1963] incorporating sections of KUBARK. The 1983
CIA training manual allocates considerable space to the subject of “coercive
questioning” and psychological and physical techniques and recommends: “manipulate
the subject’s environment to …”
Mind Control Cover-up – The Secrets of Mind Control
This summary is based on excerpts from three books: Bluebird by Colin Ross, MD; Mind
Controllers by Armen Victorian; and A Nation Betrayed by Carol Rutz. The books contain hundreds
of supporting footnotes, the information derived largely from 18,000 pages of declassified CIA
mind control documents.
This contains the full record of the Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on
Intelligence, and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human
Resources, Washington, DC, Wednesday, August 3, 1977
Thanks for this, Unz.com . Its probably
overlong- and too detailed for the average reader to get their head around, but still, it
contains a lot of information unbeknownst to the average individual- so maybe they'll get
_something_ from it , even if they don't read the entire article.
My conclusion: After reading this type of article I have to remind myself that:
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes],
and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of
their innate criminal nature." [onebornfree]
.which means that, just like any other bureaucracy, the CIA cannot be "reformed" and be
made "better", or more honest and less criminal. And a new director would not make a "dimes
worth of difference" either.
Bottom line: The CIA, just like the FBI and all the rest of the 1000's of entirely
unconstitutional federal agencies, needs to be abolished, NOW, and [ideally] all of its
career criminals forced to stand trial for their many crimes against humanity. All of these
evil fuckers and many more unlisted here need to be held accountable [and if not in this
world, maybe in the next, assuming there is one].
Also, Tom ONeil in his book Chaos links Gottleib to the Manson family with documentary
evidence. He's got Gottleib, Jolly West, and CIA grunt Reeve Whitson, who ran him day to day
as an illegal domestic agent.
The book is marred by the current style of affected obsession. To get something
incriminating published, a writer has to perform the role of conspiracy nut, draw attention
away from his evidence, and open himself up to ad hominem impeachment of his facts.
What was the name of the judge who died of a heart attack on the Glickman case? I presume
these were his bribed and blackmailed successors:
I have not been able to research one aspect of this to my complete satisfaction, but the
results are sufficient to state that Project MK-ULTRA appears to have been almost in
entirety a Jewish program. Gottlieb was Jewish, as were most of the individuals I could
identify as being project leaders or sub-leaders, people like Dr. John Gittinger, Harris
Isbell, James Keehner, Lauretta Bender, Albert Kligman, Eugene Saenger, Chester Southam,
and so many more.
Please provide some sources for your claim that the following persons are Jewish: John
Gittinger, Chester Southam, Harris Isbell, and James Keehner.
I think this stuff was almost certainly the kernel of truth that was behind the "Satanic
Panic" of the 70's and 80's. And don't forget the mysterious "Finders Group@, which was also
likely linked to MK Ultra.
While I love a good conspiracy as much as anyone and have no doubts about US Government
villainy, the absence of documentation does not inspire faith, or even curiosity in these
allegations.
Furthermore, I knew one of the dramatis personae John Lilly, stayed with him and
Toni in Decker Canyon whenever I was in SoCal, and participated in many his wacky
experiments–all of which he inflicted upon himself in extremis before permitting
me to try them.
John was a Western yogi: he used technology to induce psychic states that, for oriental
practitioners, required years to self-manipulation. He was also humorous, kind hearted and
generous–not the type one associates with systematic cruelty.
He was fascinated by marine mammals and was (the mid-seventies) outfitting a ship with a
modified IBM 370 so that he could converse with them in real time. He may, in his earlier
days as a surgeon, inserted electrodes in dolphins' brains, but that was an era when the
procedure was a common treatment for humans.
@Larry Romanoff
ion!
But please do include your references and source material. Long and substantial is much
better fodder for the (unprogrammed) mind.
Maybe one day you might even review this current piece to insert those references you
have. I know I'd be very grateful if you did! Maybe you could also give an idea of the
percentage of Jewish involvement and the possitions they held, and even their (if any)
connections to the Nuremburg Trials..? That could make an interesting study all by
itself!
Botha learned his lessons perfectly, and had no difficulty creating precisely a
multiple-persona robot army that would obey him without hesitation or question, and
self-destruct upon failure. As part of his creation of horrors, he would gather young
children and let them watch his men cutting off the ears, noses, and limbs of civilians who
challenged his rule. But Botha was most famous for rounding up 10 year old boys, killing
their parents in front of them, raping young women while they watched, then recruiting them
to fight in his army. Instant multiple personalities.
Thank you for your providing most convincing living proof that not only did MK-ULTRA
perform mind-bending experiments on people, but that it actually worked on you.
With all the detailed accounts of experiments and names, I noticed I didn't see the name
'Charles Manson' anywhere? His life and times fits perfectly with this article.
Kacynski put his life at risk by ignoring the advice of his lawyers and insisting he was
not mentally ill after he was apprehended. He deeply resents any suggestion that he is
mentally unsound. I would be cautious about accepting his claims about the Murray
experiments. Years ago, I recall reading an article in the Atlantic written by a man who was
a friend of Kacynski's at Harvard. He said that after his involvement with Murray, Ted
underwent a profound change. His relationship ended because Kacynski withdrew from all social
contact.
@Larry Romanoff the
list of subprojects and have any luck unmasking the researchers you find many wrote academic
books. At the National Security Archive in Washington, DC they have all of the documents
Marks' FOIAed for the book and I'm certain any decent researcher could start there and write
a much better book. List of MKUltra subprojects. http://ensemble.va.com.au/tableau/suzy/TT_ResearchProjects/Hexen2039/PsyO/mkultra.html
Regards,
Anon
P.S. Anyone with limited time should just study Gittinger's PAS.
Also, Tom ONeil in his book Chaos links Gottleib to the Manson family with documentary
evidence. He's got Gottleib, Jolly West, and CIA grunt Reeve Whitson, who ran him day to
day as an illegal domestic agent.
James N. Kennett 29, I have read O'Neil's book, along with McGowan's less comprehensive
but incisive and synoptic work. Experience with collateral is also helpful in interpreting
the documentary evidence at issue because you need to know how CIA employs
compartmentation.
I apologize if I unfairly impugned the sphincter tone of any of your stout-hearted manly
friends but this particular writer is, on balance, full of shit. He's probably got the Eric
Joyce criterion collection tucked away on his hard disk just in case he has an untoward flash
of enlightenment.
The Lobster reviewer's conclusion is straight out of CIA memo 1035-960 ¶ 4(a.) It is
notable that he recounts the evidence but then denies its import, waving it away with a
wistful we'll-never-know shrug. All Mockingbird media apple-polishers can be categorized in
terms of how far they follow their logical nose and at what point they veer off with some
ridiculous non sequitur. That behavior depends not on the individual – they are fully
interchangeable – but on the probative weight of the public evidence. That evidence is
now conclusive. Manson was a illegal domestic CIA agent.
Ramsey and Dorrell are for real, worthy colleagues of Agee in denunciation of clandestine
state crime. But CIA can do wonders inserting propaganda morsels into alt-media outlets. Just
look at what they've done to whowhatwhy.com . Russ Baker is a force of nature yet his site
is now infested with gullible partisans.
He was a token. It is known Unit 731 mostly got away scot free. Check the numbers between
German and Japanese prosecutions. Many Nazis helped develop NASA and other industry in the US
after the war. Japanese were allowed to go home to rebuild Japan to keep communists out. All
those big Japanese companies stayed in business after the war.
@Billyd them,
though such links may well exist. Similar with Charles Manson and others.
In a topic such as this, with such an admittedly-huge number of projects and victims in
many countries, It becomes difficult to know when to stop. There are hundreds of aberrant
examples that could potentially have a connection to MK-ULTRA but, with most of the files
destroyed, we will never know.
For the moment, it seems the most praiseworthy research would be to ignore the LSD
portions and focus on the violence-induced multiple personalities because this is almost
certainly the most horrific portion of the Project and there might be tens of thousands of
victims yet to be discovered.
Glad to see the Cannon book listed–much of the UFO hysteria appears to be a side
trail of the MK-Ultra mind-control experiments.
The elites had been contemplating (and perhaps still are planning) some sort of fake alien
landing scenario to brainwash the world's masses into supporting a world government.
We haven't heard much about it lately-not sure whether that is good or bad!
"Yet what kind of men were they who set their hands to the task [of rebuilding the
temple]? They were men who constantly resisted the Holy Spirit, revolutionists bent on
stirring up sedition. After the destruction which occurred under Vespa-sian and Titus, these
Jews rebelled during the reign of Hadrian and tried to go back to the old commonwealth and
way of life. What they failed to realize was that they were fighting against the decree of
God, who had ordered that Jerusalem remain forever in ruins."
@Larry Romanoff
eciate the reply and hard work on this article. I had a family member who died when I was quite
young that worked/taught there.
In looking-up some of his journal articles from the 50s/60s, it appears he was involved in
the injecting of radium into women at various stages of pregnancy to check for clearance times,
as well as effects on fetal development.
I'm going to assume that his team was doing this without the informed consent of patients. I
have no idea if this was something that would have been done under MK Ultra, much less whatever
else they would have been doing – but it sounds not far off.
I knew one. Joined the Nazi Party because "that's how you got ahead". Wehrmacht. Interned in
a POW camp in Colorado. Returned to Germany with all his "kameraden". Got married, immigrated
to North America and raised a family and had a long career. A worthless asshole, and all his
children were worthless greedy assholes that caused a lot of misery to innocent others. All
that could have been prevented if he had been shot or starved to death in "Eisenhower's death
camps".
You claimed that John was a "mad scientist" and inferred that he was a witting participant
in some of the evil programs you describe.
My familiarity with him and his fellow investigators–including the very proper Gregory
Bateson, who oversaw some of John's projects on behalf of the USG–does not support your
claim.
They investigated fringe phenomena, like hallucinogens and sensory deprivation, in the same
way scientists investigate everything. They were glad to get government funding and the fact
that others would misuse their findings was beyond their control–as is the case with even
the most mundane discoveries, including electricity.
There is gray. There is darkness. And there are black holes that suck light and love and
life out of all that comes near. Evil pretends to not know the difference. Until on the death
bed you see trembling and the hand grasping, oddly and feebly reaching out, as if trying to
stop some very long fall.
I saw a documentary on Amazon Prime about this last year.
The woman mentioned in the article -- the one with the medical records proof -- was in it.
The doc also covered LSD experiments conducted in a small French village in the 1950's. They
somehow laced some local bread with it, all with the knowledge of the French government. One
person jumped to his death because he thought he was flying. The Canadian "hospital" was also
covered.
You have it right. I had written another article dealing with precisely your topic, as a
kind of introduction to this much longer one, on the basis that readers might think "well, if
they will do this, then they will probably do anything." It was all part of the same thing.
You might enjoy reading it. It's quite short. The US Government Declares War on America.
About 15 years ago there was a report on a national nightly news program that revealed the
Pentagon, quite a few years earlier, had secretly seeded the atmosphere above two small
American cities with radioactive particles in order to study the effects of nuclear fallout on
these city's populations.
Couldn't believe what I was hearing. But every attempt since then to find any information on
that government program, or even any news archives about it, has led to a dead end.
MK-ULTRA and its brethren grew out of Operation Paperclip in which more than 10,000
Japanese and some
German scientists of all stripes were smuggled into the US after the Second World
War, to provide the government with information on torture and interrogation techniques.
And then you write:
Project MK-ULTRA appears to have been almost in
entirety a Jewish program . Gottlieb was Jewish, as were most of the individuals I
could identify as being project leaders or sub-leaders, people like Dr. John Gittinger,
Harris Isbell, James Keehner, Lauretta Bender, Albert Kligman, Eugene Saenger, Chester
Southam, Robert V. Lashbrook, Harold Abramson, Charles Geschickter, Ray Treichler, and so
many more. I have a list of more than 100 names. Likewise, many of the individuals conducting
these human "experiments" at America's top colleges and universities, hospitals, research
foundations and mental institutions, were virtually all Jews, as were almost all of the
physicians and psychiatrists whom I have been able to identify.
Isn't there a contradiction here?
That MK-Ultra is a Nazi operation brought to the US through Paperclip is a cliché that
is widely disseminated. You find it for example in the recent film "Out of Shadow" (a Q-Anon
production). But never is it mentionned that Gotlieb was Jewish; in fact, it is generally
implied that he was a nazi. Your list of Jews involved in MK-Ultra is a major contribution (I
was only aware of Gotlieb) but your assertion on the link with Nazi Germany through Paperclip
lacks a similar list: you only provide a Japanese example. Can you provide some names? If not,
don't you think that the theory of the MK-Ultra-Paperclip connection should be reconsidered as
a kind of "accusatory inversion", a rumor spread by the Jewish press, Hollywood, and now the
Q-Anon sect.
Mengele escaped Germany and traveled to the US – where he apparently roamed freely
for quite some time before the media and the public made him too hot for the CIA to handle
and he was transshipped to Central America with US government funding.
Great article Mr. Romanoff, very detailed and eye-opening. This one will be in the saved
links file to be used as a reference for all things U.S. Mind Kontrol.
I find it funny it the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research(SIEPR)is one of the
big producers of Covid19 fear porn, and tells us how delightful our "new not-normal" future
will be. More proof we Americans pay zero attention to history, and therefor are doomed to
repeat over, and over, and over.
The CIA and MI6 and the Mossad are the chain dogs of the imperial courts that rule the world
aka the zionists and in the words of Mike Pompeo, " I was the CIA director, we lied, we
cheated, we stole, it was like we had entire training courses ".
If interested , read these books The Committee of 300 by ex MI6 officer John Coleman, and
The Secret Team by L. Fletcher Prouty, and By Way of Deception by ex Mossad officer Victor
Ostrovsky.
@Larry Romanoff nt
for 3 hours on the Joe Rogan Podcast in August of 2019) book comes to a similar conclusion;
West and Manson *likely* interacted, but there is no concrete evidence of it, despite the fact
they were in the same place at the same time for about a year. There is also a ton of evidence
that Manson was protected by federal sources as he committed crimes in CA in the years prior to
the Tate-LoBianca murders.
Fascinating stuff. Thank you for your hard work.
One question: Do you think this ties in with David McGowan's work, specifically, "Programmed
to Kill"?
At the first Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg, Mengele was not even mentioned, nor was he even
wanted by the Allies at that time, which is astonishing considering he was allegedly the most
'notorious' figure of 'Nazi evil' of the entire war.
And the so-called 'witnesses' to Mengele's alleged crimes couldn't even decide whether he had
blond or brown hair, or blue or brown eyes. And the crimes he was accused of are preposterous
for someone of Mengele's academic achievements and scientific understanding.
@Anonymous ion, the
atomic bomb was dropped upon Hiroshima.
The serial killer bomb fell from the womb of "Enola Gay," named after Col. Tibbet's mother.
In contrast, Mary, The Theotokos, gave birth to the Giver of Life.
As described in Consortium News, "For targeting purposes, the bombing crew used St. Mary's
Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in East Asia. At 11:02 a.m., on Aug. 9, 1945,
when the bomb was dropped over the cathedral, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in
Japan."
Thanks, # 901, the world ought to know the satanic history of the making of the atomic
bomb.
@Laurent
Guyénot lluded to as history. Even now Wikipedia flatly denies that Jesus Christ is
a syncretic myth that was transformed into historical propaganda. Why do the Zionazis want us
to believe Jesus was real, even as they ridicule him and deny his divinity? Why is the culture
war in America centered around Christianity, and its alignment with the Republican Party, if
Jewish interests control both parties? Why is Christianity the fulcrum of Zionism?
To ascertain guilt we always ask cui bono ? And in politics we always look for a
proven MO, such as control opposition, divide and conquer.
He comes close to this but cannot fully link them. He says as much on the Aug 2019
appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. He says he can come very close, though.
I'm surprised the notorious criminal boss and serial killer,Whitey Bulger, isn't mentioned.
He was another victim of prison drug experiments. Bulger came back from prison a changed and
much more dangerous and vicious an individual.
I find the article to be a feverishly written amalgam of useful, substantiated information,
unsubstantiated assertions, tenuous innuendoes, and some absurdities.
It's frustrating because I want to pass on the substantiated material but know that many
potential readers will be put off by the often Grand Guignol prose, yellow press innuendoes,
and patent absurdities.
Apr 2, 2015 Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou: "The Government Turned Me Into a Dissident"
In 2007, John Kiriakou became the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official to
publicly confirm that agency interrogators waterboarded a high-value detainee, terrorism
suspect Abu Zubaydah -- a revelation that had previously been a closely guarded secret.
I do, yes. The great amount of similar evidence suggests there may be even more dots to
connect, all related in some way to this umbrella program.
Too much of the literature and public mental image of MK-ULTRA focuses on the LSD, but the
real connection is in human experimentation, and projects to learn to what extent humans could
be controlled and what things they might be capable of doing.
Great article !
And, unlike some commenters here, I don't need additional confirmations of existence
and practices the (a juicy hyphenated expletive goes here) use to experiment on, or to
"utterly destroy" (just like their Doctor recommended) people they target.
The good thing is that rightful anger can help to discover something that otherwise you
wouldn't have ever discovered. As they say, give people what they want !
I'm tempted to say that it's a shame that someone would waste an above-average intelligence
and dedication. But given the author's preoccupations, it's probably best that he limit himself
to a topic which ensures that the smallest possible number of ineffectual and unsound people
could be influenced by him. The more time he spends consumed by a merely 'journalistic'
expression for his interests and imagination, the better for everyone. Just think of the
horrors he might have been capable of, had he been given sufficient intelligence, charisma and
opportunities to bring his fantasies to life.
Hitler was a Jew. According to the Dutch history teachers. That's what we've been taught. So
there's two Jews Adolf and Anne. Other than that they don't exist . until you hear:
Mr. Romanoff thank you for this work and others published on Unz. I have read many of them
with interest and to my benefit, including the excellent 2,000 word piece you linked to in
several comments. That one should be distributed widely.
Preface to my question: Clearly, you have taken a deep dive into the "unconscionable" (your
word from the shorter essay) world of mind control and human experimentation.
My question: Is it possible that you cannot see the brilliant mind control operation being
carried out right now in real time and on a world-wide level? If you cannot see it, how can
that blind spot be explained?
This mind control operation has all the signs, using tactics both soft and hard. The
incessant media and government propaganda applies the soft, physically non-invasive torture.
Ever changing stories and shifting realities that lead people inexorably into a false
identity.
The hard tactics, the physical invasive tortures, have been applied with a slow but equally
inexorable increase in rituals: hand-washing, social distancing, masks, outright isolation,
drugs (soon-to-be). What ghastly tortures await those who refuse to consent to these
unmistakably occult-like rituals?
So, instead of using your expertise in mind control, gained through researching MK Ultra and
the US government's "reprehensible history of illegal, unethical, and immoral experiments" on
its own people (your words from the shorter essay), you come here in Mike Whitney's thread
yesterday and debate statistics of COVID deaths in Sweden v. Norway. What a titanic waste of
time! Unz is an amazing site, combining some of the most sublime commentary with some of the
most mundane and inane and insane.
We are witnessing what can only be described as a masterstroke of mind control. It proceeds
on a scale and with a breadth and depth that can only be explained by a dark intelligence far
above human. Sure, like the mind control operations you have investigated, the human operatives
are true psychopaths (like Gottlieb and Loretta Bender). But the coordination and operational
control comes from a otherworldly darkness, a depraved evil that is above human capabilities.
It comes from a spirit that hates humanity, but hates God most of all. We are no match for
it.
Yet people spill hundreds of thousands of words arguing over ever shifting, ever falsified
statistics in Sweden v. Norway or Spain or wherethefuckever? That is exactly where the master
of this mind control psyop wants us to fixate our gaze. Look! Lockdowns worked here! No they
didn't, they worked here! Hey, this virus came from a lab in Wuhan! No, it a US bio attack gone
bad! China sucks, the US is great. China is great, the US sucks. Blah, blah, blah!
How far is your truth-seeking willing to go on this, Mr. Romanoff? Why not go there and help
people escape full capture? You surely have uncovered the material to make you see it, as
evidenced by this article and others.
I suppose some gatekeepers of limited hangouts are simply sincere, but still useful, idiots
(not implying you here). Maybe some are willfully ignorant, or simply clever at trying to
preserve a "stage" from which to speak.
As mentioned by another commenter, the absence of Charles Manson in this article seems a bit
odd, especially considering the timeline of MK Ultra.
His ability to lure women and others into joining his commune, control and manipulate them. The
drug use, sexual deviancy, slavery, and ultimately getting them to kill for him it's hard to
believe he wasn't an MK Ultra asset turned loose on society as a kind of experiment to test
these techniques.
The women were mostly from stable, middle class upbringings. At minimum you'd think they would
have wanted to debrief him to learn how he did it. Everything Manson sounds like it's right out
of the MK Ultra playbook, not unlike Jim Jones.
Larry Romanoff: "Rather than being an anarchist, Kaczynski's bombing campaign was both a cry
for help and a quest for revenge. "
That's a ridiculous dismissal of Kaczynski's thinking and his many writings, which on major
points parallel self-described Christian anarchist Jacques Ellul's work. Nobody questions
whether Ellul is an anarchist, or calls his writings "a cry for help". Also, you, as a
conspiracy theorist of the paranoid type, would likely be described as "mentally ill" by many
psychologists. Could this article be your own "cry for help"?
"... The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences. ..."
"... The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal, nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. ..."
"... To the point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so? ..."
"... Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business. ..."
"... Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world. ..."
"... Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ' Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered. ..."
"... To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,' adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind. ..."
"... Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War. ..."
"... the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith. ..."
"... Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO's control . ..."
"... The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here . The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2 . The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948. ..."
"... That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges ..."
"... Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?' ..."
"... Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. ..."
The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a
façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a
straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war
economy in 1946 to the CIA's alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 the NSC
(National Security Council) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the
CIA's actions during the Cold War. That these persist despite the 'fall of communism' suggests
that it was always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives.
The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals, bureaucrats,
and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII. Likewise, the
American side of the nuclear arms race left former
Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as
assessments of Russian military capabilities. Why, of all people, would former Nazi officers be
put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments were the goal? The Nazis hated the
Soviets more than the Americans did.
The ideological binaries of Russiagate -- for or against Donald Trump, for or against
neoliberal, petrostate Russia, define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of
deeply nefarious interests. The U.S. has spent a century or more
trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR
in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to
loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed
NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a
negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a
reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences.
The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria
Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal,
nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have
used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists
subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. Furthermore, Steinem's
aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates the liberal propensity to
conflate bourgeois dress and attitude with an imagined
gentility . To the
point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not
employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so?
On the American left, Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting, of official outlets
for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved.
However, some fair portion of the American bourgeois, the PMC that acts in supporting roles for
capital, believes every word of it. Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American
fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time
that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the
Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly
fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business.
Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers,
including former
Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human
beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin,
Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the
Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's
overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear
weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated
into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world.
By the time that (Senator) John F. Kennedy claimed a U.S. 'missile gap' with the Soviets in
1958, the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs (Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles),
that were
wildly inflated -- most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization. Once satellite
and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available, the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs
when the actual number
was four . On the one hand, the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program. On the
other, it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed. Bad reporting, unerringly on the side
of larger military budgets, appears to be the constant.
Under the
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially
disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the '
Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to
labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in
political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to
have played a role in the murder of Che
Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi
concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered.
The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, to an economy that
was heavily dependent on war production. The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in
1946 was first met with an
honest assessment of Soviet intentions -- the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into
Soviet territory as quickly as was practicable, then to the military budget-friendly claim that
they were putting resources in place to invade Europe. The result of the shift was that the
American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons. By
1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs.
To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward
the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly
traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and
are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,'
adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear
arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons
non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind.
What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948
– 1958 is 1) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA's intelligence operations
vis-à-vis the Soviets, 2) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information on the
Soviets outside of the Gehlen Organization and 3) the senior leadership of the U.S. military
had
long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced
their power and added to their budgets. Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former
Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive
Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War.
Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand
Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of Soviet ICBMs were being put
forward. JFK had run (in 1960) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. '
missile
gap .' The USAF (U.S. Air Force), charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their
targets, was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs. Mr. Ellsberg, who had limited
security clearance through his employment at Rand, was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs.
The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance
satellites was four.
By 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA had shifted nominal control of the
Gehlen Organization to the BND, for whom Gehlen continued to work. Based on ongoing satellite
reconnaissance data, the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities.
Benjamin Schwarz, writing
for The Atlantic in 2013, provided an account, apparently informed by the CIA's lowered
estimates, where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program (in 1962) at roughly
one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort. However, given Ellsberg's known count of four Soviet
ICBMs at the time of the missile crisis, even Schwarz's ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet
capabilities.
Further per Schwarz's reporting, the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in
Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons. This
interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg , who argues
that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons (first strike). This
made JFK's posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical game of nuclear chicken
utterly unhinged. Should this be less than clear, because the U.S. had indicated its intention
to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing
Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be
taken in good faith.
The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military
spending and an end to the Cold War, neither of which ultimately materialized. Following the
election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was
repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them.
In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging
the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then
unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former
Baltic
states were brought under NATO's control .
The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of
fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically
elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing
the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC)
in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here .
The economic and military
annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2
. The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan
to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace
the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated
former Nazis on its payroll in 1948.
That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security
Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks
volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges.
Its near instantaneous adoption by
bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That
liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by
unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of
historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers
employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?'
The Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war
criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by
the CIA, CIC, or some other division of the Federal government. If the people in these agencies
thought that doing so was justified, why the secrecy? And if it wasn't justified, why was it
done? Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical
ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the
upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this
move.Cue the Sex
Pistols .
"Modern jihadism was co-invented in 1979 by Saudi Prince"
Yes after the Mecca siege they found the potential of wahabi islam(redefined by Qutb
teachings in the previous years) to be used against the enemy of zionism.Without 20 November
1979 (not in Teheran but in Mecca) there wouldn't have been any suicide bomber in the years
after.Those men with long beards and strong motivations were a great threat to the saudi
family..they had no fear to die for their struggle because the struggle was all their
life...They had a genuine hatred for usa and saudi corrupted state.It was only a matter of
annihilating them internally and at the same time promoting their birth everywhere in the
Sunni Islamic world...to serve the zionist scum.
Executed Turkish general exposed misuse of Qatari funds for Syria extremists: Report Semih Terzi, a general within the Turkish army, was executed on the night of the 2016
Turkish coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Photo via the
stockholmcf) Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English Friday 31 July 2020 Text size A A A
The Turkish army executed a senior general within its ranks after he had discovered the
embezzlement of illicit Qatari funding for extremists in Syria by public officials, according
to a 2019 court testimony unveiled in a report by the Nordic Monitor.
Semih Terzi, a general within the Turkish army, was executed on the night of the 2016
Turkish coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The new allegations unveiled in court testimonies from a hearing March 20, 2019at Ankara
17th High Criminal Court were made by Col. Fırat Alakuş, an army officer working
within Turkey's Special Forces Command's intelligence section.
According to the Nordic Monitor, Terzi is said to have been executed after discovering that
Lt. Gen. Zekai Aksakallı, in charge of the Special Forces Command at the time, was working
covertly with Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) "in running illegal and
clandestine operations in Syria for personal gain while dragging Turkey deeper into the Syrian
civil war."
"[Terzi] knew how much of the funding delivered [to Turkey] by Qatar for the purpose of
purchasing weapons and ammunition for the opposition was actually used for that and how much of
it was actually used by public officials, how much was embezzled," Col. Alakuş was quoted
as saying by the Nordic Monitor via his court testimony.
The Nordic Monitor said in its report published on Friday that Alakuş testified that
Aksakallı had run a gang outside of the chain of command within the Turkish intelligence
that was involved in illicit activities.
The report further alleged that Terzi was aware of public officials involved in
oil-smuggling operations with ISIS from Syria.
"[Terzi] was aware of who in the government was involved in an oil-smuggling operation from
Syria, how the profits were shared, and what activities they were involved in," Alakuş
said in his testimony.
PS likbez@46 reminded me of a line from the movie Reds. Warren Beatty's John Reed spoke of
people who "though Karl Marx wrote a good antitrust law." This was not a favorable comment.
The confusion of socialism and what might be called populism is quite, quite old. Jack
London's The Iron Heel has its hero pointing out even before the Great (Class) War that the
normal operations of capitalism, concentration and centralization, destroyed the middle class
paradise of equal competition. It wasn't conspiracies.
likbez 07.29.20 at 3:30 pm
@steven t johnson 07.29.20 at 3:14 pm (51)
Jack London's The Iron Heel has its hero pointing out even before the Great (Class) War
that the normal operations of capitalism, concentration and centralization, destroyed the
middle class paradise of equal competition.
I think the size of the USA military budget by itself means the doom for the middle class,
even without referring to famous Jack London book (The Iron Heel is cited by George Orwell 's
biographer Michael Shelden as having influenced Orwell's most famous novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four.).
Wall Street and MIC (especially intelligence agencies ; Allen Dulles was a Wall Street
lawyer) are joined at the hip. And they both fully control MSM. As Jack London aptly said:
"The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist
class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it
serves it." ― Jack London, The Iron Heel
Financial capitalism is bloodthirstily by definition as it needs new markets. It fuels wars.
In a sense, Bolton is the symbol of financial capitalism foreign policy.
It is important to understand that finance capitalism creates positive feedback loop in the
economy increasing instability of the system. So bubbles are immanent feature of finance
capitalism, not some exception or the result of excessive greed.
Modern jihadism was co-invented in 1979 by Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al Saud, and U.S.
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, working together, and here is the background for
it, and the way -- and the reasons -- that it was done:
Back in the later Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and its aristocracies had used
religious fervor in order to motivate very conservative and devout people to invade foreign
countries so as to spread their empire and to not need to rely only on taxes in order to fund
these invasions, but also to highly motivate them by their faith in a heavenly reward. It was
far cheaper this way, because these invading forces wouldn't need to be paid so much; the
reason why they'd be far cheaper is that their pay would chiefly come to them in their
afterlife (if at all). That's why people of strong faith were used. (Aristocracies always rule
by deceiving the public, and faith is the way.) Those invaders were Roman Catholic Crusaders,
and they went out on Crusades to spread their faith and so 'converted' and slaughtered millions
of Muslims and Jews, so as to expand actually the aristocracies' and preachers' empire, which
is the reason why they had been sent out on those missions (to win 'converts'). This was
charity, after all. (Today's large tax-exempt non-profits are no different -- consistently
promoting their aristocracy's invasions, out of 'humanitarian' concern for the 'welfare', or
else 'souls', of the people they are invading -- and, if need be, to kill 'bad people'. This
has been the reality. And it still is. It's the way to sell imperialism to individuals who
won't benefit from imperialism -- make mental slaves of them.)
The original Islamic version of the Christian Crusades, Islamic Holy
War or "jihad," started on 14 November 1914 in Constantinople (today's Istanbul) when the
Sheikh Hayri Bey, the supreme religious
authority in the Ottoman Empire , along with the Ottoman Emperor, Mehmed V , declared a Holy War for their Muslim
followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War
I. They were on Germany's side, and lost. (That's the reason why the Ottoman Empire ended.)
Both
the Sheikh and the Emperor had actually been selected -- and then forced -- by Turkey's
aristocracy, for them to declare Islamic Holy War at that time. In fact, the sitting Sheikh,
Mehmet
Cemaleddin Efendi , in 1913, was actually an opponent of the pro-German and
war-oriented policy of the Union and Progress Party, which represented Turkey's aristocrats,
and so that Sheikh was replaced by them, in order to enable a declaration of Islamic Holy War.
Jihad actually had its origin in Turkey's aristocracy -- not in the Muslim masses, and not even
in the Muslim clergy. It resulted from an overly ambitious Turkish aristocracy, hoping to
extend their empire. It did not result from the public. And, at that time, relatively few
Muslims followed this 'Holy' command, which is one reason why the Ottoman Empire soon
thereafter ended.
The fact that the decision about the Armenians was made after a great deal of thought,
based on extensive debate and discussion by the Central Committee of the CUP [Committee for
Union and Progress] , can be understood by looking at other sources of information as well.
The indictment of the Main Trial states as follows: ''The murder and annihilation of the
Armenians was a decision taken by the Central Committee of the Union and Progress Party.''
These decisions were the result of ''long and extensive discussions.'' In the indictment are
the statements of Dr. Nazım to the effect that ''it was a matter taken by the Central
Committee after thinking through all sides of the issue'' and that it was ''an attempt to reach
a final solution to the Eastern Question .'' 54 In his memoirs, which were published in
the newspaper Vakit, Celal, the governor of Aleppo, describes the same words being spoken to
him by a deputy of the Ottoman Parliament from Konya, coming as a ''greeting of a member of the
Central Committee .'' This deputy told Celal that if he had ''expressed an opinion that
opposed the point of view of the others, [he would] have been expelled .''
55
(And, consequently, when Hitler allegedly -- on 22 August 1939 , right before his
invasion of Poland which started WW II, and it is
on page 2 here , but the sincerity and even the authenticity of that alleged private
'speech' by him should be questioned and not accepted outright by historians -- cited Turkey's
genocide against Armenian Christians as being proof that genocide is acceptable, Hitler would
actually have been citing there not only a Muslim proponent of genocide, but an ally of Germany
who had actually done it, because the Ottoman Empire's aristocracy had been both Muslim and
German-allied. Hitler would, in that 'speech', if he actually said it, have been citing that
earlier ally of Germany, which had actually genocided Christians. The genocide happened, even
if that speech mentioning it was concocted by some propagandist during WW II.)
The new jihad, or Islamic version of the Crusades, is, however, very different from the one
that had started on 14 November 1914. It wasn't Turkish, it instead came straight from Turkey's
top competitor to lead the world's Muslims, the royal family who owned Saudi Arabia, the Sauds.
But they partnered with America's aristocracy, in creating it.
Today's jihadism started in 1979, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter's national security
advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (a born Polish nobleman), and his colleague Prince Bandar bin
Sultan al Saud, re-created jihad or Islamic Holy War, in order to produce a dirt-cheap army of
Pakistani fundamentalist Sunni students or "mujahideen," soon to be renamed Taliban (
Pashto &
Persian ṭālibān, plural of ṭālib student, seeker, from Arabic )
so as to invade and conquer next door to the Soviet Union the newly Soviet-allied Afghanistan,
and to turn it 'pro-Western', now meaning both anti-Soviet, and anti-Shiite. (The Saud family
hate Shiites , and so do America's
aristocrats, whose CIA had conquered Shiite Iran in 1953, and who became outraged when Shiites
retook Iran in 1979. And, from then on, America's aristocracy, too, have hated Shiites and have
craved to re-conquer Iran. By contrast, the Sauds had started in 1744 to hate Shiites.) So, modern Islamic Holy War started
amongst fundamentalist Sunnis in Pakistan in 1979, against both the Soviets and the Iranians
(and now against both
Russia and Iran ). Here is a video of Brzezinski actually doing that -- starting the
"mujahideen" (subsequently to become the Taliban) onto this 'Holy War':
Brzezinski ,
incidentally, had been born a Roman Catholic Polish aristocrat whose parents hated and despised
Russians, and this hostility went back to the ancient conflicts between the Roman Catholic and the
Russian Orthodox Churches.
So: whereas on the American end this was mainly a Roman Catholic versus Orthodox operation,
it was mainly a Sunni versus Shiite operation on the Saudi end.
Here's more of the personal background regarding the co-creation, by the aristocracies of
America and of Saudi Arabia, of today's jihadism, or "radical Islamic terrorism":
Whereas Nelson Rockefeller in the Republican Party sponsored Harvard's Henry Kissinger as
the geostrategist and National Security Advisor, David Rockefeller in the Democratic Party
sponsored Harvard's and then Columbia's Zbigniew Brzezinski as the geostrategist and National
Security Advisor. The Rockefeller family was centrally involved in controlling the U.S.
Government.
According to pages 41-44 of David B. Ottaway's 2008 The
King's Messenger: Prince Bandar , U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose National Security
Advisor was Brzezinski, personally requested and received advice from a certain graduate
student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Saudi Prince Bandar
bin Sultan al Saud, regarding geostrategy. At the time, Brzezinski commented favorably on
Bandar's graduate thesis. But that's not all. "Secretly, Carter had already turned to the
kingdom for help, calling in Bandar and asking him to deliver a message to [King] Fahd pleading
for an increase in Saudi [oil] production. Fahd's reply, according to Bandar, was 'Tell my
friend, the president of the United States of America, when they need our help, they will not
be disappointed.'13 The king was true to his world." However, Bandar's advice went beyond oil.
And the re-creation, of the fundamentalist-Sunni movement (amongst only fundamentalist Sunni
Muslims, both in 1914 and in 1979), that now is called "jihadism," was a joint idea, from both
Brzezinski and Bandar.
It was the United States that, together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates, and Pakistan, dispatched the jihadists to Afghanistan. Prince Bandar bin Sultan of
Saudi Arabiaplayed a key rolein those operations, with Saudi Arabia providing the key
financial, military and human support for them. The kingdom encouraged its citizens to go to
Afghanistan to fight the Soviet army. One such citizen was Osama bin Laden. Saudi Arabia agreed
to match, dollar for dollar, any funds that the CIA could raise for the operations. The
U.S.provided Pakistan with $3.2 billion, and Saudi Arabia bought weapons from
everywhere, including international black markets, and sent them to Afghanistan through
Pakistan's ISI.
That was then, and this is now, but it is merely an extension of that same operation, even
after the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance all ended in
1991, and Russia ended its side of the Cold War but the United States secretly continued its side , as is shown here,
by an example. This example, of America's continuing its Cold War, is America's longstanding
effort, after the death of FDR in 1945, to overthrow and replace Syria's pro-Russian Government
and install instead a Syrian Government that will be controlled by the Sauds:
So, in this new 'Islamic holy war', to overthrow Syria's non-sectarian Government, the
fighters entered Syria through Turkey, and they were welcomed mainly in Syria's province of
Idlib, which adjoins Turkey.
On 13 March 2012, the Al Jazeera TV station, of the pro-jihad Thani royal family of Qatar,
headlined "Inside
Idlib: Saving Syria" , and opened
The Syrian government crackdown on the dissenting northern city of Idlib has continued
for a third day, with casualties from random shelling and sniper fire mounting, and growing
concerns for many citizens detained by government forces. "I can't tell you what an unequal
contest this is . The phrase that we felt yesterday applied to it was 'Shooting fish in a
barrel' – these people can't escape, they can't help themselves, they have very little
weaponry, what can they do but sit there and take it?"
The UK Government had given Qatar to the Thanis in 1868. On 12
September 1868 , Mohammed Bin Thani signed "an agreement with the British Political
Resident Col. Lewis Pelly, which was considered as the first international recognition of the
sovereignty of Qatar"; so, on that precise day, Britain's Queen Victoria gave Qatar to his
family, which owns it, to the present day. The Thanis are the leading financial backers of the
Muslim Brotherhood, which spreads Thani influence to foreign countries. (At least up till 9/11,
the Saud family have been the main financial
backers of Al Qaeda .) The Thanis have been, along with the Sauds, the main financial
backers of replacing the non-sectarian Syrian Government by a fundamentalist-Sunni Syrian
Government. Whereas the Sauds want to control that new government, also the Thanis do, and this
is one reason for the recent falling-out between those two families. America's aristocracy
prefers that Syria's rulers will be selected by the Saud family, because they buy more weapons
from the U.S. than does any other country. However, everything is transactional between
aristocracies, and, so, international alliances can change. It's always a jostling, everyone
grabbing for whatever they can get: aristocracies operate no differently than crime-families
do, because FDR's dream of an anti-imperialistic U.N., which would set and enforce
international laws, died when he did; we live instead in an internationally lawless world -- he
died far too soon. In a sense (at least ideologically), Hitler won, but, actually, Churchill
did (he was as much an imperialist as Hitler and Mussolini were).
Anyway, uncounted tens of thousands of jihadists from all over the world descended upon
Syria, funded by the Sauds and the Thanis, and armed and trained by the United States, to
conquer Syria. At the Syrian Government's request,
Russia started bombing the jihadists on 30 September 2015 . That air-support for the Syrian
Army turned the war around. By the time of 4 May 2018, Britain's Financial Times
headlined "Idlib offers uncertain sanctuary
to Syria's defeated rebels" ("rebels" being the U.S. and UK Governments' term for jihadists
who were serving as the U.S., Saud and Thani, proxy-forces or mercenaries to conquer Syria) and
reported (stenographically transmitting what the CIA and MI6 told them to say) that, "more than
70,000 rebels and civilians" -- meaning jihadists and their families -- who were "fleeing the
last rebel holdout near the capital," had been given a choice, and this "choice was die in
Ghouta, or leave for Idlib," and chose to get onto the Government-supplied buses taking them to
Idlib. So, perhaps unnumbered hundreds of thousands of jihadists did that, from all over Syria,
and collecting them in Idlib.
On May 8th, Syria's Government bannered,"6th batch of terrorists leave
southern Damascus for northern Syria"and reported that "During the past five days,
218 buses carrying terrorists with their families exited from the three towns to Jarablos and
Idleb under the supervision of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent." Jarablos (or "Jarabulus")
is a town or "District" in the Aleppo Governate; and Idleb (or "Idlib") is the
capital District in the adjoining Governate of Idlib, which Governate is immediately to the
west of Aleppo Governate; and both Jarabulus and Idlib border on Turkey to the north. Those two
towns in Syria's far northwest are where captured jihadists are now being sent.
The Government is doing that because at this final stage in the 7-year-long war, it wants
civilian deaths and additional destruction of buildings to be kept to a minimum, and so is
offering jihadists the option of surviving instead of being forced to fight to the death (which
would then require Syria's Government to destroy the entire area that's occupied by the
terrorists); this way, these final clean-up operations against the terrorists won't necessarily
require bombing whole neighborhoods -- surrenders thus become likelier, so as to end the war as
soon as possible, and to keep destruction and civilian casualties at a minimum.
The Syrian and Russian Governments had planned to finish them off there in Idlib, so that
none of them could escape back into their home countries to continue their jihad. However, the
U.S. and its allies raised 'humanitarian' screams at the U.N. and other international
organizations, in order to protect the 'rebels' against the 'barbarous dictator' of Syria, its
President, Bashar al-Assad -- just in order to create more anti-Assad (and anti-Russian, and
anti-Iranian) propaganda. And, so, on 9 and 10 September 2018, Putin and Erdogan and Rouhani
met in Rouhani's Tehran to decide what to do. By that time, Erdogan was riding the fence
between Washington and Moscow. On 17 September 2018, I headlined "Putin and Erdogan Plan Syria-Idlib DMZ as I Recommended" and
reported that Putin and Rouhani entrusted Idlib to Erdogan, with the expectation that Erdogan
would keep the jihadists penned-up there, so that Putin and Assad would be able to bomb them to
hell after the 'humanitarian crisis' in Idlib would be no longer on front pages.
The role of the United Nations in this has been to stand aside and pretend that it's a
'humanitarian crisis' (as the U.S. regime wanted it to be called) instead of a U.S.-and-allied
invasion, aggressive war, and consequently a vast war-crime such as Hitler's top leaders were
prosecuted and executed for at Nuremberg. As Miri Wood wrote, at Syria News, on 28
February 2018 :
Members of the General Assembly must be in good financial standing to vote. Dues are on a
sliding scale but do not factor in draconian sanctions against targeted members, nor crimes of
war involved in their destruction. As such, CAR, Libya, Venezuela and Yemen have been stripped
of their voting rights. The non-permanent SC members function as obedient House Servants to the
P3 bullies, ever mindful of placing self-preservation above moral integrity .
So Truman's U.N. turns out to be on the side of the new Nazism, against its victims.
Erdogan wants to be with the winners. He evidently believes that whatever empire he'll be
able to have will be just a vassal nation within the U.S. Empire. He had been
extremely reluctant to accept this viewpoint , but, apparently, he now does. And so, now,
Erdogan has become so confident that he has the backing of Christian-majority America and of
Christian-majority Europe, so that Turkey's
Hagia Sophia , which had been "the world's largest cathedral
for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520," has finally become
officially declared by the Turkish Government to be, instead, a mosque. He feels safe enough to
insult the publics in the other NATO countries so as to be able now to assert publicly his
support for Islam against Christianity, because he knows that NATO's other
aristocracies -- all of them majority-Christian, and all of these aristocrats ruling their
respective Christian-majority countries -- don't really give a damn about that. Amongst
themselves, the concern for 'heaven' is all just for show, because they are far more interested
to buy Paradise in the here-and-now, for themselves and for their families. As for any possible
'afterlife', it will be reflected in the big buildings and charities that will bear their
names, after they're gone. Erdogan feels safe, knowing that they're all psychopaths. And, as
for the publics anywhere -- Syria, Libya, even in Turkey itself -- they don't matter, to him,
any more than they do to the leaders of those other NATO countries.
Turkish forces started recruiting numbers of its armed fighters to send them to
Azerbaijan in order to assist the Azerbaijani forces in confronting the Armenian army.
According to sources, Turkey opened special promotion offices in different parts of Afrin
northern Aleppo, to attract the militants and encourage them to sign contracts by which they
would move to fight in Azerbaijan for a period of six months, renewable in case they wanted
to.
According to the contract, the militants receive a monthly salary of $2500, while the
advantage of granting Turkish citizenship to the families of the militants in case they died is
absent, contrary to the contracts that Turkey had signed with the armed men who wanted to move
to Libya.
The sources said that Turkey has designated centers for registering militants wishing to
fight in Azerbaijan within the towns of Genderes and Raju, along with Afrin city, and these
centers have already started receiving requests by the militants.
Armenia is virtually 100% Christian, and, according to Wikipedia :
The Armenian Genocide[c](also known as the Armenian
Holocaust )[13]was the systematic mass
murder and expulsion of 1.5 million[b]ethnicArmenianscarried out in Turkey and adjoining regions by theOttoman governmentbetween 1914 and 1923.[14][15]The starting date is
conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested,
and deported fromConstantinople(now Istanbul) to the region of Angora (Ankara),235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom
were eventually murdered.
So, the recruitment of fundamentalist-Sunni mercenaries in the areas of Syria that Turkey
has captured, and sending those men "to assist the Azerbaijani forces in confronting the
Armenian army," is likewise consistent with the NATO member-country Turkey's restoration of its
former Ottoman Empire. Using these jihadist proxy-soldiers, NATO is now invading Christian
Armenia.
However, Iskef was reporting without paying any attention to the aristocratic interests
which were actually very much involved in what Erdogan was doing here. On July 19th, Cyril
Widdershoven at the "Oil Price" site bannered
"The Forgotten Conflict That Is Threatening Energy Markets" and he reported the economic
geostrategic factors which were at stake in this now-emerging likely hot war, which is yet
another "pipeline war," and which pits Turkey against Russia. In this particular matter, Turkey
has an authentic economic reason to become engaged in a possible hot war allied with Muslim
Azerbaijan against Christian Armenia. Russia, yet again, would be backing Christian soldiers.
Of course, NATO, also yet again, would be on the Muslim side, against the Christians. But, this
time, NATO would be backing Azerbaijan, which is 85% Shiite. Consequently, in such a conflict,
the U.S. could end up on the same side as Iran, and against Russia.
If history is any guide, aristocratic interests will take precedence over theocratic
interests, but democratic interests -- the interests of the publics that are involved -- will
be entirely ignored. The sheer hypocrisy of the U.S. regime exceeds anything in human
history.
How can anybody not loathe the U.S. regime and its allies? Only by getting one's 'news' from
its 'news'-media -- especially (but not only) its mainstream ones.
When it comes to debate about US military policy, the 2020 presidential election campaign is
so far looking very similar to that of 2016. Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the
strongest military in the world," promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our
troops for the challenges of the next century, not the last one."
In the White House, President Trump is repeating the kind of anti-interventionist head
feints that won him votes four years ago against a hawkish Hillary Clinton. In his recent
graduation address at West Point, Trump re-cycled applause lines from 2016 about "ending an era
of endless wars" as well as America's role as "policeman of the world."
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military presence
abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As military
historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
When the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year came before Congress
this summer, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a modest 10 percent reduction in military spending
so $70 billion could be re-directed to domestic programs. Representative Barbara Lee introduced
a House resolution calling for $350 billion worth of DOD cuts. Neither proposal has gained much
traction, even among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Instead, the House Armed Services Committee
just
voted 56 to 0 to spend $740. 5 billion on the Pentagon in the coming year, prefiguring the
outcome of upcoming votes by the full House and Senate.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance. In the never-ending work of building a stronger anti-war
movement, Pentagon critics, with military credentials, are invaluable allies. Daniel Sjursen, a
37-year old veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is one such a critic. Inspired in part by
the much-published Bacevich, Sjursen has just written a new book called Patriotic Dissent:
America in the Age of Endless War (Heyday Books)
Patriotic Dissent is a short volume, just 141 pages, but it packs the same kind of punch as
Howard Zinn's classic 1967 polemic, Vietnam: The Logic of
Withdrawal . Like Zinn, who became a popular historian after his service in World War II,
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment, and the
military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry president." His
appeal to the conscience of fellow soldiers, veterans, and civilians is rooted in the unusual
arc of an eighteen-year military career. His powerful voice, political insights, and painful
personal reflections offer a timely reminder of how costly, wasteful, and disastrous our post
9/11 wars have been.
Sjursen has the distinction of being a graduate of West Point, an institution that produces
few political dissenters. He grew up in a fire-fighter family on working class Staten Island.
Even before enrolling at the Academy at age 17, he was no stranger to what he calls
"deep-seated toxically masculine patriotism." As a newly commissioned officer in 2005, he was
still a "burgeoning neo-conservative and George W. Bush admirer" and definitely not, he
reports, any kind of "defeatist liberal, pacifist, or dissenter."
"The horror, the futility, the farce of that war was the turning point in my life,"
Sjursen writes in Patriotic Dissent .
When he returned, at age 24, from his "brutal, ghastly deployment" as a platoon leader, he
"knew that the war was built on lies, ill-advised, illegal, and immoral." This "unexpected,
undesired realization generated profound doubts about the course and nature of the entire
American enterprise in the Greater Middle East -- what was then unapologetically labeled the
Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)."
A Professional Soldier
By the time Sjursen landed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in early 2011, he had been
promoted to captain but "no longer believed in anything we were doing."
He was, he confesses, "simply a professional soldier -- a mercenary, really -- on a
mandatory mission I couldn't avoid. Three more of my soldiers died, thirty-plus were wounded,
including a triple amputee, and another over-dosed on pain meds after our return."
Despite his disillusionment, Sjursen had long dreamed of returning to West Point to teach
history. He applied for and won that highly competitive assignment, which meant the Army had to
send him to grad school first. He ended up getting credentialed, while living out of uniform,
in the "People's Republic of Lawrence, Kansas, a progressive oasis in an intolerant, militarist
sea of Republican red." During his studies at the state university, Sjursen found an
intellectual framework for his "own doubts about and opposition to US foreign policy." He
completed his first book, Ghost Riders , which combines personal memoir with counter-insurgency
critique. Amazingly enough, it was published in 2015, while he was still on active duty, but
with "almost no blowback" from superior officers.
Before retiring as a major four years later, Sjursen pushed the envelope further, by writing
more than 100 critical articles for TomDispatch and other civilian publications. He was no
longer at West Point so that body of work triggered "a grueling, stressful, and scary
four-month investigation"by the brass at Fort Leavenworth, during which the author was
subjected to "a non-publication order." At risk were his career, military pension, and
benefits. He ended up receiving only a verbal admonishment for violating a Pentagon rule
against publishing words "contemptuous of the President of the United States." His "PTSD and
co-occurring diagnoses" helped him qualify for a medical retirement last year.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit one
who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With several
left-leaning comrades, he started Fortress on A Hill, a lively podcast about military affairs
and veterans' issues. He's a frequent, funny, and always well-informed guest on progressive
radio and cable-TV shows, as well as a contributing editor at Antiwar.com , and a contributor to a host of mainstream liberal
publications. This year, the Lannan Foundation made him a cultural freedom fellow.
In Patriotic Dissent , Sjursen not only recounts his own personal trajectory from military
service to peace activism. He shows how that intellectual journey has been informed by reading
and thinking about US history, the relationship between civil society and military culture, the
meaning of patriotism, and the price of dissent.
One historical figure he admires is Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient
of two Medals of Honor for service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler
sided with the poor and working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I
bonus payments. And he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that
"war is just a racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big
Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
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Sjursen contrasts Butler's anti-interventionist whistle-blowing, nearly a century ago, with
the silence of high-ranking veterans today after "nineteen years of ill-advised, remarkably
unsuccessful American wars." Among friends and former West Point classmates, he knows many
still serving who "obediently resign themselves to continued combat deployments" because they
long ago "stopped asking questions about their own role in perpetuating and enabling a
counter-productive, inertia-driven warfare state."
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About Face:
Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our Troops Home.
US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right. Each in, its own way, seeks to
"reframe dissent, against empire and endless war, as the truest form of patriotism." But
actually taming the military-industrial complex will require "big-tent, intersectional action
from civilian and soldier alike," on a much larger scale. One obstacle to that, he believes, is
the societal divide between the "vast majority of citizens who have chosen not to serve" in the
military and the "one percent of their fellow citizens on active duty," who then become part of
"an increasingly insular, disconnected, and sometimes sententious post-9/11 veteran
community."
Not many on the left favor a return to conscription.
But Sjursen makes it clear there's been a downside to the U.S. replacing "citizen
soldiering" with "a tiny professional warrior caste," created in response to draft-driven
dissent against the Vietnam War, inside and outside the military. As he observes:
"Nothing so motivates a young adult to follow foreign policy, to weigh the advisability or
morality of an ongoing war as the possibility of having to put 'skin in the game.' Without at
least the potential requirement to serve in the military and in one of America's now
countless wars, an entire generation -- or really two, since President Nixon ended the draft
in 1973–has had the luxury of ignoring the ills of U.S. foreign policy, to distance
themselves from its reality ."
At a time when the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and
anti-imperial wave" sweeping over the country, we have instead a "civil-military" gap that,
Sjursen believes, has "stifled antiwar and anti-imperial dissent and seemingly will continue to
do so." That's why his own mission is to find more "socially conscious veterans of these
endless, fruitless wars" who are willing to "step up and form a vanguard of sorts for
revitalized patriotic dissent." Readers of Sjursen's book, whether new recruits to that
vanguard or longtime peace activists, will find Patriotic Dissent to be an invaluable
educational tool. It should be required reading in progressive study groups, high school and
college history classes, and book clubs across the country . Let's hope that the author's
willingness to take personal risks, re-think his view of the world, and then work to change it
will inspire many others, in uniform and out.
Do we need to be in 160 countries with our military and can we afford it?
Cat Daddy , 1 hour ago
I am all for bringing the troops home except for this one unnerving truth; nature abhors a
vacuum, specifically, when we pull out, China moves in. A world dominated by the CCP will be
a dangerous place to be. When we leave, we will need to make sure our bases are safely in the
hands of our friends.
dogbert8 , 1 hour ago
War is effectively the way the U.S. has done business since the Spanish American War, our
first imperial conquests. War is how we ensure big business has the materials and markets
they demand in return for their support of political parties and candidates. War is the only
area left with opportunities for growth and profit. Don't think for a minute that TPTB will
ever let us stop waging war to get what we (they) want.
TheLastMan , 2 hours ago
If you are new to zh all you need to do is study PNAC and the related nature of all
parties to understand the criminality of USA militarization and for whose benefit it
serves
Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago
I have written many times on this platform the exact same sentiments.
I am most disheartened by the COVID + Antifa/BLM Riots because of the facts this author
presents.
We are distracted with emotional and highly volatile MASSIVELY PROPAGANDIZED stories by
MSM (I don't watch) while the real problem in the world is as the author describes above.
We are war-mongering nation who needs to bring our troops home and disband over half of
our overseas installations and bases.
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the citizens
of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
Yet, we run around arguing about masks and who can go into a restaurant or toppling
statutes and throwing mortar-type fireworks at federal officers. This is what we do instead
of facing a real problem which is that we are war-mongering nation with no moral/ethical
conscience. These scraggily bearded white Antifas need to WTFU and realize who their true
enemy.
Oh, wait. They work for the true enemy! Get it?
Max21c , 1 hour ago
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the
citizens of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
I don't agree with the economic sanctions nonsense thing as they seem to be more of a
crutch for people that are not any good at planning, strategy, analytical thinking, critical
thinking, strategic thinking, and lack much in the way of talent or creativity or
intellectual acumen or intellectual skills...I believe there's around just shy of 10k
economic sanctions by Washington...
But the USA does have the right to receive or refuse to receive foreign Ambassadors and
Consuls and to recognize or not recognize other nations governments thus it does have some
degrees of the right to not trade or engage in commerce with other nations to a certain
extent... per imports and exports... et cetera... though it's not necessarily an absolute
right or power
IronForge , 2 hours ago
Sjursen may admire General Butler; but he doesn't seem to know that several of the
General's Descendants Served in the US Military.
Sjursen isn't Butler. The General Prevented a Coup in his Time.
The USA are a Hegemony whose KleptOchlarchs overtook the Original Constitutional
Republic.
PetroUSD, MIC, Corporate Expansion-Conquest, AgriGMO, and Pharma Interests Span the
Globe.
Wars are Rackets; and Societies to Nation-States have waged them over Real Estate, Natural
Resources, Trade Routes, Industrial Capacity, Slavery, Suppresive Spite,
Religious/Ideological Zeal, Economic Preservation, and Profiteering Greed.
YET, Militaries are still formed by Nation-States to Survive and for Some - Thrive above
such Competitive Existenstential Threats.
*****
The Hegemony are running up against New Shifts in Global Power, Systems, and Influences;
and are about to Lose their Unilateral Advantages. The Hegemon themselves may suffer Societal
Collapses Within.
Sjursen should read up on Chalmers Johnson. Instead of trying to Coordinate Ineffective
Peace Demonstrations, the Entire Voting/Political Contribution/Candidacy Schemes should be
Separated from the Oligarchy of Plutocrats and Corporate/Political KleptOchlarchs.
Without Bringing the Votes back to the Collective Hands of Citizenry Interests First and
Foremost, the Republic are Forever Conquered; and the Ethical may have to resort to
Emigration and/or Secession.
Ink Pusher , 2 hours ago
Nobody rides for free,there's always a cost and those who can't pay in bullion will often
pay in bodily fluids of one form or another.
Profiteers that create warfare for profit are simply parasitical criminals and should not
be considered a "special breed" when weighed upon the Scales of Justice.
gzorp , 2 hours ago
Read 'Starship Troopers' by Robert A Heinlein (1959) pay especial attention to the
"History and Moral Philosophy" courses... that's where his predictions for the future course
of 'America's' future appear.... rather accurately. Heinlein was a 1930's graduate of
Annapolis (Navy for you dindus and nohabs).....
A DUDE , 2 hours ago
t's not just the war machine but the entire system, the corporatocracy, of which the MIC
is a part. And there is no way to change the system from within the system because whatever
is anti-establishment becomes absorbed and neutered and part of the system.
Tulsi Gabbard ran on anti interventionism foreign policy.
Look how fast the DNC disappeared her.
Of course destroying Kamala Harris in a debate and going after the ancient evil Hitlery
sealed her fate.
BarkingWolf , 2 hours ago
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military
presence abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As
military historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
Now wait just a minute there mister, that sounds like criticism of the Donald John PBUH
PBUH PBUH ... you can't do that ... the cult followers will call you a leftist and a commie
if you point out stuff like that even if it is objectively true! That's strike one, punk.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance.
November doesn't have anything to do with anything really. The appeal to conscience is
wasted. The appeal would be better spent on removing the political class that is on the AIPAC
dole and have dual citizenship in a foreign country in the ME while pretending to serve
America while they are members of Congress. That's only the tip of the spear ... and that is
a nonstarter from the get go.
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment,
and the military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry
president."
I don't think Trump is necessarily a war power hungry president. While it is true that we
have not withdrawn from Syria and basically stole their oil as Trump has repeated promised he
would do, it is also true that Trump has yet to deliver Israels war with Iran and in fact had
called back an invasion of Iran ten minutes before a flotilla of US warships was about to set
sail to ignite such an invasion leaving Tel Aviv not only aggrieved, but angry as well.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit
one who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With
several left-leaning comrades ...
Okay, this is where you are starting to lose me .... i't like listening to a concert and
suddenly the music is hitting sour notes that are off key, off tempo, and don't seem to fit
somehow.
Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient of two Medals of Honor for
service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler sided with the poor and
working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I bonus payments. And
he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that "war is just a
racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for
Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
Butler was correct, war especially nowadays, is a racket that makes rich people who never
seem to get their hands dirty, even richer. As one grunt put it long ago, "it's a dirty job,
but somebody has to do it."
That "somebody" is going to be the kids of the little people (the real high-class
muscle-men ) who are hated by their political class overlords even as the political class are
worshipped as gods.
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About
Face: Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our
Troops Home. US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right.
The problem here is that the so-called "left" brand has always been about war and the
capitalism of death.
The Democrat party is really the group that started the American civil war for instance,
they are the ones behind legacy of Eugenists like Margaret Sanger who was a card carrying
Socialist who founded the child murder mill known today as Planned Parenthood that sadly
still exists under Trump but has turned into the industrialized slaughter of children ...even
after birth so that their organs can be "harvested" for profit.
Sjursen's affinity for "the left" as saintly purveyors of peace, goodness, love, and life
strikes me as rather disingenuous. Then he seems to argue if I read the analysis correctly
that conscription will somehow be the panacea for the insatiable appetite for war?
One false flag such as The Gulf of Tonkin or 911 or even Perl Harbor or the Sinking of the
Lusitania or the assassination of an Arch Duke ... is all that is really needed to arouse the
unbridled hoards to march off to battle with almost erotic enthusiasm -the political class
KNOWS IT!
Amendment X , 2 hours ago
And don't forget President Wilson (D) who was re-elected on the platform "He kept us out
of the war" only to drag U.S. into the hopeless European Monarchary driven WWI.
11b40 , 1 hour ago
Yo! Low class muscle man here, and I have to agree with bringing back the draft. It should
never have been eliminated, and is the root of the golbalists abiity to keep us in
Afghanistan, and other parts of the ME, for going on 20 years.
Skin in the game. It means literally everything. As noted we now have 2 generations of men
who never had to give much thought at all to what's happening around the world, and how
America is involved....and look at the results. It would be a much different situation today
if all those 18 year olds had to face the draft board with an unforgiving lottery.
Yes, one false falg can whip up the country to a war time fever pitch, but unless there is
a real, serious threat, the fever cannot be maintained. The 1969 draft lottery caught me when
I stayed out the first semester of my senior year. Didn't want to go, but accepted my fate
and did the best job I could to stay alive and keep those around me as safe as possible. In
1966, I was in favor of the war, and was about to go Green Beret on the buddy system. We were
going to grease gooks with all the enthusiasm of John Wayne. My old man, an artillery 1st Sgt
at the time in Germany, talked me out of it. More like get your *** on a plane back to the
States and into college, befroe i kick it up around your shouders. A WW2 & Korea vet, he
told me then it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The point is, when kids are getting drafted, Mom's, Dad's, and everyone else concerned
with the safety of their friends & relatives, start paying attention and asking hard
questions of politicians. Using Afghanistan as an example, we would have been on the way out
by the 2004 election cycle, or at max before the next one in 2008. That was 12 years ago, and
we are still there.
I addition, the reason we went would have been more closely examined, and there may have
been a real investigtion into 9/11. Plus, I am convinced that serving your country makes for
a better all around citizen, and God knows, we need better citizens.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo started new cold war with China, but have no way to back up their threats
and win it!! When i was in Kosovo peace corps i heard so many stories from Albanian who were
blamed to be Russian or American spy because of double cold war against Albania. Trump and
Pompeo just gave excuse to Xi to blame anyone who protest as American spy. BBC were showing
China's broadcast of the protests in Oregon to Hong Kong with subtitle "Do you really want
American democracy?", LMFAO
Max21c , 2 hours ago
Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the strongest military in the world,"
promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our troops for the challenges of the
next century, not the last one."
The United States shall continue to have a weak military until it starts to fix its
foreign policy and diplomacy. You cannot have the strongest military in the world if you lack
a good foreign policy and good diplomacy. Brains are a lot more important than battleships,
battalions, bullets, barrels, or bombs. Get a frickin' clue you friggin' Washington
morons.
Washington is weak because they are dumb. Blind, deaf, and dumb.
Heroic Couplet , 2 hours ago
Too little, too late. Great ad for a book that will be forgotten in a week. Read Bolton's
book. The minute Trump tries to reduce troops, Bolton is right there, saying "No, we can't
move troops to the perimeter. No, we can't move troops from barracks to tents at the
perimeter." Who needs AI?
Erik Prince wrote 3.5 years ago that 4th gen warfare consists of cyberwarfare and
bio-weapons. The US military is fooked. There's probably an interesting book to be
researched: How do Republicans feel about contracting COVID-19 after listening to Trump
fumble?
ChecksandBalances , 3 hours ago
Blame the voters. Run on a platform to reduce military and police spending. See how many
of those lose. Probably all of them. You have to stop feeding the beast. This is a slogan
Trump correctly said but as usual didn't actually mean. We should cut all military and police
spending by 1/2 and then take the remaining money and build a smarter, more efficient
military and police force.
Max21c , 3 hours ago
It's not just the "Deep State." It's Washingtonians overall. It's Deep Crazy. They're all
Deep Crazy! They're nuts. And the rare exceptions that may know better and have enough common
sense to know its wrong to sick the secret police on innocent American civilians aren't going
to say anything or do anything to stop it. The few that know better in foreign policy aren't
going to say anything or do anything against the new Cold Wars on the Eastern Front against
China or on the Western Front against Russia since they're not willing to go up against the
Regime. So the Regimists know they have carte blanche to persecute or terrorize or go after
any that stand in their way. This is how tyrannies and police states operate. It's the nature
of the beast. At a minimum they brow beat people into submission. People don't want to stick
their neck out and risk going up against the Regime and risk losing to the Regime, its secret
police, and the powers that be. They shy away from anything that would bring the Regime and
its secret police and its radicals, extremists, fanatics, and zealots their way.
nonkjo , 4 hours ago
It's okay to be against "forever war" and still not have to be a progressive douchbag.
Sjursen is an unprincipled ******** artist. He leaves Iraq disillusioned as a lieutenant
but sticks around long enough for them to pay for his grad school and give him some sweet
"resume building" experiences that he can stand on to sell books? FYI, from commissioning
time as a second lieutenant to promotion to captain is 3 years...that means Sjusen was so
disillusioned that he decided to stick around for 12 more years which is about 9 years longer
than he actually needed to as an Academy grad (he only had to serve 6 unless he elected to go
to grad school).
The bottom line is Sjusen capitalizes on people not knowing how the military works. That
is, that his own self-interest far outweighs his the principles he espouses. Typical leftist
hypoctite.
Max21c , 4 hours ago
...the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and anti-imperial
wave ..."
Perhaps the USA just needs a better foreign policy. Though we all know that's not going to
happen with the flaky screwballs of Washington and the flaky screwballs in the Pentagon, CIA,
State Department, foreign policy establishment, think tanks et cetera.
Minor technical point: the time for the "anti-imperial wave" was before Washingtonians
destroyed much of the world and created their strategic blunders and disastrous foreign
policy. You folks all went along with this nonsense and now you have your quagmires, forever
wars, and numerous trouble spots that have popped up here and there along the way to
boot.
Pottery barn rule: you broke it and you own it and it's yours...Ma'am please pay at the
register on the way out...Sorry Ma'am there's no more free gluing...though the gluing
specialist may be in on the third Thursday this month though it's usually the second Tuesday
each month...
Contemporaneously, in the same vein the American public has been brainwashed into going
along with the new Cold Wars on the Western Front against Moscow and the even newer Cold War
on the Eastern Front against Beijing. It's like P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every
minute," and you fools in the American public just keep buying right in to the brainwashing.
They're now successfully indoctrinating you into buying into their new Cold Wars with Russia
and China. The Cold War on the Eastern Front versus Peking is more getting more fanciful
attentions at the moment and the Cold War on the Western Front has temporarily been relegated
to the back burner but they'll move the Western Front Cold War from simmer to boil over
whenever it suits their needs. It's just a rendition of the Oceania has always been at war
with East Asia and Eurasia is our friend are just gameplays right out of George Orwell's
1984.
Most of the quagmires can be fixed to a certain extent by applying some cement and
engineering to the quicksand and many of the trouble spots can become more settled and less
unstable if not stable in some instances. Even some of the more serious strategic problems
like the South China Sea, North Korean nuclear weapons development, and potential Iranian
nuclear weapons development can still be resolved through peaceful strategies and
solutions.
In re sum, while I won't disparage a peace movement I do not believe it is either
necessary nor proper simply because you will not solve anything through a peace movement. The
sine qua non or quintessential element is simply to end one of these wars successfully
through a peaceful diplomatic solution or solve one of these serious foreign policy problems
through diplomacy which is something that hasn't been the norm since the downfall of the
Berlin Wall, is no longer in favor, and which is the necessary element to prove that peace
can be achieved through strategy and diplomacy and thereby change the course of the country's
future.
In foreign affairs the foreign policy establishment has its pattern of behavior and it is
that pattern of behavior that has to be changed. It's the mindset of the Washingtonians &
elites that has to be changed. Just taking to the streets won't really change their ways or
their beliefs for any significant part of the duration. They may pay lip service to peace
& diplomacy but it won't win out in their minds in the long run. They are so warped in
their views and beliefs that it'll have little or no effect over the long haul. As soon as
the protests dissipate they'll be right back at it, back to their bad ways and bad
behavior.
Son of Captain Nemo , 4 hours ago
For the past 19 years... And as Anti-War as you will ever get!...
Was it George Carlin that said " if voting made a difference they wouldn't let us do it "
? The only way to stop these forever wars is for people to stop joining the military. Parents
should teach their children that joining the military and trotting off to some country to
fight a war for the elite is not being patriotic . I was in the military from 1964 -1968.
When Lyndon Johnson became president he drug out the Vietnam war as long as he could. Oh !
Lady Byrd Johnson bought Decon Company [ rat poison ] when most people never heard of it.
Johnson bought this rat poison , government paid for ,at an inflated price . Sent ship loads
of it to Vietnam .Never mind all the Americans and so called enemy killed.. Jane Fonda ,
Hanoi Jane , was really a hero who helped save countless lives by helping to end the war.
Tommy and **** Smothers , Smother Brothers , spoke out against the war . Our government had
them black balled from TV. Our government is probably as corrupt as any other country.
A piece of irony, one of our greatest generals was Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme
Commander in WWII and two term president. He kept the peace for almost 10 years and warned
Americans to beware of the "military-industrial complex." Most military men never want war,
they just make sure they are ready if it comes. We have had the military industrial complex
for way too long, it needs to be reduced and we need more generals to run for president, Gen.
Flynn maybe? I'll also take Schwartzkoff.
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
captain noob , 7 hours ago
Capitalism has no morals
Profit is the driving force of every single thing
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
Chief Joesph , 7 hours ago
After what General Smedley Butler had to say and warned us about, here we are, 90 years
later, doing the very same thing. Goes to show how utterly dumb, unprogressive, sheepish, and
Medieval Americans really are. And you thought this is what makes America Great????
cowboyted , 8 hours ago
The U.S. Constitution provides for a "national defense." Yet, the last time we were
attacked by a foreign nation was on Dec. 7, 1941 in which, the Congress declared war on
Japan. Yet, in the past 100 years our country's leaders have convinced Americans that we can
wage war if the issue concerns our "national INTEREST." This is wrong and needs to be deleted
and replaced with our Constitution's language. Also, Congress is the ONLY Constitutional
authority to declare war, not the executive branch. Too many countries, including the U.S.,
spend too much money preparing for war on levels of destruction that are unnecessary. We must
attain a new paradigm with leading countries to achieve a mutual understanding that the
people of the world are better off with jobs, food, families, peace, and a chance at a better
life, filled with hope, faith, and flourishing communities. Things have to change.
transcendent_wannabe , 8 hours ago
I have to agree in sentiment with the author, but the reality of humans on earth almost
demands constant war, it is the price we pay for the modern city lifestyle. There are various
reasons.
1. Ever since WW1, the country has become citified, and the old peaceful country farm life
was replaced with the rat race of industrial production. Without war, there is no need for
the level of industrial production required to give full employment to the overpopulated
cities. People will scream for war and jingoism when they have no city jobs. How do you deal
with that? Sure, War is a Racket, but so far a necessary racket.
2. Every 20 years the military needs a real shooting war to battle test its upcoming
soldiers and new equipment. Now the battles are against insurgencies... door-to-door in
cities and ghettos, and new tactics need to be field tested. If the military goes more than
20 years without a real shooting war, they lose the real men, the sargeant majors, who just
become fat pot bellied desk personel without the adrenaline of a real fight.
3. Humans inately like to fight. Even children, boys wrestle, girls taunt one another.
There is no way discovered yet to keep people from turning violent in their attempts to steal
what others have, or to gain dominance thru physical intimidation. Without war, gangs will
form and fight over territorial boundaries. There is no escaping it.
4. Earth is where the battle field is, Battlefield Earth. There is no fighting allowed in
heaven, so Earth is where souls come to fight. Nobody on earth likes it, but fighting and war
is here to stay, and you should really use this life to find out how to transcend earth and
get to a place where war is not needed or allowed, like heaven or Valhalla.
Tortuga , 8 hours ago
So. He thinks the crooked, grifting, regressive hate US murdering dim pustules aren't the
warmongering, globalist, hate US, crooked, grifting, murdering republicrats. What a mo
ron.
HenryJonesJr , 8 hours ago
Real conservatives were always against foreign intervention. It was the Left that embraced
foreign wars (Wilson / Roosevelt / Truman / Johnson).
messystateofaffairs , 8 hours ago
From my perspective being a professional goon to serve the greater glory of international
criminals, is, aside from having to avoid the mirror, way too much hard and dangerous work
for the money. As a civilian of a society run by criminals on criminal imperialist
principles, I have no literal PTSD type of skin in that filthy game, but like most citizens,
knowing and unknowing, I do swim in that sewer everyday, doing my best to avoid bumping into
the larger turds. My "patriotism" lies where the turds are fewest, anywhere in the world that
might be.
bh2 , 8 hours ago
The threat to US interests is not in the ME (apart from Israel). It's in the Pacific.
NATO was never intended to be a defense arrangement perpetually funded by the US. Once
stood up and post-war economies in Europe were restored, it was supposed to be a European
defense shield with the US as ultimate backup. Not as a sugar-daddy for wealthy nations. Now
that Russia is no longer situated to attack through the Fulda Gap, NATO is a grotesque
expression of Parkinson's Law writ large.
China is a real threat to US interests. That's obvious simply by consulting a map.
Military assets committed to engagement in theaters that no longer seriously matter is
feckless and spendthrift. Particularly when Americans are put in harm's way with no prospect
of either winning or leaving.
Worse yet is the accelerating prospect of being drawn into conflict in the South China Sea
because fewer than decisive US and allied assets are deployed there.
While nations are now responding to that threat (including Japan, who are re-arming),
China must realize a successful Taiwan invasion faces steadily diminishing prospects. They
must act soon or give up the opportunity. Moreover, the CCP are loosing face with their own
people because of multiple calamities wreaking havoc. The danger of a desperate CCP turning
to a hot war to save face is an ever-rising threat. (If Three Gorges Dam fails, that could be
the final straw.)
FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor). It appears modern neo warmongers of all stripes would be delighted
if China were tempted into yet another senseless war in the Pacific. And more lives lost on
all sides.
While the size of US military and (ineptly named) "intelligence" budgets are vastly out of
scale, the short-term cost in money is secondary to risk of long-term cost in blood. Surging
the budget may make good sense when guns are all pointing in the wrong direction and
political donors don't care as long as it pays well.
Defeating that outrageously wasteful spending is the first battle to be won. Disengaging
from stupid, distracting, unwinnable conflicts is an imperative to achieve that goal.
The Judge , 8 hours ago
US. is the real threat to US interests.
DeptOfPsyOps-14527776 , 8 hours ago
An important part of this statue quo is propaganda and in particular neo-con
propaganda.
Once it was clear that agitating against the Russian federation had failed, they started
agitating against the PRC.
FDR administration wasn't that clever, they just had (((support))). They wanted Imperial
Japan unable to strengthen itself against the United Kingdom as it was waging a war against
the European Axis, did not realize that the Japanese fleet could reach as far as Hawaii and
after Pearl Harbor, believed the West Coast could have been attacked as well.
Hovewer, they likely expected the Japanese to intercept their fleet on the way to the
Phillipines after a war between Imperial Japan and the Commonwealth had started.
Salzburg1756 , 8 hours ago
"FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor)." No, we knew the japs were going to attack Pearl Harbor. We had
broken their code. That's why we sent our best battle ships away from Hawaii just before the
attack. Most of the ships they sank were old and worthless; our good ships were out at
sea.
TheLastMan , 4 hours ago
What constitutes "America's interests"?
the us military is the world community welcome wagon for global multi national Corp
chamber of commerce
Do us citizens serve corporations or do corporations serve us citizens?
next ?, who owns / controls corporations?
Alice-the-dog , 8 hours ago
There is a reason why suicide is the leading cause of death among active duty military.
They come to realize that what they are doing is perfect male bovine fecal matter. That they
are guilty of participating in completely unwarranted death and destruction.
847328_3527 , 9 hours ago
Liberals and "progressives" are traditionally against wars. This new "woke" group of
Demorats shows they are NOT liberals or progressives since they support the Establishment War
Criminals like Obama and his side kick, demented Biden, and Bloodthirsty Clinton.
There are sources all over the web giving 14 identifying points of fascism, including from
Umberto Eco, who lived under Mussolini, but I leave finding that material as an exercise.
Rump's a close fit. My take right now is more personal.
My father left Europe when Hitler came to power. Dad had wandered into one of his early
rallies and heard him speak, and it scared him when he assumed power. I heard these stories
growing up, and I've had a terrible sinking feeling for the last 4 years. Yeah, Rump is a tv
era artifact (like Reagan was a movie era artifact), with no true power or talent except
manipulating, but the occupant of that house is always a figurehead for the ruling class.
There are truly frightening people invested in his "movement", like the aforementioned Erik
Prince. I've been saying for years that Rump has been grooming CBP and ICE as his personal
force, loyal to him and not the nation, and we're seeing the fruition.
(added)
It's not so much that Rump is a fascist. He's a seed crystal for the American propensity
for fascism. Americans have always had a soft spot for fascism. I am frightened. I remember the
stories. up 5 users have voted. --
If I'm wrong, it's the first time I'm happy to be confused. -Don Van Vliet
News
/
Politics
Iran's top security official: Harsher revenge awaits perpetrators of Gen. Soleimani's assassination
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM
[ Last
Update: Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM ]
Members of the Iraqi honor guard walk past a huge portrait of Iran's late top general Qassem Soleimani (L) and Iraqi
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport last month, during a memorial
service held in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone on February 11, 2020. (Photo by AFP)
Iran's top security
official
says
harsher
revenge
awaits the perpetrators of the attack that killed senior Iranian anti-terrorism commander
Lieutenant
General Qassem Soleimani and his companions.
In a
post
on his Twitter
page on Wednesday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that US
President Donald Trump had admitted that the American, upon his direct order, committed the crime of assassinating General
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and
Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, who were two
prominent figures of the anti-terrorism campaign.
"The two Iranian and Iraqi nations are avengers of blood of these martyrs
and
will not rest until they punish the perpetrators," read part of the tweet.
"Harsher revenge is one the way," it concluded.
The two commanders and a number of their companions were assassinated in a US airstrike near Baghdad airport on January 3,
as General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.
Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist
group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
In retaliation for the attack, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles a US base in Iraq on January 8. According to
the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered "traumatic brain injuries" during the counterstrike. The
IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.
Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining Trump, who ordered the assassination, and
several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Iran will never forget Washington's
assassination of General Soleimani and will definitely deliver a "counterblow" to the United States.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the counterblow to the Americans,"
Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran.
"They killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter," Ayatollah
Khamenei told the Iraqi premier.
A UN special rapporteur says
has
condemned the US assassination and said Washington has put the world at unprecedented peril with its murder of Iran's top
anti-terror commander.
Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has also warned that it is high
time the international community broke its silence on Washington's drone-powered unlawful killings.
Press TV's website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
The Congress is serving the interests of the US Oligarchy, at home and abroad. The
strategy is simple: keep allies/vassals in obeisance and non-competitive and destroy
polities that do not subject themselves to a similar system (which ends up to become
subservient to the US interests anyways, in the long run). Thus, all enemies are polities
were Oligarchy doesn't run the roster, and are semi-socialist / socialist countries:
Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, in the past Iraq.
Fully fledged democracies, that truly enact the will of the people, would not do
something like this.
For those too young to remember the horrible American war on Yugoslavia in 1999, or
those who have forgot, or were misled with lies about Kosovo, here is a quick summary:
This is a very accurate and honest report what { NATO } the North American Terrorist
Organization did to Yugoslavia . If you Americans wish to know what kind of global
government you are promoting . You only have to find the actual transcripts of Milosevic's
trail . Don't read or listen to any fake news of the trail . You must read the trail
transcripts and judge for yourself The butcher of Balkans has kind of been exonerated after
his death . The world court is something to be very afraid of not at all a instrument of
justice .But the trail transcripts are about 5000 pages so you will have to work to find
out the truth .
WW2 and it's depiction in various films and TV programs has had an unexpected effect on
the military psyche. The US believes it won the war on it's own and the troops came home as
heroes. This is the expectation of the US military even today, unable to accept that it can
be defeated. "Thank you for your service" is a given whatever crimes had been committed
abroad on the innocent who had done them no harm whatsoever. The ICC is opposed on the
theory that US troops cannot commit torture or massacres.
The Joke is that the US has not one a war since WWII, except maybe Granada. As for War
Crimes, the Current President himself committed a War Crime, He gave a Pardon to a
Convicted War Criminal, that is actually breach of the Geneva Conventions, which is US
Treaty Law and as such equal to the Constitution itself in importance. Schedule 4 Article
146
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide
effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the
grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged
to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring
such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it
prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons
over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting
Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all
acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches
defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial
and defense, which shall not be less favorable than those provided by Article 105 and those
following of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August
12, 1949.
Article 147
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of
the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present
Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological
experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,
unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling
a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a
protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present
Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not
justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Article 148
No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High
Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party
in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
The President has by absolving the Navy Seal of the Liability, Absolved the United
States of the War Crime also, Now I understand that we will hear arguments here of the
Presidents ability to Pardon, but take this as a given, there is no way that During the
Nuremberg Trials the Prosecution of those War Crimes would have accepted the argument that
the Head of State of Germany (Hitler) had the blanket Authority to Pardon German War
Criminals. as such and this is why this was placed in the Geneva Conventions the very act
of Absolving a War Crime is itself a War Crime!
We could care less what the ICC is opposed to. We are not subject to the ICC or
international law. We can enforce it if needed but do not have to abide by it.
The micrograins of ICC jurisdiction and validity require a sharper legal mind than mine
to sift through. But the debate is revelatory of something else -
In general, the current domestic ICC debate reveals part of the true nature of the US
(helped in no small part by the hamfisted and transparent vulgarity of President Trump):
that we are in fact the rogue state that we accuse everyone else in the world of being.
If we are who we say we are we should be straight up supporting the ICC, helping to fund
it and increase its reach and investigative power. Far better than any military
intervention to deal with the truly bad actors in the world would be a legal intervention.
The idea that vicious and violent despots should run scared when they travel or otherwise
face arrest and extradition is exactly right.
But we're not. Why? The answer is obvious at this point - because we have powerful
players in our midst that would face that arrest. And should face that arrest.
Move comes as Libya gov't and Turkey demand an end of foreign intervention in support of
commander Khalifa Haftar.
####
I suspect In'Sultin Erd O'Grand is a mole of the garden kind. He goes about digging
one hole for himself after another. If he keeps this up, all the holes will merge in to
one and he will disappear! It would give the West a chance to have someone running Turkey
with a more reliably western perspective though I think it is clear that whatever comes next,
Turkey will not allow itself to be treated as a western annex and pawn.
US military spending is certainly much higher than it needs to be for US defense needs. But
the US military is not primarily defending the US. It is defending Asia from China, NATO from
Russia, and a number of countries from Iran, not to speak of Norkland.
IOW, the US military is defending US global hegemony, and is priced accordingly. What you
think of US military spending depends on what you think of the US as a hegemon.
I am not a fan of military spending – following an excellent post by John about
Eisenhower's famous speech (more tanks or more hospitals), I often use it as an example
opportunity cost when teaching. One can certainly claim that the budget should be lower but,
as a share of overall economic resources, the budget has been cut substantially in the last
30 years.
John, what say you about US/global military spending, which if cut and reallocated in the
low double digits could transform society? Do you think it's just politically untouchable? If
the US cut its military budget by say 25% it would still be formidable, especially given its
nuclear deterrent. For the life of me I can never understand why military budgets are
sacrosanct. Is it just WW2 and Cold War hangover? Couldn't the obvious effects of climate
change and the fragility of the economy subject to natural threats like the pandemic change
attitudes about overfunding the military (like the debacle of the F-35 program)?
Alan White @13 Military spending is about 3.4 per cent of US GDP, compared to 2 per cent
or less most places. So that's a significant and unproductive use of resources that could be
redirected to better effect. But the income of the top 1 per cent is around 20 per cent of
total income. If that was cut in half, there would be little or no reduction in the
productive services supplied by this group. If you want big change, that's where you need to
look.
I think some of the reluctance to cut military spending in the US is the extent to which
it acts as a politically unassailable source of fiscal stimulus and "welfare" in a country
where such things are otherwise anathema. Well, that and all of the grift it represents for
the donor class.
Posted by: time2wakeupnow | Jul 18 2020 18:59 utc | 13 But there are also very real First
Amendment interests implicated by laws which bar entities from spending money to express
political viewpoints."
With regard to Greenwald's opinion, mine is relatively simple: ban corporations from doing
*anything* in the political arena. Corporations are *not* people, regardless of the legal
myth that they are. Officers of corporations have no standing other than their personal
standing, and they should be barred from contributing to campaigns, or lobbying for
legislation or anything else outside of conducting the business they are *licensed by the
state* to do.
This does not apply to incorporated non-profit organizations which are organized to do
precisely what corporations should be banned from doing: advocate and attempt to influence
specific legislation or policies or candidates for office. For profit corporations should be
banned from doing anything to influence non-profit organizations, by the way, otherwise
corporations will do an end-run around the ban on political action by funding fake
"non-profit" organizations.
With regard to the large social media, there should be a law passed which 1) prevents them
from being sued regardless of anything their subscribers say on their platforms, and 2)
prevents them from censoring anything their subscribers say on their platforms. This was true
on the street and should be true on the Internet. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of the
Constitution and should be protected on the Internet.
That does not apply here in MOA because MOA is a small operation owned and operated by one
person. He has the right to ban or censor anything he likes. But if he was the size of
Facebook or Twitter, he would have serious social influence. In that case, it would be
justified to both hold him blameless for the trolls and also prevent him from censoring
trolls.
Dealing with offensive people on the large platforms (and even here) should be done by
providing the users adequate personal controls in their interface which enable the users to
remove content from their view that they don't like, while the content remains in view for
anyone who approves of it or doesn't care. Some forums have been doing this for years, such
as Slashdot.
These solutions are incredibly simple. The reason they are not implemented is because
different factions see benefit in not implementing them.
Naturally, as an anarchist, the solutions I suggest are predicated on the idiocy of having
states and corporations in the first place. Otherwise, all these "issues" wouldn't even
exist. This is what you get when you have a religious belief in the state and society.
"... Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41. ..."
"... Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from power. ..."
"... Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy. ..."
"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of ..."
SCOTT RITTER: Powell & Iraq -- Regime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental
Lie July 18, 2020 Save
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
T he New York Times Magazine has published a puff piece soft-peddling former
Secretary of State Colin Powell's role in selling a war on Iraq to the UN Security Council
using what turned out to be bad intelligence. "Colin Powell Still Wants Answers" is the title
of the article, written by Robert Draper. "The analysts who provided the intelligence," a
sub-header to the article declares, "now say it was doubted inside the CIA at the time."
Draper's article is an extract from a book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration
Took America into Iraq , scheduled for publication later this month. In the interest of
full disclosure, I was approached by Draper in 2018 about his interest in writing this book,
and I agreed to be interviewed as part of his research. I have not yet read the book, but can
note that, based upon the tone and content of his New York Times Magazine article, my
words apparently carried little weight.
Regime Change, Not WMD
I spent some time articulating to Draper my contention that the issue with Saddam Hussein's
Iraq was never about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but rather regime change, and that
everything had to be viewed in the light of this reality -- including Powell's Feb. 5, 2003
presentation before the UN Security Council. Based upon the content of his article, I might as
well have been talking to a brick wall.
Powell's 2003 presentation before the council did not take place in a policy vacuum. In many
ways, the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a continuation of
the 1991 Gulf War, which Powell helped orchestrate. Its fumbled aftermath was again, something
that transpired on Powell's watch as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
administration of George H. W. Bush.
Powell at UN Security Council. (UN Photo)
Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that
Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled
the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution
in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's
post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41.
Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to
continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security
Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD
prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these
sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from
power.
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
I bore witness to the reality of this policy as a weapons inspector working for the United
Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), created under the mandate of resolution 687 to oversee the
disarming of Iraq's WMD. Brought in to create an intelligence capability for the inspection
team, my remit soon expanded to operations and, more specifically, how Iraq was hiding retained
weapons and capability from the inspectors.
SCUDS
UN weapons inspectors in central Iraq, June 1, 1991. (UN Photo)
One of my first tasks was addressing discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of its modified SCUD
missile arsenal; in December 1991 I wrote an assessment that Iraq was likely retaining
approximately 100 missiles. By March 1992 Iraq, under pressure, admitted it had retained a
force of 89 missiles (that number later grew to 97).
After extensive investigations, I was able to corroborate the Iraqi declarations, and in
November 1992 issued an assessment that UNSCOM could account for the totality of Iraq's SCUD
missile force. This, of course, was an unacceptable conclusion, given that a compliant Iraq
meant sanctions would need to be lifted and Saddam would survive.
The U.S. intelligence community rejected my findings without providing any fact-based
evidence to refute it, and the CIA later briefed the Senate that it assessed Iraq to be
retaining a force of some 200 covert SCUD missiles. This all took place under Powell's watch as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
I challenged the CIA's assessment, and organized the largest, most complex inspection in
UNSCOM's history to investigate the intelligence behind the 200-missile assessment. In the end,
the intelligence was shown to be wrong, and in November 1993 I briefed the CIA Director's
senior staff on UNSCOM's conclusion that all SCUD missiles were accounted for.
Moving the Goalposts
The CIA's response was to assert that Iraq had a force of 12-20 covert SCUD missiles, and
that this number would never change, regardless of what UNSCOM did. This same assessment was in
play at the time of Powell's Security Council presentation, a blatant lie born of the willful
manufacture of lies by an entity -- the CIA -- whose task was regime change, not
disarmament.
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still delivered his speech to the UN Security
Council.
In October 2002, in a
briefing designed to undermine the credibility of UN inspectors preparing to return to
Iraq, the Defense Intelligence Agency trotted out Dr. John Yurechko, the defense intelligence
officer for information operations and denial and deception, to provide a briefing detailing
U.S. claims that Iraq was engaged in a systematic process of concealment regarding its WMD
programs.
John Yurechko, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefs reporters at the Pentagon on Oct.
8, 2002 (U.S. Defense Dept.)
According to Yurechko, the briefing was compiled from several sources, including "inspector
memoirs" and Iraqi defectors. The briefing was farcical, a deliberate effort to propagate
misinformation by the administration of Bush 43. I know -- starting in 1994, I led a concerted
UNSCOM effort involving the intelligence services of eight nations to get to the bottom of
Iraq's so-called "concealment mechanism."
Using innovative imagery intelligence techniques, defector debriefs, agent networks and
communications intercepts, combined with extremely aggressive on-site inspections, I was able,
by March 1998, to conclude that Iraqi concealment efforts were largely centered on protecting
Saddam Hussein from assassination, and had nothing to do with hiding WMD. This, too, was an
inconvenient finding, and led to the U.S. dismantling the apparatus of investigation I had so
carefully assembled over the course of four years.
It was never about the WMD -- Powell knew this. It was always about regime change.
Using UN as Cover for Coup Attempt
In 1991, Powell signed off on the incorporation of elite U.S. military commandos into the
CIA's Special Activities Staff for the purpose of using UNSCOM as a front to collect
intelligence that could facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein. I worked with this special
cell from 1991 until 1996, on the mistaken opinion that the unique intelligence, logistics and
communications capability they provided were useful to planning and executing the complex
inspections I was helping lead in Iraq.
This program resulted in the failed coup attempt in June 1996 that used UNSCOM as its
operational cover -- the coup failed, the Special Activities Staff ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM, and we inspectors were left holding the bag. The Iraqis had every right to be concerned
that UNSCOM inspections were being used to target their president because, the truth be told,
they were.
Nowhere in Powell's presentation to the Security Council, or in any of his efforts to recast
that presentation as a good intention led astray by bad intelligence, does the reality of
regime change factor in. Regime change was the only policy objective of three successive U.S.
presidential administrations -- Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.
Powell was a key player in two of these. He knew. He knew about the existence of the CIA's
Iraq Operations Group. He knew of the successive string of covert "findings" issued by U.S.
presidents authorizing the CIA to remove Saddam Hussein from power using lethal force. He knew
that the die had been cast for war long before Bush 43 decided to engage the United Nations in
the fall of 2002.
Powell Knew
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still allowed himself to be used as a front to sell this
conflict to the international community, and by extension the American people, using
intelligence that was demonstrably false. If, simply by drawing on my experience as an UNSCOM
inspector, I knew every word he uttered before the Security Council was a lie the moment he
spoke, Powell should have as well, because every aspect of my work as an UNSCOM inspector was
known to, and documented by, the CIA.
It is not that I was unknown to Powell in the context of the WMD narrative. Indeed, my name
came up during an
interview Powell gave to Fox News on Sept. 8, 2002, when he was asked to comment on a quote
from my speech to the Iraqi Parliament earlier that month in which I stated:
"The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been
backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of
weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United
States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation."
"We have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but I'm afraid
that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the
region on that kind of an assertion by somebody who's not in the intelligence chain any
longer If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right,
why don't they say, 'Anytime, any place, anywhere, bring 'em in, everybody come in -- we are
clean?' The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what
we're going to do about it. And that's why it's been the policy of this government to insist
that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions."
UN inspectors in Iraq. (UN Photo)
Of course, in November 2002, Iraq did just what Powell said they would never do -- they let
the UN inspectors return without preconditions. The inspectors quickly exposed the fact that
the "high quality" U.S. intelligence they had been tasked with investigating was pure bunk.
Left to their own devices, the new round of UN weapons inspections would soon be able to give
Iraq a clean bill of health, paving the way for the lifting of sanctions and the continued
survival of Saddam Hussein.
Powell knew this was not an option. And thus he allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for
disseminating more lies -- lies that would take the U.S. to war, cost thousands of U.S. service
members their lives, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of regime
change.
Back to Robert Draper. I spent a considerable amount of time impressing upon him the reality
of regime change as a policy, and the fact that the WMD disarmament issue existed for the sole
purpose of facilitating regime change. Apparently, my words had little impact, as all Draper
has done in his article is continue the false narrative that America went to war on the weight
of false and misleading intelligence.
Draper is wrong -- America went to war because it was our policy as a nation, sustained over
three successive presidential administrations, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. By 2002 the
WMD narrative that had been used to support and sustain this regime change policy was
weakening.
Powell's speech was a last-gasp effort to use the story of Iraqi WMD for the purpose it was
always intended -- to facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In this light, Colin
Powell's speech was one of the greatest successes in CIA history. That is not the story,
however, Draper chose to tell, and the world is worse off for that failed opportunity.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet
Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm,
and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
ofConsortium News.
PleaseContributeto Consortium
News on its 25th Anniversary
Or did he? Yet another evil rumor designed to poison relations with Russia. This time from
Yahoo
Still Trump has not only appointed the aggressive Michael D'Andrea, the 'Prince of Darkness',
to head the
CIA's Iran Mission Center but he
gave the CIA wide ranging new powers to run cyber attacks against the country:
Notable quotes:
"... When has the CIA ever had oversight? ..."
"... Pretty sure oversight jumped out the 84th floor window very early on. Voluntarily of course. ..."
I'm sure Trump thinks - Let the CIA play in their cyber sandbox. The Norks dissed Trump
and the others deserve it, so, so what? It keeps the spooks happy and occupied, and out of
Trump's hair.
play_arrow 1
m0ckingbird , 6 minutes ago
are you sure trump thinks? like AT ALL? you give your grown man-child way too much
credit
ExposeThem511 , 1 hour ago
When has the CIA ever had oversight?
metanoic , 54 minutes ago
Pretty sure oversight jumped out the 84th floor window very early on. Voluntarily of
course.
To clear the air, I recalled the "Non-Aligned Movement a forum of developing states not
formally aligned with or against any major power bloc or nations." It consist of - Nehru
India, Tito Yugoslavia, Bung Karno, Bapa Sukarno Indonesia, Zhou Enlai China, Habib Bourguiba
Tunisian, Norodom Sihanouk Cambodian, U Nu Burma, Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt,
Fidel Castro Cuba, at the Bandung conference in 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was born.
Later many nationalism leaders were disposed. How about Sukarno, did he "slaughter" the
Chinese? Nope that's from what I was told from BBC and it remains in my mind until uncle
tungstan and Lucci points out my mistakes, it was Suharto with CIA and Brit Foreign Office
that brought down Sukarno and Suharto was disposed his wife was known as Ten Percent.
I was growing up and aligned with Americans exceptionlism. It was after ww2 and
nationalism on the rise (almost) everywhere changed of government. In school each morning
assembled to raised the union jack and sing god save the freaking queen. That's when I was
indoctrinated from BBC the evils of communism and socialism. Western imperialist was the way
to go man. Much of my lunch hours in the library mainly reading, one book, my librarian
recommended The Jungle is Neutral by Spencer F, Chapman . The book still available and
probably my view has changed am no longer accepting the stupid Brit and Yank.
@ JC there is a recent book which analyses how the US policy of preventive mass murder and
torture in Indonesia has inspired policies, structures and knowhow in many of US client
states : https://vincentbevins.com/book/
Thank you for clearing the air on Sukarno. The Indonesian coup that destroyed the
democratic socialis government he led was a tragic loss to the people of Indonesia. The coup
leader Suharto fully backed by the CIA murdered many hundreds of thousands of civilians and
their elected officials and educators and medical staff. It was a ruthless murderous purge.
The Dulles brothers at the top.
Suharto then ruled for decades and Indonesia became the evil corruption ridden prison it
is today. This sad country is our planets exemplar failed state ruled by criminal oligarchs
and their owned courts and religion.
Indonesian people are great in their spirit and humility, they deserve better.
JC and others who have been conversing with him on the issue of the Indonesian military's
persecution and slaughter of Chinese Indonesians and others perceived to be Communist or
sympathetic to Communism or socialism might be interested in watching Joshua Oppenheimer's
"The Act of Killing" to see how small-time thugs and young people (especially those in the
Pancasila Youth movement) alike were caught up in the anti-Communist brainwashing frenzy in
Indonesia during the 1960s and participated in the mass persecution and slaughter
themselves.
Oppenheimer tracked down some of these former killers in North Sumatra and got them to
re-enact their crimes in whatever from they desired. For various reasons, some of them
psychological, they were quite enthusiastic about this idea. Significantly they chose to
re-enact their crimes as a Hollywood Western / Godfather-style pastiche film, even getting
their relatives and friends to play extras.
The mass murderers interviewed did well for themselves with some of them even becoming
politicians and rising to the level of Cabinet Minister in the Indonesian government. The
film also shows something of how deeply corruption is embedded in everyday life with one
prospective political candidate going around bribing villagers and demanding money from
small-time ethnic Chinese shopkeepers in his electorate and threatening them with violence if
they do not cough up.
The major issue I have with the film is that by focusing on these mass murderers in North
Sumatra, it misses the overall national and international political and social context that
still supports and applauds what these killers did. As long as this continues, the likelihood
that similar persecutions and genocidal purges of outsider groups and individuals, be they
Chinese, Christian, Shi'a and other heterodox Muslim, academics, trade unionists, separatists
in Maluku, West Papua or other parts of Indoneisa, and all these purges supported by the West
in some way, will occur in the future is strong.
@ Jen 114
"As long as this continues, the likelihood that similar persecutions and genocidal purges of
outsider groups and individuals, be they Chinese, Christian, Shi'a and other heterodox
Muslim, academics, trade unionists, separatists in Maluku, West Papua or other parts of
Indoneisa, and all these purges supported by the West in some way, will occur in the future
is strong."
Yeah, "we" Anglos" are the only bad guys on this planet - not.
The CIA & co are not yet into slaughtering of Christians. Extremist Indonesian Sunni
Muslims were guilty in the above atrocities, continuing as harassments till today. Hard to
swallow: bad brown people do exist!
The question is : what is the role of FBI in organizing and driving the current protests,
especially the action of antifa?
Notable quotes:
"... It would be fitting justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards ..."
"... Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other. ..."
"... Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power? ..."
"... In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar? ..."
Though government infiltrators undoubtedly helped to fragment Occupy, most protesters
gleefully went along with their own gelding, because, to them, it was never about rallying the
99% towards common goals, as they vaguely claimed, but airing minority grievances. Most
importantly, they could look
cool doing it.
With visual evidence uploaded onto FaceBook, Tumblr and Instagram, etc., soy boys from strip
malled subdivisions could accrue street cred.
Since "Occupy Everything, Demand
Nothing " became Occupy's rallying cry, it achieved literally nothing, predictably. A month
after all tents were cleared from Zuccotti Park, Time Magazine anointed "The Protester" as
Person Of The Year, so for being symbolically homeless for two months, the sans cazzo got a
participation lollipop from the bossman.
Since then, unscathed and smirking Wall Street has only amped up its state-of-the-art shell
games, punctuated by bailouts. What's left of the country's wealth keeps flowing to the
top.
Although Occupy Wall Street exposed widespread discontent, it was deftly tamed by the state,
without addressing any of the issues raised. Worsened economic malaise is papered over with
fake news and statistics. Unable to afford even an efficiency, the young and not so young
resignedly or bitterly move back home. I'm sure you know a few.
Beneath each basement, there's another, even darker and danker, Americans kept discovering,
so they just had to suck it up and simmer on, when not overdosing on opioids. It's the new
normal.
Occupy Wall Street protesters were mostly under-35-year-old whites, with at least some
college education. Now, the same demographic is back on the streets, but instead of chanting
for economic justice and representing, at least in theory, the 99%, they're fighting Fascism
and racism. With their inclusive definitions of such sins, however, they're warring against
most of the country.
... ... ...
On August 14th, 2018, CNN reeducated us, "There is no
national antifa group. It is mostly made up of people who are far left of center, who make it
their mission to battle Fascists, racists and alt right extremists." It's a grassroot,
homegrown resistance to hate, that's all. "Behind the masks are people from all walks of life,
artist, mom, ordinary American, as well as anarchist." Four most gentle faces were shown.
On June 16th, 2020, CNN reemphasized
that antifa was a belief system that unified all anti-Fascists, whatever their color, age or
background, so how could you be against it, unless you're a Fascist?! A burly, genial black man
explained, "It basically means that you are against Fascism. If you are against Fascism, then
you are antifa."
In a BLACK LIVES MATTER muscle-T, a white wuss added, "Antifa is not a group. It's not like
everybody sits in, like, some basement, talking about how to overthrow the Fascist regime. I
walked around picking up trash yesterday, behind the protesters. That's what antifa looks
like."
Burly black guy, "White people have to be involved in fighting racism, in fighting white
supremacy [ ] But if you are a white ally, remember that you still have to follow the lead of
people of color."
The New York Times and Washington Post have also written sympathetically about antifa. When
the corporate media give you a positive spin, it must mean you're serving the establishment.
Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's rulers
have antifa.
Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another.
Zealously branding its enemies as racist or Fascist, antifa generates more racism and
Fascism.
Slammed by the economic crisis of 2008, Americans started to look more closely at Wall
Street, Goldman Sachs and the Federal
Reserve , etc., and they were enlightened by people like Ron Paul and Matt Taibbi.
In Rolling Stone, Taibbi wrote, "The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is
that it's everywhere. 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."
Banksters were scrutinized with increasing intensity. It was in this climate that Occupy
Wall Street was born.
Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although
the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell, with millions suddenly laid off,
and millions of mom and pops permanently ruined. Thanks to another monster bailout, only Wall
Street is doing well.
Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are
imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and
attack cops or each other.
When your tyrants can't even be identified, much less found, no coup, uprising or revolution
is possible, and it's pointless to assassinate an American president, since he is but a puppet,
so who should be shot?
The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been
caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been
shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.
American elections are cathartic farces. Drawn out and elaborately staged, they're designed
to give false hopes and stoke emotions. With the national mood already so volatile and foul,
however, this year's balloting promises to be a horror show. Unable to aim at their oppressors,
Americans will be reduced to shooting each other.
"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another."
Kudos. Well said!!!
"Who should be shot?" I answer the question in the purely hypothetical, I am not in any
way suggesting this line of response. But the answer is obvious.
When Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the communists, it put the fear of God
(or fear of something) in the hearts of the western plutocrats and we got the New Deal and
more than a half century of the working class getting at least sort of a reasonable cut of
the proceeds.
"Who shall we shoot?" If the Jeff Bezoses and Zuckerbergs and Soroses etc. of the world
take a personal hit – if they begin to think that even they, in their well-guarded
bubbles, are not safe – only then will we get any sort of consideration from the top.
It is personal fear, not morality, that will cause the elites to again begin to value
stability and order over rapacious looting.
No I am not in any way suggesting violence. Not me, no how. But it remains true that only
the threat of personal violence directed at the elites, will cause them to reconsider their
current socially destructive path.
Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously
broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been shot.
The CIA recruited Diem to be the puppet ruler of a nation they had created. He was living
in New Jersey and then became head of South Vietnam without an election. He had attended the
same elite school in Hue as Ho Chi Mihn and meant well. When he saw that fighting was
increasing he wanted to cut a deal with Ho Chi Mihn, who had won the 1954 elections was the
legitimate ruler of all Vietnam after the temporary cease fire line that divided Vietnam
ended in 1956. The DMZ was an illusion created by the CIA and Pentagon.
This is why Diem was killed by a CIA coup, and was followed by other puppet leaders. The
CIA's attempt to create a new nation that became known as South Vietnam failed by 1964, which
is why American troops arrived.
Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's
rulers have antifa.
The Black Shirts were able to gracefully fade away for the most part, but the other two
groups had a rather difficult go once they had served their purpose. It would be fitting
justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards once President Abrams is safely
ensconced: After all, you can't feed a country with hooligan student revolutionaries roving
the streets rather than working the farms.
The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been
caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been
shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.
Liz Chaney is thwarting Trump's troop draw-down in Afghanistan with help from Dems as well
as Republicans.
House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump's Planned Withdrawal of
Troops From Afghanistan and Germany
Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly,
although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged,
mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their
society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops
or each other.
Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why
not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power?
In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US
should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have
allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions
but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional
surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases
there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into
castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar?
Great article.
"Their movement fizzled out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of
narcissistic posturing, with everyone making self-important speeches about his or her pet
cause, to an audience of fifty, tops, which is not how a revolution is ever made."
"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another."
Is it ANY wonder why Elites love the post-modern, the PC, & antifa so much. Talk about
the "magic pudding" & the gift that just keeps on giving .
Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who
are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot
stores and attack cops or each other .
Hey! What the 19th century robber baron said has finally come true:
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." -- Jay Gould
They are being paid: BLM and Antifa people are being bankrolled. Just tote up the
corporate donations the BLM in the past week and flip. More money than most nations have in
the treasury. As to Antifa, Soros funded them for years. All to get rid of white people.
You left out the Media Jackals. They are the willing and ever ready mouthpieces for the
Satanic Cult the Financial Elites would turn America into. In fact, the Media liars have as
much culpability as any group in the country for our current disaster.
Who should be shot? Start with the neocons (particularly the Jewish ones). They are the
head of the snake in the West – especially the U.S. – today. Most evils are
downstream from their actions/policies, directly or indirectly.
Who should be shot? It's hard imaging Americans staging a revolution. The DOD says 75% of
young Americans don't quality to serve in the military, because they are too fat or too dumb.
Our protesters protest because they get to appear virtuous -- they need some kind of
participation award.
...Upthread someone mentioned Bezos as being in the 1%. While he is certainly uber
wealthy, I've always thought of him in a different way. In my mind the 1% are the wall street
guys who financialize everything, and if they all went away tomorrow our (main street)
economy would greatly improve. If Amazon goes away, I'd have to start buying all my crap in
person. Ugh
The same fools assume the 1 percent will hang around when things become very adverse in
the US. Nope. They'll do what wealthy South Africans did and the US lumpens will do what
Boers did.
Nobody cares if the poor in the gutters of Wall Street go on hunger strike The one percent
does not care if the poor go hungry anyhow.
Average middle class Americans are naive as to how callous and unconcerned the one percent
is. The blacks and Hispanics at the bottom of society are aware, of course. That is why laws
and customs mean nothing, nor bourgeois values. But it is the middle class who is actually
naive enough to believe the one percent gives a fat rat's ass about them, about America,
about their feelings.
Both Antifa and the Patriots have a huge red-blue target painted on their backs. Unless
they can identify their overlords clearly, they will fight each other.
Hey Americans, who is it that you cannot criticize?
This is all about maintaining the US-centered global neoliberal empire. After empires is created the the USA became the
salve of imperial interests and in a way stopped existing as an independent country. Everything is thrown on the altar of "full
spectrum Dominance". The result is as close to a real political and economic disaster as we can get. Like USSR leadership the US
elite realized now that neoliberalism is not sustainable, but can't do anything as all bets were made for the final victory of
neoliberalism all over the world, much like Soviets hoped for the victory of communism. That did not happened and although the USA
now is in much better position then the USSR in 60th (but with the similar level of deterioration of cognitive abilities of the
politicians as the USSR). In this sense COVID-19 was a powerful catalyst of the crush of the US-centered neoliberal empire
Notable quotes:
"... On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy." ..."
"... Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake. Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption, torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, to America's horror. ..."
"... The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would be threatening war. ..."
"... In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments" – the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation. ..."
Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, unkindly characterized the
foreign policy establishment in Washington, D.C., as "the Blob." Although policymakers
sometimes disagree on peripheral subjects, membership requires an absolute commitment to U.S.
"leadership," which means a determination to micro-manage the world.
Reliance on persuasion is not enough. Vital is the willingness to bomb, invade, and, if
necessary, occupy other nations to impose the Blob's dictates on other peoples. If foreigners
die, as they often do, remember the saying about eggs and omelets oft repeated by communism's
apologists. "Stuff happens" with the best-intentioned policies.
One might be inclined to forgive Blob members if their misguided activism actually benefited
the American people. However, all too often the Blob's policies instead aid other governments
and interests. Washington is overrun by the representatives of and lobbyists for other nations,
which constantly seek to take control of US policy for their own advantage. The result are
foreign interventions in which Americans do the paying and, all too often, the dying for
others.
The problem is primarily one of power. Other governments don't spend a lot of time
attempting to take over Montenegro's foreign policy because, well, who cares? Exactly what
would you do after taking over Fiji's foreign ministry other than enjoy a permanent vacation?
Seize control of international relations in Barbados and you might gain a great tax
shelter.
Subvert American democracy and manipulate US foreign policy, and you can loot America's
treasury, turn the US military into your personal bodyguard, and gain Washington's support for
reckless war-mongering. And given the natural inclination of key American policymakers to
intervene promiscuously abroad for the most frivolous reasons, it's surprisingly easy for
foreign interests to convince Uncle Sam that their causes are somehow "vital" and therefore
require America's attention. Indeed, it is usually easier to persuade Americans than foreign
peoples in their home countries to back one or another international misadventure.
The culprits are not just autocratic regimes. Friendly democratic governments are equally
ready to conspiratorially whisper in Uncle Sam's ear. Even nominally classical liberal
officials, who believe in limiting their own governments, argue that Americans are obligated to
sacrifice wealth and life for everyone else. The mantra seems to be liberty, prosperity, and
peace for all – except those living in the superpower tasked by heaven with protecting
everyone else's liberty, prosperity, and peace.
Although the problem has burgeoned in modern times, it is not new. Two centuries ago fans of
Greek independence wanted Americans to challenge the Ottoman Empire, a fantastic bit of
foolishness. Exactly how to effect an international Balkans rescue was not clear, since the
president then commanded no aircraft carriers, air wings, or nuclear-tipped missiles. Still,
the issue divided Americans and influenced John Quincy Adams' famous 1821 Independence Day
address.
Warned Adams:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there
will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of
monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the
champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance
of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting
under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would
involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of
individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of
freedom."
"The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . She
might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit .
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a
spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has
been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of
mankind would permit, her practice."
Powerful words, yet Adams was merely following in the footsteps of another great American,
George Washington. Obviously, the latter was flawed as a person, general, and president.
Nevertheless, his willingness to set a critical precedent by walking away from power left an
extraordinary legacy. As did his insistence that the Constitution tasked Congress with deciding
when America would go to war. And his warning against turning US policy over to foreign
influences.
Concern over obsequious subservience to other governments and interests pervaded his famous
1796 Farewell Address. Applied today, his message indicts most of the policy currently made in
the city ironically named after him. He would be appalled by what presidents and Congresses
today do, supposedly for America.
Obviously, the US was very different 224 years ago. The new country was fragile, sharing the
Western hemisphere with its old colonial master, which still ruled Canada and much of the
Caribbean, as well as Spain and France. When later dragged into the maritime fringes of the
Napoleonic wars the US could huff and puff but do no more than inconvenience France and
Britain. The vastness of the American continent, not overweening national power, again
frustrated London when it sought to subjugate its former colonists.
Indeed, when George Washington spoke the disparate states were not yet firmly knit into a
nation. Only after the Civil War, when the national government waged four years of brutal
combat, which ravaged much of the country and killed upwards of 750,000 people in the name of
"union," did people uniformly say the United States "is" rather than "are." However, the
transformation was much more than rhetorical. The federal system that originally emerged in the
name of individual liberty spawned a high tax centralized government that employed one of the
world's largest militaries to kill on a mass scale to enforce the regime's dictates. The modern
American "republic" was born. It acted overseas only inconsistently until World War II, after
which imperial America was a constant, adding resonance to George Washington's message.
Today Washington, D.C.'s elites have almost uniformly decided that Russia is an enemy,
irrespective of American behavior that contributed to Moscow's hostility. And that Ukraine, a
country never important for American security, is a de facto military ally, appropriately armed
by the US for combat against a nuclear-armed rival. A reelection-minded president seems
determined to turn China into a new Cold War adversary, an enemy for all things perhaps for all
time. America remains ever entangled in the Middle East, with successive administrations in
permanent thrall of Israel and Saudi Arabia, allowing foreign leaders to set US Mideast policy.
Indeed, both states have avidly pressed the administration to make their enemy, Iran, America'
enemy. The resulting fixation caused the Trump administration to launch economic war against
the rest of the world to essentially prevent everyone on earth from having any commercial
dealing of any kind with anyone in Tehran.
Under Democrats and Republicans alike the federal government views nations that resist its
dictates as adversaries at best, appropriate targets of criticism, always, sanctions, often,
and even bombs and invasions, occasionally. No wonder foreign governments lobby hard to be
designated as allies, partners, and special relationships. Many of these ties have become
essentially permanent, unshakeable even when supposed friends act like enemies and supposed
enemies are incapable of hurting America. US foreign policy increasingly has been captured and
manipulated for the benefit of other governments and interests.
George Washington recognized the problem even in his day, after revolutionary France sought
to win America's support against Great Britain. He warned: "nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for
others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all
should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either
of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
Is there a better description of US foreign policy today? Even when a favored nation is
clearly, ostentatiously, murderously on the wrong side – consider Saudi Arabia's
unprovoked aggression against Yemen – many American policymakers refuse to allow a single
word of criticism to escape their lips. The US has indeed become "a slave," as George
Washington warned.
The consequences for the US and the world are highly negative. He observed that "likewise, a
passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the
favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no
real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement
or justification."
This is an almost perfect description of the current US approach. American colonists
revolted against what they believed had become ever more "foreign" control, yet the US backs
Israel's occupation and mistreatment of millions of Palestinians. American policymakers parade
the globe spouting the rhetoric of freedom yet subsidize Egypt as it imprisons tens of
thousands and oppresses millions of people. Washington decries Chinese aggressiveness, yet
provides planes, munitions, and intelligence to aid Riyadh in the slaughter of Yemeni civilians
and destruction of Yemeni homes, businesses, and hospitals. In such cases, policymakers have
betrayed America "into a participation in the quarrels and wars without adequate inducement or
justification."
On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US
Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to
destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve
their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US
Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against
another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of
umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute
occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation,
prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the
best calculations of policy."
Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There
were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake.
Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the
terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was
constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped
replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption,
torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic
revolutionaries, to America's horror.
Read George Washington and you would think he had gained a supernatural glimpse into today's
policy debates. He worried about the result when the national government "adopts through
passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation
subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the
victim."
What better describes US policy toward China and Russia? To be sure, these are nasty
regimes. Yet that has rarely bothered Uncle Sam's relations with other states. Saudi Arabia, a
corrupt and totalitarian theocracy, has been sheltered, protected, and reassured by the US even
after invading its poor neighbor. Among Washington's other best friends: Bahrain, Turkey,
Egypt, and United Arab Emirates, tyrannies all.
The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations
treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other
ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an
elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet
allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would
be threatening war.
Washington, DC also is treating China as a near-enemy, claiming the right to control China
along its own borders – essentially attempting to apply America's Monroe Doctrine to
Asia. This is something Americans would never allow another nation, especially China, to do to
the US Imagine the response if Beijing sent its navy up the East Coast, told the US how to
treat Cuba, and constantly talked of the possibility of war. America's consistently hostile,
aggressive policy is the result of "projects of pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives."
This kind of foreign policy also corrupts the American political system. It encourages
officials and people to put foreign interests before that of America. As George Washington
observed, this mindset: "gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own
country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; guiding, with the appearances of a
virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal
for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."
For instance, Woodrow Wilson and America's Anglophile establishment backed Great Britain
over the interests of the American people, dragging the US into World War I, a mindless
imperial slugfest that this nation should have avoided. After the Cold War's end Americans with
ties to Central and Eastern Europe pushed to expand NATO to their ancestral homes, which
created new defense obligations for America while inflaming Russian hostility. Ethnic Greeks
and Turks constantly battle over policy toward their ethnic homelands. Taiwan has developed
enduring ties with congressional Republicans, especially, ensuring US government support
against Beijing. Many evangelical Christians, especially those who hold a particularly bizarre
eschatology (basically, Jews must gather together in their national homeland to be slaughtered
before Jesus can return), back Israel in whatever it does to assist the apparently helpless God
of creation finish his job. The policies that result from such campaigns inevitably are shaped
to benefit foreign interests, not Americans.
Regarding the impact of such a system on the political system George Washington also was
prescient: "As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are
particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities
do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead
public opinion, to influence or awe the public council. Such an attachment of a small or weak
towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."
In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments"
– the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security
interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the
president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many
other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who
demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security
importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and
lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer
foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation.
What to do about such a long-standing problem? George Washington was neither naïf nor
isolationist. He believed in what passed for globalism in those days: a commercial republic
should trade widely. He didn't oppose alliances, for limited purposes and durations. After all,
support from France was necessary for the colonies to win independence.
He proposed a practical policy tied to ongoing realities. The authorities should "steer
clear of permanent alliances," have with other states "as little political connection as
possible," and not "entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils" of other nations'
"ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice." Most important, the object of US foreign
policy was to serve the interests of the American people. In practice it was a matter of
prudence, to be adapted to circumstance and interest. He would not necessarily foreclose
defense of Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Germany, but would insist that such proposals reflect a
serious analysis of current realities and be decided based on what is best for Americans. He
would recognize that what might have been true a few decades ago likely isn't true today. In
reality, little of current US foreign policy would have survived his critical review.
George Washington was an eminently practical man who managed to speak through the ages.
America's recently disastrous experience of playing officious, obnoxious hegemon highlights his
good judgment. The US, he argued, should "observe good faith and justice towards all nations;
cultivate peace and harmony with all."
America may still formally be a republic, but its foreign policy long ago became imperial.
As John Quincy Adams warned, the US is "no longer the ruler of her own spirit." Americans have
learned at great cost that international affairs are too important to be left to the Blob and
foreign policy professionals, handed off to international relations scholars, or, worst of all,
subcontracted to other nations and their lobbyists. The American people should insist on their
nation's return to a true republican foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute . A former Special Assistant to President Ronald
Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .
"... Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a century ago. ..."
"... And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy'). ..."
Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not
realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a
century ago.
And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted
themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and
unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy').
The ideologies of the Empire are: neoConservativism(a form of aristocracy);neoLiberalism(a form of facism); and Zionism(a form of
colonialism).
In short, a combination of the worst inclinations in the Western tradition.
Here's a great must-see 36-minute piece by Abby Martin about the US perpetual occupation
of Afghanistan.
It was posted on YouTube on June 26, but I only came across it last night thanks to a Paul
Craig Roberts article, and I don't think it's been mentioned here at MoA yet by anyone yet
(at least I wasn't able to find any mentions using the MoA search.)
I'm sure many of us have come across many of the points over the years, but she does a
great job of reviewing and bringing it all together.
Google/Youtube has of course made the video "age-restricted", though I don't really see
why, requiring sign-in and probably greatly reducing its viewership as a result.
This alternate link to the same video doesn't seem to require sign-in:
"... The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the mainstream media and FBI's narrative. ..."
"... In a document dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies." ..."
"... Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a flyer sent to law enforcement personnel in Texas shows. ..."
"... As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger, Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public records law. ..."
The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) reported
similar information in its investigation of the Boston Free Speech Rally on August 19th, 2017.
BRIC noted that the nationalist and free speech demonstrators, about 60 of them in total, had a
permit for the event, while the anarchist groups that showed up to heckle-veto them were there
illegally.
The leftist rioters began attacking the protesters, and later, began engaging in gratuitous
yet apparently coordinated violence against police officers attempting to intervene, causing
multiple injuries.
The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to
the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the
mainstream media and FBI's narrative.
In a document
dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We
assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white
supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal
drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."
... ... ...
The close working relationship between mainstream social media companies, the FBI and "NGOs"
(the ADL and SPLC) is clear and assumed, adding a new layer of understanding when it comes to
tech censorship and the power of privately run organizations that are not subject general
ethics or government accountability.
Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a
flyer sent to
law enforcement personnel in Texas shows.
The event, hosted by the FBI for local cops, featured lectures on "hate" (which is not a
crime) from a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church and the ex-lead singer of a skinhead
rock band. The conference was hosted in December 2017, so one can only imagine this
indoctrination has gotten more intense since then.
Ultimately, we can gather from these documents a climate of incompetence, rejection of facts
for political reasons, and a culture of selective prosecution. Those who post memes making fun
of the election are treated as conspirators against the Constitutional rights of others, while
anarchists who actively conspire in the open to do the same are rarely prosecuted by the
FBI.
The most disturbing aspect of all this is how groups like the Anti-Defamation League appear
to have more sway over the FBI's investigative priorities than intelligence provided to them by
local fusion centers.
It appears that in defense of their power, our elites are willing to do away with all
liberal pretenses and take on "emergency orders" that ultimately punishes peaceful dissent
while allowing real criminals to go free.
Law enforcement is fully aware of who provokes the fighting and rioting at riots: the
left. The documents from fusion centers across the country (intelligence provided by local
police departments) repeatedly report this.
But
Both the FBI and to a lesser extent the Department of Homeland Security are far more
concerned with political ideology and creating propaganda than upholding the law.
As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA
developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms
they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger,
Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't
get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public
records law.
This is why when asshole cops strangle you, you can't complain to the city. CIA controls the
cops, not the city. This is most obvious in NYPD, with actual CIA secret police like Sanchez
and Cohen, arresting you like cops to facilitate illegal CIA domestic spying. DHS and FBI are
in there too, of course, fishing for dissent to repress but they're controlled by CIA focal
points.
So next time a pig kneels on your head you can't just burn down the precinct, you have to
burn down the CIA fusion center, and Langley too.
Aside from siccing cops on the latest internal enemies, CIA also uses fusion centers to
propagate the party line to cops, who will credulously swallow it and pass it on to show off
their double-secret spy connections. For instance, they circulated alt media disinfo claiming
KGB killed JFK. This happened to coincide with Unz and other bravura JFK coup exposes, and with
CIA's Russiagate fiasco.
"We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and
white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the
principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."
Is there a bigger political statement than this? The anarchist extremists aren't opposing
racism, they are opposing the government(s). "White supremacist" is a pejorative label used to
discredit people's right to free assembly. Clearly, the only investigating the FBI does is on
whom it decides are political opponents.
I find it incredibly frustrating that all of this scandalous information is out there
confirming what we already knew to be true and yet these organizations, the media, and
especially elected officials continue on as if this isn't the case. It's vexing. Frustrating.
Enraging.
If this was a dictatorship, at least we could rage against that, but because it has the
words "democracy" slapped onto it, we are supposedly able to change things. And yet,
representative democracy has proven that nothing changes if the elites do not will it. It's
just a vile scheme by plutocrats to keep us in chains of our own imagination: "well, we voted
for this so I have to live with the results," no we didn't, and do we truly?
I think Solzhenitsyn would respectfully disagree on behalf of the 66 million Russian
Christians who were tortured, raped and slaughtered during 1917-1989, not to mention the
fourteen years he spent locked up in the gulags run by Jewish Communists.
Might also be a few Ukrainians who disagree with your assessment given the 11-17 million
murdered by Jewish Bolsheviks in the 1932 Holodomor, which to my knowledge is still the single
biggest genocide in human history.
Then we'd have a position of strength from which to force the end to Jewish occupation of
America – which is necessary before the rest of the world's gentile populations,
particularly Europe, can take similar action.
America freeing herself will be good for America, but not necessary for other nations. For
instance, Putin freed Russia from her oligarchs, the overwhelming majority of them Jewish, well
before America had shown any progress on this matter. Actually, Russia freed herself in
spite of America!
White man's welfare, they call it. They hold pigs in contempt just like everybody else. But
this is how CIA finds the eager beaver cops who'll break the law to suck up and play James Bond
with them.
That beaner psycho Sanchez blabbed CIA's real intention while he was illegally spying
undercover as a NYPD pig: they don't just want to solve crimes, they want to keep you from
committing crimes in the first place. They think it's their job to to keep you under control.
These drug-dealing, gun-running, money-laundering, kiddy-pimping criminal scumbags rule your
country because they can kill you and torture you and get away with it. Even if you're the
president. Your government is CIA, and CIA is a totalitarian state. Until you storm Langley
like the Germans stormed the Stasi, all your reforms and revolutions are worth shit.
Antifa members routinely cross state lines to violate the civil rights of those they
perceive as "fascists" yet the FBI does nothing. Since it's obvious the FBI is dominated by
partisan leftists who are either sympathetic with antifa (and BLM) or actively colluding them
them against pro-white and right of center groups engaged in lawful but politically incorrect
activity.
The FBI is clearly taking their marching orders from the ADL who's lobbied them for years to
take a more active and hostile stance towards the pro-white and anti-semitic right. But given
the leftist ideological proclivities of the average special agent and their superiors this
wasn't that hard of a sell.
The FBI declared that it would begin investigating memes posted on Twitter intended to
satirize low civic education by telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton via text message
as a "Conspiracy Against Rights Provided by the Constitution and Laws of the United
States"
Yet the FBI did absolutely nothing about the black panthers intimidating voters at a Philly
precinct in 2008. Their illegal actions were witnessed by several poll watchers yet the
Obama/Holder DOJ promptly dropped the charges upon taking office.
The FBI is awash in naked partisanship and corruption and should have at least 25% of its
funding cut and be barred from surveilling or infiltrating groups engaged in politically
incorrect but lawful activity. It's become an appendage of the Democrat party and radical left
wing establishment and should be treated as such.
You are both right. Soviet Communism was far more murderous and brutal, BUT the West faces a
greater crisis. After all, communism didn't wipe Russia off the map, and indeed, Russians began
to regain control and power after Stalin's death. Also, Stalin had done much to check Jewish
Power, and there was a kind of cultural conservatism in many walks of life.
@Levtraro to HIM and had City of London-Israeli financing. So what actually happened is
that the Jews, who had been ousted from power by Krushchev and Brezhnev in the post-ww2 era,
got back into positions of economic power in Russia. A position that, as I noted, they had
lost. This idea that Putin is a nationalist is simply not true. He is a Jew-boy lapdog who
takes his orders from Tel Aviv and London..
The Soviet economy has significant State ownership. Part of what Putin did was to put the oil
industry back into the hands of the State so the State would have the Revenues. Most countries
do this with Oil and Gas revenue. It is very popular and provides employment and desperately
needed money to pay the paltry pensions many Russians subside on.
Russia hasn't been free since 1917 and is still not free. To believe otherwise is to be blinded
by Eastern Jewish smoke and mirrors.
Chabbad is not having the time of its life in Russia. Neither are Zion uber alles like in
our Congress. It quite different in Russia. Russia has a bit more freedom that we do from Zion
uber alles.
For the eighth time this past decade, Russian authorities told a foreign Chabad rabbi
living in Russia to leave the country.
Josef Marozof, a New York-born rabbi who began working 12 years ago for Chabad in the city
of Ulyanovsk 400 miles east of Moscow, was ordered earlier this week to leave because the FSB
security service said he had been involved in unspecified "extremist behavior."
t includes Iraq and Afghanistan, 53,000 to 35,000. Deaths of U.S. contractors since
September 2001 are approximately 8,000, compared to 7,000 troops. Yet contractors receive
neither the public recognition nor the honor of serving abroad, despite the increased risks
they face. The Camo Economy is politically useful, as the White House can claim troop
reductions while at the same time increasing U.S. presence abroad by relying more heavily on
contractors.
The financial costs of military contracting are also opaque. While we know some top-line
numbers, we know very few details about where our tax dollars go once they are paid out to
contractors. We do know that contracting is more expensive, as contractors have limited
incentives to reduce costs and they build profits into their contract agreements. As
contractors then use sub-contractors, who also build in profits, there can be multiple layers
of guaranteed profits built into a contract between the sub-contractors performing the work and
DOD paying the prime contractor. Add in the waste, fraud, and abuse in addition to the
excessive profits, and the costs to government quickly balloon.
It will not be easy to reform the Camo Economy. Firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman, and Raytheon each spent about $13 million on lobbying last year. Political connections
operate alongside high profits and paychecks to keep the Camo Economy entrenched and growing.
But reforms can be made. Reducing the size of the military budget is a vital first step. The
National
Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies has detailed various ways to do
this.
Next, the portion of military spending that is paid to contractors should be reduced and
some services should be brought back in-house, including those on and near the battlefield. And
third, the contracting process itself should be reformed, so that more contracts are
legitimately competitive and create incentives for firms to reduce costs.
Heidi Peltier is Director of "20 Years of War," a Costs of War initiative based at
Boston University's Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. She is also a board
member of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Back in the CHOICES thread, we had discussion on the US bullying Iran, and the semantics
of whether the US was engaging in "war" against Iran. I hope not to get caught up in those
semantics again, but here are a couple of good pieces to show the situation.
The latest Renegade Inc episode interviews Gareth Porter, who draws from Smedley Butler
and talks about the "racket" of the security state of the US, which acts only to perpetuate
and extend itself, and to increase its funding by all means.
The episode answers several questions about the US posture towards Iran. Porter supplies
the history and background to illustrate the US anger for Iran. Sharmine Narwani makes an
appearance also, and together they show why the Pentagon will never conduct acts of war
against Iran that will provoke the kind of overt retaliation that Iran delivered by targeting
the US bases this year.
The US will only conduct acts that Iran will not overtly respond to. It will escalate its
theater right up to that red line, but if it crosses the line - as it did with killing
Soleimani - it will be by miscalculation. The only purpose of the US security state is to
escalate the threat level to keep the funding coming, and to leave no possible margin for
de-funding by Congress. It's a racket, and the racket has swallowed all statecraft.
Once I suggested seriously that Ukraine could not be understood in terms of statecraft,
but only in terms of thievery. It becomes increasingly clear that the tenets of organized
crime are now the only way to parse US action.
~~
Iran meanwhile, lives by statecraft. It will always respond when that red line is crossed
- always and without hesitation. My view is that Iran is continuously working for the total
departure of the US from West Asia, as it said that it would in retribution for Soleimani.
Much of what it does we don't see, but I note the "resistance" axis goes from strength to
strength in solidarity. It was ready to erupt when Iran attacked the US base, but the US
disengaged and this unified axis of several nations and forces stood down.
So the school of thought presented for example by Richard Steven Hack here, that
the US will war on Iran for decades if it can, simply to feed the MIC, is correct. What's not
correct is that the US can perform much in the way of military action against Iran.
We stumbled over the word "war" so perhaps we can talk about minor activities of warfare,
which are not enough to bring the theater to full battle. All the nations in the region have
tolerated US incursions because to fight them head on would provoke escalation that serves
less purpose than living with them - there is a time for everything.
But we have to understand the red lines. And we have to understand that because we see
nothing moving, it doesn't mean nothing is moving. Narwani makes some good points about that
- and see her full interview on Renegade from last year for a good understanding of what Iran
is as a nation and an adversary. It's clear that the Pentagon agrees with her.
As to the Resistance axis, this interview with Lebanese analyst Anees Naqqash is worth a
quick read. It tells us much about Lebanon.
It is not the case that Iran is doing nothing in response to US warfare against it and its
regional allies. The red flag is still flying, and the Iranians take it seriously.
War is no longer about winning. Endless conflict is the name of the game. Military defense
contractors are the most influential of all lobbyists and so intertwined in government that
it's truly & effectively fascist. Profit is the end, war is the means.
Isn't USA effectively at war with Venezuela? Isn't it an act of war to seize billions
in State assets - including embassies - and support a coup?
Isn't USA effectively at war with Syria? If ISIS has been defeated - as Trump has said
several times - then USA is illegally occupying Syria oil fields. In addition, USA
"recognized" Israel's claim to the Golan Heights - against UN resolutions that deny that
claim.
Isn't USA at war with Yemen? USA supplies Saudi Arabia and UAE with weapons for this
war plus targeting.
Isn't it an act of war to renege on terms to end a war? If so, then one could say that
USA has renewed it's war with North Korea.
Isn't it an act of war to impose a virtual embargo on a country via crippling
third-party sanctions? And wasn't the assassination of Solemani an act of war? Then USA is
effectively at war with Iran. Putin's reminder that Iran was a Russian ally after the
downing of the USA drone may be the reason that we are not in a hot war with Iran.
USA argued for a "two-state" solution for Palestine for two decades, then (under Trump)
switched almost entirely to Israel's side. That sounds like an act of war against the
"State" that USA has argued should exist.
Isn't USA still at war with the Taliban? Or is that just a 20-year "police action" like
Vietnam?
And what about Libya that NATO Turkey is seeking to conquer - after USA played a key
(and illegal) role in destroying?
And then there are tensions with Russia and China, which only seem to grow more intense
every week. The Trump Administration seeks to stop NordStream (for security reasons) and
punish China for Trump's inept pandemic response and for exercising control of Hong Kong
(which is long recognized as Chinese sovereign territory).
<> <> <> <> <>
IMO Trump has started wars but the countries and peoples he picks on know that it's
best not to respond too forcibly or they invite greater damage.
I'm surprised that moa commenters give any credence to the claims that portray Trump as
peaceful/peace-loving. In addition to his belligerence, Empire front-man Trump has initiated
a huge military build-up, ended long-standing peace treaties, and militarized space.
This is the standard Washington rhetoric that accompanies their coup attempts. It is a
companion to the "moderate democracy" rhetoric about U.S. satellite governments like Saudi
Arabia. The rhetoric tells you that these people have zero interest in democracy, honesty, or
avoiding hypocrisy. Some of Bush's neocons are Biden Supporters; what a surprise.
@ Jackrabbit 102
re: Isn't USA effectively at war with Venezuela?. . .etc
Obviously you don't know jack about actual war, do you.
Or give us your creds?
I dropped back in to see what follows...imagine my deflation to find that people don't know
what war is.
@108 Don Bacon
Precisely. No one who has ever experienced the tragedy of war will ever mistake the
playground games of make-believe war with the real thing.
~~
That's the problem with the US administration, and its satraps and the many camp followers
and court jesters who follow it. They don't know the difference between posturing war and
waging war.
The difference is so profound that it calls for not only a new language but a new
departure point of reference within one's soul even to begin to speak of such things.
The US will pursue the make-believe war it postures through in order to score points
within its small group circle. But real war, should it ever come to touch it - and it will if
it pursues its childishness too far - will shock it into total frozen fear the moment that it
strikes.
Iran knew this, and had the human strength to test it and to prove it. Everything else, up
to this point, was an accommodation by the world's nations to the posturing of the US for its
own internal coherence. It was a matter of supporting the US ego rather than of being close
to the event when that ego falls apart, with potentially explosive consequences.
But Iran had the strength of character to stand on its principles, and to proclaim its
truth. And by the way, that stand is by no means done, despite what the trolls may suggest.
Iran has barely begun its action to remove the US from Southwest Asia, and we will only see
the footprints of its actions as we realize that the US has departed. And this will happen,
regardless of the US narrative and its many parrots.
~~
I don't blame the US or any of its supporters for threatening war when all it really does
is act as a nuisance and a spoiler in those few platforms left to it. Those it oppresses have
so far mostly chosen to bear the insult rather than to make a fuss. But Iran has shown the
way, and one should not expect many more of those oppressed to put up with the abuse from the
US many more times.
What is clearly known is that the very last thing the US can do is go to war, in the real
meaning of that term. The very last thing the US is capable of, is war. And the generals of
all the nations of the world know this because they have seen the proof of it. Anyone who
doesn't see the proof of it is behind the curve, and may well have license to comment here
and elsewhere, but fortunately does not sit in the security councils of the nations of the
world.
~~
If anyone wants to think that the US is "effectively" at war with another nation, then
consider that Iran is absolutely "effectively" at war with the US, just as Hezbollah is
beyond any doubt at war with Israel. And so what? When positions are "effectively" this or
that, then they had better produce "effective" results. And it is only from these effective
results that we can count the coup of the engagement. Hezbollah and Iran don't need to be
told the difference between real attacks and propaganda attacks.
What they count is the real force.
Everything else is bluster. And I was 16 years old myself once, so in all humility I don't
condemn this braggadocio, which I understand all too humanly.
But neither do I take it as real in the real world.
@ Grieved 109
Thanks for helping to deliver us from all that illusory make-believe on war from the deep
thinkers who apparently man this place. And yes, Iran has shown the way, which includes its
ability to put a serious hurt on US forces if attacked. We're talking about the possibility
of lots of US dead bodies, military and dependents, men women and children, also sunken
ships, and not just some supporting proxies and aerial bombing with the attendant publicity
that suggests to some that genuine war exists, when it doesn't.
People need to get real.
Trump is really no different than Clinton, GWBush, and Obama. Each a front-man for the
Deep State/Empire. Each portrayed as well-meaning, peace-loving men that were FORCED! to war
for all the right reasons. In that context, these Jedi mind-tricks fall
flat:
USA can't wage war?
Yet it's bullying other countries and engaging in acts of war.
Trump's belligerence is all bluster?
Yet USA is preparing for war with a costly arms build-up and massive propaganda
campaign (as described well by Caitlin Johnstone).
No one need fear USA?
Yet power-elites in USA subscribe to supremacist ideologies (neoconservativism,
neoliberalism, zionism), advocate a "New World Order", and a 'rules-based' international
system that can only be described as "might makes right".
With only four months left to the U.S. presidential elections, and the increasing
likelihood of Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel President in history, losing, Israel has been
trying to provoke Iran to start a war, so that it can drag the United State into it. This is
not anything new. For over a decade Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to force the United
States to go to war with Iran, and Israel itself almost attacked Iran three times between
2010 and 2011. But the with events of the last several months darkening the prospects of a
second Trump term, Israel feels a new urgency for a war with Iran.
For over two years Israel tried to provoke Iran by attacking Iranian-backed Shiite forces
in Syria, but Iran has opted not to retaliate. Since the attacks did not provoke Iran to
retaliate, and also failed to dislodge Iran's military advisers and the Shiite forces that it
trained, armed, and dispatched to Syria, Israel has seemingly turned to attacking Iran
directly within its borders.
The events of past two months in Iran are indicative of Israel's new push for war. These
events include large-scale infernos, explosions, and cyberattacks, all believed to have been
carried out by Israel and its Iranian proxies, the "fake opposition" which is the part of the
opposition that supports economic sanctions and military attacks against Iran, and has even
allied itself with small secessionist groups that carry out terrorist attacks inside
Iran.
In this video, Prof. Wolff talks about the breakdown of the capitalist system and outlines
4 major problems that the US has been faced with without for quite some time with no solution
in sight: climate change, capitalism's intrinsic instability, systemic racism inherited from
slavery, and lastly the lack of mechanisms to manage viruses.
In this video, Prof. Wolff compares and contrasts the preparation for and management of
COVID-19 with how the US has managed military preparedness and the handling of military
confrontations and activities. It has succeeded at one and completely failed at the other. He
explains why.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 7 2020 1:09 utc | 96 Prediction: The US may start a war but the US
will not finish that war. Its opponent will end that war, by causing unacceptable losses to
the US - something quite easily achieved, and already proved to the world by Iran in this
very year of 2020.
I agree. The US can not defeat Iran, short of nuking Tehran, which is not in the cards for
geopolitical reasons. However, the US can devastate much of Iran's civilian infrastructure,
which, like most such infrastructures, can't run and hide. The US can also kill a million or
two milllion Iranians, as it proved in Iraq.
All that will do, however, is merely guarantee that Iran will never surrender. Nor would
Iran ever surrender in the first place. Which is why I tend to reference the upcoming war as
the "New Thirty Years War". The clear example is the near twenty years we've spent in
Afghanistan - which is vastly weaker than Iran. Each war - Vietnam, Afghanistan, and arguably
Iraq - has lasted longer than the last and with failure as an outcome.
The US can keep attacking Iran from the air and sea for thirty years - but without ever
defeating Iran. It will do so because the military-industrial complex will make profits every
year from that war - and in the end, that's all that matters to the US (along with the
Only if the US tries a land invasion will the US lose a massive number of troops. But even
that will come over time, albeit at a *much* higher rate than the US saw in either Vietnam,
Iraq, or Afghanistan. US annual casualties would probably be in the low to medium 5 digits
per year, as opposed to the low 4 digits in most of those wars. In other words, four or five
times the rate in Iraq. That's as compared with a hot war in North Korea which would see
50,000 US casualties in the first ninety days, or any war with China or Russia. See "United
States military casualties of war" on Wikipedia. It's possible that casualties could rise to
the level of WWI, if the war lasts five or ten years, or even WWII if it lasts twenty - or
even higher if it lasts thirty.
Most people think the US will not try a land invasion. I've argued, however, that the
*only* way to even attempt to prevent Iran from closing the Straits for the duration of the
war will be for the US to put several score thousand Marines and US troops on Iran's shores
to attempt to prevent launching of mines and anti-ship missiles. This would be difficult
since Iran has a long Persian Gulf shoreline, Iran has fortified that shoreline, there are
many places to launch weapons from that shoreline - and any such US troops would be subject
to both conventional and guerrilla war by the Iranian military and perhaps a million or more
Iranian Basij militia. Nonetheless, the US is likely to be dumb enough to try.
In any event, the US will eventually be forced to withdraw either because the US
electorate would eventually tire of the war - although as Afghanistan proves, that could take
a *very* long time, mostly depending on the casualty rate, however, as I indicateed - or
because another "threat" takes precedence, which would likely mean either Russia or
China.
"And the US will strain its mighty Wurlitzer to the utmost to declare victory as it
retreats."
Yup. And the sad part is that the US electorate will probably believe that, then forget
about the reality and be willing to commit to a new war within another ten years.
In addition to the above, the idea that because there's a difference between "war" and
"conflicts before war" there is *no chance* of war is absurd.
Every war started with this sort of enmity between nations historically. As I've said
before, with this level of enmity between the US and Iran, and arguably between the US and
Russia, and the US and China, war is inevitable. With the latter two countries, such a war is
likely to be nuclear - which is why it hasn't happened yet - that risk is *way* too high
(although it can still happen if a miscalculation causes a conventional war, which then
escalates into nuclear.)
A war with Iran doesn't have that risk. No nuclear power that I am aware of is going to
enter the war on Iran's side and thus risk a nuclear war over Iran. Iran itself will not
develop or use nuclear weapons. Israel *might* consider using nuclear weapons against Iran -
that would be a*huge* mistake geopolitically and probably result in Israel's destruction by
geopolitical means if not by military means. But neither Russia nor China are going to
directly engage the US military to defend Iran. That would be stupid and putting their own
national survival at risk for the benefit of another nation. As Percival Rose would say,
"That ain't gonna happen."
The real problem for some people is cognitive dissonance. They can't emotionally accept
the possibility of these wars occurring - so they don't. They are reduced to saying, "well,
it hasn't happened...yet."
The "yet" is the operative term. There is no logical extension of that term to mean
"never".
There are many other mistaken assumptions, such as:
USA wouldn't start a war it can't win
We've seen that USA is often satisfied with just smashing another country.
USA would strain to justify a war or continue a war
USA is very adept at propaganda. They can apply pressure that forces a country to
"lash out", or intervene to help an abused population or an ally. USA also likes to use
proxies. Example: destabilize with "freedom fighters" then intervene when the target
country commits "atrocities" as it attempts to defend itself.
Trump is a negotiator, he doesn't want to fight
Trump is a stooge. The Deep State will decide when they're ready to fight.
Americans are tired of war
If only that were true. Most Americans just don't care. And are willing to accept
what ever lies they're told (at least for the first months).
What is plain to see is all of these "wars" are not wars but provocations, aggression from
one side and bullying. In every case the other side does not want a war.
Interesting how the US has way upped its aggression on Venezuela without a peep from the
people. This started off with some nonsense about an idiot named Guaido and is now full blown
nastiness.
Sadly they are not the only stooges. It beggars belief that people everywhere believe that
they can elect someone to change the system in the country in which they reside. Political
stripes have very little meaning as the differences are incremental at best. The
bureaucracies necessary to keep the modern systems of governance afloat are staggeringly
monolithic. Electing one individual, or party, or parties and presuming that the system will
somehow be improved upon is a laughable fantasy. It leads to a continuous cycle of four years
of initiatives to tear down the previous four years initiatives unless you're a second term
government. But actual change is still the sole purview of the entrenched bureaucracy or
"deep state" or whatever other label you prefer. To Jackrabbit's point, most decisions hinge
on whether or not the bureaucracies in charge believe a war, a social change etc. can be
implemented and a desired result achieved. It takes a finely developed sense of myopia to
think that the only stooges are those of the political class. Says volumes about the people
that put them there, and continues to suggest that they are electing "change".
As an aside, the Frank Zappa quote that "government is the entertainment division of the
military industrial complex" remains potently poignant.
Calling what the US is doing to these countries "war" is like saying that Floyd was in a
fight with the cop's knee.
Yes,there has been some very measured retaliation from some of the victims, but it amounts to
Floyd saying he can't breathe.
@450 132
The provocations and responses of the formation of a war with Iran have been very interesting
and I think that if Iran hadn't of shot down the Ukrainian airliner after their attack
against the American base we may have already or continue to witness that war. As I see it
there was a real hard on to go after Iran but word of the shoot down allowed the Don to pull
back and let Iran suffer the black mark without escalation.
There are way too many itchy trigger fingers and pretexts for this and that can be easily
engineered and sold to the masses. Helps Biden or whomever if he can blame the future cluster
fuck on cleaning up donnies mess. I expect something expectedly unexpected in the coming
months.
War is not a static proposition and its meaning and definition can and should change over
time to fit the prevailing military strategies and economic paradigm of the day. We don't
live and operate in an unassailable lexicon vacuum. War is not defined tautologically,
meaning, war is not war. War is many things and can be fought on many dimensional fronts,
meaning not just militarily.
I think war is a state of mind. That's why we talk about "the war on poverty" or a
"propaganda war".
You might say that there is a "Cold War" but the number of acts of war is too numerous for
that and targeted at multiple countries/peoples. It's more like a 'hybrid war' on everyone
that opposes the New World Order that the AZ Empire seeks to impose on the planet.
Importantly, you can't prevent war if you only start thinking of it as 'war' when the
shooting starts.
The statue, dedicated in 1984, is the latest monument to be destroyed in what President
Trump dubbed the "left-wing cultural revolution" by "angry mobs."
According to the
Baltimore Sun , the Columbus statue has been the site of a wreath-laying ceremony right
before the annual Columbus Day parade, which, in 2019 was replaced with the Italian Heritage
Festival.
Republican state delegates and Italian-American activists held a press conference at the
statue last month to ask Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young to
preserve and protect the memorials , following activists' comments about pulling down the
monuments themselves and the introduction of a City Council bill this week to rename one of
them in honor of victims of police violence.
The downed statue is one of three monuments to Columbus in Baltimore. -
Baltimore Sun
BLM thugs have already started going after patriots. They ambushed our governor at the
small town of Ackley Iowa. They were stalking her as she visited companies providing
essential services during the pandemic. Her driver refused to stop, likely saving her life.
One BLM thug was hit but not seriously injured. They are not waiting to run out of statues.
We ordinary Americans must be heavily armed at all times now. Midwest states are full of
illegals, who serve the left as an army. Open civil war is upon us whether we would have it
or not.
warsev , 3 minutes ago
What these malicious rioters don't realize is that they are handing the November election
to DJT and Republicans for senate and house. Average Americans look on the footage that
accompanies this article with revulsion; for the ideas and the people behind them. Trump will
walk away with 2020. Just keep it up, loony lefties.
vic and blood , 4 minutes ago
We have been in a race and culture war with multiple factions for some time. The presumed
winner is not overtly participating.
Most white people are oblivious, though that is changing. Too bad we are demographically
doomed.
SolidGold , 1 minute ago
Divide and conquer. Who creates that genius?
NumberNone , 12 minutes ago
Was in downtown Baltimore less than 2 years ago, it felt like you were one person away
from someone that wanted to rob you. The downtown had all the usual suspects of faux high end
shopping but the vibe was one of John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit...it had all the look and
feel that was supposed to make you happy but it was rotten to the core.
Whoa Dammit , 13 minutes ago
We can't keep coddling these stupid brats. It's time to start making their parents pay for
the mess and destruction that their ill raised offspring cause.
GoldRulesPaperDrools , 17 minutes ago
Protesters == pavement apes
House of Cards , 17 minutes ago
Terrorists you mean
Watt Supremacissss , 16 minutes ago
Crybullies.
GoldRulesPaperDrools , 15 minutes ago
Redundant but accurate ... +100_000
Silver Savior , 17 minutes ago
Columbus was a dickhead anyway.
NumberNone , 9 minutes ago
So we tear apart the country for a guy that held a gun to a pregnant woman's stomach...if
you're gonna pass judgement and replace other people's icons you might want to make better
choices.
Blackdawg7 , 43 minutes ago
I've never been a fan of Christopher Columbus but witnessing these know-nothing
sanctimonious twits destroy public property while virtue signalling makes my blood boil.
Workdove , 44 minutes ago
Not worth the 10 years in jail...
vic and blood , 50 minutes ago
History's losers are terrorizing, and soon to be tyrannizing us because Caucasians are too
civilized and docile.
Every race and tribe is programmed by God to attempt to dominate.
As an adherent of the non-aggression principle, I don't care for the binary choice, but
accept it.
Either dominate or be dominated. Only cucks believe in co-existence. I assure you our
rivals do not believe in peaceful co-existence.
unionbroker , 1 hour ago
Christopher Columbus sails out into the unknown where no man has gone before. What the
**** has BLM done. Put the statues back up and throw BLM in the water
Looks like Liz Cheney words for Russians. Her action suggest growing alliance between Bush
repoblicans and neolibral interventionaistsof the Democratic Party. The alliance directed against
Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy them: ..."
"... The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives other states another incentive to do more of this. ..."
"... Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for many years to come. ..."
The immediate response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to keep fighting a
losing conflict.
Barbara Boland
reported yesterday on the House Armed Services Committee's vote to impede withdrawal of
U.S. from Afghanistan:
The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday night to put roadblocks on President
Donald Trump's vow to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, apparently in response to
bombshell report published by The New York Times Friday that alleges Russia paid dollar
bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S troops.
It speaks volumes about Congress' abdication of its responsibilities that one of the few
times that most members want to challenge the president over a war is when they think he might
bring it to an end. Many of the members that want to block withdrawals from other countries
have no problem when the president wants to use U.S. forces illegally and to keep them in other
countries without authorization for years at a time. The role of hard-liner Liz Cheney in
pushing the measure passed yesterday is a good example of what I mean. The hawkish outrage in
Congress is only triggered when the president entertains the possibility of taking troops out
of harm's way. When he takes reckless and illegal action that puts them at risk, as he did when
he ordered the illegal assassination of Soleimani, the same members that are crying foul today
applauded the action. As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday
sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy
them:
Crow's amendment adds several layers of policy goals to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan,
which has already stretched on for 19 years and cost over a trillion dollars. As made clear
in the Afghanistan Papers, most of these policy goals were never the original intention of
the mission in Afghanistan, and were haphazardly added after the defeat of al Qaeda. With no
clear vision for what achieving these fuzzy goals would look like, the mission stretches on
indefinitely, an unarticulated victory unachievable.
The immediate Congressional response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to
make it much more difficult to pull them out of a war that cannot be won. Congressional hawks
bemoan "micromanaging" presidential decisions and mock the idea of having "535
commanders-in-chief," but when it comes to prolonging pointless wars they are only too happy to
meddle and tie the president's hands. When it comes to defending Congress' proper role in
matters of war, these members are typically on the other side of the argument. They are content
to let the president get us into as many wars as he might want, but they are horrified at the
thought that any of those wars might one day be concluded. Yesterday's vote confirmed that
there is an endless war caucus in the House, and it is bipartisan.
The original reporting of the bounty story is questionable for the reasons that Boland has
pointed out before, but for the sake of argument let's assume that Russia has been offering
bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When the U.S. keeps its troops at war in a country for
almost twenty years, it is setting them up as targets for other governments. Just as the U.S.
has armed and supported forces hostile to Russia and its clients in Syria, it should not come
as a shock when they do to the same elsewhere. If Russia has been doing this, refusing to
withdraw U.S. forces ensures that they will continue to have someone that they can target.
The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states
will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction
in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives
other states another incentive to do more of this.
Because the current state of debate about Russia is so toxic and irrational, our political
leaders seem incapable of responding carefully to Russian actions. It doesn't seem to occur to
the war hawks that Russia might prefer that the U.S. remains preoccupied and tied down in
Afghanistan indefinitely.
Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of
their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and
irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with
the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for
many years to come.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico
Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a
columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides
in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
One needs to mention the democratic deficit in the US. All the members voting yes are
representatives, they represent the people in their constituencies, and presumably vote for
what the majority in those constituencies would want, or past promises.
Any poll shows that Americans would rather have the troops brought back home, thank you very
much. But this is not what their representatives are voting for. Talk about democracy!
And what's the logic, if you make an accusation against someone you don't like it must be
true. Okay well then let's drone strike Putin. If you are going to be Exceptional and
consistent, Putin did everything Soleimani did so how can Liz Cotton argue for a different
punishment?
1. Killed U.S. troops in a war zone, 2. planning attacks on U.S. troops.
The entire Russian military plans for attacks all the time just like ours does but the
Neocons have declared that we are the only ones allowed to do that. Verdict, death penalty for
Putin.
Interesting, well reasoned article as usual from Mr. Larison. However, I have to say that I
don't see why Russia would want the US in Afghanistan indefinitely. In primis, they have a
strategic partnership with China (even though we've got to see how Russia will behave now when
there is the India-China rift), and China has been championing the idea of rebuilding the Silk
Road (brilliant idea if you ask me) so in this sense it's more reasonable to assume that they
might be aiming to get stability in the region rather than keep it in a state of unrest (as to
be strategic partners you need to have some kind of common strategy, or at least not a
completely different strategy). In 2018 they (Russia) actually were trying to organise a
mediation process which would have the Afghan Gvt. and the Talibans discuss before the US would
retire the troops, and it was very significative as they managed to get all the parties sitting
around a table for the very first time (even the US participated as an observer).
Secondly, Russia also has pretty decent relations with Iran (at least according to Iranian
press, which seems to be realistic as Russia is compliant to the JCPOA, is not aggressive
towards them, and they're cooperating in the Astana process for a political solution for Syria,
for example), and it wouldn't be so if Russia would pursue a policy which would aim to keep the
US in the Middle East indefinitely, as Iran's WHOLE point is that they want the US out of the
region, so if Russia would be trying to keep the US in the Middle East indefinitely, that would
seriously upset Iran.
Thirdly, Russia is one of the founders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which now
includes most of the states in Central Asia, China, India and Pakistan. The association never
made overt statements about their stance on the US's presence in the region; yet they've been
hinting that they don't approve of it, which is reasonable, as it is very likely that those
countries would all have different plans for the region, which might include some consideration
for human and economic development rather than constant and never-ending militarisation (of
course Pakistan would be problematic here, as the funds for the Afghan warlords get channeled
through Pakistan, which receives a lot of US money, so I don't know how they're managing this
issue).
Last but not least, I cannot logically believe that the Talibans, who've been coherent in
their message since the late 70's ("we will fight to the death until the invaders are defeated
and out of our national soil") would now need to be "convinced" by the Russians to defeat and
chase out the invader. This is just NOT believable at all. Afghanistan is called the Graveyard
of Empires for a reason, I would argue.
In any case I am pleased to see that at TAC you have been starting debunking the
Russia-narrative, as it is very problematic - most media just systematically misrepresents
Russia in order to justify aggressive military action (Europe, specifically Northern Europe, is
doing this literally CONSTANTLY, I'm so over it, really). The misrepresentation of Russia as an
aggressive wannabe-empire is a cornerstone of the pro-war narrative, so it is imperative to get
some actual realism into that.
As if the Afghan freedom fighters need additional incentive to eliminate the invaders? In
case Amerikans don't know, Afghans, except those on the US payroll, intensely despise Amerika
and its 'godless' ways. Amerikans forces have been sadistic, bombing Afghan weddings, funerals,
etc.
Even if the Russians are providing bounties to the Afghans, to take out the invaders, don't
the Amerikans remember the 80s when Washington (rightfully) supported the mujahedin with funds,
arms, Stinger missiles, etc.? Again, the US is on shaky ground because of the neocons.
Afghanistan is known through the ages to be the graveyard of empires. They have done it on
their own shedding blood, sweat, and tears. Also, the Afghan resistance have been principled
about Amerikans getting out before making deals.
We can't keep coddling these stupid brats. It's time to start making their parents pay for
the mess and destruction that their ill raised offspring cause.
T he perpetual occupation of Afghanistan has become so normalized that it mostly serves as
background noise to most Americans. It's even jokingly referred to as the "Forever War,"
accepted as just another constant reality. A soldier dies now and again, a couple of dozen
civilians get killed in another bombing. It's never enough to stir the population to pressure
Washington enough to stop it. And the endless war drags on.
From George W. Bush to Barack Obama, to Donald Trump, every U.S. president has promised to
end the war. But their plans to bring the troops home inevitably require first sending more
troops to the country. You can't look at all this rhetoric and reality and not conclude that
the United States wants to stay in Afghanistan forever. And there is a reason, despite an
unresolvable military quagmire, that the Empire won't let go of Afghanistan.
In this latest "Empire Files" documentary, journalist Abby Martin covers reveals the reality
of America's Wars in Afghanistan, from the CIA construct of the 1980s through today's senseless
stalemate. MintPress brings you documentary in its entirety, published with permission
from filmmaker Abby Martin.
The BLM-Antifa Marxist revolution under the cover of ending "systemic racism" is controlled
by the ruling elite through foundations, progressive think tanks, wealthy liberals - and
corporate CEOs you'd think know better.
Success depends on the help of opportunistic Democrat politicians who believe raising a
clenched fist and parroting BLM will get them elected or re-elected, thus perpetuating a system
of crony capitalism and endless war behind a kinder and gentler Democrat facade that is now
falling away.
If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a
method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of superrich men
promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes the logical, even the
perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not
a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.
The ruling elite, the financial class that has profited so mightily from riots and violence,
will not allow Marxists and black hoodie nihilists to spawn a violent revolution.
Chocura750 , 4 minutes ago
I doubt very much that there is any significant ideological thinking in 99% of the BLM
protestors. Imagine for a minute that George Floyd wasn't murdered, do you think that the BLM
organizers could get 100 people to protest capitalism and rally for socialism.
ProsperD9 , 9 minutes ago
Looks like BLM is about to get canceled. They committed the biggest cardinal sin that can
ever be committed on this earth. They can shoot all white babies, they can take over a
nursing home and strangle all the old white people, they can paint the white house
black...but one thing they CANNOT do... .drum roll please ...criticize IsraHell. Looks like
they've done the deed and about to be canceled. Read about it
BLACK LIVES MATTER 'CANCELED' AFTER CRITICIZING ISRAHELL.
HenryJonesJr , 20 minutes ago
More doom **** .... This kind of hyper-ventilating nonsense might sell well in highly
urbanized, totally dependent regions of America, meaning cities. But the majority of
Americans - white, black and brown - despise the idiotic Left and all their violence and
insanity.
Economic Opportunity Cost
"You can't say civilization don't advance… in every war they kill you in a new way." – Will Rogers
Any doubt that the Military Industrial Complex is as strong as ever should be removed after examining Obama's 2012 Budget which
has $900 billion dedicated to our military machine. We spent $370 billion in 2001, $620 billion in 2006, and now this liberal anti-war
Democrat from Illinois is spending 45% more than that war monger Bush who was burned in effigy by the anti-war Democrats during Iraq
War protests. It seems both parties are war pigs.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, leaving the United States as the only remaining superpower on earth. Since 1990, the United
States has depleted the U.S. Treasury of $11.5 trillion for spending on War. With no military on earth capable of
challenging us why would there be a need to spend this much on the military? Over this same time frame the U.S. spent $500 billion
on science, space & technology and $70 billion on energy, a mere 6% of the spending on invading sovereign countries. Military expenditures
benefit humanity in no way. If these trillions had been invested by the private sector or devoted to energy and scientific research,
our economy might not be a hollowed out shell, dependent on China for financing and oil exporting countries for energy. Neo-Cons
argue the Arms Industry employs millions and benefits the country. These companies employ brilliant engineers and scientists who
spend their days developing weapons that kill people more efficiently. If they had been employed manufacturing high tech goods to
export around the world, inventing new technologies that didn't obliterate human beings, newer safer nuclear power plants, a more
efficient electric grid, upgrading our deteriorating infrastructure, or finding a cure for Alzheimer's, would the United States be
better off today?
The National Debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion. Today, it is $15.7 trillion. This is a 500% increase in twenty-two years. What benefit
has $11.5 trillion of spending on War produced for the United States or the world? In 2001, spending on Defense was 17% of total
governmental spending. In 2012, Defense, Homeland Security, and war spending account for 25% of government spending. In the meantime,
major cities experience blackouts due to an overloaded electrical grid, our 156,000 structurally deficient bridges crumble, one hundred
year old water pipes burst under our streets every day, and we transfer over $300 billion per year to foreign countries for our precious
oil. The 19 terrorist hijackers who implemented their plan with box cutters, spent less than $500,000 to pull off their 9/11 acts
of terror – not war. The United States will directly spend at least $3 trillion on our wars of choice in response, while turning
our country into a prison camp and stripping our citizens of their freedoms and liberties for perceived security and safety.
You would think we must be trying to keep up with our enemies by spending $900 billion per year on past and present military adventures.
But one look at the following chart reveals the United States is spending almost as much as the rest of the world combined. The two
countries considered potential rivals, China and Russia, spent $200 billion combined in 2010. This is 22% of U.S. spending. From
a foreign viewpoint, one must wonder why the U.S. is spending such vast sums on our military. They can only conclude that it is for
offensive intentions rather than defensive. The United States soil has not been attacked by a foreign power since December 7, 1941.
Prior to that surprise attack, a foreign power hadn't attacked the U.S. since the War of 1812. With this stupendous level of wasteful
spending, our leaders feel compelled to interfere in the business of sovereign states and dictate how they should govern their nations
. When you have an enormous hammer, every country looks like a nail.
Laughably, the neo-con hawks and Fox News pundits declare that our military is a hollow shell and needs much greater funding to
insure our safety from attack by our many enemies. Other countries, such as China and Russia, feel they have no choice but to increase
their expenditures on the military. On a percentage basis, they have more than doubled their expenditures in the last ten years,
and still are a drop in the ocean compared to American Empire spending. The fact is that the U.S., China and Russia all have
enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the world – mutually assured destruction. The United States could realistically protect itself
from attack with only the 18 ballistic missile nuclear submarines we have in commission.
When did Americans lose their ability to distinguish between intellectual and moral pygmies like George Bush, Barack Obama and
Mitt Romney versus statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower? The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war when our country was not threatened
has proven to be financially and diplomatically disastrous and his blueprint is being followed by our Nobel Peace Prize President
in his saber rattling with Iran. Following this policy puts them in fine company.
"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about
such a thing." -Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. borrowed $807 billion from China, Japan and oil exporting countries to wage a war in Iraq that was based on false pretenses.
None of the terrorist hijackers on 9/11 were Iraqis, they had no links to Al Qaeda, and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Historian Barbara Tuchman description of "war as the unfolding of miscalculations" was never so fitting. In 2002, Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld estimated the costs of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which he believed would be financed
by other countries. The United States invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, pure and simple. We traded
the blood of young Americans for oil because we chose to not develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30 years. Americans,
not in the military, sacrificed nothing in the last 11 years of war. We bought BMW SUVs, 6,000 square foot McMansions, flat screen
HDTVs, iPads, iPhones and Rolexes while less than 1% of Americans fought and died, with the cost passed to future unborn generations.
We are a country of chickenhawks, willing to sacrifice the few so the ruling class can comfortably relax on their decks sipping wine,
believing Fox News propaganda about terrorists lurking behind every bush, and filling up their Mercedes convertibles for their excursions
to the summer cottage in the Hamptons.
"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." – Dwight D. Eisenhower
As we spend $900 billion per year on instruments of destruction, 49 million Americans live in poverty, with 46 million on food
stamps. There are 3 to 4 million people homeless in any given year. Military Veterans, who make up 13% of the population, account
for 23% of the homeless. This is another example of Federal government politicians using young Americans to fulfill their agenda
and then tossing them away like pieces of garbage. With the country supposedly three years into an economic recovery, tent cities
of homeless dot the landscape across the nation. We pour billions into killing technology while millions of American families are
forced to live in tents or sleep in their cars.
As the world spends $1.7 trillion per year on new methods of killing, millions die the old fashioned way.
13 million people per year die from starvation in the world.
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
One child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger – 700 every hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all
child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
What kind of a civilized society allocates 44% of the taxes taken from its people to war? Only 2.5% of your taxes go to science,
energy, and environment. Only 2.2% of your taxes go to education and jobs. You produce the results that you would expect from your
investments. A full 13% of our population doesn't have a high school diploma (20% of African Americans & 43% of Latinos) and only
30% have a college degree. How do we expect to lead the world in technology and research with these figures? We do lead the world
in government issued student loan debt with $1 trillion and rising.
Human Cost
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds Making war just for fun Treating people just like pawns in chess Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Barack Obama are cowardly politicians who never had the "pleasure" of coming under
fire in battle. The brilliant anti-war novel Catch-22 describes these men perfectly.
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major
it had been all three."
The world has been a huge game of Risk for these warmongers,with young Americans as the game pieces.
Instead of conquering Kamchatka in a board game, these non-veterans sent 6,470 Americans to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan
for a false cause. Their ideology of empire convinced them they could change the world into their image of how it should be, and
their re-election campaigns were funded with millions from the purveyors of death – the arms industry.
"In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason." – Ernest Hemingway
Another 47,545 Americans have been badly wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three of these despicable politicians have written
their memoirs, raking in millions for telling lies and half-truths. The 6,470 dead Americans won't have a chance to write their memoirs
or get rich. They will never get a chance to see their kids' graduate college or walk their daughter down the aisle at her wedding.
Their children will grow up with a giant hole in their hearts. Their widows will never recover from their endless heartache.
Politician chickenhawks who send our young people to their deaths for oil and ideology will receive their reward on judgment day
if there is a just God.
As National Guard troops have been deployed over and over again to Iraq and Afghanistan, they must realize that Catch-22 is alive
and well in today's military.
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers
that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and
as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane
if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he
was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful
whistle."
"That's some catch, that catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed
American soldiers, who have completed their duty to country, have been lied to and had the rules of the game changed again and
again. Their politician leaders have reneged on their promises by sending men and women back to the war zone or not letting them
come home on the timeline that was agreed to. Meanwhile, their families have gone bankrupt, lost their houses, and saw their marriages
dissolve. Politicians started these wars and are too cowardly and prideful to accept failure.
"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars." – GeneralWilliam Westmoreland
Over 1,300 more Americans died needlessly when Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, chose to double down in Afghanistan
to prove he was as tough as Bush and McCain. Another man who has never been under fire needed to prove his manliness to his opponents
and his constituency. He should have studied the words of former Presidents who were under fire.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
"My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth." - George Washington
President Obama follows the standard Presidential game plan and dutifully gives patriotic speeches at military bases proclaiming
the bravery and sacrifice of our troops. These are the words of politicians. The brutal reality for troops is much different. Representative
Ron Paul in November 2003 described the early mistreatment of our soldiers:
Fort Stewart, Georgia housed hundreds of injured reserve and National Guard soldiers in deplorable conditions who were forced
to wait months just to see a doctor. These soldiers made huge sacrifices, leaving their families and jobs to fight in Iraq. They
found themselves living in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too long to see overworked doctors. This was hardly
the heroes' welcome they might have expected. Only an exposé in a major newspaper brought attention to their plight, prompting
an embarrassed Defense department to rush additional doctors to the base.
Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital in Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from their
own pockets. Other soldiers returning stateside for a two-week liberty had to buy their own airfare home from the east coast.
Still others paid for desert boots, night vision goggles, and other military necessities with personal funds.
Existing federal rules forced disabled veterans to give up their military retirement pay in order to receive VA disability
benefits. This meant that every VA disability dollar paid to a veteran was deducted from his retirement pay, effectively creating
a "disabled veterans tax." No other group of federal employees is subject to this unfair standard; in every other case disability
pay is viewed as distinct from standard retirement pay.
The Humvees that soldiers were forced to drive did not have enough protective armor. In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
was giving one of his usual inspirational speeches when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a unit that
consisted mainly of reservists from the Tennessee Army National Guard asked him a question:
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor
our vehicles?"
This set off what the AP described as "a big cheer" from his comrades in arms. Rumsfeld paused, asked Wilson to repeat the question,
then finally replied, "You go to war with the army you have." Besides, he added, "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank
and it can be blown up." I'm glad Donald Rumsfeld has a clear conscience. History will not be kind to this despicable excuse for
a human being.
Rumsfeld also sent Americans into battle without protective body armor. Only after bad publicity did the proper protection reach
the troops. The blood of dead soldiers is on Rumsfeld's hands. While President Bush sacrificed by not golfing, terribly wounded soldiers
were sent to Walter Reed Hospital to recover. Instead they entered hell on earth. Outpatient mistreatment was reported in 2004, but
nothing was done. In 2004 and 2005, articles appeared in the Washington Post and in Salon interviewing First Lt. Julian Goodrum about
his court martial for seeking medical care elsewhere due to poor conditions at WRAMC. A Washington Post expose in 2007 finally revealed
the horrible mistreatment of our brave wounded soldiers. These reporters uncovered the following conditions:
WRAMC's Building 18 was described in the article as rat- and cockroach-infested, with stained carpets, cheap mattresses, and
black mold, with no heat and water reported by some soldiers at the facility. The unmonitored entrance created security problems,
including reports of drug dealers in front of the facility. Injured soldiers stated they are forced to "pull guard duty" to obtain
a level of security.
The typical soldier was required to file 22 documents with eight different commands – most of them off-post – to enter and
exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems were used to process
the forms, but few of them could communicate with one another. This complicated system has required some soldiers to prove they
were in the Iraq War or the War in Afghanistan in order to obtain medical treatment and benefits because Walter Reed employees
were unable to locate their records.
There was a tremendous surge in suicides by soldiers who have been pushed beyond their limits as they increased by 80% between
2004 and 2008. There are almost as many deaths by suicide as deaths in combat:
Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty
personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty
suicides exceeded deaths in battle.
Soldiers returning from long tours in Iraq or Afghanistan suffering from combat stress were sometimes met with scorn from
their superiors and something bordering on neglect from some medical officials. As their largely untreated problems deteriorated,
their marriages unraveled under the strain. They turned to alcohol and drugs and in some cases saw no other way out than suicide.
Healthcare officials at various installations who are struggling to help say they're overwhelmed by huge numbers of troops
returning from two, three or even four deployments with acute mental problems from combat.
Statistics on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, obtained in 2011 through a Freedom of Information Act request by a San Francisco
newspaper, found that more than 2,200 soldiers died within two years of leaving the service, and about half had been undergoing
treatment for post-traumatic stress or other combat-induced mental disorders at the time.
For five years, beginning in 2005, a service member died by suicide every 36 hours, according to the report by the Center
for New American Security.
Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all - report symptoms of post-traumatic
stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a RAND Corporation report.
Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But
even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider "minimally
adequate" for their illnesses. Recent studies expect PTSD to affect 30% of all returning veterans.
For all the glory and accolades of dying for chickenhawks like Dick Cheney, enlisted soldiers make between $17,000 and $32,000
per year. The military evidently does not prepare them well for the outside world as their unemployment rate is 12.1% versus the
national rate of 8.2%. The pandering Obama gives speeches and the criminal bankers at JP Morgan have their PR maggots create TV commercials
about hiring veterans, but the numbers don't lie. A country can be measured by how well it treats its veterans. Our leaders talk
a good game, but their actions prove they don't care about the human costs of war. They are busy planning their next move in their
game of Risk.
Moral Cost
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!
Black Sabbath –
War Pigs
Omar Bradley, the last five star General in the U.S. military, was known as the "soldier's general" during World War II. He was
portrayed by Karl Malden in the movie Patton as a thoughtful man who cared about his troops. He was one of the key architects of
the Normandy invasion and led the 12th Army Group consisting of 900,000 men until the end of the war. After the war, Bradley headed
the Veterans Administration for two years. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping veterans
receive their educational benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights. He ultimately rose to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Contrast the
words of the fictional Colonel Kilgore from the movie Apocalypse Now, with the words of General Bradley:
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When
it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the
whole hill. Smelled like
[ sniffing, pondering ]
victory. Someday this war's gonna end…
[ suddenly walks off ]
"The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical
infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living." - Omar Bradley
We need giants like Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead our country through the difficult times ahead. These men knew
the horrors of war and didn't act like it was a game of chess. Instead we will be led by intellectual and ethical infants, Obama
or Romney. There are no wise men with a conscience and high moral standards in power today. Only those with no conscience and a willingness
to lie are able to gain power in today's world. General Bradley understood that morality was ultimately more important than power
and strength in determining the progress of a country. His words are those of someone who knew we had failed in our moral duty:
"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."
Peacemakers are ridiculed and shunned in America today. Those who preach diplomacy and non-interventionism, like Ron Paul, are
scorned and ignored. Old men who care more about their own power than the human race are willing to sacrifice the blood of young
people for precious oil, phony nationalism, their own strategic interests or corporate interests disguised as philosophical agendas.
The world is a game for these old men. They care about their personal legacy and rigid ideologies. War and militarism are a failure
of passion over reason. Albert Einstein, whose discovery brought about this age of potential world destruction, had no love for these
blind warriors.
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake,
since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
The overwhelming cost of maintaining a global empire eventually bankrupted Rome and Great Britain. Treasures were wasted, young
men were needlessly sacrificed in the name of the flag, and the morality of leaders sank to unprecedented levels. The U.S. had advanced
financially and technologically for more than a century, but since the takeover of our economic system by private banking and corporate
interests in 1913 we have seen continuous war, continuous currency debasement, and continuous moral decay. How far will we decline
before a sufficient number of Americans are outraged enough to lead a new American Revolution?
Our current situation reminds me of the movie Planet of the Apes. The apes are divided into a strict class system: the
gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers;
and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are
hunted and used for scientific experimentation. The United States is now in the control of gorillas and
orangutans. If we continue down the current path of financial and moral decay, allowing the Military Industrial Complex,
criminal bankers and corrupt politicians to push us into further world conflicts, we will experience the shock and horror that George
Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, displayed in the final scene of Planet of the Apes .
George Taylor: Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was… We finally really did it.
[ screaming ]
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The War Pigs must be stopped before it's too late. The Military Industrial Complex, with the unwavering support of central bankers
printing unlimited amounts of fiat currency, while controlling the scoundrel puppets in Washington DC, will destroy this country
in their never ending quest for power and profits. One man fights a lonely battle against these forces of oppression. We must join
his legion and take this country back from the war pigs.
"As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while
supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the
world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American
empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few
thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that
nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined." – Ron Paul
"Washington took the "Soviet path"-pouring American treasure into the military, war, and national security-and so helped drive their
country off the nearest cliff."
In every aspect of human existence, change is a constant. Yet change that actually matters occurs only rarely. Even then, except
in retrospect, genuinely transformative change is difficult to identify. By attributing cosmic significance to every novelty and
declaring every unexpected event a revolution, self-assigned interpreters of the contemporary scene - politicians and pundits above
all - exacerbate the problem of distinguishing between the trivial and the non-trivial.
Did 9/11 "change everything"? For a brief period after September 2001, the answer to that question seemed self-evident: of course
it did, with massive and irrevocable implications. A mere decade later, the verdict appears less clear. Today, the vast majority
of
Americans live their lives as if the events of 9/11 had never occurred. When it comes to leaving a mark on the American way of
life, the likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have long since eclipsed Osama bin Laden. (Whether the legacies of Jobs and Zuckerberg
will prove other than transitory also remains to be seen.)
Anyone claiming to divine the existence of genuinely Big Change Happening Now should, therefore, do so with a sense of modesty
and circumspection, recognizing the possibility that unfolding events may reveal a different story.
All that said, the present moment is arguably one in which the international order is, in fact, undergoing a fundamental transformation.
The "postwar world" brought into existence as a consequence of World War II is coming to an end. A major redistribution of global
power is underway. Arrangements that once conferred immense prerogatives upon the United States, hugely benefiting the American people,
are coming undone.
In Washington, meanwhile, a hidebound governing class pretends that none of this is happening, stubbornly insisting that it's
still 1945 with the so-called American Century destined to continue for several centuries more (reflecting, of course, God's express
intentions).
Here lies the most disturbing aspect of contemporary American politics, worse even than rampant dysfunction borne of petty partisanship
or corruption expressed in the buying and selling of influence. Confronted with evidence of a radically changing environment, those
holding (or aspiring to) positions of influence simply turn a blind eye, refusing even to begin to adjust to a new reality.
Big change happening now
The Big Change happening before our very eyes is political, economic, and military. At least four converging vectors are involved.
First, the Collapse of the Freedom Agenda: In the wake of 9/11, the administration of George W Bush set out to remake the Greater
Middle East. This was the ultimate strategic objective of Bush's "global war on terror".
Intent on accomplishing across the Islamic world what he believed the United States had accomplished in Europe and the Pacific
between 1941 and 1945, Bush sought to erect a new order conducive to US interests - one that would permit unhindered access to oil
and other resources, dry up the sources of violent Islamic radicalism, and (not incidentally) allow Israel a free hand in the region.
Key to the success of this effort would be the US military, which Bush (and many ordinary Americans) believed to be unstoppable and
invincible - able to beat anyone anywhere under any conditions.
Alas, once implemented, the Freedom Agenda almost immediately foundered in Iraq. The Bush administration had expected Operation
Iraqi Freedom to be a short, tidy war with a decisively triumphant outcome. In the event, it turned out to be a long, dirty (and
very costly) war yielding, at best, exceedingly ambiguous results.
Well before he left office in January 2009, Bush himself had abandoned his Freedom Agenda, albeit without acknowledging its collapse
and therefore without instructing Americans on the implications of that failure. One specific implication stands out: we now know
that US military power, however imposing, falls well short of enabling the United States to impose its will on the Greater Middle
East. We can neither liberate nor dominate nor tame the Islamic world, a verdict from the Bush era that Present Barack Obama's continuing
misadventures in "AfPak" have only served to affirm.
Trying harder won't produce a different result. Outgoing secretary of defense Robert Gates caught the new reality best: "Any future
defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should
'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it."
To be sure, Freedom Agenda dead-enders - frequently found under K in your phone book - continue to argue otherwise. Even now,
for example, Kagans, Keanes, Krauthammers and Kristols are insisting that "we won" the Iraq War - or at least had done so until
Obama fecklessly flung away a victory so gloriously gained. Essential to their argument is that no one notices how they have progressively
lowered the bar in defining victory.
Back in 2003, they were touting Saddam Hussein's overthrow as just the beginning of American domination of the Middle East. While
Saddam's departure was said to have "made the world a better place," today, just getting out of Baghdad with US forces intact has
become the operative definition of success, ostensibly vindicating the many thousands killed and maimed, millions of refugees displaced,
and trillions of dollars expended.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia remains in the field, conducting some 30 attacks per week against Iraqi security forces and
civilians. This we are expected not to notice. Some victory.
Second, the Great Recession: In the history of the American political economy, the bursting of speculative bubbles forms a recurring
theme. Wall Street shenanigans that leave the plain folk footing the bill are an oft-told tale. Recessions of one size or another
occur at least once a decade.
Yet the economic downturn that began in 2008 stands apart, distinguished by its severity, duration, and resistance to even the
most vigorous (or extravagant) remedial action. In this sense, rather than resembling any of the garden-variety economic slumps or
panics of the past half-century, the Great Recession of our own day recalls the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Instead of being a transitory phenomenon, it seemingly signifies something transformational. The Great Recession may well have
inaugurated a new era - its length indeterminate but likely to stretch for many years - of low growth, high unemployment, and shrinking
opportunity. As incomes stagnate and more and more youngsters complete their education only to find no jobs waiting, members of the
middle class are beginning to realize that the myth of America as a classless society is just that. In truth, the game is rigged
to benefit the few at the expense of the many - and in recent years, the fixing has become ever more shamelessly blatant.
This realization is rattling American politics. In just a handful of years, confidence in the Washington establishment has declined
precipitously. Congress has become a laughing stock. The high hopes raised by Obama's election have long since dissipated, leaving
disappointment and cynicism in their wake.
One result, on both the far right and the far left, has been to stoke the long-banked fires of American radicalism. The energy
in American politics today lies with the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street, both expressing a deep-seated antipathy toward
the old way of doing things. Populism is making one of its periodic appearances on the American scene.
Where this will lead remains, at present, unclear. But ours has long been a political system based on expectations of ever-increasing
material abundance, promising more for everyone. Whether that system can successfully deal with the challenges of managing scarcity
and distributing sacrifice ranks as an open question. This is especially true when those among us who have been making out like bandits
profess so little willingness to share in any sacrifices that may be required.
Third, the Arab Spring: As with the floundering American economy, so with Middle Eastern politics: predicting the future is a
proposition fraught with risk. Yet without pretending to forecast outcomes - Will Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya embrace democracy? Can
Islamic movements coexist with secularized modernity? this much can be safely said: the ongoing Arab upheaval is sweeping from that
region of the world the last vestiges of Western imperialism.
Europeans created the modern Middle East with a single purpose in mind: to serve European interests. With the waning of European
power in the wake of World War II, the United States - gingerly at first, but by the 1980s without noticeable inhibition - stepped
in to fill the void. What had previously been largely a British sphere now became largely an American one, with the ever-accelerating
tempo of US military activism testifying to that fact.
Although Washington abjured the overt colonialism once practiced in London, its policies did not differ materially from those
that Europeans had pursued. The idea was to keep a lid on things, exclude mischief-makers, and at the same time extract from the
Middle East whatever it had on offer. The preferred American MO
Dilbert was to align with authoritarian regimes, offering arms, security guarantees, and other blandishments in return for
promises of behavior consistent with Washington's preferences. Concern for the wellbeing of peoples living in the region (Israelis
excepted) never figured as more than an afterthought.
What events of the past year have made evident is this: that lid is now off and there is little the United States (or anyone else)
can do to reinstall it. A great exercise in Arab self-determination has begun. Arabs (and, arguably, non-Arabs in the broader Muslim
world as well) will decide their own future in their own way. What they decide may be wise or foolish. Regardless, the United States
and other Western nations will have little alternative but to accept the outcome and deal with the consequences, whatever they happen
to be.
A Washington inhabited by people certain that decisions made in the White House determine the course of history will insist otherwise,
of course. Democrats credit Obama's 2009 Cairo speech with inspiring Arabs to throw off their chains. Even more laughably, Republicans
credit George W Bush's "liberation" of Iraq for installing democracy in the region and supposedly moving Tunisians, Egyptians, and
others to follow suit.
To put it mildly, evidence to support such claims simply does not exist. One might as well attribute the Arab uprising to the
2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Those expecting Egyptians to erect statues of Obama or Bush in Cairo's Tahrir
Square are likely to have a long wait.
Fourth, Beleaguered Europe's Quest for a Lifeline: To a considerable extent, the story of the 20th century - at least the commonly-told
Western version of that story - is one of Europe screwing up and America coming to the rescue. The really big screw-ups were, of
course, the two world wars. In 1917 and again after December 1941, the United States sent large armies to deal with those who had
disturbed the peace. After the first war, the Americans left. After the second, they stayed, not only providing soldiers to safeguard
Western Europe, but also rejuvenating the shattered economies of the European democracies.
Even with the passing of a half-century, the Marshall Plan stands out as a singular example of enlightened statecraft - and also
as a testimonial to America's unsurpassed economic capacity following World War II. Saving continents in dire distress was a job
that only the United States could accomplish.
That was then. Today, Europe has once again screwed up, although fortunately this time there is no need for foreign armies to
sort out the mess. The crisis of the moment is an economic one, due entirely to European recklessness and irresponsibility (not qualitatively
different from the behavior underlying the American economic crisis).
Will Uncle Sam once again ride to the rescue? Not a chance. Beset with the problems that come with old age, Uncle Sam can't even
mount up. To whom, then, can Europe turn for assistance? Recent headlines tell the story: "Cash-Strapped Europe Looks to China For
Help" "Europe Begs China for Bailout" "EU takes begging bowl to Beijing" "Is China the Bailout Saviour in the European Debt Crisis?"
The crucial issue here isn't whether Beijing will actually pull Europe's bacon out of the fire. Rather it's the shifting expectations
underlying the moment. After all, hasn't the role of European savior already been assigned? Isn't it supposed to be Washington's
in perpetuity? Apparently not.
Back to the future In the words of the old Buffalo Springfield song: "Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."
American politicians stubbornly beg to differ, of course, content to recite vapid but reassuring cliches about American global
leadership, American exceptionalism, and that never-ending American Century. Everything, they would have us believe, will remain
just as it has been - providing the electorate installs the right person in the Oval Office.
"To those nations who continue to resist the unstoppable march of human, political and economic freedom," declares Republican
presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, "we will make clear that they are on the wrong side of history, by ensuring that America's light
shines bright in every corner of the globe, representing a beacon of hope and inspiration."
"This is America's moment," insists Mitt Romney. "We should embrace the challenge, not shrink from it, not crawl into an isolationist
shell, not wave the white flag of surrender, nor give in to those who assert America's time has passed ... I will not surrender America's
role in the world." With an unsurprising absence of originality, the title of Romney's campaign "white paper" on national security
is "An American Century".
Governor Rick Perry's campaign web site offers this important insight: "Rick Perry believes in American exceptionalism, and rejects
the notion our president should apologize for our country but instead believes allies and adversaries alike must know that America
seeks peace from a position of strength."
For his part, Newt Gingrich wants it known that "America is still the last, best hope of mankind on earth."
The other Republican candidates (Ron Paul always excepted) draw from the same shallow and stagnant pool of ideas. To judge by
what we might call the C Wright Mills standard of leadership - "men without lively imagination are needed to execute policies without
imagination devised by an elite without imagination" - all are eminently qualified for the presidency. Nothing is wrong with America
or the world, they would have us believe, that can't be fixed by ousting Obama from office, thereby restoring the rightful order
of things.
"Is America Over?" That question adorns the cover of the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, premier organ of the foreign policy
establishment. As is typically the case with that establishment, Foreign Affairs is posing the wrong question, one designed chiefly
to elicit a misleading, if broadly reassuring answer.
Proclaim it from the rooftops: No, America is not "over". Yet a growing accumulation of evidence suggests that America today is
not the America of 1945. Nor does the international order of the present moment bear more than a passing resemblance to that which
existed in the heyday of American power. Everyone else on the planet understands this. Perhaps it's finally time for Americans -
starting with American politicians - to do so as well. Should they refuse, a painful comeuppance awaits.
Andrew J Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author,
among other works, of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and the editor of The Short American Century: A Postmortem,
forthcoming from Harvard University Press. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest Tomcast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses
how his students have come to accept perpetual American war as normalcy click here, or download it to your iPod here.
For students of twentieth-century American statecraft, George Kennan has long ranked as an intriguing figure, second in that respect
only to Henry Kissinger. But unlike Kissinger, who served as both national security adviser and secretary of state (for a time holding
both offices simultaneously), Kennan never occupied a top-tier position. A career diplomat who never actually dictated policy, he
provided a rationale or framework for those who did. As Kissinger once wrote, "Kennan came as close to authoring the diplomatic doctrine
of his era as any diplomat in our history." Yet power resides not with the author of a doctrine but with those who order its transformation
into policy and then control its implementation. This Kennan never did.
Very much like Kissinger, however, Kennan continued to cast a long shadow for decades after his nominal departure from public
life. He remained a presence. What he said and wrote mattered-or at least seemed to. The Kennan mystique derives less from the imprint
he left on policy than from the elusiveness of his outlook and character. When it came to expressing his views, Kennan was never
one to hesitate. He wrote compulsively. Over the course of a long life-he died in 2005 at age 101-he left behind an enormous paper
trail, consisting of official documents, Congressional testimony, lectures, essays, well over a dozen books (including his two-volume
memoirs), letters, diaries and even poetry. Kennan the poet will never rank alongside Robert Lowell or William Carlos Williams. As
a prose stylist, however, he could display an almost ethereal grace, which either explains or makes more mystifying his perpetual
complaint about others never quite grasping what he meant. Throughout his life, he remained-and almost certainly wished to remain-difficult
to label or to pin down.
John Lewis Gaddis's achievement in this comprehensive official biography is to unwrap the Kennan enigma. Enjoying unprecedented
access to all Kennan's papers, having interviewed Kennan and members of his family, Gaddis has taken the measure of his man. Yet
even while insisting resolutely on his subject's claim to greatness, Gaddis succeeds chiefly in revealing Kennan's frailties and
foibles. The man in full turns out to have been all too human.
Born in Milwaukee in 1904-his mother died shortly after his birth-Kennan grew up in a strait-laced middle-class household where
propriety took precedence over affection. After graduating from a nearby military high school, he enrolled at Princeton, where he
demonstrated an aptitude for history while also immersing himself in contemporary American fiction, with fellow Princetonian F. Scott
Fitzgerald being a particular favorite. The Great Gatsby, he later recalled, "went right into me and became part of
me." In his memoirs, Kennan portrays his college years as a melancholy period of isolation and loneliness. Gaddis demonstrates
that the truth was otherwise: Kennan enjoyed himself at Princeton, cheering for the football team, playing in dance bands and participating
as an upperclassman in the ritual hazing of first-year students.
A summer spent rambling through Europe with a college chum convinced Kennan, at loose ends regarding his future, that diplomacy
might provide a suitable career. Upon graduation from Princeton in 1925, he successfully applied for a position in the newly created
Foreign Service. After a diplomatic apprenticeship in Geneva and Hamburg, he jumped at a State Department offer to train as a Soviet
specialist-this at a time when the United States had no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. It was a life-altering decision.
Kennan became a Russophile, with an abiding fondness for Chekhov.
His affinity for Russian culture and admiration for the Russian people were matched only by his loathing of the Soviet system,
which he encountered firsthand in 1933. With commercial considerations uppermost in mind, the newly elected president, Franklin Roosevelt,
decided that year to restore relations with the Kremlin, appointing William Bullitt as US ambassador. The State Department posted
Kennan to Bullitt's staff and charged him with reopening the US embassy in Moscow, closed since the Bolshevik Revolution. Kennan
remained in Moscow until 1936, having by then long since concluded that anyone expecting a "friendly" Soviet-American relationship
to bloom was simply naïve.
Assignments to Prague, Berlin (he was interned for five months after Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941)
and Lisbon followed. By 1944 he was back in Moscow, serving as right-hand man to Ambassador W. Averell Harriman. Courtesy of Hitler,
the United States and the Soviet Union were now allies of a kind. Yet Kennan's second posting in Moscow did nothing to improve his
opinion of the Soviet system.
* * *
The Soviet-American alliance did not survive the collapse of Hitler's Reich. And in February 1946, with US officials already gripped
by an increasingly anti-Soviet mood, Kennan-chargé d'affaires during Harriman's temporary absence-sent Washington the most influential
cable ever drafted by a career diplomat. According to Gaddis, a leading scholar of the cold war who teaches at Yale, the so-called
Long Telegram-more than 5,000 words in all-was "the geopolitical equivalent of a medical X-ray, penetrating beneath alarming symptoms
to yield at first clarity, then comprehension, and finally by implication a course of treatment."
Yet as in business or entertainment or politics, so too in statecraft: timing is everything. In this instance, Kennan's was exquisite.
"Here was a case where nothing but the whole truth would do," he wrote in his memoirs. "They had asked for it. Now, by God, they
would have it." Mustering all the assurance acquired during the years spent studying and dealing with the Soviet government, he unleashed
a thunderbolt. Further efforts to get along with the Kremlin were pointless. Soviet ambitions and US interests were irreconcilable.
Protecting those interests required a radically new approach-a sustained and comprehensive effort to prevent any further expansion
of Soviet power. Over time-not likely to be very long in Kennan's estimation-such a strategy of containment would cause the Soviet
Union to collapse from within.
As an exercise in expository writing, Kennan later remarked, the Long Telegram resembled "one of those primers put out by alarmed
congressional committees or by the Daughters of the American Revolution, designed to arouse the citizenry to the dangers of the Communist
conspiracy." He wasn't exaggerating. Kennan classified the Soviet leadership as "neurotic" and the Soviet system as "archaic
in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of
Western countries." Whatever the accuracy of this assessment, in policy circles it elicited an enthusiastically positive
response. Kennan's missive, Gaddis acknowledges, served in effect to "provide the rationale for the course upon which the [Truman]
administration had already embarked."
In an instant, Kennan's reputation was made. Summoned back to Washington, he soon became director of policy planning, a position
created by Secretary of State George Marshall to address questions of basic strategy. As the go-to guy on all matters related to
the Soviet Union, Kennan bent himself to the task of converting containment from concept to policy. Out of the ensuing period of
intense activity came all manner of large initiatives: the Marshall Plan, NATO and early experiments with covert dirty tricks, some
succeeding (funneling money to anti-communist Italian political parties, for example), others failing abysmally (attempting to subvert
the Kremlin-aligned government of Albania). In each of these episodes and more, Kennan was in the thick of things.
Not least of all, an essay called "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," the handiwork of a mysterious "X," appeared in the Summer 1947
issue of Foreign Affairs, instantly becoming a must-read for anyone with the slightest interest in public policy: here was
the definitive explanation of why the USSR behaved as it did and how the United States needed to respond, the essential themes of
the Long Telegram repackaged for public consumption. The roughly five minutes it took enterprising journalists to identify Kennan
as the essay's author catapulted him from influential insider to intellectual celebrity. In the world of ideas, doors swung open.
Publishers, editors, columnists, the presidents of universities and foundations: everyone wanted a piece of Mr. X.
* * *
All of which thrust the subject of this sudden adulation into a deep funk. Although intensely ambitious and hungry for recognition,
Kennan found it almost impossible to derive lasting satisfaction from any of his achievements. Morose and self-absorbed, he instinctively
responded to any perceived slight or setback by being sorry for himself. Feelings of inadequacy and guilt (periodic marital infidelity
evoked acute qualms of conscience) found expression in bouts of illness, real or imagined, that landed him in the hospital or confined
him to bed, keeping him hors de combat for weeks on end.
Complementing this tendency to moodiness was Kennan's relentlessly negative assessment of his country and countrymen. He disdained
American culture as shallow and materialistic. He derided the political system, especially the deference accorded the unwashed masses
by vote-grubbing office-seekers. "I hate democracy," he complained in a letter to his sister. "I hate the press…; I hate the 'peepul.'"
That was in the 1930s. By the '50s Kennan professed that "for my own country, I have not a shred of hope, not one." By the '80s he
was describing the United States as "a wasteland, a garbage dump, a sewer." "The America I know and love and owe allegiance to,"
he once wrote, was the America "of John Hay and Henry Adams and [Theodore] Roosevelt"-that is, an America that had long since ceased
to exist. In Kennan's America, an "enlightened and responsible" elite would wield political authority, with the right to vote restricted
to those possessing the proper "character, education, and inclination," criteria intended to exclude blacks, most women and all city-dwelling
Jews and Catholics recently arrived from Eastern or Southern Europe. This was elitism laced with bigotry and seasoned with a hint
of authoritarianism.
Kennan, in other words, was a man distinctly at odds with the times (not to mention the culture) into which he had been born.
As a consequence, Gaddis observes, he was "allergic to orthodoxy"-even (or especially) any orthodoxy he had played a hand in promulgating.
No sooner had a strategy that Kennan was credited with devising become dogma than he commenced to pick it apart.
With its this-far-and-no-further premise, for example, containment necessarily meant that a Germany divided between East and West
by the outcome of World War II should remain divided for the foreseeable future. Yet as early as 1949, Kennan was advocating withdrawal
of all occupation forces to permit the reunification of a neutralized Germany, a prospect equally unacceptable to the Kremlin, America's
European allies and even most Germans. Containment's us-against-them logic lumped together all communists as adversaries, unless
proven otherwise. Yet in the immediate wake of Mao Zedong's victory in China's civil war, Kennan urged that the Truman administration
act with "resolution, speed, ruthlessness, and self-assurance" to oust 300,000 Kuomintang troops from Taiwan "the way that Theodore
Roosevelt might have done it." State Department colleagues must have thought he'd taken leave of his senses; after submitting the
proposal, Kennan withdrew it the same day.
As if perversely intent on soiling his own nest, the father of containment transformed himself into an archcritic of containment,
which inevitably limited his further utility in policy-making circles. To Kennan's considerable distress, he soon found that his
views no longer commanded automatic attention. His renown remained intact, but his influence waned. Eased out of policy planning
in late 1949, he never again wielded significant clout, although for years he nursed increasingly improbable hopes of being invited
back to redeem American statecraft.
Kennan's appointment as US ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1951, therefore, came as a sort of consolation prize. But this third
tour in Moscow proved if anything more frustrating than the previous two. Stalin couldn't be bothered to see him, which Kennan took
to be a calculated affront. Feeling isolated and besieged, he had the CIA provide him with cyanide vials in case the need to commit
suicide should arise. Less than a year into his assignment, talking to reporters while on a visit to Berlin, the ambassador compared
living conditions in Moscow to his internment in Hitler's Germany. When Kennan's comments made the newspapers, the Soviets promptly
declared him persona non grata. Gaddis suggests that Kennan's gaffe was intentional, the most efficient way of arranging an exit
and getting back to Washington, where the newly elected President Eisenhower might anoint him under secretary of state. But with
the doctrinaire John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's choice to head the State Department, deeming Kennan insufficiently hawkish, no such
appointment was in the cards. Apart from his brief service as President Kennedy's ambassador to Yugoslavia, Kennan's direct involvement
in policy-making had all but ended.
* * *
Yet a new career almost immediately commenced. Batting aside offers from various A-list universities bidding for his services,
Kennan accepted J. Robert Oppenheimer's invitation to join the Institute for Advanced Study, at Princeton. This remained Kennan's
base for the rest of his active life, nearly a half-century devoted to writing diplomatic history and darkly expounding on the issues
of the day.
Kennan became a one-man Greek chorus, denouncing the crassness of American culture, lamenting the degradation of the environment
and warning against the impending threat of nuclear apocalypse. His views enjoyed wide dissemination and always received a respectful
hearing-before being promptly discarded. He was, in short, the embodiment of the public intellectual, "a mystic and a visionary,"
according to Isaiah Berlin, at a time when Washington belonged to functionaries who knew the assigned script by heart and could be
counted on to recite their lines.
As with other mystics and visionaries, Kennan could be unpredictable and even erratic. His proposed response to the 1968 Soviet
intervention in Czechoslovakia, for example, was to reinforce the US garrison in West Germany with another 100,000 troops. Yet in
1973 he insisted that Washington refrain even from expressing sympathy for Soviet dissidents like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei
Sakharov so as to avoid upsetting the Kremlin. The 1975 Helsinki Accords elicited sharp disapproval: "two years of wrangling over
language…one of it committing anyone specifically to anything." And when revolutionaries in 1979 seized the US embassy in Tehran,
he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "the United States should simply declare war on Iran."
None of these dubious judgments disrupted the flow of awards and recognition that Kennan steadily accumulated: two Pulitzers,
two National Book Awards, the Bancroft and Francis Parkman prizes for history, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal,
the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, more than two dozen honorary degrees-just about every trinket
on offer apart from a Super Bowl ring.
All the while, Kennan lamented that his life had come to nothing, venting his unhappiness in his diary. "I have nothing to live
for," he complained soon after his formal retirement from government employment. "I am an exile wherever I go." Or this: "I am utterly
without relationship to this country and this age." Or again: "I am determined that if I cannot have all, or the greater part, of
what I want, no one is going to deprive me of the glorious martyrdom of having none of it." Kennan wallowed in self-pity. "My role,"
he wrote on another occasion, is "that of a prophet."
It was for this that I was born. And my tragedy is to enact this part at a time when it becomes increasingly doubtful that
there will, as little as ten or twenty years hence, be anyone left to recognize the validity of the prophecies, or whether, indeed
any record of these prophecies will have survived….
Gaddis describes Kennan's diary as "the most remarkable work of sustained self-analysis-and certainly self-criticism-since
The Education of Henry Adams." Based on the extracts reprinted in the book, the comparison seems misplaced. Unlike Kennan, Adams
experienced significant personal tragedy (for one, his wife committed suicide). He also evinced a far more acute appreciation of
the problems following in the wake of modernity, not least the moral confusion to which the advent of the machine age was giving
rise. Adams possessed in abundance one quality that Kennan lacked altogether: a sense of humor. And, blessedly, Adams was not a whiner.
* * *
In his conclusion, Gaddis ranks Kennan among the great Americans of the twentieth century, locating that greatness in his "timeless,
transcendent teaching." This is an odd judgment, not easily sustained by the evidence that Gaddis has compiled in this fat
book. In fact, Kennan's "teaching"-if by that word we mean the public expression of his views-was all over the map, as likely to
be informed by overstatement or ill temper as by wisdom and foresight.
Like many intellectuals, Kennan did best when confining himself to generalities: "We must be gardeners and not mechanics in our
approach to world affairs." In his education George W. Bush apparently overlooked that particular Kennanesque nugget, for which Americans
have ample cause for regret. The Kennan oeuvre contains other aphorisms that would do Jeremiah proud: "Providence has a
way of punishing those who persist long and willfully in ignoring great realities." With Washington today willfully ignoring realities
at home and abroad, that one stings.
Yet great teachers do not compromise truth. This Kennan did when promoting views to which he happened (if only in passing) to
subscribe. One of his most memorable sentences comes at the conclusion of "The Source of Soviet Conduct." After suggesting that the
"thoughtful observer" should "find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society," Kennan offered this peroration:
He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable
challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities
of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.
This patently dishonest curtsy to American exceptionalism was violently at odds with what Kennan believed. Indeed, a few short
years before, a letter to his sister included a rather different assessment of the United States: "Ignorant and conceited, we now
enter blindly on a future with which we are quite unqualified to cope." In the essay that made him famous, Kennan engaged in blatant
pandering, suppressing his almost comically low opinion of his countrymen. Mr. X's aim was not to educate or enlighten but to manipulate
and sell. The sales job worked, of course, setting an example mimicked ever since by the demagogues who routinely cite history's
purposes and America's supposedly special calling to promote US meddling in some far quarter of the globe. No wonder Kennan subsequently
had occasion to regret his words.
Rather than a great man (does such a creature exist?), Kennan exemplifies the fate and the misfortune of someone an inscrutable
Providence briefly smiles on and then just as quickly casts aside. Gaddis includes this observation by Bismarck: "By himself the
individual can create nothing; he can only wait until he hears God's footsteps resounding through events and then spring forward
to grasp the hem of his mantle-that is all." For a brief interval after World War II, Kennan faintly detected God's footsteps and
ever so briefly became history's foot servant. Yet that moment soon passed, leaving the gloomy Kennan to spend the remainder of his
life vainly trying to recapture it.
Can you believe that, in certain circles, support for obesity is becoming an American birthright (as in "the freedom to be…")
and a political position? Like various radio and TV shock jocks, Sarah Palin
has been attacking
Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative as yet another example of "the nanny state run amok." (It's enough to make you hyperventilate
on the couch while watching "Law and Order" reruns!) Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
let loose a blast at the National Football League for postponing a Philadelphia-Minnesota game because of an upcoming blizzard.
"We're becoming a nation of wussies," he thundered. (It's enough to make you text and tweet up a storm from that same couch!)
A question arises: Doesn't anybody have anything better to do? I mean, aren't there a few more salient problems to attack
in our American world, like the
decline and fall
of just about
everything? Take the U.S. military, about which -- as
TomDispatch regular
and retired Lieutenant Colonel William Astore points out -- American presidents (and the rest of our political crew) can never say
enough hyperbolically praiseworthy things. Well, bad times are supposed to be great for military recruitment. But even
if a flood of gays and lesbians sign on as soon as Do-Ask-I'll-Tell
becomes official
policy, there are other long-term impediments to producing an effective fighting force.
In April 2010, for instance, a group of retired top brass and others
released a report claiming that 27% of Americans between 17 and 24 are "too fat to fight." "Within
just 10 years, the number of states reporting that 40 percent of their 18- to 24-year-olds are obese or overweight went from
one [Kentucky] to 39." No reason to focus on that, though. After all, it was so last year.
Just as the year ended, however, the Education Trust issued a report indicating
that nearly a quarter of all applicants to the Armed Forces, despite having a high-school diploma,
can't pass the necessary military entrance exam. This isn't Rhodes Scholarships we're talking about, but not having "the
reading, mathematics, science, and problem-solving abilities" to become a bona fide private in the U.S. Army. We're
talking the sort of basic that, according to an Education Trust spokesperson, makes it "equally likely that the men and women who
don't pass the test are [also] unprepared for the civilian workforce."
Last month, as if to emphasize the seriousness of the problem,
Shanghai's students came in number one
in the Program for International Student Assessment, a
well-respected test given to 15-year-old
students in 65 countries in reading, science, and math skills. U.S. students came in a glorious 17th in reading, 23rd in math,
and 31st in science. In today's dispatch, Astore asks whether the U.S. military is actually "the finest fighting force in the
history of the world." Then there's that other question: These days, can anyone call the United States the finest nation in the world
with a straight face? The fattest? Maybe, though we're behind
various Pacific island nations
for that honor. The least well educated? Not yet, but heading that way. Maybe it's time for Congress to launch
a No-Nation-Left-Behind program -- for us. Think about it while you're eating
those s'mores
Sarah Palin is plugging. (To catch Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Astore discusses the military
nightmares of a fading empire, click here or,
to download it to your iPod,
here.) Tom
Freedom Fighters for a Fading Empire
What It Means When We Say We Have the World's Finest Fighting Force
By William J. Astore
Words matter, as candidate Barack Obama said in the 2008
election campaign. What to make, then, of President Obama's pep talk last month to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in which he
lauded them as "the finest fighting force that the world has ever known"? Certainly, he knew that those words would resonate
with the troops as well as with the folks back home.
In fact, this sort of description of the U.S. military has become something of a must for American presidents. Obama's predecessor
George W. Bush, for example, boasted of that military as alternately "the
greatest force for freedom in the history of the world" and "the
greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known." Hyperbolic and self-promoting statements, to be sure, but
undoubtedly sincere, reflecting as they do an American sense of exceptionalism that sits poorly with the increasingly interconnected
world of the twenty-first century.
I'm a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a historian who teaches military history. The retired officer in me warms to the
sentiment of our troops as both unparalleled fighters and selfless liberators, but the historian in me begs to differ.
Let's start with the fighting part of the equation. Are we truly the world's greatest fighting force, not only at this moment,
but as measured against all militaries across history? If so, on what basis is this claim made? And what does such triumphalist
rhetoric suggest not just about our national narcissism, but Washington's priorities? Consider that no leading U.S. politician
thinks to boast that we have the finest educational system or health-care system or environmental policies "that the world has ever
known."
Measured in terms of sheer destructive power, and our ability to project that power across the globe, the U.S. military is indeed
the world's "finest" fighting force. Our nuclear arsenal remains second to none. Our air forces (including the Navy's
carrier task forces, the Army's armada of helicopter gunships, and the CIA's fleet of unmanned aerial drones prosecuting a "secret"
war in Pakistan) dominate the heavens. Our Navy ("a global force for good," according to its
new motto) rules the waves -- even more so than old Britannia did a century
ago. And well should we rule the skies and seas, given the roughly one trillion dollars a year we spend on achieving our vision
of "full spectrum dominance."
But this awesome ability to exercise "global reach,
global power" hardly makes us the finest military force ever. After all, "finest" shouldn't be measured by sheer strength
and reach alone. First and foremost, of course, should come favorable results set against the quality of the opponents bested.
To use a sports analogy, we wouldn't call the Pittsburgh Steelers "the finest team in NFL history" simply because they annihilated
Penn State in football. Similarly, we can't measure the success of today's U.S. military solely in terms of amazingly quick
(if increasingly costly and ultimately dismal) "victories" over the Taliban in 2001 or Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces in 2003.
To carry the football analogy a few yards further, one might ask when our "finest fighting force" had its last Super Bowl win.
Certainly, 1918 and 1945 (World Wars I and II) were such wins, even if as part of larger coalitions; 1953 (Korea) was a frustrating
stalemate; 1973 (Vietnam) was a demoralizing loss; 1991 (Desert Storm in Iraq) was a distinctly flawed win; and efforts like Grenada
or Panama or Serbia were more like scrimmages. Arguably our biggest win, the Cold War, was achieved less through military means
than economic power and technological savvy.
To put it bluntly: America's troops are tough-minded professionals, but the finest fighting force ever? Sir, no, sir.
We're Number One!
Americans often seem to live in the eternal now, which makes it easier to boast that our military is the finest ever. Most
historians, however, are not so tied to nationalistic rhetoric or the ceaseless present. If asked to identify the finest fighting
force in history, my reaction -- and I would hardly be alone in the field -- would be to favor those peoples and empires which existed
for war alone.
Examples immediately spring to mind: the Assyrians, the Spartans, the Romans, the Vikings, the Mongols, and the Nazis. These
peoples elevated their respective militaries and martial prowess above all else. Unsurprisingly, they were bloodthirsty and
ruthless. Unstinting ambition for imperial goals often drove them to remarkable feats of arms at an unconscionable and sometimes
difficult to sustain cost. Yes, the Spartans defeated the Athenians, but that internecine quarrel paved the way for the demise
of the independent Greek city states at the hands of Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander (soon enough to be known as "the Great").
Yes, the Romans conquered an empire,
but one of their own historians, Tacitus, put in the mouth of a Celtic chieftain this description of being on the receiving end of
Roman "liberation":
"The Romans' tyranny cannot be escaped by any act of reasonable submission. These brigands of the world have exhausted the
land by their rapacity, so they now ransack the sea. When their enemy is rich, they lust after wealth; when their enemy is
poor, they lust after power. Neither East nor West has satisfied their hunger. They are unique among humanity insofar
as they equally covet the rich and the poor. Robbery, butchery, and rapine they call 'Empire.' They create a desert and
call it 'Peace.'"
Talk about tough love.
The Romans would certainly have to be in the running for "finest military" of all time. They conquered many peoples, expanded
far, and garrisoned vast areas of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and what would become Europe, while their legions marched forth,
often to victory (not to speak of plunder), for hundreds of years. Still, the gold medal for the largest land empire in history
-- and the finest fighting force of all time -- must surely go to the thirteenth century Mongols.
Led by Genghis Khan and his successors, Mongol horsemen conquered China and the Islamic world -- the two most powerful, sophisticated
civilizations of their day -- while also exerting control over Russia for two and a half centuries. And thanks to a combination
of military excellence, clever stratagem, fleetness of foot (and far more important, hoof), flexibility, and when necessary utter
ferocity, they did all this while generally being outnumbered by their enemies.
Even the fighting power of the finest militaries waxed and waned, however, based in part on the quality of those leading them.
The Macedonians blossomed under Philip and Alexander. It was not simply Rome that conquered Gaul, but Julius Caesar.
The Mongols were at each other's throats until Genghis Khan united them into an unstoppable military machine that swept across a
continent. The revolutionary French people in their famed levée en masse had martial fervor, but only Napoleon gave
them direction. History's finest fighting forces are associated closely with history's greatest captains.
Measure that against the American military today. General David Petraeus is certainly a successful officer who exhibits
an enviable mastery of detail and a powerful political sense of how to handle Washington, but a Genghis Khan? An Alexander?
A Caesar? Even "King David," as he's been called
both by admirers and more than a few detractors, might blush at such comparisons. After all, at the head of the most powerfully
destructive force in the Middle East, and later Central Asia, he has won no outright victories and conquered nothing. His triumph
in Iraq in 2006-2007 may yet prove more "confected"
than convincing.
As for our armed forces, though most Americans don't know it, within U.S. military circles much criticism exists of an officer
corps of "tarnished brass" that
is deficient in professionalism; of generals who are more concerned with
covering their butts than leading from the front;
of instruction at military academies that is
divorced from war's realities; of an aversion "to
innovation or creativity… [leading to] an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism" that undermines strategy and makes a hash of counterinsurgency
efforts. Indeed, our military's biting criticism of itself is one of the few positive signs in a fighting force that is otherwise
overstretched, deeply frustrated, and ridiculously overpraised by genuflecting politicians.
So I'm sorry, President Obama. If you wish to address the finest fighting force the world has ever known, you'll need a
time machine, not Air Force One. You'll have to doff your leather Air Force-issue
flight jacket
and don Mongolian armor. And in so doing, you'll have to embrace mental attitudes and a way of life utterly antithetical to
democracy and the rights of humanity as we understand them today. For that is the price of building a fighting force
second to none -- and one reason why our politicians should stop insisting that we have one.
"The Greatest Force for Human Liberation"
Two centuries ago, Napoleon led his armies out of France and brought "liberty, equality, and fraternity" to much of the rest of
ancien régime Europe -- but on his terms and via the barrel of a musket. His invasion of Spain, for example, was viewed
as anything but a "liberation" by the Spanish, who launched a fierce guerrilla campaign against their French occupiers that sapped
the strength of Napoleon's empire and what was generally considered the finest fighting force of its moment. British aid to
the insurgency helped ensure that this campaign would become Napoleon's "Spanish
ulcer."
The "Little Corporal" ultimately decided to indirectly strike back at the British by invading Russia, which was refusing to enforce
France's so-called continental blockade. As Napoleon's army bled out or froze solid in the snows of a Russian winter, the Prussians
and the Austrians found new reasons to reject French "fraternity." Within years, Napoleon's empire was unsaddled and destroyed,
a fate shared by its leader, sent into ignominious exile on the island of Saint Helena.
Like Napoleon's fired up revolutionary troops, the American military also sees itself as on a mission to spread democracy and
freedom. Afghans and Iraqis have, however, proven no more eager than the Spaniards of two centuries ago to be "liberated" at
gun (or "Hellfire" missile) point, even when the liberators
come
bearing gifts,
which in today's terms means the promise of roads, jobs, and "reconstruction," or even cash
by the pallet.
Because we Americans believe our own press releases, it's difficult to imagine others (except, of course, those so fanatic as
to be blind to reality) seeing us as anything but well-intentioned liberators. As journalist Nir Rosen has
put it:
"There's… a deep sense among people in the [American] policy world, in the military, that we're the good guys. It's just taken
for granted that what we're doing must be right because we're doing it. We're the exceptional country, the essential nation,
and our role, our intervention, our presence is a benign and beneficent thing."
In reporting on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rosen and
others have offered ample proof for those who care to consider it that our foreign interventions have been anything but benign
or beneficent, no less liberating. Our invasion of Iraq opened the way to civil war and mayhem. For many ordinary Iraqis,
when American intervention didn't lead to death, destruction, dislocation, and exile, it bred "deep humiliation and disruption" as
well as constant fear, a state of affairs that, as Rosen notes, is "painful and humiliating and scary."
In Afghanistan, Rosen points out, most villagers see our troops making common cause with a despised and predatory government.
Huge infusions of American dollars, meanwhile, rarely trickle down to the village level, but instead promote the
interests of Afghan warlords and foreign businesses.
Small wonder that, more than nine years later, a majority of Afghans
say they want
to be liberated from us.
If the U.S. military is not "the greatest force for human liberation" in all history, what is? Revealingly, it's far easier
to identify the finest fighting force of history. If put on the spot, though, I'd highlight the ideas and ideals of
human dignity, of equality before the law, of the fundamental value of each and every individual, as the greatest force for human
liberation. Such ideals are shared by many peoples. They may sometimes be defended by the sword, but were inscribed by
the pens of great moralists and thinkers of humanity's collective past. In this sense, when it comes to advancing freedom,
the pen has indeed been mightier than the sword.
Freedom Fighters for a Fading Empire
The historian John Lukacs once noted: "There are many things wrong with the internationalist idea to Make the World Safe for Democracy,
one of them being that it is not that different from the nationalist idea that What Is Good for America Is Good for the World."
In our post-9/11 world, whatever our rhetoric about democratizing the planet, our ambitions are guided by the seemingly hardheaded
goal of making Americans safe from terrorists. A global war on terrorism has, however, proven anything but consistent with
expanding liberty at home or abroad. Indeed, the seductive and self-congratulatory narrative of our troops as selfless liberators
and the finest freedom fighters around actually helps blind us to our violent methods in far-off lands, even as it distances us from
the human costs of our imperial policies.
Though we officially seek to extinguish terrorists, our actions abroad serve as obvious accelerants to terror. To understand
why this is so, ask yourself how comforted you would be if foreign military "liberators"
kicked in your door, shouted
commands in a language you didn't understand, confiscated your guns, dragged your father and brothers and sons off in cuffs and hoods
to locations unknown, all in the name of "counterterror" operations? How comforted would you be if
remotely piloted drones
hovered constantly overhead, ready to unleash Hellfire missiles at terrorist "targets of opportunity" in your neighborhood?
Better not to contemplate such harsh realities. Better to praise our troops as so many Mahatma Gandhis, so many freedom
fighters. Better to praise them as so many Genghis Khans, so many ultimate warriors.
At a time of feared national decline, our leaders
undoubtedly prescribe military action in part to comfort us (and themselves) and restore our sense of potency and pride. In
doing so, they violate the famous phrase long associated with the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm.
William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, is a
TomDispatch regular.
He welcomes reader comments at [email protected]. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest
TomCast audio interview in which Astore discusses the military nightmares of a fading empire,
click here or, to download it to your iPod,
here.
[Note for TomDispatch readers:Andrew Bacevich's new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent
War, is now deservedly a New York Times bestseller. This website first posted the introduction to the book, "The
Unmaking of a Company Man," already among TD's most popular pieces, in August. If you missed it, check it out by clicking
here.
The book has since received superb reviews in the
New York Times ("a tough-minded, bracing
and intelligent polemic against some 60 years of American militarism... the country is lucky to have a fierce, smart peacemonger
like Bacevich…") and Washington Post
("brilliant"). Make sure it's on your bookshelf and a small reminder: whenever you travel to Amazon.com by clicking on a TomDispatch
book link or book-cover link and buy a book we recommend or anything else, we get a small cut of your purchase, which helps keep
us afloat. Many thanks. Tom]
We know the endpoint of the story: another bestseller for Bob Woodward, in this case about a president sandbagged by his own high
command and administration officials at one another's throats over an inherited war gone wrong. But where did the story actually
begin? Well, here's the strange thing: in a sense, Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, which focuses heavily on an administration
review of Afghan war policy in the fall of 2009, begins with... Woodward. Of course -- thank heavens for American media amnesia
-- amid all the attention his book is getting, no one seems to recall that part of the tale.
Here it is: President Obama got sandbagged by the leaked release of what became known as "the McChrystal plan," a call by his
war commander in the field General Stanley McChrystal (and assumedly the man above him, then-Centcom Commander General David Petraeus)
for a 40,000-troop counterinsurgency "surge." As it happened, Bob Woodward, Washington Post reporter, not bestselling book
writer, was assumedly the recipient of that judiciously leaked plan from a still-unknown figure, generally suspected of being in
or close to the military. On September 21, 2009, Woodward was the one who then framed the story, writing the
first stern front-page
piece about the needs of the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Its headline laid out, from that moment on, the president's
options: "McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'" And its first paragraph went this way: "The top U.S. and NATO commander in
Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states
that without them, the eight-year conflict 'will likely result in failure,' according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained
by The Washington Post."
The frustration of a commander-in-chief backed into a corner by his own generals, the
angry backbiting
Woodward reportedly reveals in his book, all of it was, at least in part, a product of that leak and how it played out. In
other words, looked at a certain way, Woodward facilitated the manufacture of the subject for his own bestseller. A nifty trick
for Washington's leading stenographer.
The set of leaks -- how appropriate for Woodward -- that were the drumbeat of publicity for the new book over the last week also
offered a classic outline of just how limited inside-the-Beltway policy options invariably turn out to be (no matter how fierce the
debate about them). As one Washington Post piece
put it: "[T]he
only options that were seriously considered in the White House involved 30,000 to 40,000 more troops." All in all, it's a striking
example of how the system really works, of how incestuously and narrowly -- to cite the title of Andrew Bacevich's
bestselling new book -- Washington
rules. Tom
Prisoners of War
Bob Woodward and All the President's Men (2010 Edition)
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Once a serious journalist, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward now makes a very fine living as chief gossip-monger of
the governing class. Early on in his career, along with Carl Bernstein, his partner at the time, Woodward confronted power.
Today, by relentlessly exalting Washington trivia, he flatters power. His reporting does not inform. It titillates.
A new Woodward book, Obama's Wars, is a guaranteed blockbuster. It's out this week, already causing a stir, and
guaranteed to be forgotten the week after dropping off the bestseller lists. For good reason: when it comes to substance,
any book written by Woodward has about as much heft as the latest potboiler penned by the likes of James Patterson or Tom Clancy.
Back in 2002, for example, during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Woodward treated us to Bush at War. Based
on interviews with unidentified officials close to President George W. Bush, the book offered a portrait of the president-as-resolute-war-leader
that put him in a league with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. But the book's real juice came from what it revealed
about events behind the scenes. "Bush's war cabinet is riven with feuding,"
reported the Times of London,
which credited Woodward with revealing "the furious arguments and personal animosity" that divided Bush's lieutenants.
Of course, the problem with the Bush administration wasn't that folks on the inside didn't play nice with one another.
No, the problem was that the president and his inner circle committed a long series of catastrophic errors that produced an unnecessary
and grotesquely mismanaged war. That war has cost the country dearly -- although the people who engineered that catastrophe,
many of them having pocketed handsome advances on their forthcoming memoirs, continue to manage quite well, thank you.
To judge by the publicity blitzkrieg announcing the arrival of Obama's Wars in your local bookstore, the big
news out of Washington is that, even today, politics there remains an intensely competitive sport, with the participants, whether
in anger or frustration, sometimes speaking ill of one another.
Essentially, news reports indicate, Woodward has updated his script from 2002. The characters have different names, but
the plot remains the same. Talk about jumping the shark.
So we learn that Obama political adviser David Axelrod doesn't fully trust Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. National
security adviser James Jones, a retired Marine general,
doesn't much
care for the likes of Axelrod, and will say so behind his back. Almost everyone thinks Richard Holbrooke, chief State
Department impresario of the AfPak portfolio, is a jerk. And -- stop the presses -- when under the influence of alcohol,
General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, is
alleged to use the word
"f**ked." These are the sort of shocking revelations that make you a headliner on the Sunday morning talk shows.
Based on what we have learned so far from those select few provided with advance copies of the book -- mostly reporters for
the Post and The New York Times who, for whatever reason, seem happy to serve as its shills -- Obama's Wars
contains hints of another story, the significance of which seems to have eluded Woodward.
The theme of that story is not whether Dick likes Jane, but whether the Constitution remains an operative document. The
Constitution explicitly assigns to the president the role of commander-in-chief. Responsibility for the direction of American
wars rests with him. According to the principle of civilian control, senior military officers advise and execute, but it's
the president who decides. That's the theory, at least. Reality turns out to be considerably different and, to be
kind about it, more complicated.
Obama's Wars reportedly contains
this commentby President Obama to Secretary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates regarding Afghanistan: "I'm not doing
10 years... I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
Aren't you, Mr. President? Don't be so sure.
Obama's Wars also affirms what we already suspected about the decision-making process that led up to the president's
announcement at West Point in December 2009 to prolong and escalate the war. Bluntly put, the Pentagon gamed the process
to exclude any possibility of Obama rendering a decision not to its liking.
Pick your surge: 20,000 troops?
Or 30,000 troops? Or 40,000 troops? Only the most powerful man in the world -- or Goldilocks contemplating three bowls
of porridge -- could handle a decision like that. Even as Obama opted for the middle course, the real decision had already
been made elsewhere by others: the war in Afghanistan would
expandand continue.
And then there's
this from the estimable General David Petraeus: "I don't think you win this war," Woodward quotes the field commander as saying.
"I think you keep fighting... This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
Here we confront a series of questions to which Woodward (not to mention the rest of Washington) remains steadfastly oblivious.
Why fight a war that even the general in charge says can't be won? What will the perpetuation of this conflict cost?
Who will it benefit? Does the ostensibly most powerful nation in the world have no choice but to wage permanent war?
Are there no alternatives? Can Obama shut down an unwinnable war now about to enter its tenth year? Or is he -- along
with the rest of us -- a prisoner of war?
President Obama has repeatedly stated that in July 2011 a withdrawal of U. S. troops from Afghanistan will commence.
No one quite knows exactly what that means. Will the withdrawal be symbolic? General Petraeus has already made it
abundantly clear that he will entertain nothing more. Or will July signal that the Afghan War -- and by extension the
Global War on Terror launched nine years ago -- is finally coming to an end?
Between now and next summer attentive Americans will learn much about how national security policy is actually formulated and
who is really in charge. Just don't expect Bob Woodward to offer any enlightenment on the subject.
RBSProds "rbsprods": August 5, 2010 AN OUTSTANDING ASSESSMENT OF THE "WASHINGTON RULES": USA WARTIME POLICIES & ACTIONS,
Five ENGROSSING Stars!! This is Andrew J Bacevich's outstanding, deeply researched, hard-hitting work of scholarship, assessing
America's national and foreign policies as well as the personalities and groups that have led us into the business of confrontation,
power projection, and war, time and time again. Essentially this book is the outgrowth of Mr. Bacevich's 20 year self-education,
which began at the age of 41 as a military officer who began to see the international world in a new light based on an epiphany
at Berlin's Brandenburg gate. Looking at over six decades of wartime policy and actions in the "American Century", Mr Bacevich
discloses the "Washington Rules" and the credo wherein the USA has assumed the mantle of attempting to "lead, save, liberate,
and transform" the world to assure international order and peace. He takes us from the Truman-era administrations to the Obama
administration, detailing how the "sacred trinity" of global military presence, global power projection, global interventionism
is used to achieve those ends, using his "Washington Rules" as the template. The Jimmy Carter segment was particularly
eye-opening. Mr Bacevich shows that regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power, the US has had an attitude that
we are uniquely qualified to take on the worldwide foes of peace and democracy, forgetting, revising, or ignoring the painful
lessons of World War II, Vietnam, and beyond that might have taken the USA into periods of unprecedented peace, instead of numerous
conflicts.
Lessons that the author shows President Obama is clearly in the midst of learning, using a modified sacred trinity. Written
in engaging prose, this is a very absorbing work of research with sections that some may find very troubling based on the decisions
of our leaders. If I could recommend one book that President Obama and the Congress should read, this is it. But it should also
be read by those who were and were not alive during our mid-20th Century wars and military encounters.
My Highest Recommendation! Five ABSORBING Stars!! (This review is based on a Kindle download in iPhone mode and Kindle text-to-speech
mode.)
Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.)
Time has expired on the 'American Century,' says retired Col. Bacevich, and this is the time to reject militarism and recognize
that fixing Detroit takes precedence over Afghanistan. Bacevich's aim is to re-examine assumptions, habits, and precepts that
have defined our foreign/military policy since the end of WWII. All well and good, but Bacevich devotes too many pages to recounting
how we got to this point post-WWII, mostly focused on individuals such as Curtis LeMay, Allen Dulles, Maxwell Taylor, etc.
Almost no attention is given to how support for Israel, Iraq War I and the subsequent stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia,
etc. brought us 9/11, a never-ending state of War on Terrorism, and the organizational monstrosity known as the Dept. of Homeland
Security with its 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies consuming unknown billions of dollars.
Our self-appointed role of leading, liberating, and saving the world through activism, hard power, and negotiating from strength
continues today - DOD has become the Department of Global Policing, and President Obama finds himself continuing the model laid
down since 1945. The author also skims over too quickly how we have exhausted the authority and goodwill acquired immediately
after WWII - via the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq I and II, Afghanistan I and II, the 2007 Recession, going from the world's largest
creditor to debtor nation, decades of trade and government deficits, energy profligacy, decaying cities, manufacturing, and infrastructure,
Katrina, supporting dictators and human rights abusers, etc.
DOD consumes $700 billion/year (I'm assuming that includes Iraq and Afghanistan), while stationing 300,000 troops abroad in
761 sites in 39 nations, plus 90,000 sailors and marines at sea. Our expenditures approximate those of the rest of the world combined.
and are propelling us towards insolvency and perpetual war.
An excellent example of how we are digging ourselves into a hole occurred just this week when the U.S. announced the State
Department is in advanced discussions with Vietnam to share nuclear fuels and technologies in a deal that would preserve Hanoi's
right to enrich uranium indigenously. This obviously undermines our containment stance vs. North Korea and Iran, and is intended
to somehow intimidate China. Similarly, the U.S. is also supporting India's enrichment and military-fuel capability efforts -
again to somehow intimidate China.
Meanwhile, we also parade a flotilla of ships nearby off South Korea to intimidate North Korea, and further irritate China.
(They now have, or soon will have, supersonic missiles capable of raining down on our aircraft carrier task forces - a great example
of asymmetric warfare that makes our Navy look obsolete and a near total waste.) And then we wonder why China is modernizing its
military.
Col. Bacevich's conclusion - "It's time (for America) to choose."
Groupthink is alive and thriving in Washington, D.C., argues Bacevich, who's convinced that America's mightily militaristic and
endlessly idealistic approach to the rest of the world is costing the country dearly. Boiling down his argument to the simplest terms:
the world would get along just fine without this overarmed global policeman, and more important, the United States would fare far
better at home if it weren't squandering so many of its gifts abroad.
What's the Big Deal?
The Pentagon, a nearly three-quarter-trillion-dollar agency, is the largest industrial organization on the planet.
And it's armed to the gills. Washington's best and brightest minds-in Bacevich's estimate, the "elected and appointed officials,
corporate executives and corporate lobbyists, admirals and generals, functionaries staffing the national security apparatus, media
personalities, and policy intellectuals," who are all deriving "profit, power, and privilege" from the status quo-have not only failed
you and me, they are steadily running the country into ruin. Though at times he makes his argument with the wrong tools, Bacevich's
chief concern-that we're misusing our military-couldn't be more important.
Andrew Bacevich's new book. A relevant new book everyone should pick up and read.
From the first chapter:
This book aims to take stock of conventional wisdom in its most influential and enduring form, namely the package of assumptions,
habits, and precepts that have defined the tradition of statecraft to which the United States has adhered since the end of World
War II – the era of global dominance now drawing to a close. This postwar tradition combines two components, each one so deeply
embedded in the American collective consciousness as to have but disappeared from view.
The first component specified norms according to which the international order ought to work and charges the United States
with responsibility for enforcing those norms. Call this the American credo. In the simplest terms, the credo summons the United
States – and the United States alone – to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world. In a celebrated manifesto
issued at the dawn of what he termed "The American Century," Henry R. Luce made the case for this spacious conception of global
leadership. Writing in Life magazine in early 1941, the influential publisher exhorted his fellow citizens to "accept wholeheartedly
our to duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence for such purposes as we see fit." Luce thereby captured what
remains even today of the credo's essence.
Luce's concept of an American Century, an age of unquestioned American global primacy, resonated, especially in Washington.
His evocative phrase found a permanent place in the lexicon of national politics. (Recall that the neoconservatives who, in the
1990s, lobbied for more militant U.S. Policies named their enterprise the Project for a New American Century). So, too, did Luce's
expansive claim of prerogatives to be exercised by the United States. Even today, whenever public figures allude to America's
responsibility to lead, they signal their fidelity to this creed. Along with respectful allusions to God and "the troops," adherence
to Luce's credo has become a de facto prerequisite for high office. Question its claims and your prospects of heard in the hubbub
of national politics becomes nil.
Note, however, that the duty Luce ascribed to Americans has two components. It is not only up to American, he wrote, to choose
the purposes for which they would bring their influence to bear, but to choose the means as well. Here we confront the second
component of the postwar tradition of American statecraft.
[snip]
Every great military power has its distinctive signature. For Napoleonic France, it was the levee en masse - the people
in arms animated by the ideals of the revolution. For Great Britain in the heyday of empire, it was command of the seas, sustained
by a dominant fleet and a network of far-flung outposts from Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope to Singapore and Hong Kong. Germany
from the 1860s to the 1940s (and Israel from 1948 to 1973) took another approach, relying on a potent blend of tactical flexibility
and operational audacity to achieve battlefield superiority.
The abiding signature of American military power since World War II has been of a different order altogether. The United States
has not specialized in any particular type of war. It has not adhered to a fixed tactical style. No single service or weapon has
enjoyed constant favor. At times, the armed forces have relied on citizen-soldiers to fill their ranks; at other times, long-service
professionals. Yet an examination of the past sixty years of U.S. military policy and practice does reveal important elements
of continuity. Call the sacred trinity: an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require
the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and
to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.
Together, credo and trinity – the one defining purpose, the other practice – constitute the essence of the way that Washington
has attempted to govern and police the American Century. The relationship between the two is symbiotic. The trinity leads plausibility
to the credo's vast claims. For its part, the credo justifies the trinity's vast requirements and exertions. Together they provide
the basis for an enduring consensus that imparts a consistency to U.S. policy regardless of which political party may hold the
White House. From the era of Harry Truman to the age of Barack Obama, that consensus has remained intact. It defines the rules
to which Washington adheres; it determines the precepts by which Washington rules.
[snip]
The persistence of these rules has also provided an excuse to avoid serious self-engagement. From this perspective, confidence
that the credo and the trinity will oblige others to accommodate themselves to America's needs or desires – whether for cheap
oil, cheap credit, or cheap consumer goods – has allowed Washington to postpone or ignore problems demanding attention here at
home. Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over Cleveland and Detroit. Purporting to support the troops in their
crusade to free the world obviates any obligation to assess the implications of how Americans themselves choose to exercise freedom.
When Americans demonstrate a willingness to engage seriously with others, combined with the courage to engage seriously with
themselves, then the real education just might begin.
"The New American Militarism-How Americans Are Seduced by War" is an analysis of the subject from multiple viewpoints. Andrew
Bacevich examines American militarism from the point of: politicians, the military, evangelical Christians, and society in general.
In the Preface the author is quite candid and humble about himself, his idealogy, and some of the experiences that helped form
his positions.
"Some will misread this as cynicism. It is instead the absence of illusion."
He doesn't attempt to lay blame.
The chapter on the neoconservative idealogy (Left,Right,Left)was very good. Some of the leaders were "devout Wilsonians, devoted
to the proposition that American values are by definition universal values." That's an accurate assessment of exporting democracy.
"The conception of politics to which neoconservatives paid allegiance owed more to the ethos of the Left than the orthodoxes of
the Right.On the Right they hoped to find the oppurtunity to create the alternative perception of reality necessary for fulfilling
their radical aspirations." One of those aspirations was the global empire that we have now.
In analyzing the view of evangelical Christians on militarism he made this truthful observation on page 124-
"The relationship between Christianity and war has been a tangled one. Despite Christ's admonition to love one's neighbor and
to turn the other cheek, Christians historically have slaughtered their fellow men, to include their fellow Christians, in breathtakingly
large numbers."
Some Christian advocate war more than others.
Some more subject matter that I found revelatory were:
*The author compares current and past presidents foreign policy to that of Woodrow Wilson.
*The analysis of the Weinberger and Powell Doctrines regarding pre-conditions for engagement.
*Where the idea for prosecuting two wars concurrently originated.
*The quote from a Pentagon General assessing Rumsfeld as someone who has "done more damage to the country than we will recover
from in 50 years" was sobering.
*The "priesthood of strategists". Who they are and how deeply they have affected military strategy .
*A comparison of former presidents and how they viewed and sometimes utilized the military.
Mr. Bacevich offers some sensible solutions to the current problems of American militarism, one being to utilize the National
Guard more at home for Homeland Security activities. Border Patrol would make sense.
"American policymakers should employ force only with reluctance and after the most careful deliberation....and it should do
so with one eye cocked on the home front, wary of claims of military necessity being used to compromise our civil liberties."
My interest in Andrew Bacevich's books was kindled by watching an appearance he made on Bill Moyer's program to promote "The
Limits of Power." This book is one of the best I have read in some time. I'd rate it highly and in the league of Chalmers Johnson's
books.
[Dec 08, 2008] Bacevich: The Limits of Power
As Bacevich states the USA foreign policy was directly by internal impulses and first of all the desire to sustain overconsumption.
But now the USA foreign policy became a factor that influence the economic policy. In this context you can reread famous Bush quote:
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we." Aug. 5, 2004
September 30, 2008 | Bigpicture
Is an imperial presidency destroying what America stands for?
Bill Moyers sits down with history and international relations expert and former US Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich who identifies
three major problems facing our democracy: the crises of economy, government and militarism, and calls for a redefinition of the
American way of life.
Here in New York a new season is opening on and off Broadway. But nothing, not even a comic opera, can compete with the spectacle,
drama and farce of what's happening in Washington and on Wall Street.
If it is possible for a political system, like individuals, to become deranged, so unhinged from reality there is no longer any
regard for the consequences, we saw the process this week. It's nothing but bizarre, and for a supposedly mature democracy, deeply
troubling.
For technical reasons we had to tape this broadcast before John McCain finally made up his mind about whether to show up for the
debate tonight. So we decided not to try and second guess events.
Instead, we are going to hear some truth-telling from a man who says our country's in deep trouble and needs a renewed commitment
to critical thinking, honest words, and hard choices.
In this slim volume on THE LIMITS OF POWER, Andrew J. Bacevich goes to the root causes of our discontent and to our broken and
foundering politics. That many people agree with this unsentimental diagnosis was apparent when we first aired this interview a few
weeks ago, your emails poured in to pbs.org. In a matter of hours his book had become a best-seller.
Now, with chaos in Washington and the markets, it seems a good time to give this soldier, scholar, and patriot another hearing.
He has found an audience across the political spectrum, whether writing for THE NATION or THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE magazines, lecturing
to college classes or testifying before Congress.
ANDREW BACEVICH: ...fixing our problems before fixing the world's problems.
BILL MOYERS: Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who's in power, which may be why those on both the left and right listen
to him. Perhaps it's also because when he challenges American myths and illusions, he does so from a patriotism forged in the fire
of experience as a soldier in Vietnam.
After 23 years in the army, this West Point graduate has been teaching international relations and history at Boston University.
Andrew J. Bacevich is with me now, welcome to the JOURNAL.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you very much for having me.
BILL MOYERS: It's been a long time since I've read a book in which I highlighted practically every third sentence. So, it took
me a while to read, what is in fact, a rather short book. You began with a quote from the Bible, the Book of Second Kings, chapter
20, verse one. "Set thine house in order." How come that admonition?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I've been troubled by the course of U.S. foreign policy for a long, long time. And I wrote the book in
order to sort out my own thinking about where our basic problems lay. And I really reached the conclusion that our biggest problems
are within.
I think there's a tendency on the part of policy makers and probably a tendency on the part of many Americans to think that the
problems we face are problems that are out there somewhere, beyond our borders. And that if we can fix those problems, then we'll
be able to continue the American way of life as it has long existed. I think it's fundamentally wrong. Our major problems are at
home.
BILL MOYERS: So, this is a version of "Physician, heal thyself?"
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, yes, "Physician, heal thyself," and you begin healing yourself by looking at yourself in the mirror and
seeing yourself as you really are.
BILL MOYERS: Here is one of those neon sentences. Quote,
"The pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism, has induced a condition of dependence on imported goods, on
imported oil, and on credit. The chief desire of the American people," you write, "is that nothing should disrupt their access
to these goods, that oil, and that credit. The chief aim of the U.S. government is to satisfy that desire, which it does in part
of through the distribution of largesse here at home, and in part through the pursuit of imperial ambitions abroad."
In other words, you're saying that our foreign policy is the result of a dependence on consumer goods and credit.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Our foreign policy is not something simply concocted by people in Washington D.C. and imposed on us. Our
foreign policy is something that is concocted in Washington D.C., but it reflects the perceptions of our political elite about what
we want, we the people want. And what we want, by and large - I mean, one could point to many individual exceptions - but, what we want, by and large is, we want this continuing flow of very cheap consumer goods.
We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they may happen to be, in order to be able to drive wherever
we want to be able to drive. And we want to be able to do these things without having to think about whether or not the book's
balanced at the end of the month, or the end of the fiscal year. And therefore, we want this unending line of credit.
BILL MOYERS: You intrigued me when you wrote that "The fundamental problem facing the country will remain stubbornly in place
no matter who is elected in November." What's the fundamental problem you say is not going away no matter whether it's McCain or
Obama?
ANDREW BACEVICH: What neither of these candidates will be able to, I think, accomplish is to persuade us to look ourselves in
the mirror, to see the direction in which we are headed. And from my point of view, it's a direction towards ever greater debt and
dependency.
BILL MOYERS: And you write that "What will not go away, is a yawning disparity between what Americans expect, and what they're
willing or able to pay." Explore that a little bit.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think one of the ways we avoid confronting our refusal to balance the books is to rely increasingly on
the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system, or set of arrangements that
have evolved over the last 30 or 40 years.
But, it's not the American people who are deploying around the world. It is a very specific subset of our people, this professional
army. We like to call it an all-volunteer force-
BILL MOYERS: Right.
ANDREW BACEVICH: - but the truth is, it's a professional army, and when we think about where we send that army, it's really
an imperial army. I mean, if as Americans, we could simply step back a little bit, and contemplate the significance of the
fact that Americans today are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ask ourselves, how did it come to be that organizing places like
Iraq and Afghanistan should have come to seem to be critical to the well-being of the United States of America.
There was a time, seventy, eighty, a hundred years ago, that we Americans sat here in the western hemisphere, and puzzled
over why British imperialists went to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We viewed that sort of imperial adventurism with
disdain. But, it's really become part of what we do. Unless a President could ask fundamental questions about our posture in the
world, it becomes impossible then, for any American President to engage the American people in some sort of a conversation about
how and whether or not to change the way we live.
BILL MOYERS: How is Iraq a clear manifestation, as you say, of this, "yawning disparity between what Americans expect, and
what they're willing to pay?"
ANDREW BACEVICH: Let's think about World War Two. A war that President Roosevelt told us was essential to U.S. national security,
and was. And President Roosevelt said at the time, because this is an important enterprise, you, the American people, will be called
upon to make sacrifices. And indeed, the people of the United States went off to fight that war in large numbers. It was a national
effort. None of that's been true with regard to Iraq. I mean, one of the most striking things about the way the Bush Administration
has managed the Global War on Terror, which President Bush has compared to World War Two.
BILL MOYERS: Right.
ANDREW BACEVICH: One of the most striking things about it is that there was no effort made to mobilize the country, there was
actually no effort even made to expand the size of the armed forces, as a matter of fact. The President said just two weeks
or so after 9/11, "Go to Disney World. Go shopping." Well, there's something out of whack here, if indeed the Global War
on Terror, and Iraq as a subset of the Global War on Terror is said to be so critically important, on the one hand. And on the other
hand, when the country basically goes about its business, as if, really, there were no War on Terror, and no war in Iraq ongoing
at all.
BILL MOYERS: "So it is," you write, "seven years into its confrontation with radical Islam, the United States finds itself
with too much war for too few warriors and with no prospect of producing the additional soldiers needed to close the gap." When I
hear all this talk about increasing the troops in Afghanistan from two to three battalions, maybe even more, I keep asking myself,
where are we going to get those troops?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, and of course the answer is, they have to come from Iraq. I mean, as we speak, the security conditions
in Iraq have improved a little bit, and in a sense, it's just in time, because what the Pentagon wants to do is to draw down its
presence in Iraq to some degree, not in order to give those troops a breather, but in order to redeploy them after a period of retraining
to Afghanistan, because Afghanistan is going so poorly. So, we're having a very difficult time managing two wars which, in the 20th
century context, they're actually relatively small.
BILL MOYERS: You say, "U.S. troops in battle dress and body armor, whom Americans profess to admire and support, pay the price
for the nation's refusal to confront our domestic dysfunction." What are we not confronting?
ANDREW BACEVICH: The most obvious, the blindingly obviously question, is energy. It's oil. I think historians a hundred years
from now will puzzle over how it could be that the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world, as far back as
the early 1970s, came to recognize that dependence on foreign oil was a problem, posed a threat, comprised our freedom of action.
How every President from Richard Nixon down to the present one, President Bush, declared, "We're gonna fix this problem." None
of them did. And the reason we are in Iraq today is because the Persian Gulf is at the center of the world's oil reserves.
I don't mean that we invaded Iraq on behalf of big oil, but the Persian Gulf region would have zero strategic significance, were
it not for the fact that that's where the oil is.
Back in 1980, I think, President Carter, in many respects when he declared the Carter Doctrine, and said that henceforth, the
Persian Gulf had enormous strategic significance to the United States and the United States is not going to permit any other country
to control that region of the world.
And that set in motion a set of actions that has produced the militarization of U.S. policy, ever deeper involvement in the region,
and in essence, has postponed that day of reckoning when we need to understand the imperative of having an energy policy, and trying
to restore some semblance of energy independence.
BILL MOYERS: And this is connected, as you say in the book, in your first chapters, of what you call "the crisis of profligacy."
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we don't live within our means. I mean, the nation doesn't, and increasingly, individual Americans don't.
Our saving - the individual savings rate in this country is below zero. The personal debt, national debt, however you want to measure
it, as individuals and as a government, and as a nation we assume an endless line of credit.
As individuals, the line of credit is not endless, that's one of the reasons why we're having this current problem with the housing
crisis, and so on. And my view would be that the nation's assumption, that its line of credit is endless, is also going to be shown
to be false. And when that day occurs it's going to be a black day, indeed.
BILL MOYERS: You call us an "empire of consumption."
ANDREW BACEVICH: I didn't create that phrase. It's a phrase drawn from a book by a wonderful historian at Harvard University,
Charles Maier, and the point he makes in his very important book is that, if we think of the United States at the apex of American
power, which I would say would be the immediate post World War Two period, through the Eisenhower years, into the Kennedy years.
We made what the world wanted. They wanted our cars. We exported our television sets, our refrigerators - we were the world's manufacturing
base. He called it an "empire of production."
BILL MOYERS: Right.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Sometime around the 1960s there was a tipping point, when the "empire of production" began to become the "empire
of consumption." When the cars started to be produced elsewhere, and the television sets, and the socks, and everything else. And
what we ended up with was the American people becoming consumers rather than producers.
BILL MOYERS: And you say this has produced a condition of profound dependency, to the extent, and I'm quoting you, "Americans
are no longer masters of their own fate."
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, they're not. I mean, the current debt to the Chinese government grows day by day. Why? Well, because of
the negative trade balance. Our negative trade balance with the world is something in the order of $800 billion per year. That's
$800 billion of stuff that we buy, so that we can consume, that is $800 billion greater than the amount of stuff that we sell to
them. That's a big number. I mean, it's a big number even relative to the size of our economy.
BILL MOYERS: And you use this metaphor that is intriguing. American policy makers, quote, "have been engaged in a de facto
Ponzi scheme, intended to extend indefinitely, the American line of credit." What's going on that resembles a Ponzi scheme?
ANDREW BACEVICH: This continuing tendency to borrow and to assume that the bills are never going to come due. I testified before
a House committee six weeks ago now, on the future of U.S grand strategy. I was struck by the questions coming from members that
showed an awareness, a sensitivity, and a deep concern, about some of the issues that I tried to raise in the book.
"How are we gonna pay the bills? How are we gonna pay for the commitment of entitlements that is going to increase year by year
for the next couple of decades, especially as baby boomers retire?" Nobody has answers to those questions. So, I was pleased that
these members of Congress understood the problem. I was absolutely taken aback when they said, "Professor, what can we do about this?"
And their candid admission that they didn't have any answers, that they were perplexed, that this problem of learning to live within
our means seemed to have no politically plausible solution.
BILL MOYERS: You say in here that the tipping point between wanting more than we were willing to pay for began in the Johnson
Administration. "We can fix the tipping point with precision," you write. "It occurred between 1965, when President Lyndon Baines
Johnson ordered U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam, and 1973, when President Richard Nixon finally ended direct U.S. involvement
in that war." Why do you see that period so crucial?
ANDREW BACEVICH: When President Johnson became President, our trade balance was in the black. By the time we get to the Nixon
era, it's in the red. And it stays in the red down to the present. Matter of fact, the trade imbalance becomes essentially larger
year by year.
So, I think that it is the '60s, generally, the Vietnam period, slightly more specifically, was the moment when we began
to lose control of our economic fate. And most disturbingly, we're still really in denial. We still haven't recognized that.
BILL MOYERS: Now you go on to say that there was another fateful period between July 1979 and March of 1983. You describe it,
in fact, as a pivot of contemporary American history. That includes Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, right?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I would be one of the first to confess that - I think that we have misunderstood and underestimated President
Carter. He was the one President of our time who recognized, I think, the challenges awaiting us if we refused to get our house in
order.
BILL MOYERS: You're the only author I have read, since I read Jimmy Carter, who gives so much time to the President's speech
on July 15th, 1979. Why does that speech speak to you so strongly?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, this is the so-called Malaise Speech, even though he never used the word "malaise" in the text to the address.
It's a very powerful speech, I think, because President Carter says in that speech, oil, our dependence on oil, poses a looming threat
to the country. If we act now, we may be able to fix this problem. If we don't act now, we're headed down a path in which not only
will we become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, but we will have opted for a false model of freedom. A freedom of materialism,
a freedom of self-indulgence, a freedom of collective recklessness. And what the President was saying at the time was, we need to
think about what we mean by freedom. We need to choose a definition of freedom which is anchored in truth, and the way to manifest
that choice, is by addressing our energy problem.
He had a profound understanding of the dilemma facing the country in the post Vietnam period. And of course, he was completely
hooted, derided, disregarded.
BILL MOYERS: And he lost the election. You in fact say-
ANDREW BACEVICH: Exactly.
BILL MOYERS: This speech killed any chance he had of winning reelection. Why? Because the American people didn't want to settle
for less?
ANDREW BACEVICH: They absolutely did not. And indeed, the election of 1980 was the great expression of that, because in 1980,
we have a candidate, perhaps the most skillful politician of our time, Ronald Reagan, who says that, "Doom-sayers, gloom-sayers,
don't listen to them. The country's best days are ahead of us."
BILL MOYERS: Morning in America.
ANDREW BACEVICH: It's Morning in America. And you don't have to sacrifice, you can have more, all we need to do is get government
out of the way, and drill more holes for oil, because the President led us to believe the supply of oil was infinite.
BILL MOYERS: You describe Ronald Reagan as the "modern prophet of profligacy. The politician who gave moral sanction
to the empire of consumption."
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, to understand the truth about President Reagan, is to understand why so much of what we imagined to be
our politics is misleading and false. He was the guy who came in and said we need to shrink the size of government. Government didn't
shrink during the Reagan era, it grew.
He came in and he said we need to reduce the level of federal spending. He didn't reduce it, it went through the roof, and the
budget deficits for his time were the greatest they had been since World War Two.
BILL MOYERS: And do you remember that it was his successor, his Vice President, the first President Bush who said in 1992,
the American way of life is not negotiable.
ANDREW BACEVICH: And all presidents, again, this is not a Republican thing, or a Democratic thing, all presidents, all administrations
are committed to that proposition. Now, I would say, that probably, 90 percent of the American people today would concur. The American
way of life is not up for negotiation.
What I would invite them to consider is that, if you want to preserve that which you value most in the American way of life, and
of course you need to ask yourself, what is it you value most. That if you want to preserve that which you value most in the American
way of life, then we need to change the American way of life. We need to modify that which may be peripheral, in order to preserve
that which is at the center of what we value.
BILL MOYERS: What do you value most?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think the clearest statement of what I value is found in the preamble to the Constitution. There is nothing
in the preamble to the Constitution which defines the purpose of the United States of America as remaking the world in our image,
which I view as a fool's errand. There is nothing in the preamble of the Constitution that ever imagined that we would embark upon
an effort, as President Bush has defined it, to transform the Greater Middle East. This region of the world that incorporates something
in order of 1.4 billion people.
I believe that the framers of the Constitution were primarily concerned with focusing on the way we live here, the way we order
our affairs. To try to ensure that as individuals, we can have an opportunity to pursue our, perhaps, differing definitions of freedom,
but also so that, as a community, we could live together in some kind of harmony. And that future generations would also be able
to share in those same opportunities.
The big problem, it seems to me, with the current crisis in American foreign policy, is that unless we do change our ways, the
likelihood that our children, our grandchildren, the next generation is going to enjoy the opportunities that we've had, is very
slight, because we're squandering our power. We are squandering our wealth. In many respects, to the extent that we persist in our
imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom because imperial policies, which end up enhancing the authority of the
imperial president, also end up providing imperial presidents with an opportunity to compromise freedom even here at home. And we've
seen that since 9/11.
BILL MOYERS: The disturbing thing that you say again and again in here, is that every President since Reagan has relied on
military power to conceal or manage these problems that stem from the nation's habits of profligacy, right?
ANDREW BACEVICH: That's exactly right. And again, this is, I think, this is another issue where one needs to be unsparing in fixing
responsibility as much on liberal Democratic presidents as conservative Republican ones. I think that the Bush Administration's response
to 9/11 in constructing this paradigm of a global war on terror, in promulgating the so called, Bush Doctrine of Preventive War,
in plunging into Iraq - utterly unnecessary war - will go down in our history as a record of recklessness that will be probably unmatched
by any other administration.
But, doesn't really mean that Bill Clinton before him, or George Herbert Walker Bush before him, or Ronald Reagan before him,
were all that much better. Because they all have seen military power as our strong suit. They all have worked under the assumption
that through the projection of power, or the threat to employ power, that we can fix the world. Fix the world in order to sustain
this dysfunctional way of life that we have back here.
BILL MOYERS: So, this brings us to what you call the political crisis of America. And you say, "The actual system of government
conceived by the framers no longer pertains." What pertains?
ANDREW BACEVICH: I am expressing in the book, in a sense, what many of us sense, even if many of us don't really want to confront
the implications. The Congress, especially with regard to matters related to national security policy, has thrust power and authority
to the executive branch. We have created an imperial presidency. The congress no longer is able to articulate a vision of what is
the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress.
As the imperial presidency has accrued power, surrounding the imperial presidency has come to be this group of institutions called
the National Security State. The CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the other intelligence agencies.
Now, these have grown since the end of World War Two into this mammoth enterprise.
But the National Security State doesn't work. The National Security State was not able to identify the 9/11 conspiracy. Was not
able to deflect the attackers on 9/11. The National Security State was not able to plan intelligently for the Iraq War. Even if you
think that the Iraq War was necessary. They were not able to put together an intelligent workable plan for that war.
The National Security State has not been able to provide the resources necessary to fight this so called global war on terror.
So, as the Congress has moved to the margins, as the President has moved to the center of our politics, the presidency itself has
come to be, I think, less effective. The system is broken.
BILL MOYERS: Yeah, you say no one knows what they're doing, including the President. No one in Washington, as you say, that's
the political crisis, as you define it, no one in Washington knows what they're doing.
ANDREW BACEVICH: What I mean specifically is this. The end of the Cold War coincided almost precisely with the first Persian Gulf
War of 1990, 1991, Operation Desert Storm. Operation Desert Storm was perceived to be this great, historic, never before seen victory.
It really wasn't.
BILL MOYERS: The mother of all battles-
ANDREW BACEVICH: Right, I mean-
BILL MOYERS: Schwarzkopf cam-
ANDREW BACEVICH: Politically, and strategically, the outcome of that war was far more ambiguous than people appreciated at the
time. But nonetheless, the war itself was advertised as this great success, demonstrating that a new American way of war had been
developed, and that this new American way of war held the promise of enabling the United States to exercise military dominion on
a global basis in ways that the world had never seen.
The people in the Pentagon had developed a phrase to describe this. They called it, "full spectrum dominance." Meaning, that the
United States was going to exercise dominance, not just capability, dominance across the full spectrum of warfare. And this became
the center of the way that the military advertised its capabilities in the 1990s. That was fraud. That was fraudulent.
To claim that the United States military could demonstrate that kind of dominance flew in the face of all of history and in many
respects, set us up for how the Bush Administration was going to respond to 9/11. Because if you believed that United States military
was utterly unstoppable, then it became kind of plausible to imagine that the appropriate response to 9/11 was to embark upon this
global war to transform the greater Middle East. Had the generals been more cognoscente of the history of war, and of the nature
of war, then they might have been in a better position to argue to Mr. Rumsfeld, then the Secretary of Defense, or to the President
himself, "Be careful." "Don't plunge ahead." Recognize that force has utility, but that utility is actually quite limited. Recognize
that when we go to war, almost inevitably, there are going to be unanticipated consequences. And they're not going to be happy ones.
Above all, recognize that, when you go to war, it's unlikely there's a neat tidy solution. It's far more likely that the bill
that the nation is going to pay in lives and in dollars is going to be a monumental one. My problem with the generals is that, with
certain exceptions, one could name as General Shinseki, with certain exceptions-
BILL MOYERS: Who said, "We are going to need half a million men if we go into Iraq." And-
ANDREW BACEVICH: Right.
BILL MOYERS: -he was shown the door for telling the truth.
ANDREW BACEVICH: By and large, the generals did not speak truth to power.
BILL MOYERS: One of the things that comes through in your book is that great truths are contained in small absurdities. And
you use the lowly IED, the improvised explosive device, or roadside bomb, that's taken such a toll of American forces in Iraq, to
get at a very powerful truth. Tell me about that.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well war - wars are competitions. The adversary develops capabilities. Your enemy develops capabilities. And
you try to develop your own capabilities to check what he can do to you to be able to, overcome his capabilities.
One of the striking things about the Iraq War, and in which we had been fighting against, technologically at least, a relatively
backward or primitive adversary, one of the interesting things is they have innovated far more adeptly and quickly than we have.
BILL MOYERS: The insurgents.
ANDREW BACEVICH: The insurgents have. And an example of that is the IED, which began as a very low tech kind of primitive mine.
And, over time, became ever more sophisticated, ever more lethal, ever more difficult to detect, ever more difficult to check. And
those enhancements in insurgent IED capability continually kept ahead of our ability to innovate and catch up.
BILL MOYERS: And I think you say, in your book, that it costs the price of a pizza to make a roadside bomb?
ANDREW BACEVICH: That's right. Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: This is what our men and women are up against in Afghanistan-
ANDREW BACEVICH: The point is to say that the reality of war is always a heck of a lot more complicated than you might imagine
the day before the war begins. And, rather than looking to technology to define the future of warfare, we ought to look - really
look at military history.
BILL MOYERS: And what do we learn when we look to the past?
ANDREW BACEVICH: What we should learn from history is that preventive war doesn't work. The Iraq War didn't work. And, therefore,
we should abandon notions, such as the Bush Doctrine of preventive war. We should return to the just war tradition. Which sees force
as something that is only used as a last resort. Which sees war as something that is justifiable for defensive purposes.
BILL MOYERS: How, then, do we fight what you acknowledge, in the book, is the perfectly real threat posed by violent Islamic
extremism?
ANDREW BACEVICH: I think we need to see the threat for what it is. It is a real threat. It's not an existential threat. The 19
hijackers that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 didn't succeed because they had advanced technology, because they were particularly
smart, because they were ten feet tall.
They succeeded because we let our guard down and we were stupid. We need to recognize that the threat posed by violent Islamic
radicalism, by terrorist organizations, al Qaeda, really is akin to a criminal conspiracy, a violent conspiracy, a dangerous conspiracy.
But it's a criminal enterprise. And the primary response to a criminal enterprise is policing.
Policing as in organizations like the FBI, intelligence organizations, some special operations forces. That would undertake a
concerted campaign to identify and root out and destroy this criminal conspiracy. But that doesn't require invading and occupying
countries. Again, one of the big mistakes the Bush Administration made, and it's a mistake we're still paying for, is that the President
persuaded us that the best way to prevent another 9/11 is to embark upon a global war. Wrong. The best way to prevent another 9/11
is to organize an intensive international effort to root out and destroy that criminal conspiracy.
BILL MOYERS: You, in fact, say that, instead of a bigger army, we need a smaller more modest foreign policy. One that assigns
soldiers missions that are consistent with their capability. "Modesty," I'm quoting you, "requires giving up on the illusions of
grandeur to which the end of the Cold War and then 9/11 gave rise. It also means reining in the imperial presidents who expect the
army to make good on those illusions." Do you expect either John McCain or Barack Obama to rein in the "imperial presidency?"
ANDREW BACEVICH: No. I mean, people run for the presidency in order to become imperial presidents. The people who are advising
these candidates, the people who aspire to be the next national security advisor, the next secretary of defense, these are people
who yearn to exercise those kind of great powers.
They're not running to see if they can make the Pentagon smaller. They're not. So when I - as a distant observer of politics -
one of the things that both puzzles me and I think troubles me is the 24/7 coverage of the campaign.
Parsing every word, every phrase, that either Senator Obama or Senator McCain utters, as if what they say is going to reveal some
profound and important change that was going to come about if they happened to be elected. It's not going to happen.
BILL MOYERS: It's not going to happen because?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Not going to happen - it's not going to happen because the elements of continuity outweigh the elements of change.
And it's not going to happen because, ultimately, we the American people, refuse to look in that mirror. And to see the extent to
which the problems that we face really lie within.
We refuse to live within our means. We continue to think that the problems that beset the country are out there beyond our borders.
And that if we deploy sufficient amount of American power we can fix those problems, and therefore things back here will continue
as they have for decades.
BILL MOYERS: I was in the White House, back in the early 60s, and I've been a White House watcher ever since. And I have never
come across a more distilled essence of the evolution of the presidency than in just one paragraph in your book.
You say, "Beginning with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, "the occupant of the White House has become a combination of
demigod, father figure and, inevitably, the betrayer of inflated hopes. Pope. Pop star. Scold. Scapegoat. Crisis manager. Commander
in Chief. Agenda settler. Moral philosopher. Interpreter of the nation's charisma. Object of veneration. And the butt of jokes. All
rolled into one." I would say you nailed the modern presidency.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, and the - I think the troubling part is, because of this preoccupation with, fascination with, the presidency,
the President has become what we have instead of genuine politics. Instead of genuine democracy.
We look to the President, to the next President. You know, we know that the current President's a failure and a disappoint - we
look to the next President to fix things. And, of course, as long as we have this expectation that the next President is going to
fix things then, of course, that lifts all responsibility from me to fix things.
One of the real problems with the imperial presidency, I think, is that it has hollowed out our politics. And, in many respects,
has made our democracy a false one. We're going through the motions of a democratic political system. But the fabric of democracy,
I think, really has worn very thin.
BILL MOYERS: The other consequence of the imperial presidency, as you point out, is that, for members of the political class,
that would include the media that covers the political class, serving, gaining access to, reporting on, second guessing, or gossiping
about the imperial president are about those aspiring to succeed him, as in this campaign, has become an abiding preoccupation.
ANDREW BACEVICH: I'm not - my job is not to be a media critic. But, I mean, one - you cannot help but be impressed by the amount
of ink spilled on Obama and McCain compared to how little attention is given, for example, to the races in the Senate and the House.
Now, one could say perhaps that makes sense, because the Congress has become such a dysfunctional body. But it really does describe
a disproportion, I think of attention that is a problem.
BILL MOYERS: Would the imperial presidency exist were it not for the Congress?
ANDREW BACEVICH: No. I think that the imperial presidency would not exist but for the Congress. Because the Congress, since World
War II, has thrust power and authority onto the presidency.
BILL MOYERS: Here is what I take to be the core of your analysis of our political crisis. You write, "The United States has
become a de facto one party state. With the legislative branch permanently controlled by an incumbent's party. And every President
exploiting his role as Commander in Chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office."
ANDREW BACEVICH: One of the great lies about American politics is that Democrats genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions
that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course, applies to the other party. It's not true. I happen
to define myself as a conservative.
Well, what do conservatives say they stand for? Well, conservatives say they stand for balanced budgets. Small government. The
so called traditional values.
Well, when you look back over the past 30 or so years, since the rise of Ronald Reagan, which we, in many respects, has been a
conservative era in American politics, well, did we get small government?
Do we get balanced budgets? Do we get serious as opposed to simply rhetorical attention to traditional social values? The answer's
no. Because all of that really has simply been part of a package of tactics that Republicans have employed to get elected and to
- and then to stay in office.
BILL MOYERS: And, yet, you say that the prime example of political dysfunction today is the Democratic Party in relation to
Iraq.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I may be a conservative, but I can assure you that, in November of 2006, I voted for every Democrat I could
possibly come close to. And I did because the Democratic Party, speaking with one voice, at that time, said that, "Elect us. Give
us power in the Congress, and we will end the Iraq War."
And the American people, at that point, adamantly tired of this war, gave power to the Democrats in Congress. And they absolutely,
totally, completely failed to follow through on their commitment. Now, there was a lot of posturing. But, really, the record of the
Democratic Congress over the past two years has been - one in which, substantively, all they have done is to appropriate the additional
money that enables President Bush to continue that war.
BILL MOYERS: And you say the promises of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi prove to be empty. Reid and Pelosi's commitment to forcing
a change in policy took a backseat to their concern to protect the Democratic majority.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Could anybody disagree with that?
BILL MOYERS: You say, and this is another one of my highlighted sentences, that "Anyone with a conscience sending soldiers
back to Iraq or Afghanistan for multiple combat tours, while the rest of the country chills out, can hardly be seen as an acceptable
arrangement. It is unfair. Unjust. And morally corrosive." And, yet, that's what we're doing.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Absolutely. And I think - I don't want to talk about my son here.
BILL MOYERS: Your son?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: You dedicate the book to your son.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah. Well, my son was killed in Iraq. And I don't want to talk about that, because it's very personal. But it
has long stuck in my craw, this posturing of supporting the troops. I don't want to insult people.
There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But when it comes, really, down to understanding
what does it mean to support the troops? It needs to mean more than putting a sticker on the back of your car.
I don't think we actually support the troops. We the people. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national
security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population. About a million and a half people that are on active duty.
And then we really turn away. We don't want to look when they go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That's not
supporting the troops. That's an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think it - there's something fundamentally immoral
about that.
Again, as I tried to say, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But
if one believes in the global war on terror, then why isn't the country actually supporting it? In a meaningful substantive sense?
Where is the country?
BILL MOYERS: Are you calling for a reinstatement of the draft?
ANDREW BACEVICH: I'm not calling for a reinstatement of the draft because I understand that, politically, that's an impossibility.
And, to tell you the truth, we don't need to have an army of six or eight or ten million people. But we do need to have the country
engaged in what its soldiers are doing. In some way that has meaning. And that simply doesn't exist today.
BILL MOYERS: Well, despite your loss, your and your wife's loss, you say in this powerful book what, to me, is a paradox. You
say that, "Ironically, Iraq may yet prove to be the source of our salvation." And help me to understand that.
ANDREW BACEVICH: We're going to have a long argument about the Iraq War. We, Americans. Not unlike the way we had a very long
argument about the Vietnam War. In fact, maybe the argument about the Vietnam War continues to the present day. And that argument
is going to be - is going to cause us, I hope, to ask serious questions about where this war came from.
How did we come to be a nation in which we really thought that we could transform the greater Middle East with our army?
What have been the costs that have been imposed on this country? Hundreds of billions of dollars. Some projections, two to three
trillion dollars. Where is that money coming from? How else could it have been spent? For what? Who bears the burden?
Who died? Who suffered loss? Who's in hospitals? Who's suffering from PTSD? And was it worth it? Now, there will be plenty of
people who are going to say, "Absolutely, it was worth it. We overthrew this dictator." But I hope and pray that there will be many
others who will make the argument that it wasn't worth it.
It was a fundamental mistake. It never should have been undertaking. And we're never going to do this kind of thing again. And
that might be the moment when we look ourselves in the mirror. And we see what we have become. And perhaps undertake an effort to
make those changes in the American way of life that will enable us to preserve for future generations that which we value most about
the American way of life.
BILL MOYERS: The book is "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism." Andrew J. Bacevich, thank you for being
with me.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you very much.
BILL MOYERS: I have to believe that if Barack Obama and John McCain took time to read THE LIMITS OF POWER, this would be a
different campaign. The reality just might sober them up.
A personal word if you will at the end of this frenzied and dangerous week. All week I've thought of my father - and his friend
in the White House. My father dropped out of the fourth grade and never returned to high school because his family needed him to
pick cotton to help ends meet. The Great Depression knocked him down and almost out. He never made more than $100 a week in his working
life, and he made that only when he joined the union in the last job he held. He voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in four straight
elections and would have gone on voting for him until kingdom come if he'd had the chance. When I asked him why, he said, "Because
he was my friend."
Now, my father of course never met FDR; no politician ever paid him much note. But when Roosevelt died, my father wept. I puzzled
at how it was a struggling young husband and father, lucky enough to get a job as a day laborer on the highway to Oklahoma City,
could believe that the patrician in the White House knew what life was like for people like him.
Then, one day, years later, listening to a compilation of Franklin Roosevelt's speeches, I understood. Listen, and I think you
will understand too. Remember, it's 1933-- chaos has descended across the country. Millions are out of work, their savings
gone, their pantries empty, and a quarter of the banks are closed. Everything that's tied down is coming loose. And there
on the banks of the Red River a young couple with one son and about to have another, sat listening to the radio, listening to the
new president being sworn into office, listening to this:
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties…a host of unemployed citizens
face the grim problem of existence and an equally great number toil with little return…Yes, the money changers have fled from
their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly…let me assert my firm belief that the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself…
BILL MOYERS: And so my father took heart. No false promises. No passing the buck. No pandering. Just a simple truth: when the
new president said we can do this, my father knew he was included. He never forgot it, never stopped believing his friend in the
White House believed in him.
That's it for the JOURNAL.
Before we go, I want to call your attention to a special broadcast scheduled to air on many of these PBS stations next week, as
part of the series, "POV." "Critical Condition" is the powerful story of four patients struggling to survive, to survive not only
illness but America's failing health care system, where treatment is all too often delayed or denied.
WOMAN: A lot of people are dying, and they're dying because they don't have health care.
During an interview on Bill Moyers this week, Andrew Bacevich, retired Army colonel and author of "The Limits of Power," said,
"There is nothing in the Preamble to the Constitution which defines the purpose of the United States of America as remaking the world
in our image, which I view as a fool's errand. (Photo/Illustration: Damien Donck / Newsweek)
In a letter written in 1648, Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna, chancellor to both King Gustavus Adolphus and Queen
Christina, counseled, "Know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed."
The fighting between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia is an unnerving reminder of that, and
of how quickly the balance of global power can be tilted from unexpected directions with barely a warning.
Some hawks and neo-cons called for NATO intervention or even suggested we send in Stinger missiles or the 82nd
Airborne as a peacekeeping force. President Bush warned, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic
government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Perhaps, but the reality of the early 21st century is that, in the short run, at least, the president's words
ring hollow. In spite of past promises of support to Georgia, Russia is key to our efforts in the Middle East and our European allies
are dependent on Russia for energy. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have both our military strength and our international credibility
stretched perilously thin at a time when oil-rich Russia is reemerging as a superpower. We've boxed ourselves in.
It was in that light that I came upon the Oxenstierna quote the other night, while re-reading the late historian
Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly," a knowing compendium, from ancient Troy to Vietnam, of the ways in which, given half a chance,
those in power will steer their ships of state straight into the rocks. In the first chapter, she also quotes American President
John Adams: "While all other sciences have advanced" - you can almost hear him sighing - "government is at a stand; little better
practiced now than three or four thousand years ago."
Andrew J. Bacevich probably would agree with all of the above. The retired Army colonel, a West Point graduate,
teaches history and international relations at Boston University. His latest book, "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,"
explores our nation's current predicament, not just on the world stage, but here at home as well. He spoke with my colleague, Bill
Moyers, on this week's edition of the PBS series, Bill Moyers Journal.
Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who's in power, which may be why those of both the left and right
are eager to hear his views. Perhaps it's also because when he challenges American myths and illusions, he does so from a genuine
patriotism forged in the fire of his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and the death a year ago of his son, an Army lieutenant
in Iraq. "The Limits of Power" is dedicated to the young man, but the senior Bacevich, a man of quiet, solid gravitas, holds his
grief privately between himself and his family.
"Our foreign policy is something that is concocted in Washington, DC, but it reflects the perceptions of our
political elite about what we the people want," he told Moyers. "And what we want, by and large is ... this continuing flow of very
cheap consumer goods. We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they may happen to be. And we want to be
able to do these things without having to think about whether or not the books are balanced at the end of the month, or the end of
the fiscal year."
To that end, he says, "One of the ways we avoid confronting our refusal to balance the books is to rely increasingly
on the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system or set of arrangements
that have evolved over the last 30 or 40 years."
"... I think historians a hundred years from now will puzzle over how it could be that the United States of
America, the most powerful nation in the world, as far back as the early 1970's came to recognize that dependence on foreign oil
was a problem, posed a threat, compromised our freedom of action. How every president from Richard Nixon down ... declared, 'We're
going to fix the problem.' [But] none of them did."
He continued, "The clearest statement of what I value is found in the Preamble to the Constitution. There is
nothing in the Preamble to the Constitution which defines the purpose of the United States of America as remaking the world in our
image, which I view as a fool's errand. I believe that the framers of the Constitution were primarily concerned with focusing on
the way we live here, the way we order our affairs. To try to ensure that as individuals, we can have an opportunity to pursue our,
perhaps, differing definitions of freedom, but also so that, as a community, we could live together in some kind of harmony. And
that future generations would also be able to share in those same opportunities.... With the current crisis in American foreign policy,
unless we do change our ways, the likelihood that our children, our grandchildren, the next generation will enjoy the opportunities
that we've had is very slight because we're squandering our power. We are squandering our wealth."
Bacevich believes, "The Congress, especially with regard to matters related to national security policy, has
thrust power and authority to the executive branch. We have created an imperial presidency. The Congress no longer is able to articulate
a vision of what is the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress."
That imperial presidency, he says, "has made our democracy a false one. We're going through the motions of
a democratic political system. But the fabric of democracy, I think, really has worn very thin."
Iraq, Bacevich concludes, "was a fundamental mistake. It never should have been undertaken. And we're never
going to do this kind of thing again." This might, he thinks, "be the moment when we look ourselves in the mirror [and] ... see what
we have become. And perhaps undertake an effort to make those changes in the American way of life that will enable us to preserve
for future generations that which we value most about the American way of life."
Andrew Bacevich's words should echo down the corridors of Congress and the halls of the White House, no matter
who becomes our next president.
The Limits of Power: Andrew Bacevich on the End of American Exceptionalism
Andrew Bacevich is a conservative historian who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army. He also lost his son in Iraq last
year. In a new book titled The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich argues that although many in
this country are paying a heavy price for US domestic and foreign policy decisions, millions of Americans simply continue to shop,
spend and satisfy their appetite for cheap oil, credit and the promise of freedom at home. Bacevich writes, "As the American appetite
for freedom has grown, so too has our penchant for empire." [includes rush transcript]
Andrew Bacevich, Retired colonel who spent twenty-three years in the US Army. He is professor of history and international
relations at Boston University and writes for a wide spectrum of publications including The Nation, Foreign Affairs,
the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative. He became a staunch critic of the Iraq war and Bush's foreign
policy and is the author of several books, including The New American Militarism. His latest book is called The Limits
of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing
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AMY GOODMAN: Our next guest is Andrew Bacevich. He's a conservative historian. He spent twenty-three years serving in the
US Army. He also lost his son in Iraq. Andrew Bacevich writes, "In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps:
Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating
a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time."
Andrew Bacevich holds both parties accountable for the Iraq war. As he writes, "To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation
now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party. After my son's death, my state's
senators, Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, telephoned to express their condolences. Stephen F. Lynch, our congressman, attended
my son's wake. Kerry was present for the funeral Mass. My family and I greatly appreciated such gestures. But when I suggested to
each of them the necessity of ending the war, I got the brushoff." Bacevich goes on to write, "To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch
listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove-namely, wealthy individuals and institutions."
Andrew Bacevich has just published a new book. It's called The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. He
joins me here in the firehouse studio.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Bacevich.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Thank you very much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: How hard was it to write this book after your son's death? This is not theoretical for you.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I try not to talk about my son's death, because it's a private matter, and to tell you the truth,
I don't want to do anything that even looks like it might be exploiting his memory. I would say that I imagine that some of the energy
that informed the writing a book came from the emotional response to my son's death. But the content, the critique, is unrelated
to that tragedy.
The content of the book very much reflects my dismay at the direction of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.
There's a lot in the book that tries to hold the Bush administration accountable for recent events, but I would not for a
second want to suggest that the crisis in which we find ourselves today ought to be laid simply at the foot of the Bush administration
or the Republican Party, because it's been a long time coming.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by "exceptionalism"?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, this is not an idea that's original with me. It's clear that from the founding of the Anglo-American
colonies, from the time that John Winthrop made his famous sermon and declared that "we shall be as a city upon a hill" a light to
the world-it's clear that, from the outset, there has been a strong sense among Americans that we are a special people with
a providential mission.
In the twentieth century, probably going back to roughly the time of Woodrow Wilson, certainly since the end of the Cold War,
this concept of a providential mission, a responsibility to the world, has translated into a sense of empowerment or prerogative
to determine the way the world is supposed to work, what it's supposed to look like, and also, over the last twenty years or so,
an increasing willingness to use military force to cause the world to look the way we want it to look. And I think that that expression
of American exceptionalism is one that's not only utterly false, but is greatly at odds with own interests as a country.
AMY GOODMAN: You write, "Recalling how Washington saw the post-Cold War world and America's place in or atop it helps us
understand why policymakers failed to anticipate, deter or deflect the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean-–and again, this is very much not something that one would lay at the foot of the Bush administration,
but you recall that at the end of the Cold War, when history had supposedly ended, when globalization, which really was a synonym
for Americanization, was thought to be sweeping the world and creating a new order, when Democrats and Republicans alike declared
with great confidence that not only was the US the sole superpower, but that the US possessed military might such as the world had
never seen, well, an attack on Manhattan killing 3,000 Americans wasn't something that was supposed to happen.
So the focus in the '90s in the Clinton era and the focus into the first nine months we saw of the Bush era was very much out
there somewhere, you know, where we were going to sort out the problems of the world. Nobody was paying attention to the possibility
of actually having to defend the United States of America. So, there we were, spending on defense-well, "defense" in quotes-defending
on our military probably as much as the rest of the world was spending on their militaries, and yet our military simply wasn't prepared
to perform what ought to be its primary mission, and that is defending the people of the United States of America.
AMY GOODMAN: You say the Department of Defense didn't actually do defense. It was prepared-it specialized
in power projection.
ANDREW BACEVICH: It still doesn't do defense. I mean, it is a remarkable thing, I think, that the reflexive response to
9/11 is, first of all, to create a new bureaucratic entity that supposedly does defend the country-that's the Department of Homeland
Security, as we call it-but to continue to see the purpose of the Department of Defense, so-called, as power projection.
So, what has the Department of Defense been doing for the last seven years since 9/11? Well, been fighting a war in-where? Afghanistan.
And a second one in Iraq. Now, I think you can make the case for Afghanistan, at least in terms of you can make a case for the necessity
of holding the Taliban accountable for having given sanctuary to al-Qaeda. You can't make any case for the invasion of Iraq as related
to the global war on terror. And frankly, it's becoming rather difficult, I think, to make a case for the continuation of the Afghanistan
war as part of the global war on terror.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean, you identified me as a conservative, and I don't deny that label, but I think in this particular
context what conservatism means is to be realistic in understanding how the world works and being respectful of history and taking
care not to overstate one's own capacity to influence events.
And I think, in that regard, if we look at Afghanistan today, we have to see a country that historically, at least as I understand
Afghan history, has never really functioned as an integrated and coherent nation state. It's never been ruled from Kabul. It's always
been ruled from the-in the provinces by people you might call tribal chiefs. You might call them warlords, you can call them local
bosses, but authority has been widely distributed. But we are engaged in a project in which we insist that we're going to transform
Afghanistan into something more or less like a modern, coherent nation state, and indeed, we insist that it has to conform to our
notions of liberal democracy.
Were we able to actually do that, I think it would be a wonderful thing. But seven years or so into this project, I'm not sure
we can do it. Matter of fact, I'm increasingly persuaded that we can't do it, and therefore-and I think in your news summary you
made reference to this-you know, for somebody like Senator Obama to say, "Elect me. I'll win the global war on terror by sending
more troops to Afghanistan," I think ought to give people pause and, frankly, ought to cause them to wonder how much change an Obama
administration would make with regard to a foreign policy. That's not an argument for voting for McCain, by a long shot, but it suggests
the narrowness of the debate over foreign policy.
AMY GOODMAN: So how is this narrowness taking place? I mean, yes, you have McCain saying we'll be in Iraq for a hundred
years. You have Obama speaking out against the war, but he votes with McCain for funding for the war all through the years -
ANDREW BACEVICH: Right, right, right.
AMY GOODMAN: -as a senator, and then he says we'll send thousands more, we should send thousands more troops to Afghanistan.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Right, right. I think there are differences between the two, but I think we should see the differences
as differences in operational priorities. McCain insists that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and that it must be
won, and it's clear that if we, the American people, elect him, that we will be engaged in Iraq for a long, long time. Senator Obama
says, "No, Afghanistan is the central front in the global war on terror. Elect me and will shift our military effort to Afghanistan."
It's a difference, but it's a difference in operational priorities; it's not a difference in strategy.
Both of them-McCain explicitly, I think Obama implicitly-endorse the notion that a global war on terror really provides the right
frame for thinking about US national security policy going forward. A real debate would be one in which we would have one candidate,
and certainly it would be McCain, arguing for the global war on terror and an opponent who was questioning whether the global war
on terror makes sense. I don't think it makes sense.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this, the global war on terror.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean, the phrase itself is one that really ought to cause people to have their heads snap back
a little bit, because President Bush and others around him-Rumsfeld was certainly very clear on this-it's a war, it's global, and
how long is it going to go on? Well, they said from the outset it's going to go on for decades. In the Pentagon, there's a phrase
that gets used, "generational war," a war that lasts a generation or more.
Well, we need to ask ourselves whether that really makes sense? What are the costs entailed by waging war for a generation? Where
does the money come from? What are we not doing because we're spending all this money on war? And in a very human sense, who actually
pays the cost? I mean, who serves? Who doesn't serve? Whose social needs are getting met, and whose are not getting met, as a consequence
of having open-ended global war be this national priority?
It seems to me that were we to accurately gauge the actually existing threat-and there is a threat. I mean, 9/11 happened. There
are people out there who want to kill us. But were we to actually gauge that threat in a realistic way, we would see that open-ended
global war is not only unnecessary, but it's probably counterproductive, that there are better ways to go about keeping us secure
than to engage in global war.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to talk about those ways after break. We're talking to Andrew Bacevich, a retired colonel, spent
twenty-three years in the US Army, now a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He's just written
the book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Professor Andrew Bacevich, retired colonel who spent twenty-three years in the US Army, now a
professor at Boston University. And his latest book is The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.
Could you talk about the cost of war and how the militarists learned from your war, from Vietnam, how we are insulated from the
true cost?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah, this is not something people intended to happen, but it's an unintended consequence that we today
really need to intend to. This is the way I would tell the story. President Nixon ends the draft and creates the so-called
all-volunteer force, which really is a professional army. When Nixon ends the draft, he doesn't do it because he thinks having
a professional army would be in the nation's interest. What Nixon is trying to do is to basically cut the antiwar movement off at
the knees, and his calculation was that by ending the draft, kids would get out of the streets and go back to class. And to some
degree, he actually was right. It's worth remembering that the JCS at the time, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were opposed to ending
the draft, because they felt that they could never find enough volunteers to fill the force.
By the time we get into the 1980s, those JCS concerns have been proven incorrect, and we do end up with, I think, a magnificent
professional army. In terms of what you want an army to be like and to do, they are competent, they are disciplined, they know their
business. Alas, after the end of the Cold War, we have a political elite-and again, I would emphasize both parties-who decide that,
gosh, with this great army we have, shouldn't we go find some use for it? And the post-Cold War period, beginning with the elder
Bush, sees this pattern of interventionism-you know, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, on and on and on-mostly small conflicts,
mostly brief conflicts, conflicts in which we, the people, sit on the sidelines and mostly applaud, and the all-volunteer force seems
like the most successful federal program of the recent decades. Until you get to Iraq, because Iraq turns out to be not a short
war, not a clean war, protracted, ugly, rightfully, I think, controversial and unpopular.
But what we have found is that we, the people, have so distanced ourselves from the professional army that unless you have a family
member serving in uniform-and most people don't-you don't know where this military is, you don't know what it's like, and you really
don't have much say in the way it's used.
President Bush exploits that after 9/11. He decides he knows how it wants to be used. And, of course, for the first time in our
history, when we go to war, instead of a president turning to the Congress and turning to the country and say, "We're going to have
to change the way we do business, because we're at war," President Bush actually says, "Go to Disney World. Go shopping. Go back
to doing what you have been doing for the last ten years, and I'll take care of everything." And I have to say, the great majority
of the American people-I don't think listeners of your show or of yours or your show-but the great majority of the American people
basically did what Bush said and in tuned the war out and allowed the burden to fall on a very small percentage of the population,
which I find, frankly, morally objectionable.
AMY GOODMAN: Who benefits, Andrew Bacevich?
ANDREW BACEVICH: From the war? There are obviously corporations, contractors who benefit, and I would not-never want
to dismiss that, but I don't really think that that provides us an adequate explanation of how we got into this fix. I think
who really benefits or what benefits is the political status quo. The national security state, the apparatus of the national
security state benefits. It's gotten larger since 9/11, immensely larger. The tacit bargain between our political leaders
and the American people, which basically assumes that our culture of consumption, our refusal to save, our addiction to oil, as President
Bush himself described it, that all of these things can be sustained indefinitely, if we can simply employ our military power in
ways to shape the world to our liking.
Now, of course, what we found over the past five, six years is, our military power is really not nearly as great as many people
imagined it to be back in the 1990s, and war has not become an effective instrument of politics, as many people imagined back in
the 1990s.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about massive amounts of money that go into the military, and yet it can be stopped by an IED.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, it's an interesting thing. I mean, the military's self-image, or the image of the military that
many national security experts had developed during the 1990s, was that because our military was so adept at exploiting information
technology, that in every respect we were faster than any prospective opponent: we could think faster, we could decide faster, we
could see faster, we could use our weapons faster.
One of the great ironies, I think, of the Iraq war is that our adversary, who in a technological sense, we would say, has been
fairly primitive, our adversary has actually acted much more quickly than we have. In the competition between the improvised
explosive devices as a major weapons system that they have used and our efforts to defeat that system, they have repeatedly acted
more quickly than we have. And there's an important lesson there, I think. And the lesson is, technology is not all it's
cracked up to be when it comes to military affairs.
AMY GOODMAN: The first meeting of Barack Obama and McCain was with an evangelical reverend, Rick Warren, in California,
and they talked about evil and good, and they talked. And McCain said he will go to the gates of Hell and back to get Osama bin Laden.
Your thoughts?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I'm a conservative, and this is another one of those things that leads me to believe that
not only is President Bush not a conservative, but Senator McCain is not, either.
Of course there is evil in the world and there is good in the world, but guess what? Some of the evil is right here. I mean, to
view international politics through this lens of good and evil leads you to vastly oversimplify and I think also leads you to make
reckless decisions. Bush's-I do believe President Bush genuinely-not cynically, genuinely-saw Saddam Hussein as evil, and I think
he actually genuinely believes that-again, consistent with this notion of American exceptionalism-that we were called upon to bring
democracy to Iraq. But what a ludicrous way to view US-Iraqi relations over the past twenty or thirty years, because if you really
look at US-Iraqi relations or US policy in the Middle East over the last twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty years, it's impossible to see
the question as simply one of good versus evil. It's not black and white; it's grey. And you need to see the world as grey if you're
going to be a sensible statesman.
AMY GOODMAN: Where do you see all this heading? Your last chapter is "The Limits of Power." Why don't people on the ground,
overwhelmingly opposed to the war, have a say now?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think we have. Again, I don't mean to make this as a statement that applies to 100 percent of
the American people, but I think the great majority of us basically have allowed ourselves to become seduced by this culture
of consumption, of not taking seriously the notion that someday the bills come due, that you can't simply run up a line of credit
that stretches from here to infinity. We don't want to look ourselves in the mirror. We don't want to recognize the need to make
some changes in the way we live.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the end of American empire?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yes, I do. And I think the key question is, will the American empire end catastrophically because of our
blind insistence that we will not change? Or will we be able to disengage ourselves from and dismantle the American empire in a sensible,
reasonable way that will do the least damage to the world and the least damage to ourselves?
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew Bacevich, I want to thank you very much for being with us. His book is The Limits of Power: The
End of American Exceptionalism.
Andrew Bacevich, retired Army Colonel and Professor at Boston College, is a traditional conservative. His good advice regarding
our contemporary foreign policy, like that of the late Lt. General William Odom, fell on deaf ears in both Washington and in the
so-called "conservative" heartland.
Bacevich and Odom were consistent and correct in advising a somewhat constitutional and certainly more prudent foreign policy
than Washington has pursued for some decades. Because they are conservative, they sought to make sense, to connect what we are doing
today in Iraq and Afghanistan to an American tradition that, perhaps, has simply gone awry.
The indications were there early on, with the US-selected puppet governor crowned December 2001, and the reluctance and minority
of NATO troops vis–vis American troops (28,000
and counting). As with all occupations over time, instead of a pacified group, or groups, we see strengthening and growing sophistication
in the national and local resistance to the occupation.
As noted by Australian journalist John Pilger, in 2003 with his documentary
"Breaking the Silence" and
more recently this year, what we are doing in Afghanistan
has the trappings of vicious total domination, and it frankly doesn't seem to be doing the already impoverished Afghans much good.
Almost a year ago, 60 Minutes did a segment on Afghanistan, where the narrator tut-tutted when an Afghan observed, "We
used to hate the Russians much more than Americans. But now when we see all this happening, I am telling you Russians behave
much better than the Americans."
That October 2007 broadcast was about recent inadvertent killing of civilians by air strikes. What changed in eleven months? The
mass murder by air and land of Afghan civilians, including women and children, continues. It's not only the U.S. military doing the
killing, of course. But none of that murder of innocents would be happening, or would have happened, had Washington not, as Pilger
and others have observed, first planned to invade and then moved to base-build in, and occupy, Afghanistan.
In a sheer quantitative sense, the United States has long since avenged 9-11, racking up hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded,
and scarred innocents. It has long since avenged 9-11 in sheer destruction, laying waste to cities, villages, homes and hearths,
industry, government and religious observance. The destruction and murder is now habitual, profligate and self-indulgent. To the
world, the President of the United States - present and future - is an uncouth and supersized version of Marie Antoinette.
How very nice for them. Laws of armed conflict? Is there possibly a way for a state to conduct war that is traditional, lawful,
good? The three main principles of the LOAC - military
necessity, distinction, and proportionality - provide a clue.
Military necessity relates to those acts needed to achieve a military objective, or win a battle, and no more. Distinction means
not targeting, and being careful not to inadvertently damage civilians and civilian property. Proportionality prohibits the use of
any force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective. Sounds fair, but in the context of occupying Afghanistan
(or any occupation), is following the laws of armed conflict even possible?
Notwithstanding the military spokeswoman's allegations of soldierly medical care for blown up babies, the LOAC cannot honestly
be observed in military occupations. Ever.
Odom and Bacevich have described our foreign policy and security challenges as evolving recently, mid-20th century, and their
writings indicate that there may be a way, or at least a hope, for our military empire to be benign. In this, they are conservative
in the sense that Joe Biden and John McCain are conservative.
In 1963, looking at libertarian solutions for war and defense, Murray Rothbard wrote, "For it is precisely the characteristic
of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, cannot be used in a libertarian manner. Therefore, their very existence must
be condemned…." In "War, Peace, and the State,"
Rothbard addresses primarily nuclear weapons, but makes clear that the indiscriminate nature of conventional weapons, for the same
reason, renders their use unacceptable, immoral and wrong.
But without these weapons, how would we fight our war in Afghanistan, occupy that country, and counter the nationalists, the tribalists,
the Taliban, the hundreds of families and thousands of sons and daughters, wives and husbands each seeking their own vengeance, each
asserting their existence as angry and powerful people, not faceless collateral damage?
Of course, we could not fight such a war, and we should not. Sadly, the government and the American demos believe freedom and
prosperity, our own and that of others, can and ought to be produced by force. This belief is anti-American, un-conservative, and
logically flawed. It is wrongheaded, and it is the foreign policy and heartfelt ideology of both major presidential candidates.
As American occupations bring suffering - untold and denied, unmeasured so as to be deniable - Washington cannot understand why
the occupied do not simply submit. Whether it is cake, or
brioche, or the heavy American porridge
of bristling state socialism and angry imperialism, the Bush-Obama-McCain answer to heartbroken Afghans and to the world, is "Eat
it!"
LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant
colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com,
hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally
for Huffingtonpost.com and
Liberty and Power. To receive automatic announcements of new articles,
click here.
Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find
themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives-and the state of the conservative movement-they could do
worse.
Granted, when it comes to defining exactly what authentic conservatism entails, considerable disagreement exists even (or especially)
among conservatives themselves. My own definition emphasizes the following:
a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of
restraint;
a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;
veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;
a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;
respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market's corrosive impact on humane values;
a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.
Accept that definition and it quickly becomes apparent that the Republican Party does not represent conservative principles. The
conservative ascendancy that began with the election of Ronald Reagan has been largely an illusion. During the period since 1980,
certain faux conservatives-especially those in the service of Big Business and Big Empire-have prospered. But conservatism as such
has not.
The presidency of George W. Bush illustrates the point. In 2001, President Bush took command of a massive, inefficient federal
bureaucracy. Since then, he has substantially increased the size of that apparatus, which during his tenure has displayed breathtaking
ineptitude both at home and abroad. Over the course of Bush's two terms in office, federal spending has increased 50 percent to $3
trillion per year. Disregarding any obligation to balance the budget, Bush has allowed the national debt to balloon from $5.7 to
$9.4 trillion. Worse, under the guise of keeping Americans "safe," he has arrogated to the executive branch unprecedented powers,
thereby subverting the Constitution. Whatever else may be said about this record of achievement, it does not accord with conservative
principles.
As with every Republican leader since Reagan, President Bush has routinely expressed his support for traditional values. He portrays
himself as pro-life and pro-family. He offers testimonials to old-fashioned civic virtues. Yet apart from sporting an American flag
lapel-pin, he has done little to promote these values. If anything, the reverse is true. In the defining moment of his presidency,
rather than summoning Americans to rally to their country, he validated conspicuous consumption as the core function of 21st-century
citizenship.
Should conservatives hold President Bush accountable for the nation's cultural crisis? Of course not. The pursuit of instant gratification,
the compulsion to accumulate, and the exaltation of celebrity that have become central to the American way of life predate this administration
and derive from forces that lie far beyond the control of any president. Yet conservatives should fault the president and his party
for pretending that they are seriously committed to curbing or reversing such tendencies. They might also blame themselves for failing
to see the GOP's cultural agenda as contrived and cynical.
Finally, there is President Bush's misguided approach to foreign policy, based on expectations of deploying American military
might to eliminate tyranny, transform the Greater Middle East, and expunge evil from the face of the earth. The result has been the
very inverse of conservatism. For Bush, in the wake of 9/11, ideology supplanted statecraft. As a result, his administration has
squandered American lives and treasure in the pursuit of objectives that make little strategic sense.
For conservatives to hope the election of yet another Republican will set things right is surely in vain. To believe that President
John McCain will reduce the scope and intrusiveness of federal authority, cut the imperial presidency down to size, and put the government
on a pay-as-you-go basis is to succumb to a great delusion. The Republican establishment may maintain the pretense of opposing Big
Government, but pretense it is.
Social conservatives counting on McCain to return the nation to the path of righteousness are kidding themselves. Within this
camp, abortion has long been the flagship issue. Yet only a naïf would believe that today's Republican Party has any real interest
in overturning Roe v. Wade or that doing so now would contribute in any meaningful way to the restoration of "family
values." GOP support for such values is akin to the Democratic Party's professed devotion to the "working poor": each is a ploy to
get votes, trotted out seasonally, quickly forgotten once the polls close.
Above all, conservatives who think that a McCain presidency would restore a sense of realism and prudence to U.S. foreign policy
are setting themselves up for disappointment. On this score, we should take the senator at his word: his commitment to continuing
the most disastrous of President Bush's misadventures is irrevocable. McCain is determined to remain in Iraq as long as it takes.
He is the candidate of the War Party. The election of John McCain would provide a new lease on life to American militarism, while
perpetuating the U.S. penchant for global interventionism marketed under the guise of liberation.
The essential point is this: conservatives intent on voting in November for a candidate who shares their views might as well plan
on spending Election Day at home. The Republican Party of Bush, Cheney, and McCain no longer accommodates such a candidate.
So why consider Obama? For one reason only: because this liberal Democrat has promised to end the U.S. combat role in Iraq. Contained
within that promise, if fulfilled, lies some modest prospect of a conservative revival.
To appreciate that possibility requires seeing the Iraq War in perspective. As an episode in modern military history, Iraq qualifies
at best as a very small war. Yet the ripples from this small war will extend far into the future, with remembrance of the event likely
to have greater significance than the event itself. How Americans choose to incorporate Iraq into the nation's historical narrative
will either affirm our post-Cold War trajectory toward empire or create opportunities to set a saner course.
The neoconservatives understand this. If history renders a negative verdict on Iraq, that judgment will discredit the doctrine
of preventive war. The "freedom agenda" will command as much authority as the domino theory. Advocates of "World War IV" will be
treated with the derision they deserve. The claim that open-ended "global war" offers the proper antidote to Islamic radicalism will
become subject to long overdue reconsideration.
Give the neocons this much: they appreciate the stakes. This explains the intensity with which they proclaim that, even with the
fighting in Iraq entering its sixth year, we are now "winning"-as if war were an athletic contest in which nothing matters except
the final score. The neoconservatives brazenly ignore or minimize all that we have flung away in lives, dollars, political influence,
moral standing, and lost opportunities. They have to: once acknowledged, those costs make the folly of the entire neoconservative
project apparent. All those confident manifestos calling for the United States to liberate the world's oppressed, exercise benign
global hegemony, and extend forever the "unipolar moment" end up getting filed under dumb ideas.
Yet history's judgment of the Iraq War will affect matters well beyond the realm of foreign policy. As was true over 40 years
ago when the issue was Vietnam, how we remember Iraq will have large political and even cultural implications.
As part of the larger global war on terrorism, Iraq has provided a pretext for expanding further the already bloated prerogatives
of the presidency. To see the Iraq War as anything but misguided, unnecessary, and an abject failure is to play into the hands of
the fear-mongers who insist that when it comes to national security all Americans (members of Congress included) should defer to
the judgment of the executive branch. Only the president, we are told, can "keep us safe." Seeing the war as the debacle it has become
refutes that notion and provides a first step toward restoring a semblance of balance among the three branches of government.
Above all, there is this: the Iraq War represents the ultimate manifestation of the American expectation that the exercise of
power abroad offers a corrective to whatever ailments afflict us at home. Rather than setting our own house in order, we insist on
the world accommodating itself to our requirements. The problem is not that we are profligate or self-absorbed; it is that others
are obstinate and bigoted. Therefore, they must change so that our own habits will remain beyond scrutiny.
Of all the obstacles to a revival of genuine conservatism, this absence of self-awareness constitutes the greatest. As long as
we refuse to see ourselves as we really are, the status quo will persist, and conservative values will continue to be marginalized.
Here, too, recognition that the Iraq War has been a fool's errand-that cheap oil, the essential lubricant of the American way of
life, is gone for good-may have a salutary effect. Acknowledging failure just might open the door to self-reflection.
None of these concerns number among those that inspired Barack Obama's run for the White House. When it comes to foreign policy,
Obama's habit of spouting internationalist bromides suggests little affinity for serious realism. His views are those of a conventional
liberal. Nor has Obama expressed any interest in shrinking the presidency to its pre-imperial proportions. He does not cite Calvin
Coolidge among his role models. And however inspiring, Obama's speeches are unlikely to make much of a dent in the culture. The next
generation will continue to take its cues from Hollywood rather than from the Oval Office.
Yet if Obama does become the nation's 44th president, his election will constitute something approaching a definitive judgment
of the Iraq War. As such, his ascent to the presidency will implicitly call into question the habits and expectations that propelled
the United States into that war in the first place. Matters hitherto consigned to the political margin will become subject to close
examination. Here, rather than in Obama's age or race, lies the possibility of his being a truly transformative presidency.
Whether conservatives will be able to seize the opportunities created by his ascent remains to be seen. Theirs will not be the
only ideas on offer. A repudiation of the Iraq War and all that it signifies will rejuvenate the far Left as well. In the ensuing
clash of visions, there is no guaranteeing that the conservative critique will prevail.
But this much we can say for certain: electing John McCain guarantees the perpetuation of war. The nation's heedless march toward
empire will continue. So, too, inevitably, will its embrace of Leviathan. Whether snoozing in front of their TVs or cheering on the
troops, the American people will remain oblivious to the fate that awaits them.
For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope. McCain represents none at all. The choice turns out to be an easy one.
_________________________________
Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His next book, The Limits of Power,
will be published in August.
I wait for him on a quiet, tree and wisteria-lined street of red-brick buildings. Students, some in short-sleeves on this still
crisp spring morning, stream by. I'm seated on cold, stone steps next to a sign announcing the Boston University Department of International
Relations.
He turns the corner and advances, wearing a blue blazer, blue shirt and tie, and khaki slacks and carrying a computer in a black
bag. He's white haired, has a nicely weathered face, and the squared shoulders and upright bearing of a man, born in Normal, Illinois,
who attended West Point, fought in the Vietnam War, and then had a 20-year military career that ended in 1992.
Now a professor of history at Boston University, he directs me to a spacious, airy office whose floor-to-ceiling windows
look out on the picturesque street. A tasseled cap and gown hang on a hook behind the door - perhaps because another year of
graduation is not far off. I'm left briefly to wait while he deals with an anxious student, there to discuss his semester mark. Soon
enough though, he seats himself behind a large desk with a cup of coffee and prepares to discuss his subjects of choice, American
militarism and the American imperial mission.
Andrew Bacevich is a man on a journey - as he himself is the first to admit. A cultural conservative, a former contributor to
such magazines as the Weekly Standard and the National Review, a former Bush Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, he discovered
some time in the 1990s that his potential conservative allies on foreign policy had fallen in love with the idea of the American
military and its imagined awesome power to change the world. They had jumped the tracks and left him behind. A professed cold warrior,
in those years he took a new look at our American past - and he's not stopped looking, or reconsidering, since.
What he discovered was the American empire, which became the title of a book he published in 2002. In 2005, his fierce, insightful
book on American dreams of global military supremacy, The New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced by War, appeared.
It would have been eye-opening no matter who had written it, but given his background it was striking indeed.
Forceful and engaged (as well as engaging), Bacevich throws himself into the topic at hand. He has a barely suppressed dramatic
streak and a willingness to laugh heartily at himself. But most striking are the questions that stop him. Just as you imagine a scholar
should, he visibly turns over your questions in his mind, thinking about what may be new in them.
He takes a sip of coffee and, in a no-nonsense manner, suggests that we begin.
Tomdispatch: In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, you said the revolt of the retired generals against Secretary of Defense
[Donald] Rumsfeld represented the beginning of a search for a scapegoat for the Iraq War. I wondered whether you also considered
it a preemptive strike against the Bush administration's future Iran policy.
Andrew Bacevich: The answer is yes. It's both really. Certainly, it's become incontrovertible that the Iraq War
is not going to end happily. Even if we manage to extricate ourselves and some sort of stable Iraq emerges from the present chaos,
arguing that the war lived up to the expectations of the Bush administration is going to be very difficult. My own sense is that
the officer corps - and this probably reflects my personal experience to a great degree - is fixated on Vietnam and still believes
the military was hung out to dry there.
The officer corps came out of the Vietnam War determined never to repeat that experience and some officers are now angry to discover
that the army is once again stuck in a quagmire. So we are in the early stages of a long argument about who is to be blamed for the
Iraq debacle. I think, to some degree, the revolt of the generals reflects an effort on the part of senior military officers to weigh
in, to lay out the military's case. And the military's case is: We're not at fault. They are; and, more specifically, he is - with
Rumsfeld being the stand-in for [Vietnam-era secretary of defense] Robert McNamara.
Having said that, with all the speculation about the Bush administration's interest in expanding the "global war on terror" to
include Iran, I suspect the officer corps, already seeing the military badly overstretched, doesn't want to have any part of such
a war. Going public with attacks on Rumsfeld is one way of trying to slow whatever momentum there is toward an Iran war.
I must say, I don't really think we're on a track to have a war with Iran any time soon - maybe I'm too optimistic here [he laughs]
- but I suspect even the civilian hawks understand that the United States is already overcommitted, that to expand the war on terror
to a new theater, the Iranian theater, would in all likelihood have the most dire consequences, globally and in Iraq.
TD: Actually, I was planning to ask about your thoughts on the possibility of an Iranian October surprise.
Bacevich: You mean, attacking Iran before the upcoming fall election? I don't see Karl Rove - because an October
surprise would be a political ploy - signing off on it. I think he's cunning, calculating, devious, but not stupid. With the president's
popularity rating plummeting due to unhappiness with the ongoing war, it really would be irrational to think that yet another war
would turn that around or secure continued Republican control of both houses of Congress.
TD: It seems that way to me with gas assumedly soaring to $120 a barrel or something like that ...
Bacevich: Oh gosh, oh my gosh, yes ...
TD: But let me throw this into the mix, because I've seen no one mention it: If you look at the list of retired
commanders who came out against Rumsfeld, they're all from the Army or Marines. We always say the military is overextended, but only
part of it is - and I note the absence of admirals or anybody connected to the Air Force.
Bacevich: That's a good point. One could argue that the revolt of the generals actually has a third source. If the
first source is arguing about who's going to take the fall for Iraq and the second is trying to put a damper on war in Iran, the
third has to do with Rumsfeld's military transformation project. To oversimplify, transformation begins with the conviction that
the military since the end of the Cold War has failed to adapt to the opportunities and imperatives of the information age. Well
before September 11, the central part of Rumsfeld's agenda was to "transform" - that was his word - this old Cold-War-style military,
to make it lighter, more agile, to emphasize information technology and precision weapons.
Well, if you're in the Air Force, or you're a Navy admiral, particularly one in the aviation community, that recipe sounds pretty
good. It sounds like dollars, like programs being funded. But if you're in the Army or the Marine Corps, becoming lighter and more
agile sounds like cutting divisions or like getting rid of tanks and artillery; it sounds like a smaller Marine Corps.
Both the initial stage of the Afghanistan War and the invasion of Iraq were specifically designed by Rumsfeld as projects to demonstrate
what a transformed military could do. Hence, his insistence on beginning the Iraq War without a major build-up, on invading with
a relatively small force, on having the ground intervention accompany the air campaign rather than having a protracted air campaign
first as in the first Gulf War. All the literature about both Afghanistan and Iraq now shows that the war-planning process was filled
with great civil/military tension. The generals argued, "Mr Secretary, here's the plan; we want to do a Desert Storm Two against
Iraq," and Rumsfeld kept replying, "I want something smaller, think it over again and get back to me" - reflecting his intention
to demonstrate his notion of how America will henceforth fight its wars.
Well, now we can see the outcome and it's at best ambiguous. That is to say, the early stages of Afghanistan and Iraq proved to
be smashing successes. The smaller, agile forces performed remarkably well in demolishing both the Taliban and the Ba'ath Party regime;
but in both cases, genuine victory has proven enormously elusive. This gets us to the third basis for the generals' gripe. When they
talk about Rumsfeld's incompetence and micromanagement, they're arguing against the transformation project and on behalf of those
services which have footed most of the bill.
TD: Just to throw one other thing into the mix, if there were a campaign against Iran, it would be a Navy and Air
Force one.
Bacevich: It would begin with a Navy and Air Force campaign, but it wouldn't end that way. If the Army generals
could be assured that we know exactly where the Iranian nuclear program is, that we have the targeting data and the munitions to
take it out ... Well, that would be one thing, but we don't have that assurance. From the Army and Marine Corps perspective, an air
attack might begin a war with Iran, but the war would not end there. As is the case in both Afghanistan and Iraq, some sort of ugly
aftermath would be sure to follow and the Navy and the Air Force aren't going to be there, at least not in large numbers.
TD: What about the Iraq War at present?
Bacevich: There are a couple of important implications that we have yet to confront. The war has exposed the shallowness
of American military power. I mean, since the end of the Cold War we Americans have been beating our chests about being the greatest
military power the world has ever seen. [His voice rises.] Overshadowing the power of the Third Reich! Overshadowing the Roman Empire!
Wait a sec. This country of 290 million people has a force of about 130,000 soldiers committed in Iraq, fighting something on
the order of 10-20,000 insurgents and a) we're in a war we can't win, b) we're in the fourth year of a war we probably can't sustain
much longer. For those who believe in the American imperial project, and who see military supremacy as the foundation of that empire,
this ought to be a major concern: What are we going to do to strengthen the sinews of American military power, because it's turned
out that our vaunted military supremacy is not what it was cracked up to be. If you're like me and you're quite skeptical about this
imperial project, the stresses imposed on the military and the obvious limits of our power simply serve to emphasize the imperative
of rethinking our role in the world so we can back away from this unsustainable notion of global hegemony.
Then, there's the matter of competence. I object to the generals saying that our problems in Iraq are all due to the micromanagement
and incompetence of Mr Rumsfeld - I do think he's a micromanager and a failure and ought to have been fired long ago - because it
distracts attention from the woeful performance of the senior military leaders who have really made a hash of the Iraq insurgency.
I remember General Swannack in particular blaming Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib. I'll saddle Rumsfeld with about 10% of the blame for Abu
Ghraib, the other 90% rests with the senior American military leaders in Baghdad ...
TD: General Ricardo Sanchez signed off on it ...
Bacevich: Sanchez being number one. So again, if one is an enthusiast for American military supremacy, we have some
serious thinking to do about the quality of our senior leadership. Are we picking the right people to be our two, three, and four-star
commanders? Are we training them, educating them properly for the responsibilities that they face? The Iraq War has revealed some
major weaknesses in that regard.
TD: Do you think that the neo-cons and their mentors, Rumsfeld and the vice president, believed too deeply in the
hype of American hyperpower? Ruling groups, even while manipulating others, often seem to almost hypnotically convince themselves
as well.
Bacevich: That's why I myself tend not to buy into the charge that Bush and others blatantly lied us into this war.
I think they believed most of what they claimed. You should probably put believe in quotes, because it amounts to talking yourself
into it. They believed that American omnipotence, as well as know-how and determination, could imprint democracy on Iraq. They really
believed that, once they succeeded in Iraq, a whole host of ancillary benefits were going to ensue, transforming the political landscape
of the Middle East. All of those expectations were bizarre delusions and we're paying the consequences now.
You know, the neo-conservatives that mattered were not those in government like Douglas Feith or people on the National Security
Council staff, but the writers and intellectuals outside of government who, in the period from the late '70s through the '90s, were
constantly weaving this narrative of triumphalism, pretending to insights about power and the direction of history. Intellectuals
can put their imprint on public discourse. They can create an environment, an atmosphere. When the events of September 11, 2001,
left Americans shocked and frightened and people started casting about for an explanation, a way of framing a response, the neo-conservative
perspective was front and center and had a particular appeal. So these writers and intellectuals did influence policy, at least for
a brief moment.
TD: Here's something that puzzles me. When I look at administration actions, I see a Middle Eastern catastrophe
in the midst of which an Iranian situation is being ratcheted up. Then there's China, once upon a time the enemy of choice for the
neo-cons and Rumsfeld, and now here we are this summer having the largest naval maneuvers since Vietnam, four carrier task forces,
off the Chinese coast. Then - as with Cheney's recent speech - there's the attempted rollback of what's left of the USSR, which has
been ongoing. On the side, you've got the Pentagon pushing little Latin American bases all the way down to Paraguay. So many fronts,
so much overstretch, and no backing down that I can see. What do you make of this?
Bacevich: My own sense is that this administration has largely exhausted its stock of intellectual resources; that,
for the most part, they're preoccupied with trying to manage Iraq. Beyond that, I'm hard-pressed to see a coherent strategy in the
Middle East or elsewhere. In that sense, Iraq is like Vietnam. It just sucks up all the oxygen. Having said that, before being eclipsed
by September 11 and its aftermath, China was indeed the enemy-designate of the hawks, and a cadre of them is still active in Washington.
I would guess that large naval exercises reflect their handiwork. Still, I don't think there's been a resolution within the political
elite of exactly how we ought to view China and what the US relationship with China will be.
Why the hell we're extending bases into Latin America is beyond me. Rumsfeld just announced that he has appointed an admiral as
the head of US Southern Command. Now this has almost always been an Army billet, once or twice a Marine billet, never a Navy one.
I got an email today from someone who suggested that this was another example of Rumsfeld's "boldness". My response was: Well, if
he was bold, he'd simply shut down the Southern Command. Wouldn't it be a wonderful way to communicate that US-Latin American relations
had matured to the point where they no longer revolved around security concerns? Wouldn't it be interesting for Washington to signal
that there is one region of the world that does not require US military supervision; that we really don't need to have some four-star
general parading around from country to country in the manner of some proconsul supervising his quarter of the American Empire?
Now, I have friends who think that [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez poses a threat to the United States. I find that notion
utterly preposterous, but it does reflect this inclination to see any relationship having any discord or dissonance as requiring
a security - that is, military - response. I find it all crazy and contrary to our own interests.
TD: One thing that's ratcheted up in recent years is the way the Pentagon's taken over so many aspects of policy,
turning much of diplomacy into military-to-military relations.
Bacevich: If you look at long-term trends, going back to the early Cold War, the Defense Department has accrued
ever more influence and authority at the expense of the State Department. But there's another piece to this - within the Defense
Department itself, as the generals and the senior civilians have vied with one another for clout. When Rumsfeld and [Paul] Wolfowitz
came into office they were determined to shift the balance of civil/military authority within the Pentagon. They were intent on trimming
the sails of the generals. You could see this in all kinds of ways, some symbolic. Regional commanders used to be called CINCs, the
acronym for commander-in-chief. Rumsfeld said: Wait a minute, there's only one commander-in-chief and that's my boss, so you generals
who work for me, you're not commanders-in-chief any more. Now the guy who runs US Southern Command is just a "combatant commander".
Also indicative of this effort to shift power back to the civilians is the role played by the joint chiefs of staff, which has
been nonexistent for all practical purposes. Accounts of the planning and conduct of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars make clear that
they had virtually no influence at all. They were barely, barely consulted. Ever since Colin Powell was chairman of the joint chiefs
and became a quasi-independent power broker, presidents have chosen weak chairmen. Presidents want top officers to be accommodating
rather than forceful personalities who might hold independent views. I'm sure General Myers of the Air Force is a wonderful man and
a patriot, but he served four years as chairman after September 11 and did so without leaving any discernible mark on policy. And
that's not accidental. It reflects Rumsfeld's efforts to wrest authority back towards the office of the Secretary of Defense.
TD: Isn't this actually part of a larger pattern in which authority is wrested from everywhere and brought into
this commander-in-chief presidency?
Bacevich: That's exactly right. I've just finished a review of Cobra II, this new book by Michael Gordon
and Bernard Trainor. A major theme of the book is that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz saw September 11 as a great opportunity.
Yes, it was a disaster. Yes, it was terrible. But by God, this was a disaster that could be turned to enormous advantage.
Here lay the chance to remove constraints on the exercise of American military power, enabling the Bush administration to shore
up, expand, and perpetuate US global hegemony. Toward that end, senior officials concocted this notion of a "global war on terror",
really a cover story for an effort to pacify and transform the broader Middle East, a gargantuan project which is doomed to fail.
Committing the United States to that project presumed a radical redistribution of power within Washington. The hawks had to cut off
at the knees institutions or people uncomfortable with the unconstrained exercise of American power. And who was that? Well, that
was the CIA. That was the State Department, especially the State Department of Secretary Colin Powell. That was the Congress - note
this weird notion that the Congress is somehow limiting presidential prerogatives - and the hawks also had to worry about the uniformed
military, whom they considered "averse to risk" and incapable of understanding modern warfare in an information age.
TD: And you might throw in the courts. After all, the two men appointed to the Supreme Court are, above all else,
believers in the unitary executive theory of the presidency.
Bacevich: Yes, it fits. I would emphasize that it's not because Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are diabolical creatures
intent on doing evil. They genuinely believe it's in the interests of the United States, and the world, that unconstrained American
power should determine the shape of the international order. I think they vastly overstate our capabilities. For all of their supposed
worldliness and sophistication, I don't think they understand the world. I am persuaded that their efforts will only lead to greater
mischief while undermining our democracy. Yet I don't question that, at some gut level, they think they are acting on your behalf
and mine. They are all the more dangerous as a result.
Part 2 of Andrew Bacevich's interview, "Drifting down the path to perdition".
Tom Engelhardtis editor of Tomdispatch and the author of
The End of Victory Culture. (Copyright 2006 Tomdispatch. Used with permission) >
DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Drifting down the path to perdition
Part 2 of Tom Engelhardt's interview Andrew Bacevich, a former military man and now a vocal critic of US foreign policy
Tomdispatch: I'd like to turn to the issue of oil wars, energy wars. That seems to be what holds all this incoherent
stuff together - minds focused on a world of energy flows. Recently, I reread [president Jimmy] Carter's 1979 energy speech. Isn't
it ironic that he got laughed out of the room for his sweater and for urging a future of alternative fuels on us, while we latched
on to his Rapid Deployment Force for the Persian Gulf? As you argue in your book, The New American Militarism, this essentially
starts us on what you call "World War IV".
Andrew Bacevich: I remember the Carter speech. I was a relatively young man at the time. In general, I have voted
for Republicans, although not this Republican in 2004 [George W Bush]. But I did vote for Carter because I was utterly disenchanted
with [president Richard] Nixon and [his national security adviser Henry] Kissinger. [President Gerald] Ford seemed weak, incompetent.
And I remember being dismayed by the Carter speech because it seemed so out of sync with the American spirit. It wasn't optimistic;
it did not promise that we would have more tomorrow than we have today, that the future would be bigger and better. Carter essentially
said: If we are serious about freedom, we must really think about what freedom means - and it ought to mean something more than acquisition
and conspicuous consumption. And if we're going to preserve our freedom, we have to start living within our means.
It did not sit well with me at the time. Only when I was writing my militarism book did I take another look at the speech, and
then it knocked me over. I said to myself: This guy got it. I don't know how, but he really got it, in two respects. First, he grasped
the essence of our national predicament, of being seduced by a false and even demeaning definition of freedom. Second, he understood
that cheap oil was the drug that was leading us willy-nilly down this path. The two were directly and intimately linked: a growing
dependence on seemingly cheap foreign oil and our inability to recognize what we might call the ongoing cultural crisis of our time.
Carter gives the so-called malaise speech, I think, in July '79. The Russians invade Afghanistan in December '79. Then comes Carter's
State of the Union Address in January 1980 in which he, in a sense, recants, abandoning the argument of July and saying, by God,
the Persian Gulf is of vital interest to the United States and we'll use any means necessary in order to prevent somebody else from
controlling it. To put some teeth in this threat he creates the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, which sets in motion the militarization
of US policy that has continued ever since. So July 1979 to January 1980, that's the pivotal moment that played such an important
role in bringing us to where we are today. But of course we didn't understand that then - certainly I didn't. In July 1979, Carter
issued a prescient warning. We didn't want to listen. So we blew it.
Fast-forward to 2006, and President Bush is telling us, thank you very much, that we're addicted to oil. I heard [House Minority
Leader] Nancy Pelosi on the radio over the weekend saying that the Democrats now have a plan to make us energy-independent by 2020.
She's lying through her teeth. There's no way anybody can make us energy-independent by then. We needed to start back in 1979, if
not before. Even to achieve independence from Persian Gulf oil will be an enormously costly, painful process that none of the politicians
in either party are willing to undertake. [Gasoline] is now roughly US$3 a gallon [nearly 80 cents a liter]. I heard some guy on
a talk show the other day say: "Whaddya think we should do? I think we should all park our cars on the Interstate [highway] and stop
traffic until the government does something." What does he actually want the government to do, I wondered? Conquer another country?
We Americans are in deep denial, unwilling to accept that we're going to have to change the way we live for our own good. Empire
does not offer the recipe for preserving our freedom. Learning to live within our means just might. Jimmy Carter was the one guy,
back in July of '79, who really had the guts to say that. Unfortunately, he didn't have the guts to stick with it.
TD: I always wonder what would have happened if we had dumped a bunch of money into research and development for
alternative fuels back then.
Bacevich: The funding for the Iraq war is now in the hundreds of billions of dollars. [Economist] Joseph Stiglitz
projects that total costs could go to $2 trillion. What would a trillion dollars have done for research into alternative fuels? I
don't know, but something ... something! What do you get for a trillion dollars in Iraq? Nothin'. It's just nuts!
TD: I was amused, by the way, that you were born in Normal, Illinois ...
Bacevich: ... Because the Normal School of the State of Illinois, the teachers' college, was there.
TD: I was also thinking about stereotypes of military men. You know, rigidity of mind and the like. What strikes
me in your writings is that you seem more open to rethinking your world view than almost any scholar around. So I was curious about
the evolution of your thought.
Bacevich: Two key moments for me were the end of the Cold War and the Iraq war. The simple story would be that,
for the first 20-some years of my adult life, which coincided with the latter stages of the Cold War, I was a serving officer. I
was a Cold Warrior in uniform. I therefore accepted the orthodox narrative of the Cold War and of the postwar era more generally.
I was not oblivious to policy errors we had made and some of the sins we had committed, but as long as I was in uniform I was willing
to accept that these were peripheral to the larger narrative. I did retain this notion that the Cold War was an emergency, a very
long, serious one in which we as a nation had been called upon to depart from the norm. This was not the way things were supposed
to be, particularly in regard to a globally deployed military establishment.
TD: Let me back you up for a moment to Vietnam. You fought there ...
Bacevich: Nineteen seventy to '71.
TD: ... And how did you come out of Vietnam?
Bacevich: For a variety of personal reasons, my wife and I decided to stay in the army after my obligation was up
... [He hesitates.] For those who are not familiar with military service, it may be difficult to appreciate the extent to which that
life is all-embracing. It's like being a monk. It's a calling. Soldiers work real hard. And much of that work is peculiarly satisfying.
For most of my time in the service, women were few in number and on the margins. So it was a very masculine environment. This might
seem retro, but men living among men and doing manly things [he laughs], there is a peculiar savor to that. At any rate, I bought
into the institutional view of Vietnam - that we had been screwed. The politicians had screwed us; the media had screwed us; the
American people had screwed us. They had let us down, and so my commitment was to an institution that, after Vietnam, was engaged
in a comprehensive effort to reconstitute and restore itself - and its standing in American society.
In that context, the questions I was willing to ask about Vietnam or about US foreign policy more generally were fairly narrow.
Since getting out of the army, since trying to make sense of the Cold War and US foreign policy from a different perspective, I've
come to see the Vietnam War differently as well. I can accept to some degree the argument that the meaning of Vietnam is to be found
in "the military gets hung out to dry", but that's not sufficient. And I've come to see the war as just utterly unnecessary, misguided
and mistaken. A monumental miscalculation that never should have happened, but that did happen due to some deep-seated defects in
the way we see ourselves and see the world.
In any case, the Cold War essentially ends in 1989 when the [Berlin] Wall goes down; in '91, the Soviet Union collapses. I get
out of the army in 1992 and I'm waiting with bated breath to see what impact the end of the Cold War is going to have on US policy,
particularly military policy. The answer is, essentially, none. We come out even more firmly committed to the notion of US military
global supremacy. Not because there was an enemy - in 1992, '93, '94, there's no enemy - but because we've come to see military supremacy
and global hegemony as good in and of themselves.
The end of the Cold War sees us using military power more frequently, while our ambitions, our sense of what we're supposed to
do in the world, become more grandiose. There's all this bloated talk about "the end of history", and the "right side of history",
and the "indispensable nation", politicians and pundits pretending to know the destiny of humankind. So I began to question my understanding
of what had determined US behavior during the Cold War. The orthodox narrative said that the US behaved as it did because of them,
because of external threats. I came to believe that explanation was not entirely wrong but limited. You get closer to the truth by
recognizing that what makes us behave the way we behave comes from inside. I came to buy into the views of historians like Charles
Beard and William Appleton Williams who emphasize that foreign policy is an outgrowth of domestic policy, in particular of the structure
of the American political economy.
So I became a critic of US foreign policy in the 1990s, a pretty outspoken one.
TD: You wrote a book then with the word "empire" in the title ...
Bacevich: Yes, because I became convinced that what we saw in the '90s from both Democrats and Republicans was an
effort to expand an informal American empire. Fast-forward to September 11 [2001] and its aftermath, and the Bush doctrine of preventive
war as implemented in Iraq, and the full dimensions of our imperial ambitions become evident for all to see.
I have to say, I certainly supported the Afghanistan war. I emphatically believed that we had no choice but to take down the Taliban
regime in order to demonstrate clearly the consequences of any nation tolerating, housing, supporting terrorists who attack us. But
the Iraq war just struck me as so unnecessary, unjustifiable, and reckless that ... I don't know how to articulate its impact except
that it put me unalterably in the camp of those who had come to see American power as the problem, not the solution. And it brought
me close to despair that the response of the internal opposition and of the American people generally proved to be so tepid, so ineffective.
It led me to conclude that we are in deep, deep trouble.
An important manifestation of that trouble is this shortsighted infatuation with military power that goes beyond even what I wrote
about in my most recent book. Again, it revolves around this question of energy and oil. There's such an unwillingness to confront
the dilemmas we face as a people that I find deeply troubling. I know we're a democracy. We have elections. But it's become a procedural
democracy. Our politics are not really meaningful. In a meaningful politics, you and I could argue about important differences, and
out of that argument might come not resolution or reconciliation, but at least an awareness of the consequences of going your way
as opposed to mine. We don't even have that argument. That's what's so dismaying.
TD: You've used the word "crusade" and spoken of this administration as "intoxicated with the mission of salvation".
I was wondering what kind of "ism" you think we've been living with in these years.
Bacevich: That's a great question, and it's not enough to say that it's democratic capitalism. Certainly, our "ism"
incorporates a religious dimension - in the sense of believing that God created this nation for a purpose that has to do with universal
values.
We have not as a people come to terms with our relationship to military power and to the wars we've engaged in and the ways we've
engaged in them. Now, James Carroll in his new book, House of War is very much preoccupied with strategic bombing in World
War II and since, and especially with our use of, and attitude toward, nuclear weapons. His preoccupation is understandable because
those are the things we can't digest and we can't cough up. You know, at the end of the day, we, the missionary nation, the crusader
state, certain of our righteousness, remain the only people to have used nuclear weapons in anger - indeed, to have used them as
a weapon of terror.
TD: Air power, even though hardly covered in our media in Iraq, has been the American way of war since World War
II, hasn't it?
Bacevich: Certainly that "ism" that defines us has a large technological component, doesn't it? I mean, we are the
people of technology. We see the future as a technological one and can't imagine a problem that doesn't have technological solutions
...
TD: ... Except when it comes to oil.
Bacevich: Quite true. In many respects, the technological artifact that defines the last century is the airplane.
With the airplane came a distinctive style of warfare. The Italians dropped the first bomb in North Africa; the Japanese killed their
share of civilians from the air as did the Germans, but we and our British cousins outdid them all. I've been thinking more and more
that our record of strategic bombing is not simply an issue of historical interest.
We are not who we believe we are and, in some sense, others perceive us more accurately than we do ourselves. The president has
described a version of history - as did [president Bill] Clinton, by the way - beginning with World War II in which the United States
is the liberator, Americans are the bringers of freedom. There is truth to that narrative, but it's not the whole truth; and, quite
frankly, it's not the truth that matters a lick, let's say, to the Islamic world today. Muslims don't give a darn that we brought
[Adolf] Hitler or the Third Reich to its knees. What they're aware of is all kinds of other behavior, particularly in their neck
of the woods, that had nothing to do with spreading democracy and freedom, that had everything to do with power, with trying to establish
relations that maximized the benefit to the United States and American society. We don't have to let our hearts bleed about that.
That's the way politics works, but let's not delude ourselves either. When President George W Bush says, "America stands for freedom
and liberty, and we're coming to liberate you," it's absurd to expect people in that part of the world to take us seriously. That's
not what they've seen and known and experienced in dealing with the United States.
TD: And, of course, within the councils of this administration, they threw out anyone who knew anything about the
record of US policy in the Islamic world.
Bacevich: Because those experts would have challenged the ideologically soaked version of history that this administration
has attempted to carry over into the 21st century. Only if we begin to see ourselves more clearly will we be able to understand how
others see us. We need to revise the narrative of the American century and recognize that it has been about a host of other things
that are far more problematic than liberation. There can be no understanding the true nature of the American century without acknowledging
the reality of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Hanoi, and Haiphong.
TD: Do you, by the way, think that the reality-based community is catching up with the Bush administration?
Bacevich: It's catching up, but is it in a way that has political consequences? If we just toss Bush out and bring
in ... Who? Senator [Hillary] Clinton or John McCain? Will things be different? Somehow, I don't think so. Of course, there is something
to be said for competence even in implementing a bad policy. Right now, we have incompetents implementing a bad policy, but the essence
of the problem is the policy - not just the Iraq war but this paradigm of a "global war on terror", this notion of unconstraining
American power. That's what we have to rethink.
TD: Your thoughts on three military matters: what might be called the "religionizing" of the military; the Bush
administration's setting up of a Northern Command in 2002 for the so-called homeland, which I find disturbing; and finally, what
do you make of the now-normalized practice of presenting the costs of war-fighting as a non-Defense Department budget supplementary
item?
Bacevich: I think the last thing in your list is outlandish and irresponsible. It's as if we're keeping two sets
of books. But again, the administration abetted by the Congress plays these games and nobody seems to care. Still, it doesn't change
the facts - that we're spending more on defense than the rest of the world put together. That has no precedent. And are we becoming
safer and more secure and more prosperous? If we're not yet secure, does that mean we should be spending twice again as much? I have
friends who think we should, or who at least believe that the defense budget is inadequate. I myself think that the flinging of money
at the Defense Department ought to prompt Americans to reconsider the notion that the solution to our problems is to be found in
the realm of military power.
I think the evangelizing issue reflects at least three things. No 1, the elite disengagement from the military after Vietnam.
The Episcopalians don't sign up anymore, or the Presbyterians. No 2, the heightened political engagement of Christian evangelicals
who, by the 1960s, had embarked on a crusade to save America from itself. Evangelicals have long seen the US military as allies in
that cause. American society may be going to hell in a hand basket with its promiscuity, its pornography, its divorce rates, its
abortion, its women's rights, all these things evangelicals lament, but the military's a bastion of traditional virtue. Now, they
misperceive soldiers in that regard, but I think that's one reason military service has a special appeal for evangelical Christians.
Third comes the politicization of the military. When I first became an officer, the tradition of being apolitical was still deeply
rooted. As one consequence of Vietnam, that went away. The officer corps came to see its interests as lying with the political right.
Evangelical Christianity is just part of a larger mix.
TD: So, you have an all-embracing world that has become more politicized, that's moved south, and that has few new
streams of blood heading into it, unlike in the era of the draft or of the World War. What are the results of the military becoming
less and less like American society?
Bacevich: I think it's bad news. The only good news - this is pure speculation, as there's no evidence for it -
might be that since the Iraq war is the handiwork of a conservative, evangelical, Republican president, perhaps members of the officer
corps will begin to rethink where their loyalties should lie and will come to the realization that hitching their flag to the Republican
Party is not necessarily good for their institutional interests. The officer corps loved [president Ronald] Reagan. He saved the
military. And here we have, according to some people, the most Reaganite president since Reagan who seems to be doing his damnedest
to destroy the military. That might have some impact.
TD: About a year ago you said, "The only way I can envision a meaningful political change along the lines that I
would like to see would be in reaction to an awful disaster." Would you like to comment?
Bacevich: A disaster like that could go either way. One hates to speculate on this, but were there another September
11, the likely result could be that Americans would rise up in their righteous anger and say, let's go kill them all. But it's at
least possible to hope that such a disaster might offer an opportunity for people who are advancing alternative views to be heard.
One of the strange things about the Iraq war and other post-September 11 policies is that, except for gas being at $3 a gallon,
who the hell cares? Part of the cunning genius of the Bush administration has been the way it's insulated Americans from the effects
of their policies. You know, September 11 happens and they seize upon it to declare their "global war on terror". The president says
from the outset that this is a long war, that it may take decades, that it's comparable to the world wars. On the other hand, he
chooses not to mobilize the nation. There are no changes in our domestic priorities; no significant expansion of the armed forces.
Well, why was that? In their confidence about how great our military power was, they calculated that what we had would suffice.
That was a major miscalculation. But I think they also calculated that by telling Americans, as President Bush famously did, to go
down to Disney World and enjoy this great country of ours, they would be able to buy themselves political protection. Even though
opinion polls show that public support for the president has dropped tremendously, in a sense events have proved them right. They
have not been held accountable for their egregious mistakes because average citizens like you and me don't really feel the pain in
any direct way.
Now, if the president had said: We're going to cut back on our domestic programs; we're going to raise taxes because this is an
important war and, by God, we need to pay for it; we need a bigger army and so we're going to impose a draft - then I think Americans
might have been more attentive to what's been happening over the past four years. But alas, they've not been. Instead, we've drifted
down the path toward perdition.
Tom Engelhardt is editor of Tomdispatch and the author of
The End of Victory Culture.
(Copyright 2006 Tomdispatch. Used with permission)
We are now in an America where it's a commonplace for our President, wearing a "jacket
with ARMY printed over his heart and 'Commander in Chief' printed on his right front," to address vast assemblages of American
troops on the virtues of bringing democracy to foreign lands at the point of a missile. As
Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post
puts it: "Increasingly, the president uses speeches to troops to praise American ideals and send a signal to other nations the administration
is targeting for democratic change."
As it happens, the Bush administration has other, no less militarized ways of signaling "change" that are even blunter. We already
have, for instance,
hundreds
and hundreds of military bases, large and small, spread around the world, but never enough, never deeply enough embedded in the
former borderlands of the Soviet Union and the energy
heartlands of our planet. The military budget soars; planning for high-tech weaponry for the near (and distant) future -- like
the Common Aero Vehicle,
a suborbital space capsule capable of delivering "conventional" munitions anywhere on the planet within 2 hours and due to come on
line by 2010 -- is the normal order of business in Pentagonized Washington. War, in fact, is increasingly the American way of life
and, to a certain extent, it's almost as if no one notices.
Well, not quite no one. Andrew J. Bacevich has written a book on militarism, American-style, of surpassing interest. Just published,
The New American Militarism, How Americans
Are Seduced by War would be critical reading no matter who wrote it. But coming from Bacevich, a West Point graduate, Vietnam
veteran, former contributor to such magazines as the Weekly Standard and the National Review, and former Bush Fellow
at the American Academy in Berlin, it has special resonance.
Bacevich, a self-professed conservative, has clearly been a man on a journey. He writes that he still situates himself "culturally
on the right. And I continue to view the remedies proferred by mainstream liberalism with skepticism. But my disenchantment with
what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the present 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."
I've long recommended Chalmers Johnson's book on American militarism and military-basing policy,
The Sorrows of Empire. Bacevich's
The New American Militarism, which focuses on the ways Americans have become enthralled by -- and found themselves in thrall
to -- military power and the idea of global military supremacy, should be placed right beside it in any library. Below, you'll find
the first of two long excerpts (slightly adapated) from the book, and posted with the kind permission of the author and of his publisher,
Oxford University Press. This one offers Bacevitch's thoughts on the ways in which, since the Vietnam War, our country has been militarized,
a process to which, as he writes, the events of September 11 only added momentum. On Friday, I'll post an excerpt on the second-generation
neoconservatives and what they contributed to our new militarism.
Bacevich's book carefully lays out and analyzes the various influences that have fed into the creation and sustenance of the new
American militarism over the last decades. It would have been easy enough to create a 4-part or 6-part Tomdispatch series from the
book. Bacevich is, for instance, fascinating on evangelical Christianity (and its less than war-like earlier history) as well as
on the ways in which the military, after the Vietnam debacle, rebuilt itself as a genuine imperial force, separated from the American
people and with an ethos "more akin to that of the French Foreign Legion" -- a force prepared for war without end. But for that,
and much else, you'll have to turn to the book itself. Tom
The Normalization of War
By Andrew J. Bacevich
At the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The skepticism about arms and armies that pervaded the American
experiment from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamored 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. Few in power have openly considered whether valuing military power for its own sake or cultivating permanent global
military superiority might be at odds with American principles. Indeed, one striking aspect of America's drift toward militarism
has been the absence of dissent offered by any political figure of genuine stature.
For example, when Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, ran for the presidency in 2004, he framed his differences with
George W. Bush's national security policies in terms of tactics rather than first principles. Kerry did not question
the wisdom of styling the U.S. response to the events of 9/11 as a generations-long "global war on terror." It was not the prospect
of open-ended war that drew Kerry's ire. It was rather the fact that the war had been "extraordinarily mismanaged and ineptly prosecuted."
Kerry faulted Bush because, in his view, U.S. troops in Iraq lacked "the preparation and hardware they needed to fight as effectively
as they could." Bush was expecting too few soldiers to do too much with too little. Declaring that "keeping our military strong and
keeping our troops as safe as they can be should be our highest priority," Kerry promised if elected to fix these deficiencies. Americans
could count on a President Kerry to expand the armed forces and to improve their ability to fight.
Yet on this score Kerry's circumspection was entirely predictable. It was the candidate's way of signaling that he was sound on
defense and had no intention of departing from the prevailing national security consensus.
Under the terms of that consensus, mainstream politicians today take as a given that American military supremacy is an unqualified
good, evidence of a larger American superiority. They see this armed might as the key to creating an international order that accommodates
American values. One result of that consensus over the past quarter century has been to militarize U.S. policy and to encourage tendencies
suggesting that American society itself is increasingly enamored with its self-image as the military power nonpareil
How Much Is Enough?
This new American militarism manifests itself in several different ways. It does so, first of all, in the scope, cost, and configuration
of America's present-day military establishment.
Through the first two centuries of U.S. history, political leaders in Washington gauged the size and capabilities of America's
armed services according to the security tasks immediately at hand. A grave and proximate threat to the nation's well-being might
require a large and powerful military establishment. In the absence of such a threat, policymakers scaled down that establishment
accordingly. With the passing of crisis, the army raised up for the crisis went immediately out of existence. This had been the case
in 1865, in 1918, and in 1945.
Since the end of the Cold War, having come to value military power for its own sake, the United States has abandoned this principle
and is committed as a matter of policy to maintaining military capabilities far in excess of those of any would-be adversary or combination
of adversaries. This commitment finds both a qualitative and quantitative expression, with the U.S. military establishment dwarfing
that of even America's closest ally. Thus, whereas the U.S. Navy maintains and operates a total of twelve large attack aircraft carriers,
the once-vaunted [British] Royal Navy has none -- indeed, in all the battle fleets of the world there is no ship even remotely comparable
to a Nimitz-class carrier, weighing in at some ninety-seven thousand tons fully loaded, longer than three football fields, cruising
at a speed above thirty knots, and powered by nuclear reactors that give it an essentially infinite radius of action. Today, the
U.S. Marine Corps possesses more attack aircraft than does the entire Royal Air Force -- and the United States has two other even
larger "air forces," one an integral part of the Navy and the other officially designated as the U.S. Air Force. Indeed, in terms
of numbers of men and women in uniform, the U.S. Marine Corps is half again as large as the entire British Army--and the Pentagon
has a second, even larger "army" actually called the U.S. Army -- which in turn also operates its own "air force" of some five thousand
aircraft.
All of these massive and redundant capabilities cost money. Notably, the present-day Pentagon budget, adjusted for inflation,
is 12 percent larger than the average defense budget of the Cold War era. In 2002, American defense spending exceeded by a factor
of twenty-five the combined defense budgets of the seven "rogue states" then comprising the roster of U.S. enemies.16 Indeed,
by some calculations, the United States spends more on defense than all other nations in the world together. This is a circumstance
without historical precedent.
Furthermore, in all likelihood, the gap in military spending between the United States and all other nations will expand further
still in the years to come. Projected increases in the defense budget will boost Pentagon spending in real terms to a level higher
than it was during the Reagan era. According to the Pentagon's announced long-range plans, by 2009 its budget will exceed the Cold
War average by 23 percent -- despite the absence of anything remotely resembling a so-called peer competitor. However astonishing
this fact might seem, it elicits little comment, either from political leaders or the press. It is simply taken for granted. The
truth is that there no longer exists any meaningful context within which Americans might consider the question "How much is enough?"
On a day-to-day basis, what do these expensive forces exist to do? Simply put, for the Department of Defense and all of its constituent
parts, defense per se figures as little more than an afterthought. The primary mission of America's far-flung military establishment
is global power projection, a reality tacitly understood in all quarters of American society. To suggest that the U.S. military has
become the world's police force may slightly overstate the case, but only slightly.
That well over a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States continues to maintain bases and military forces
in several dozens of countries -- by some counts well over a hundred in all -- rouses minimal controversy, despite the fact that
many of these countries are perfectly capable of providing for their own security needs. That even apart from fighting wars and pursuing
terrorists, U.S. forces are constantly prowling around the globe -- training, exercising, planning, and posturing -- elicits no more
notice (and in some cases less) from the average American than the presence of a cop on a city street corner. Even before the Pentagon
officially assigned itself the mission of "shaping" the international environment, members of the political elite, liberals and conservatives
alike, had reached a common understanding that scattering U.S. troops around the globe to restrain, inspire, influence, persuade,
or cajole paid dividends. Whether any correlation exists between this vast panoply of forward-deployed forces on the one hand and
antipathy to the United States abroad on the other has remained for the most part a taboo subject.
The Quest for Military Dominion
The indisputable fact of global U.S. military preeminence also affects the collective mindset of the officer corps. For the armed
services, dominance constitutes a baseline or a point of departure from which to scale the heights of ever greater military capabilities.
Indeed, the services have come to view outright supremacy as merely adequate and any hesitation in efforts to increase the margin
of supremacy as evidence of falling behind.
Thus, according to one typical study of the U.S. Navy's future, "sea supremacy beginning at our shore lines and extending outward
to distant theaters is a necessary condition for the defense of the U.S." Of course, the U.S. Navy already possesses unquestioned
global preeminence; the real point of the study is to argue for the urgency of radical enhancements to that preeminence. The officer-authors
of this study express confidence that given sufficient money the Navy can achieve ever greater supremacy, enabling the Navy of the
future to enjoy "overwhelming precision firepower," "pervasive surveillance," and "dominant control of a maneuvering area, whether
sea, undersea, land, air, space or cyberspace." In this study and in virtually all others, political and strategic questions implicit
in the proposition that supremacy in distant theaters forms a prerequisite of "defense" are left begging -- indeed, are probably
unrecognized. At times, this quest for military dominion takes on galactic proportions. Acknowledging that the United States enjoys
"superiority in many aspects of space capability," a senior defense official nonetheless complains that "we don't have space dominance
and we don't have space supremacy." Since outer space is "the ultimate high ground," which the United States must control, he urges
immediate action to correct this deficiency. When it comes to military power, mere superiority will not suffice.
The new American militarism also manifests itself through an increased propensity to use force, leading, in effect, to the normalization
of war. There was a time in recent memory, most notably while the so-called Vietnam Syndrome infected the American body politic,
when Republican and Democratic administrations alike viewed with real trepidation the prospect of sending U.S. troops into action
abroad. Since the advent of the new Wilsonianism, however, self-restraint regarding the use of force has all but disappeared. During
the entire Cold War era, from 1945 through 1988, large-scale U.S. military actions abroad totaled a scant six. Since the fall of
the Berlin Wall, however, they have become almost annual events. The brief period extending from 1989's Operation Just Cause (the
overthrow of Manuel Noriega) to 2003's Operation Iraqi Freedom (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) featured nine major military interventions.
And that count does not include innumerable lesser actions such as Bill Clinton's signature cruise missile attacks against obscure
targets in obscure places, the almost daily bombing of Iraq throughout the late 1990s, or the quasi-combat missions that have seen
GIs dispatched to Rwanda, Colombia, East Timor, and the Philippines. Altogether, the tempo of U.S. military interventionism has become
nothing short of frenetic.
As this roster of incidents lengthened, Americans grew accustomed to -- perhaps even comfortable with -- reading in their morning
newspapers the latest reports of U.S. soldiers responding to some crisis somewhere on the other side of the globe. As crisis became
a seemingly permanent condition so too did war. The Bush administration has tacitly acknowledged as much in describing the global
campaign against terror as a conflict likely to last decades and in promulgating -- and in Iraq implementing -- a doctrine of preventive
war.
In former times American policymakers treated (or at least pretended to treat) the use of force as evidence that diplomacy had
failed. In our own time they have concluded (in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney) that force "makes your diplomacy more effective
going forward, dealing with other problems." Policymakers have increasingly come to see coercion as a sort of all-purpose tool. Among
American war planners, the assumption has now taken root that whenever and wherever U.S. forces next engage in hostilities, it will
be the result of the United States consciously choosing to launch a war. As President Bush has remarked, the big lesson of 9/11 was
that "this country must go on the offense and stay on the offense." The American public's ready acceptance of the prospect of war
without foreseeable end and of a policy that abandons even the pretense of the United States fighting defensively or viewing war
as a last resort shows clearly how far the process of militarization has advanced.
The New Aesthetic of War
Reinforcing this heightened predilection for arms has been the appearance in recent years of a new aesthetic of war. This is the
third indication of advancing militarism.
The old twentieth-century aesthetic of armed conflict as barbarism, brutality, ugliness, and sheer waste grew out of World War
I, as depicted by writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque, and Robert Graves. World War II, Korea, and Vietnam reaffirmed
that aesthetic, in the latter case with films like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket.
The intersection of art and war gave birth to two large truths. The first was that the modern battlefield was a slaughterhouse,
and modern war an orgy of destruction that devoured guilty and innocent alike. The second, stemming from the first, was that military
service was an inherently degrading experience and military institutions by their very nature repressive and inhumane. After 1914,
only fascists dared to challenge these truths. Only fascists celebrated war and depicted armies as forward-looking -- expressions
of national unity and collective purpose that paved the way for utopia. To be a genuine progressive, liberal in instinct, enlightened
in sensibility, was to reject such notions as preposterous.
But by the turn of the twenty-first century, a new image of war had emerged, if not fully displacing the old one at least serving
as a counterweight. To many observers, events of the 1990s suggested that war's very nature was undergoing a profound change. The
era of mass armies, going back to the time of Napoleon, and of mechanized warfare, an offshoot of industrialization, was coming to
an end. A new era of high-tech warfare, waged by highly skilled professionals equipped with "smart" weapons, had commenced. Describing
the result inspired the creation of a new lexicon of military terms: war was becoming surgical, frictionless, postmodern, even abstract
or virtual. It was "coercive diplomacy" -- the object of the exercise no longer to kill but to persuade. By the end of the twentieth
century, Michael Ignatieff of Harvard University concluded, war had become "a spectacle." It had transformed itself into a kind of
"spectator sport," one offering "the added thrill that it is real for someone, but not, happily, for the spectator." Even for the
participants, fighting no longer implied the prospect of dying for some abstract cause, since the very notion of "sacrifice in battle
had become implausible or ironic."
Combat in the information age promised to overturn all of "the hoary dictums about the fog and friction" that had traditionally
made warfare such a chancy proposition. American commanders, affirmed General Tommy Franks, could expect to enjoy "the kind of Olympian
perspective that Homer had given his gods."
In short, by the dawn of the twenty-first century the reigning postulates of technology-as-panacea had knocked away much of the
accumulated blood-rust sullying war's reputation. Thus reimagined -- and amidst widespread assurances that the United States could
be expected to retain a monopoly on this new way of war -- armed conflict regained an aesthetic respectability, even palatability,
that the literary and artistic interpreters of twentieth-century military cataclysms were thought to have demolished once and for
all. In the right circumstances, for the right cause, it now turned out, war could actually offer an attractive option--cost-effective,
humane, even thrilling. Indeed, as the Anglo-American race to Baghdad conclusively demonstrated in the spring of 2003, in the eyes
of many, war has once again become a grand pageant, performance art, or a perhaps temporary diversion from the ennui and boring routine
of everyday life. As one observer noted with approval, "public enthusiasm for the whiz-bang technology of the U.S. military" had
become "almost boyish." Reinforcing this enthusiasm was the expectation that the great majority of Americans could count on being
able to enjoy this new type of war from a safe distance.
The Moral Superiority of the Soldier
This new aesthetic has contributed, in turn, to an appreciable boost in the status of military institutions and soldiers themselves,
a fourth manifestation of the new American militarism.
Since the end of the Cold War, opinion polls surveying public attitudes toward national institutions have regularly ranked the
armed services first. While confidence in the executive branch, the Congress, the media, and even organized religion is diminishing,
confidence in the military continues to climb. Otherwise acutely wary of having their pockets picked, Americans count on men and
women in uniform to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. Americans fearful that the rest of society may be
teetering on the brink of moral collapse console themselves with the thought that the armed services remain a repository of traditional
values and old fashioned virtue.
Confidence in the military has found further expression in a tendency to elevate the soldier to the status of national icon, the
apotheosis of all that is great and good about contemporary America. The men and women of the armed services, gushed Newsweek
in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, "looked like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. They were young, confident, and
hardworking, and they went about their business with poise and élan." A writer for Rolling Stone reported after a more recent
and extended immersion in military life that "the Army was not the awful thing that my [anti-military] father had imagined"; it was
instead "the sort of America he always pictured when he explained… his best hopes for the country."
According to the old post-Vietnam-era political correctness, the armed services had been a refuge for louts and mediocrities who
probably couldn't make it in the real world. By the turn of the twenty-first century a different view had taken hold. Now the United
States military was "a place where everyone tried their hardest. A place where everybody… looked out for each other. A place where
people -- intelligent, talented people -- said honestly that money wasn't what drove them. A place where people spoke openly about
their feelings." Soldiers, it turned out, were not only more virtuous than the rest of us, but also more sensitive and even happier.
Contemplating the GIs advancing on Baghdad in March 2003, the classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson saw something
more than soldiers in battle. He ascertained "transcendence at work." According to Hanson, the armed services had "somehow distilled
from the rest of us an elite cohort" in which virtues cherished by earlier generations of Americans continued to flourish.
Soldiers have tended to concur with this evaluation of their own moral superiority. In a 2003 survey of military personnel, "two-thirds
[of those polled] said they think military members have higher moral standards than the nation they serve… Once in the military,
many said, members are wrapped in a culture that values honor and morality." Such attitudes leave even some senior officers more
than a little uncomfortable. Noting with regret that "the armed forces are no longer representative of the people they serve," retired
admiral Stanley Arthur has expressed concern that "more and more, enlisted as well as officers are beginning to feel that they are
special, better than the society they serve." Such tendencies, concluded Arthur, are "not healthy in an armed force serving a democracy."
In public life today, paying homage to those in uniform has become obligatory and the one unforgivable sin is to be found guilty
of failing to "support the troops." In the realm of partisan politics, the political Right has shown considerable skill in exploiting
this dynamic, shamelessly pandering to the military itself and by extension to those members of the public laboring under the misconception,
a residue from Vietnam, that the armed services are under siege from a rabidly anti-military Left.
In fact, the Democratic mainstream -- if only to save itself from extinction -- has long since purged itself of any dovish inclinations.
"What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about," Madeleine Albright demanded of General Colin
Powell, "if we can't use it?" As Albright's Question famously attests, when it comes to advocating the use of force, Democrats can
be positively gung ho. Moreover, in comparison to their Republican counterparts, they are at least as deferential to military leaders
and probably more reluctant to question claims of military expertise.
Even among Left-liberal activists, the reflexive anti-militarism of the 1960s has given way to a more nuanced view. Although hard-pressed
to match self-aggrandizing conservative claims of being one with the troops, progressives have come to appreciate the potential for
using the armed services to advance their own agenda. Do-gooders want to harness military power to their efforts to do good. Thus,
the most persistent calls for U.S. intervention abroad to relieve the plight of the abused and persecuted come from the militant
Left. In the present moment, writes Michael Ignatieff, "empire has become a precondition for democracy." Ignatieff, a prominent human
rights advocate, summons the United States to "use imperial power to strengthen respect for self-determination [and] to give states
back to abused, oppressed people who deserve to rule them for themselves."
The President as Warlord
Occasionally, albeit infrequently, the prospect of an upcoming military adventure still elicits opposition, even from a public
grown accustomed to war. For example, during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, large-scale demonstrations
against President Bush's planned intervention filled the streets of many American cities. The prospect of the United States launching
a preventive war without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council produced the largest outpouring of public protest that the country
had seen since the Vietnam War. Yet the response of the political classes to this phenomenon was essentially to ignore it. No politician
of national stature offered himself or herself as the movement's champion. No would-be statesman nursing even the slightest prospects
of winning high national office was willing to risk being tagged with not supporting those whom President Bush was ordering into
harm's way. When the Congress took up the matter, Democrats who denounced George W. Bush's policies in every other respect dutifully
authorized him to invade Iraq. For up-and-coming politicians, opposition to war had become something of a third rail: only the very
brave or the very foolhardy dared to venture anywhere near it.
More recently still, this has culminated in George W. Bush styling himself as the nation's first full-fledged warrior-president.
The staging of Bush's victory lap shortly after the conquest of Baghdad in the spring of 2003 -- the dramatic landing on the carrier
USS Abraham Lincoln, with the president decked out in the full regalia of a naval aviator emerging from the cockpit to bask
in the adulation of the crew -- was lifted directly from the triumphant final scenes of the movie Top Gun, with the boyish
George Bush standing in for the boyish Tom Cruise. For this nationally televised moment, Bush was not simply mingling with the troops;
he had merged his identity with their own and made himself one of them -- the president as warlord. In short order, the marketplace
ratified this effort; a toy manufacturer offered for $39.99 a Bush look-alike military action figure advertised as "Elite Force Aviator:
George W. Bush -- U.S. President and Naval Aviator."
Thus has the condition that worried C. Wright Mills in 1956 come to pass in our own day. "For the first time in the nation's history,"
Mills wrote, "men in authority are talking about an 'emergency' without a foreseeable end." While in earlier times Americans had
viewed history as "a peaceful continuum interrupted by war," today planning, preparing, and waging war has become "the normal state
and seemingly permanent condition of the United States." And "the only accepted 'plan' for peace is the loaded pistol."
Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston
University. A graduate of West Point and a Vietnam veteran, he has a doctorate in history from Princeton and was a Bush Fellow at
the American Academy in Berlin. He is the author of several books, including the just published
The New American Militarism, How Americans
Are Seduced by War.
Still Chasing the
Wrong Rainbows. Posted on May 4, 2017. What historian William Appleman Williams taught us about foreign policy and the good society.
Memo for McMaster. Posted on
April 13, 2017. The national security advisor needs to impose order on the administration's foreign policy.
The Fiction of U.S.
Isolationism. Posted on April 4, 2017 . The old canard is an obstacle to a realistic, fact-based approach to foreign policy.
The Odds Against
Antiwar Warriors. Posted on March 30, 2017/ The failure of a World War I American anti-war movement does not bode well for similar
movements today.
Debunking America's
"Good" Occupation. Posted on March 9, 2017. Factual errors mar an otherwise thoughtful book about U.S. occupation forces in post-World
War II Germany.
Trump and
the Six-Trillion-Dollar Question. Posted on March 2, 2017. Republicans and Democrats both refuse to investigate the staggering
resources wasted in the Middle East.
The Duty of General McMaster.
Posted on February 21, 2017. As he takes charge of U.S. grand strategy, he must be a blunt, candid truth-teller.
Why Does Congress
Accept Perpetual Wars? Posted on February 17, 2017. To exercise real oversight, our representatives must take ownership of foreign
entanglements.
Conservatism After Trump.
Posted on February 2, 2017. How the Right-and foreign-policy realism-can survive our populist moment.
On Winning. Posted on November 30,
2016. Trump loves to do it, but American generals have forgotten how.
Time for Real
Answers on War. Posted on October 4, 2016. Trump and Clinton both keep the American people in the dark.
The Decay of American
Politics. Posted on August 4, 2016. Ike and Adlai weren't perfect, but at least their campaigns provided more than spectacle.
Kill All the Terrorists?.
Posted on July 25, 2016. The violence we employ to defend civilization feeds the very forces that imperil it.
Don't Blame Me,
I'm Just the Viceroy. Posted on July 18, 2016. Why do Zalmay Khalilzad and others in the foreign-policy establishment refuse
to question America's role in the world?
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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