May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better
Neoliberalism as Trotskyism for the rich
Socialism for corporations and financial oligarchy (The New Nomenklatura) with the "Promotion of democracy" as the modification
of Trotskyite "Permanent War" doctrine
“What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion.
All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and
putting new ones in their place. We lack traditions and ritual. One day soon National
Socialism will be the religion of all Germans. My Party is my church, and I believe I serve
the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of
slavery. That is my gospel.”
―
Joseph Goebbels
There were two major favors of Bolshevism -- Trotskyism and Stalinism. Them main different is in the attitude to exporting
revolution to other countries. Trotsky preached so called permanent revolution -- forceful regime changes in other countries, while
Stalin adhered to more isolationist worldview ("Socialism in a single country"). In a way the whole
Mont Pelerin Society can be renamed into "The Committee for the adaptation of Trotskyism for the needs of financial oligarchy"
Neoliberalism is essentially Trotskyism
refashioned for the needs of the global financial elite. Like Trotskyism this is hegemonic ideology which want to
conquer the whole global: instead of "Permanent war" doctrine neoliberals use color revolutions and the "Promotion of democracy."
with essentially the same goal -- global dominance. That's probably why the first substantial support Mont Perelin Society got in
England -- global dominance is the tradition of Brish Empire.
This "socialism for corporations, feudalism for everybody" adapted a large part of Trotskyism ideology and, especially,
political instruments, carefully hiding the origins. Instead of "proletarians of all countries unite" we have
the slogan
"neoliberal elites of all countries unite". Like Communism is supposed to be the
result of revolt of proletariat against its oppressions, Neoliberalism can be considered to be the
revolt of the elite (and first of all financial elite) against excessive level of equality that
characterized the world after WWII. They key goal of neoliberalism is redistribution of wealth up at the expense of working
class and lower middle class. Like Trotskyism in the past, it is a militant and dogmatic
faith that ostracizes heretics and utilizes the full power of propaganda to brainwash the population. Like Bolsheviks' Communist
International this virtual "Union of Neoliberal States" have zero tolerance for other social system
or deviations from so called Washington consensus -- the dogmatic statement of main goal of neoliberalism in weaker countries. Like
was the case with Bolshevism media dogs and intelligence agencies are
unleashed on dissenters. Universities were refashioned into neoliberalism indoctrination camp by making neoclassical economics
the obligatory discipline, without taking a course in neo-classical economy the student can't graduate. Much like Marxism-Leninism
philosophy course and Marxist political economy course were obligatory in the USSR universities.
Permanent revolution was refashioned into regime change efforts with "color revolution" as the major instrument of such a change.
If color revolution mechanisms fail, the direct military invasion is always an option ("export
of neoliberal democracy of the tips of bayonets", so to speak). Subversive methods like color
revolutions are polished to perfection. Recently they were used inside the USA as Clinton wing of Democratic Party (aka "soft
neoliberalism") against Trump, who was elected on the platform of "anti-globalization", anti-outsourcing/offshoring", and
ending foreign wars. See NeoMcCartyism
The key idea here is that "free market" in neoliberalism replaces the notion of "dictatorship of
proletariat". The notion of the "world revolution" is preserved. Neoliberals do not want to wait until "free market" wins in the society on its own merits.
They do not believe in Laissez-faire. Like Leninists
they want to use state to build the society in which "dictatorship of market"
happens. To enforce this society on people. This is not about libertarian dream of the state as "night watchman",
on the contrary state in neoliberal
doctrine state of "neoliberal dictatorship" which is active in enforcing "free market" mechanisms, despite possible resistance of the
society.
Neoliberals like Trotskyites are globalists par excellence and dream about world neoliberal revolution. Like Bolsheviks with
communism, they reject any other forms of social
organization other then neoliberalism. And want to export neoliberalism to all countries of the world. If necessary using US bombers
and tanks.
In other words while idea of the state under neoliberalism is identical to Bolsheviks view of state (and is very similar to the
views of the Islamic state, if you
wish ;-), the foreign policy under neoliberalism is the neoliberal empire expansion policy similar to idea of "World Revolution"
which is the central postulate of Trotskyism. In other words neoliberals strongly believe in "Export of revolution", it is just
disguised for unwashed masses as export of democracy. Kind of neoliberal jihad (The Totalitarian
Nature of Islam)
"Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam." "Marx has taught that
Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahommet."
Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and
Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism
are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.
Russell [114]
Perhaps it was Charles Watson who first described Islam as totalitarian in 1937, and proceeded to show how: "By a million roots,
penetrating every phase of life, all of them with religious significance, it is able to maintain its hold upon the life of Moslem
peoples. "Bousquet, one of the foremost authorities on Islamic Law, distinguishes two aspects of Islam which he considers totalitarian:
Islamic Law, and the Islamic notion of Jihad which has for its ultimate aim the conquest of the entire world, in order to submit
it to one single authority. We shall consider jihad in the next chapter, here we shall confine ourselves to Islamic Law.
Mont Perelin society which developed the neoliberal doctrine and served like Communist
International for neoliberalism, was deliberately structured like a congress of pre-selected and
pre-approved thinkers, allowing no dissent, and working in secrecy. Much like the new incarnation of Bolsheviks party. They explicitly rework the
key methods of social struggle invented by Bolsheviks and Trotskyites to the their own ends.
Many subversive method used by neoliberal state to enforce the rule of neoliberalism in other
countries were first invented and tried by Communist International. Marx is probably now
spinning in his grave seeing how his teaching and methods adapted by social-democratic parties were
subverted and bastardized to serve the rich.
According to neoliberal doctrine, free market like socialist social system just do not happen naturally: they should be built and enforced
by the "Party" despite all the resistance. and the Party in this case was artificially constructed of bribed intellectuals
and (what is even more important) of the network of neoliberal think tanks. this idea to use "think tank" as the major weapon
if the unleashing neoliberal revolution was also a direct (but creative) borrowing from Bolsheviks practice.
And as we all know tanks is formidable weapon on a modern battlefields.
The same is true with think tanks in social battlefields. So like
Trotskyites they are constructivists long before the term became popular (emergence of neoliberalism as a
movement belong to early 30th). Nothing is left to the chance.
In other words this like Trotskyism neoliberalism is practically undistinguished from a secular religion. That's why some
researchers call it a market uber
alles religion. The key dogma is "There is no God other then the Market... " In other words, Market under neoliberal doctrine does not need any justification. It is
the ultimate deity that judges the mere mortals, which needs to be imposed on the people by the power of the state, and requires
absolute compliance, achieved by spilling blood, if
necessary.
Much like the idea of communism is a deity for Bolsheviks, which requires no justification and needs to be imposed on the people by
whatever means necessary.
In both cases they are sold as kind of heaven on the earth. In this
sense this is market fundamentalism which is a lot in common with Islamic Fundamentalism. Market
is the heaven on earth for neoliberals and neoliberal priests (which are pretty well paid folk, look at
Summers or Rubin ;-)
have the same promise of twenty virgins to the followers. In they case virgins can be simply bought on money that the neoliberalism
will bestow on the individual who will follow the teaching making him rich ;-). The actual reality is somewhat different. It
is impossible to make rich everybody; this is reserved to the top 1% or 0.01%, while "shmucks" standard of living tend to
deteriorate. But this is a hidden "esoteric" truth the neoliberalism does not advertise. In any case you see the analogy.
Like Trotskyites they were militant faction which wanted to seize
the power but whatever means possible. And they want to forcefully destroy all alternatives
including first of all socialism. Their attitude toward socialism is the exact morrow of Trotskyites
view about capitalism -- they believe that socialism belong to the dustbin of history, and if it
does not want to die "naturally" it is OK to help him to go to the grave. 1973 Chilean coup d'état
against
President
Salvador Allende, is a perfect example of their ideology in action. color revolution are
another. This is how Lenin would force the revolution. They just uses CIA instead of terrorist
underground forces used by Bolsheviks (in case of Bolsheviks often cooperating with anarchist
military faction -- so called 'boeviks").
There is even some uneasy alliance of islamist radicals Western intelligence agencies and neoliberal
NGO in which neoliberal try to use islamist to achieve their goals. The same lack of
principles and amorality was typical for Bolsheviks. In is important to understand that
despite scholarly camouflage key neoliberal figures such as Milton Friedman were actually criminals.
Minton Friedman hands were up to the elbow in blood of innocent victims due to
killing many Chileans during
Pinochet coup (objective view is our view of people which we do not like, so communists probably
provided the most biting critique of neoliberalism and neoliberals ;-) :
In 1975, the New York Times accurately labeled him “the guiding light of the junta’s
economic policy” (21 September 1975). The CIA funded a 300-page Friedmanite blueprint given to
the leaders of the junta in preparation for the coup. In March 1975 Friedman himself,
accompanied by his U of C cohort Arnold Harberger, flew to Chile for high-level talks with the
regime to outline the economic “shock treatment” that led to the mass starvation of those who
had survived the initial phase of bloodletting.
So the world revolution in Trotskyite doctrine is simply replaced by "world neoliberal revolution
by what ever means possible". Criminal actions are OK. Like with Trotskyism "the goal
justifies the means".
Another interesting question is why those people were help-bent of anti-communism, were so
adamantly against socialism? One explanation is that most of them were from Austrian aristocracy
circles. Another is that in their view (and first of all Hayek) market is a kind of natural "supercomputer" that
can provide solutions to all world problems that no government can do. But, at the same time being closet
neo-Trotskyites they advocate military coups and killing of dissenters to achieve their goals.
Their "utilitarian view" of the legitimacy of government, also extents to science. Like for
Trotskyites with their bogus concept of "proletarian science", the science in their worldview is
useful only to the extent it help to built neoliberalism. So there is scientific theories and
scientists which needs to be financially supported and promoted and the scientific theories and scientists that needs to
be suppressed and ostracized. Kind of new Lysenkoism.
That sound profoundly anti-democratic and that's completely true. Neoliberals do not care
about democracy. They care only about "free market" -- their deity like communists cared
only about Communism -- their deity. And both are ready to commit any crimes to achieve their goals. In other words they are a new type of a
dangerous totalitarian sect. and the brand of Totalitarism they promote was called by Wolin "Inverted
Totalitarism". Their approach smells with Lysenkoism. And that' true -- neoliberal practice is
very close to practice of Lysenkoism, especially in the field of economics: they occupied all
commanding positions in economic departments of universities and forcefully suppress any dissent.
The only difference is that they use the power of state just for ostracism and isolation. They do
not send "non-conforming" scientists to GULAG like Bolsheviks did. But they introduce a new
interesting nuance: as the science became a "marketplace of ideas", under neoliberalism you can just
buy the scientist you like on the market. Education also needs to be restructured as market.
Which already happened in the USA.
So we really are talking about neoliberal revolution in the USA, which destroyed the New Deal
capitalism by mercilessly destroying all the relevant law. You are liming in new brave neoliberal
world now.
We can think about neoliberalism employing typical Trotskyite methods of "gain power first"
implement neoliberal policies later. In a way, neoliberalism is the second after Bolshevism social
model that is totally artificially constructed and explicitly planned to be enforced on unsuspecting
people via subversive actions of a totalitarian sect. Like Bolshevism was dictatorship of the
Communist Party nomenklatura, neoliberalism is dictatorship of financial oligarchy. Both
neoliberalism and Bolshevism despise democracy and need a strong state which implements neoliberal
policies "from above" -- reforming the society despite the wishes of population (exactly like
bolshevism did it in the USSR space and later in Eastern Europe).
This symbiosis of strong state (in a form of "national security state" and super
powerful intelligence agencies -- often called "the deep state") and
corporation via the rule of financial oligarchy makes neoliberalism a modern flavor of
corporatism. Inverted totalitarism as Sheldon Wolin called it. Like bolshevism neoliberalism relies of power of propaganda (first of all via think
tanks -- its ingenious invention) as well as classic methods used by Bolsheviks such as
indoctrination via economics courses at university economics departments and constant
pro-neoliberal propaganda in major MSM owned and operated by large corporations.
Up to 2000 in the USA standard of living and employment level was maintained (partially via
computer revolution, partially via "expropriation" of resources and capital at xUSSR space),
although there are limits to that and at some point self-destruction process inevitably starts
and the neoliberal society gradually slips into secular stagnation, somewhat similar to Brezhnev's
stagnation period in the USSR. In the USA is characterized by the loss of jobs and
manufacturing to outsourcing, as well as degeneration of neoliberal elite (matching if not exceeding
the degeneration of neoliberal elite). Which at the end created conditions for the rise
to power of Trump and his team of "bastard neoliberals" (neoliberalism without neoliberal
globalization, somewhat similar to Stalin's idea of 'socialism ins single country").
Like Trotskyism in the past (with their slogan of "World revolution" borrowed by neoliberalism) neoliberals in general and neocons in particular (as
"neoliberals with
the gun") are hell-bent of creating Global Neoliberal empire. Killing millions people in the process.
And destroying the well-being of the majorly of people in their host country (the USA in case of
neoliberals, the Russian empire -- USSR -- in case of Trotskyites and later Bolsheviks ).
For them
‘We Think the Price Is Worth It’"
as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it. This Nietzschean-style complete disregard of
common people is probably the most common feature between those two "man-eater" class ideologies.
Those Nietzschean Ubermensch like classic psychopaths just do not have compassion for other people.
They are objects, tools for them. Actually you learn a lot about neoliberals by studying
psychopath and sociopath behaviour, especially female sociopath. The percent of sociopaths in
the society is by various estimate is over 5% which considerably exceeds the number of people
required for forming the elite or the top 1% of neoliberal society.
Like Marxism before, neoliberalism provides its own ethics and its own rationality. It enforces a new encompassing
"economic rationalism" (aka
economism) , which should displace old, "outdated"
and more humane rationality of New Deal capitalism.
The ethics of neoliberalism, or "Neoliberal rationality", is heavily tilted toward
viewing people as "homo economicus". Like Marxism (and, by extension, Trotskyism
and Bolshevism/Stalinism ) it "articulates crucial elements of
the language, practice and subjectivity
according to a specific image of the economics." Like Trotskyism before it directly assaults the
idea of democratic governance and the rule of the law proving perverted rationality, elements
of which are erringly similar to the
ideas of "vanguard", "proletarian justice", " journalists
as solders of the Party" and, especially, "Permanent Revolution".
It
rejects the idea of social solidarity (emphasizing it for Undermensch "individual responsibility"
including "who does not work, should not eat") replacing it, like Marxism before,
with the idea of class solidarity (The members of transnational financial elite unite"). They also pervert the idea of the rule of the
law, which animated so much of modernity, hollowing out democratic practices
and institutions while at the same time catalyzing radical, brutal (as in neo-feudal) forms of the elite dominance,
promoting Nietzsche separation of mankind into two caste: Undermensch ("despicables" in Hillary
Clinton words) and Ubermensch ("creative class"). In a way neoliberalism is
socialism for rich and feudalism for poor.
Like Marxism before it, neoliberalism wear the mantle of inevitability. As Bruce
Wilder noted in his post on Crooked Timber blog (11.16.16 at 10:07 pm
30):
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy
consequences were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability.
Matt Stoller has identified this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political
agency and responsibility for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and
financialization were just "forces" that just happened, in a meteorological economics.
For example, instead of permanent revolution we have
permanent democratization
via color revolutions and military invasions for the expansion of neoliberal
empire.. With the same fake idea of creating a global neoliberal empire
which will make everybody happy and prosperous.
While this is never advertized (and actually the whole term "neoliberalism" is kind of
"hidden" from the population and its discussion is a taboo in neoliberal MSM), implicitly Neoliberalism
adopted a considerable part of Trotskyism doctrine and even bigger part of its practice, especially
foreign policy practice. Like KGB in the USSR, CIA became presidents praetorian guard (which
occasionally revolts, see JFK assassination).
Like Logos noted this is yet another stunning
"economic-political" utopia with the level of economic determinism even more ambitious than that of
Marx... But what is important to understand is that this doctrine incorporates significant parts of
Trotskyism in pretty innovating, unobvious way. Thus, Marx famous quote "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" is fully applicable
here: instead of revolt of proletariat which Marxists expected we got the revolt of financial oligarchy.
And this revolt led to the formation of the powerful Transnational Elite International (with Congresses
in Basel) instead of Communist International (with Congresses in Moscow).
Both Trotsky and Marx are probably
rolling in their graves seeing such a wicked mutation of their beloved political ideology.
Neoliberalism is also an example of emergence of ideologies, not from their persuasive power or inner
logic, but from the private interests of the ruling elite. Political pressure
and money created the situation in which intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail much like Catholicism
prevailed during Dark Ages in Europe. In a way, this is return to Dark Ages on a new level. Hopefully
this period will not last as long. But as there is no countervailing force on the horizon, only
the major change in economic conditions, such as end of cheap oil can lead to demise of
neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism consists of the same three components as in Marxism: philosophy, political
economy and neoliberal ethics (aka neoliberal rationality).
Among the ideas that neoliberalism borrowed from Trotskyism via renegades
Trotskyites turned neoconservatives (and for all practical purposes
Neoconservatism is just neoliberalism with a gun) such as James Burnham we
can mention the following:
The mantle of inevitability (famous
TINA statement of Margaret
Thatcher is an apt demonstration of this) Globalization and financialization were just
"forces" that just happened, as weather "happens" in meteorology. As Bruce Wilder noted in his post on Crooked
Timber blog (11.16.16 at 10:07 pm
30):
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy
consequences were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt
Stoller has identified this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political
agency and responsibility for economic performance and outcomes.
The concept of the
"new class" which is destined to guide the
humanity with the replacement of "proletariat" with the "creative class". The latter is a
rehash of the Nietzschean concept of Ubermensch.
This creating/managerial/entrepreneur class which is similar to Soviet
nomenklatura. Rejection of
Christianity and
the idea of human solidarity. Like was the case in the USSR, it places
the control of the society in comparatively few hands; in this sense Neoliberal nomenklatura is very
similar to Soviet nomenklatura. In both cases their position in social hierarchy by-and-large is
determined by the position the individual has in government, military, or private industry. Loss of
the position means substantial downgrade in neoliberal social hierarchy, much like in the USSR.
In other words wealth is not enough for high social status. This leads to the
similar adverse effects (Ivy League universities as the membership card to the elite and
corresponding degradation of the level of education (Bush II managed to graduate as many
other "not so talented" sons and daughters of the elite). Suppression of dissent created
promotion of "yes-men" resulting in gradual degeneration
of the elite, as happened with Soviet nomenklatura. Huge discrepancy in the wealth of the
top 1% and the rest of population might be
neoliberalism's Achilles
heel which we saw in action in 2016 elections and Brexit vote.
Rejection of the normal interpretation of the rule of the law and the idea of "neoliberal
justice" (tough justice for Untermensch
only). See, for example a Crooked timber comment:
Neoliberals destroy the notion of social justice and pervert the notion
of the “rule of the law”. See, for example, The Neo-Liberal State
by Raymond Plant
…social justice is incompatible with the rule of law because its
demands cannot be embodied in general and impartial rules; and rights
have to be the rights to non-interference rather than understood in
terms of claims to resources because rules against interference can be
understood in general terms whereas rights to resources cannot. There
is no such thing as a substantive common good for the state to pursue
and for the law to embody and thus the political pursuit of something
like social justice or a greater sense of solidarity and community
lies outside the rule of law.
… … …
…But surely, it might be argued, a nomocratic state and its laws have
to
acknowledge some set of goals. It cannot be impartial or indifferent
to all goals.
Law cannot be pointless. It cannot be totally non-instrumental. It has
to facilitate
the achievement of some goals. If this is recognized, it might be
argued, it will
modify the sharpness of the distinction between a nomocratic and
telocratic state,
between a civil association and an enterprise association.
IMHO for neoliberals social justice and the rule of law is applicable
only to Untermensch. For Ubermensch (aka “creative class”) it undermines
their individual freedom and thus they need to be above the law.
To ensure their freedom and cut “unnecessary and undesirable
interference” of the society in their creative activities the role of the
state should be limited to safeguarding the free market as the playground
for their “creativity” (note “free” as in “free ride”, not “fair”).
Neoliberalism like Stalinism is a "civil religion". The methods of enforcement of this
region on the population by neoliberalism are quite similar to Stalinism, with the only
main difference --the rejection of violence against population as the main method of entrenching
the ideology:
Messianic zeal and hate for the "old order" (The New Deal in case of the USA). Open desire to dismantle
and privatize all the mechanisms of redistribution of income, including (in the USA) Social Security
and Medicare.
Like Trotskyites, Neoliberals are inherently hostile to competing non-liberal societies
- which they see not simply as different, but as wrong.That include nationalistic regimes (Hussein,
Kaddafi), resource nationalists (Putin, Erdogan, Chavez) as well as theocracies (Iran,
North Korea), with the notable exception of Israelis and Saudis (as well as several other Gulf monarchies)
The ideas of truth as "a class truth"; neoliberals reject the idea that there are any
religious (for example Christian) moral values and the concept of truth. They feel that these should be result of
"market of opinions" and the truth
is the one that market favors.
Implicit denial of the idea of "free press". The press is converted into neoliberal
propaganda machine and journalists, writers, etc are viewed as "the solders of the
ideology" who should advance neoliberalism. That's what we saw during the
recent Presidential elections. This is a direct copy of Bolsheviks playbook. It was aptly
demonstrate during 2016 Presidential elections, where all MSM, especially CNN, ABC and
MSNBC serves as attack dogs on Hillary Clinton campaign, not even pretending having an
impartial position like Pravda used to pretend. Compete, blatant
disregard of truth if it does not fit neoliberal goals. Perversion of truth to the extent
that Pravda journalists can be viewed as paragons of objectivity (recent Presidential
campaign of 2016 provides plenty of examples)
Use of university education in indoctrination to the ideology:
The study of neoclassical economics as the key method of indoctrination of people with
economists as a class of well paid priests of neoliberal ideology, masking political
essence of neoliberalism under
special jargon
and
mathiness. Like was the case with Marxism in the USSR, neoliberalism
completely controls economic departments of most US universities and ensure that they are
populated by adherents of this doctrine. The control is more indirect via allocation of
funds, but no less pervasive, then in USSR.
"Economists are wheeled out to comment on all sorts of public policy issues:
in the news, on the TV, online and so forth. The deference to economic expertise is
something that permeates our politics and, through the use of jargon, maths and statistics,
serves to exclude non-expert citizens from conversations about issues that often have a
direct impact on their lives.
As you imply, it is something like an ancient priesthood. In
fact, in an earlier draft of the book we made a comparison to ancient medical texts, which
were only written in Latin and so created a huge asymmetry between experts and non-experts,
which could have awful consequences for the latter. In some senses economics in modern
times goes even further than this, because it affects policy on everything from incomes and
jobs to healthcare and the environment. " ...
"I concur with in that I have concluded that
maybe 60-80% of formal economic language is ideology – it pretty naturally follows that
there will be some attempt to indoctrinate those who wish to speak the language. I guess
the natural place to start is to ask you for a flavour of what this indoctrination looks
like and then maybe we will move on to what its purposes are and what ends it serves. "
The Econocracy An Interview with Cahal Mora naked capitalism
Implicit censure of dissent via ostracism and "inner circle" of "high priest" which
particular in policy making; priests selected not so much due to their intellectual
achievements as for unquestionable loyalty to the system. To get in the inner circle
and to be consider the "high priest" you need to adopt the rules of the game, much like in the
USSR. Otherwise your opinion will be simply ignored. Summers put it the best in one of
his interviews.
Pervasive use of academic science and "think tanks" for brainwashing of the population.
Neoliberals fully adopted the Bolsheviks practice of creating powerful intellectual centers
for promoting the ideology. Pundits from those tanks dominate various political and economic
talk shows and author articles in major newspapers.
Purges of dissent via neo-McCarthyism tactics. Ostracism (especially in academia)
is used instead of physical repression. It relied of demobilization of masses and turning them
atomized and obedient "consumers" instead of mobilization of masses under Trotskyism.
That's why it was called by Sheldon Wolin "inverted totalitarism".
Creation of neoliberal "newspeak" similar to Marxist newspeak. For example the word ‘free"
is redefined as unregulated. That helps to provides a pseudo-scientific justification for the
redistribution of wealth up and increasing poverty of lower 80% or so of population endemic to the system.
An elaborate set of myth, typical for religion is used to justify this social system. Among
them "Invisible Hand Hypothesis",
"Rational expectations"
"Shareholder value",
and many others. Which makes it similar to Lysenkoism.
The fact that the main beneficiaries of the neoliberal globalization are the global mega-corporations and
major western powers (G7) is carefully hidden behind fake rhetoric, which is
not unlike the rhetoric of the Communist Party of the USSR.
The idea of the single party system, with the ruling party serves as the vanguard of
the hegemonic neoliberal class (top 1%) and represents only its interests. Which was adapted
to two Party system to preserve the illusion of democracy. Capture by neoliberals of
Democratic Party under Clinton essentially created one-party system in the USA, as both
parties from this point represent just different factions of the same neoliberal party. Unlike
Bolsheviks one party system, this two party system creates an illusion of multi-party system
and sometimes electorate manages to promote the candidate, which is not approved by
establishment as happened with Sanders and Trump in recent 2016 Presidential election. While
Democratic Party managed to suppress Sanders as was expected, Trump got the nomination and was
elected the President, but was quickly co-opted after the elections.
Economic fetishism. Neoliberals see the market as a sacred element of human
civilization. They want to impose global market that favors transnational corporations in all
countries of the globe, by force, if necessary. Most social activities should be run as a
market. Including labor market. The idea of employability is characteristically neoliberal.
It means that neoliberals see it as a moral duty of human beings, to arrange their lives
to maximize their value on the labor market. Paying for plastic surgery to improve
employability (almost entirely by women) is a typical neoliberal phenomenon -- one that would
surprise Adam Smith.
Cult of GDP. Like Marxism, neoliberalism on the one hand this reduces individuals to statistics
contained within aggregate economic performance. It professes that GDP growth is the ultimate goal of any society. This is very similar to the
USSR cult of gross national product. Another
paradox of
neoliberalism is
it
relies upon
universal
quantification
and comparison
which is completely perverted much like in the USSR central planning system.
And it produces the same dismal results: workers, job-seekers and public
services of every kind are subject to a
pettifogging,
stifling regime
of assessment of
non-relevant metrics. In the job periodic assessments (performance
reviews) are formally used to
identify the
winners and
punish the
losers, or,
non-conformists. In
reality, they dramatically increase the power of management, distort anything converting jobs into variant of the USSR "fake
metrics, fake performance, fake promotions" troika. The
doctrine that
Von Mises proposed to free us from
the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead re-created a new nightmare just on
a different level of sophistication and perversion of basic human rationality.
Use of violence for the spread of the ideology. The idea of Permanent revolution to bring to power the new hegemonic class
in all countries of the globe and create a new global neoliberal empire is direct borrowing from
Trotskyism and was promoted by Jewish neocons, who were former Trotskyites. In neoliberalism
this takes that form of "export of democracy" as the method of achieving and maintaining world dominance
of globalist elite (which in its role of hegemonic class replaces "proletariat" used in Trotskyism):
The idea of
Permanent
Revolution formulated by Trotsky in 1905 is the defining feature of both Trotskyism and
neoliberalism. Like Bolshevism/Trotskyism neoliberalism is militant ideology, especially in
the flavour which in the USA is called Neoconservatism (neoliberals with the gun -- which
advocate famous Al Capone motto - "You Can Get Much Further with a Kind Word and a Gun than
with a Kind Word Alone") Trotsky
argued that in Russia only the working class could overthrow feudalism and win the support of
the peasantry. Furthermore, he argued that the Russian working class would not stop there. They
would win its own revolution against the weak capitalist class, establish a workers' state in
Russia, and appeal to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries around the world.
As a result, the global working class would come to Russia's aid, and socialism could develop
worldwide. In neoliberalism the role of Russia is replaced by the USA. And it is the US
elite which asks compradors elite in other countries to come to the US elite aid to establish
global neoliberal regime.
Like Trotskyism, neoliberalism consider wars to impose a liberal-democratic society on
weaker countries (which in modern times are countries without nuclear weapons) which cannot give
a fight to Western armies are inherently just ("regime change" mentality).
So both ideologies are
ready to bring revolution to new countries on the tips of (USA in case of
neoliberalism) bayonets.
A totalitarian vision for a world-encompassing monolithic
global empire (in this case led by the USA, instead of the USSR) governed by an ideologically charged "vanguard". One single state
( the USA in case of neoliberalism) is assigned the place of "holy country"
and the leader of this country has special privileges not unlike Rome Pope in Catholicism
Creation and maintenance of the illusion of "immanent threat" from powerful enemies for brainwashing
the population (National Security
State instead of "Dictatorship
of proletariat"). The idea (and reality) of "dictatorship of the financial oligarchy" replaces the concept of
"dictatorship of proletariat".
The idea of artificial creation of the "revolutionary situation" for overthrow of "unfriendly" regimes
( via color revolution methods); role of students
in such a coup d'états. Neoliberal compradors
(supported by State Department), selected western embassies and NGO instead of communist
parties functionaries as the fifth column inside the societies. Like Marxism, neoliberalism tries to weaken, if not abolish, nation states replacing state
sovereignty with international organizations and treaties dominance (for weaker countries typically using debt
slavery to IMF and World bank). Neoliberalism reflect the nature of global capitalism as a hegemonic
transnational phenomenon. By deemphasizing the role of the nation-state in the global economy and
increasing the significance of transnational production and the rise of a transnational elite and
the transnational corporations neoliberalism realizes dreams of Marx in a very perverted form.
Reliance on international organizations to bully countries into submission (remember
Communist International (aka
Comintern) and its network of spies and Communist Parties all over the world). The global financial
institutions are indeed the key bastion of neoliberal ideology, and they can bully most of poor countries
into adopting neoliberal policies. Especially in time of crisis, which can be iether natural or
artificially created. The global financial institutions are the key instrument of US
foreign policy
- and an important element of the quasi-imperial power, it is the United States. At the same time
international institutions that which does fully correspond to the idea of the USA as the global
hegemonic power, such as UN, are denigrated and ignored if their option differs from the opinion
of the State Department on particular matter. Neoliberalism advocates the globalized unity of elites ( hierarchy
to be exact under benevolent guidance of the US elite). At the same time conditions of population
of countries with "globalized" elite go downhill and internal social protection mechanisms are dismantled.
That creates resistance to globalism and neoliberalism that recently were
demonstrated in Greece and Britain (Brexit).
Social Darwinism
War on and brutal suppression of organized labor.
While in Soviet Russia organized labor was emasculated and trade unions became part of government
apparatus, under neoliberalism they are simply decimated. It "atomize" individual workers
presenting them as goods on the "labor market" controlled by large corporations ( via the myth of
human capital )(
the myth of human capital )
Scapegoating and victimization of
poor . Scapegoating and victimization of poor as new Untermensch. This is a part of
Randism and is closely related to glorification of the "creative class". Treatment of working class as second rate citizens, not unlike Marxists treated peasantry
in the past. Only new "creative class" vanguard are first class citizens under the
neoliberal, much like proletariat was in Marxism. In both cases this is just a smoke screen of
the rule of oligarchy, in case on Marxism of Party oligarchy, in case of neoliberal -- financial
oligarchy. Neoliberalism rejects the idea of social solidarity and in this sense is
distinctly anti-Christian ideology. Much like Marxism was. See
Neoliberalism and Christianity
Finally, neoliberalism like Marxism in the past has become strongly associated with a specific
culture (the US culture, or Anglo-Saxon culture in more general terms) and a specific language (English).
Like Marxism, as an ideology,
Neoliberalism became tied to specific culture and language (both became king of
global standard de-facto). Theoretically any global language would
suit, and it can be Esperanto. But in reality the English language, Hollywood culture,
neoliberal economic policies (aka Washington consensus), and pro-American foreign policy is a "package deal"
for fifth column supporters outside G7; this was especially true in Central and Eastern Europe.
Kind of second class citizens of Neoliberal International (Skeptical Eastern Europeans, who still remember the days of
USSR-led "Socialist Camp" now call it diktat of "Washington Obcom" ;-). That does not exclude jingoism, chauvinism,
flag-waving and foreigner-bashing in the USA (aka American exceptionalism) and other G7 countries. Tony Blair is probably the best
example of this political mentality:
Don't tell me that a country with our history and heritage, that today boasts six of the top ten
businesses in the whole of Europe, with London the top business city in Europe, that is a world
leader in technology and communication and the businesses of the future, that under us has overtaken
France and Italy to become the fourth largest economy in the world, that has the language of the
new economy, more brilliant artists, actors and directors than any comparable country in the world,
some of the best scientists and inventors in the world, the best armed forces in the world, the
best teachers and doctors and nurses, the best people any nation could wish for.
Don't tell me with all that going for us that we do not have the spirit to meet all the challenges
before us.
This "capitalists counteroffensive" or "revolt of the elite" was pioneered in Britain,
where Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Tory Party in 1975 and put into real shape by Ronald
Reagan in 1981-1989 (Reaganomics).
Margaret Thatcher victory was the first election of neoliberal ideologue (Pinochet came to power via
supported by the USA military coupe de tat). Both Thatcher and Reagan mounted a full-scale counterattack
against the (already weakened and fossilized) unions. In GB the miners were the most important target.
In USA traffic controllers. In both cases they managed to broke the back of trade unions. Since 1985
union membership in the USA has halved.
Privatizing nationalized industries and public services fragments large bargaining units formed of
well organized public-sector workers, creating conditions in which wages can be driven down in the competition
for franchises and contracts. This most important side effect of privatization was dramatic redistribution
of wealth to the top layer of financial and managerial elite (corporate rich).
Neoliberalism gradually gained strength since probably late 50th with free-market theorists like
Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman as influential ideologues. Ann Rand also made an important contribution
with her "greed is good" philosophy of positivism. Still many economists and policy-makers favored a
‘mixed economy’ with high levels of state intervention and public spending. That changed in the 1970s
when the state capitalism run into rocks. In a way rise of Neoliberalism was the elite response to the
Long Recession of 1973-1992: they launched a class war of the global rich against the rest. Shrinking
markets dictated the necessity of cutting costs by sacking workers and driving down wages. So the key
program was to reverse the gains made by the US lower and middle class since 1945 and it needed an ideological
justification. Neoliberalism neatly fitted the bill. With outsourcing, the global ‘race to the bottom’
became a permanent feature of a new economic order.
At 1980th it became clear that the age of national economies and ‘autarkic’ (self-contained) blocs
like the USSR block ended as they will never be able to overcome the technological and standard of living
gap with the major Western economies. This inability to match the level of standard of living of western
countries doomed communist ideology, as it has in the center the thesis that as a superior economic
system it should match and exceed the economic level achieved by capitalist countries. Collapse of the
USSR in 1991 (in which KGB elite played the role of Trojan horse of the West) was a real triumph of
neoliberalism and signified a beginning of a new age in which the global economy was dominated by international
banks and multinational corporations operating with little or sometimes completely outside the control
of nation-states.
The rise of neoliberalism can be measured by the rise of the financial and industrial mega-corporations.
For example, US direct investment overseas rose from $11 billion in 1950 to $133 billion in 1976. The
long-term borrowing of US corporations increased from 87% of their share value in 1955 to 181% in 1970.
The foreign currency operations of West European banks, to take another example, increased from $25
billion in 1968 to $200 billion in 1974. The combined debt of the 74 less-developed countries jumped
from $39 billion in 1965 to $119 billion in 1974. These quantitative changes during the "Great Boom"
reached a tipping point in the 1970s. Global corporations by then had come to overshadow the nation-states.
The effect was to impose a relentless pressure on national elites to increase the exploitation of ‘their
own’ working class. High wages became a facto that deters new investment and labor arbitrage jumped
in full swing. Taxes on business to pay for public services or welfare payments became undesirable.
As well as laws designed to make workplaces safe, limit working hours, or guarantee maternity leave.
While from purely theoretic perspective the ‘free-market’ theory espoused by neoliberal academics, journalists,
politicians, bankers, and ‘entrepreneurs’ is compete pseudoscientific Lysenkoism-style doctrine, it
became very popular, dominant ideology of the last decade of XX century. It provides a pseudo-scientific
justification for the greed, poverty, as well as economic crisis endemic to the system. It also justified
high level if inequality of the political and business elite an a normal state of human society. In
this sense, neoliberalism became an official ideology of the modern ruling elite.
Like Marxism before neoliberalism provides its own ethics and its own rationality. It enforces a new encompassing
"economic rationalism", which should displace old, "outdated"
and more humane rationality of liberal capitalism.
"Neoliberal rationality" is heavily tilted toward
viewing the people as "homo economicus". This new neoliberal rationality " articulates crucial elements of
the language, practice and subjectivity
‘according to a specific image of the economic" In so doing neo-liberalism like
Marxism before it directly assaults
the democratic imaginary that animated so much of modernity, hollowing out liberal democratic practices
and institutions while at the same time catalyzing radical, brutal forces of the political spectrum.
In the book
Undoing the Demos Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution Professor Wendy Brown described this "neoliberal rationality" phenomenon and actually shows how close
it is to the rationality which governed communism parties of the USSR and Eastern Block.
"... I treat neoliberalism as a governing rationality through which everything is "economized" and in a very specific way: human beings become market actors and nothing but, every field of activity is seen as a market, and every entity (whether public or private, whether person, business, or state) is governed as a firm. Importantly, this is not simply a matter of extending commodification and monetization everywhere-that's the old Marxist depiction of capital's transformation of everyday life. Neoliberalism construes even non-wealth generating spheres-such as learning, dating, or exercising-in market terms, submits them to market metrics, and governs them with market techniques and practices. Above all, it casts people as human capital who must constantly tend to their own present and future value. ..."
"... The most common criticisms of neoliberalism, regarded solely as economic policy rather than as the broader phenomenon of a governing rationality, are that it generates and legitimates extreme inequalities of wealth and life conditions; that it leads to increasingly precarious and disposable populations; that it produces an unprecedented intimacy between capital (especially finance capital) and states, and thus permits domination of political life by capital; that it generates crass and even unethical commercialization of things rightly protected from markets, for example, babies, human organs, or endangered species or wilderness; that it privatizes public goods and thus eliminates shared and egalitarian access to them; and that it subjects states, societies, and individuals to the volatility and havoc of unregulated financial markets. ..."
"... with the neoliberal revolution that homo politicus is
finally vanquished as a fundamental feature of being human and of democracy. Democracy requires that
citizens be modestly oriented toward self-rule, not simply value enhancement, and that we understand
our freedom as resting in such self-rule, not simply in market conduct. When this dimension of being
human is extinguished, it takes with it the necessary energies, practices, and culture of democracy,
as well as its very intelligibility. ..."
"... For most Marxists, neoliberalism emerges in the 1970s in response to capitalism's falling rate
of profit; the shift of global economic gravity to OPEC, Asia, and other sites outside the West;
and the dilution of class power generated by unions, redistributive welfare states, large and lazy
corporations, and the expectations generated by educated democracies. From this perspective, neoliberalism
is simply capitalism on steroids: a state and IMF-backed consolidation of class power aimed at releasing
capital from regulatory and national constraints, and defanging all forms of popular solidarities,
especially labor. ..."
"... The grains of truth in this analysis don't get at the fundamental transformation of social, cultural,
and individual life brought about by neoliberal reason. They don't get at the ways that public institutions
and services have not merely been outsourced but thoroughly recast as private goods for individual
investment or consumption. And they don't get at the wholesale remaking of workplaces, schools, social
life, and individuals. For that story, one has to track the dissemination of neoliberal economization
through neoliberalism as a governing form of reason, not just a power grab by capital. There are
many vehicles of this dissemination -- law, culture, and above all, the novel political-administrative
form we have come to call governance. It is through governance practices that business models and
metrics come to irrigate every crevice of society, circulating from investment banks to schools,
from corporations to universities, from public agencies to the individual. It is through the replacement
of democratic terms of law, participation, and justice with idioms of benchmarks, objectives, and
buy-ins that governance dismantles democratic life while appearing only to instill it with "best
practices." ..."
"... Progressives generally disparage Citizens United for having flooded
the American electoral process with corporate money on the basis of tortured First Amendment reasoning
that treats corporations as persons. However, a careful reading of the majority decision also reveals
precisely the thoroughgoing economization of the terms and practices of democracy we have been talking
about. In the majority opinion, electoral campaigns are cast as "political marketplaces," just as
ideas are cast as freely circulating in a market where the only potential interference arises from
restrictions on producers and consumers of ideas-who may speak and who may listen or judge. Thus,
Justice Kennedy's insistence on the fundamental neoliberal principle that these marketplaces should
be unregulated paves the way for overturning a century of campaign finance law aimed at modestly
restricting the power of money in politics. Moreover, in the decision, political speech itself is
rendered as a kind of capital right, functioning largely to advance the position of its bearer, whether
that bearer is human capital, corporate capital, or finance capital. This understanding of political
speech replaces the idea of democratic political speech as a vital (if potentially monopolizable
and corruptible) medium for public deliberation and persuasion. ..."
"... My point was that democracy is really reduced to a whisper
in the Euro-Atlantic nations today. Even Alan Greenspan says that elections don't much matter much
because, "thanks to globalization . . . the world is governed by market forces," not elected representatives.
..."
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept
its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook
the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person!
We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned
in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy
lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their
imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of
his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the
majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies
which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they
reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.
A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes
its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries
to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing
power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken
on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which
tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like
the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
No, I am not excited for the inauguration of a man who: Wrote the crime and bankruptcy
bills, voted for the Iraq War, took more money from Wall Street than Trump, and told a room of
rich donors that "nothing will fundamentally change." Democrats are part of the problem
too.
If there must be a CIA, I feel better with Bill Burns being in charge of it.
William Burns in 2014 as U.S. deputy secretary of state. (State Department)
By John Kiriakou Special to Consortium News
P resident-elect Joe Biden has finally named a new CIA director, one of the final
senior-level appointees for his new administration. Much to the surprise of many of us who
follow these things, he named senior diplomat Williams Burns to the position. Burns is one of
the most highly-respected senior U.S. diplomats of the past three decades. He has ably served
presidents of both parties and is known as both a reformer and as a supporter of human
rights.
Burns is currently the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an
important Washington-based international affairs think tank. He served as deputy secretary of
state under President Barack Obama and was ambassador to Russia under President George W. Bush
and ambassador to Jordan under President Bill Clinton. He was instrumental in the negotiations
that led to the Iran Nuclear Deal and spent much of his career focused on the Middle East Peace
Process. Burns joined the Foreign Service in 1982.
Please
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"Bill Burns is an exemplary diplomat with decades of experience on the word stage keeping
our people and our country safe and secure. He shares my profound belief that intelligence
must be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals serving our nation
deserve our gratitude and respect. The American people will sleep soundly with him as our
next CIA Director."
The message from Biden is clear: The CIA will not be led by a political hack like Mike
Pompeo, a CIA insider like John Brennan, or someone associated with the CIA's crimes of
torture, secret prisons, or international renditions like Gina Haspel. Instead, the
organization will be led by someone with experience engaging across a negotiating table with
America's enemies, someone experienced in solving problems, rather than creating new ones,
someone who has dedicated much of his career to promoting peace, rather than to creating
war.
Rank & File Response
The question, though, is what will be the response from the CIA's rank-and-file to Burns'
appointment? I can tell you from my 15 years of experience at the CIA that there will be two
reactions. At the working level, analysts, operators, and others will continue their same level
of work no matter who the director is. Most working level officers don't even care who the
director is. It doesn't matter to them. They never encounter the director and policies made at
that top level generally don't impact them on a day-to-day basis.
At the senior levels, the leadership levels, CIA officers will be of two minds. Some will
welcome Burns and his professionalism. They'll welcome a director who doesn't attract adverse
press because of a past history of committing war crimes or crimes against humanity. (Even if
they supported those crimes when they were being committed, press attention is always
unwelcome.) They'll welcome a director who didn't head secret prisons overseas. They'll
welcome a director who wasn't in charge of Guantanamo. They'll welcome a director who
wasn't in charge of maintaining a secret "kill list."
Others will resent Burns, though, as they resented an earlier outsider, Admiral Stansfield
Turner. Turner had been appointed by President Jimmy Carter to "clean up" the CIA. Turner then
fired fully a third of the CIA's operations officers, some just months away from qualifying for
retirement. He was universally reviled after that, and he never regained the trust of agency
personnel.
That's not Burns' style. He's not a military officer who demands fealty. He's a diplomat, a
negotiator. The CIA has to be cleaned up. Its policies have to be reformed. If there must be a
CIA, I feel better with Bill Burns being in charge of it. At the very least, we should give him
enough time to at least get started.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the
Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture
program.
As a top-level State Department official through the administrations of Reagan, Bush I,
Clinton, Bush II and Obama, Burns is implicated in virtually every crime of US imperialism
over the past three decades, including the war in Iraq, the US-NATO attack on Libya, the
military coup that drowned the Egyptian Revolution in blood, and the US intervention in
Syria.
After such a career, as the saying goes, Burns knows where all the bodies are buried. Now
he is assigned to head an agency that is probably responsible for more killing, torture and
mass suffering than any other on the planet: the CIA.
A preview of what to expect from a Burns-led CIA was given during an interview with
National Public Radio's Mary Louise Kelly on "US Global Leadership" held June 19, 2019 at the
Truman Center for National Policy in Washington, DC. In the extended conversation, Burns
defended the US and NATO-led coup in Libya which ended with the grisly murder of Muammar
Gaddafi, followed by an ongoing civil war, the torture and killing of refugees and the return
of slave-markets.
"It was right to act in Libya in the way that we did," Burns said. While the US government
might have "got some assumptions wrong," he expressed no regrets, saying that he still
thought Obama's "decision to act was unavoidable."
Anne , January 12, 2021 at 14:15
I would agree with your estimation some one, anyone who can think, believe, say etc that
what we did in Iraq, Libya (I don't doubt Serbia), Syria is "rightful" has a heinously
distorted mind (pretty much everyone in DC, in the MICIMATT) And Biden has revealed himself
– again – as a subject of the corporate-capitalist-imperialist plutocratic ruling
elites (and one with his hand forever stuck out)
was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows
(including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator. Follow him on Twitter
@georgegalloway
19 Jan,
2021 18:23 It's hard not to wonder if Joe Biden will even last his first 100 days in office...
but those arguing his mind isn't sound enough shouldn't expect a swift exit, because since when
was that a disqualifier?
... ... ...
The madness of Donald Trump had nothing on his Republican predecessor and fellow-impeachee
Richard Nixon. So disturbing were the last days of Tricky Dicky, it came as a relief to America
and the world when he resigned – even though it was famously said his successor Gerald
Ford couldn't chew gum and walk in a straight line at the same time. Bovine he may have been,
but a mad-cow he wasn't.
The Raging Bull Donald J Trump – grotesque, bizarre, unbelievable – had the
misfortune to go quite mad in the age of cable news and social media. His narcissistic
predilections always bordered on personality disorder. But his natural braggadocio stormed him
to victory in 2016 in a backlash against the super-smooth professorial presidency of Barack
Obama, with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton riding shotgun.
Under Obama, the Clintonite deindustrialisation of America became almost complete .
China was presented with America's lunch. And in no less than nine conflicts across the
globe Obama was 'nation-building' in other people's countries while his own country was falling
apart. But a dark storm was gathering
If only the Democrats had not started out by trying to steal Trump's election in a flurry of
pussy-hats and fake Russiagate hoaxes. If only they hadn't striven might and main to railroad
the Electoral College into betraying their mandate and – in the case of
Nancy Pelosi – make a thinly disguised call for "uprisings throughout the country."
If only they hadn't spent countless millions and two whole years of a four year-term with the
Mueller Inquiry and the cockamaney theorem that the man who confronted Russia from Ukraine and
the Baltics through the wrecked INF and Open Skies treaties to the killing fields of the Levant
was, in fact, an agent of Vladimir Putin. If only, if only
As it happened, the descent into madness of Trump was complete by the end. The coronavirus
he derided at first, before predicting it would disappear in the warm weather of spring, before
pondering whether bleach up the bahookie might not be an option as a cure. The Tammany Hall
skullduggery of election day, practiced over a century in places like New York, rolled out
across the country. The political suicide of only half-making a revolution on January 6 dug
his own grave. Nobody ever beat a candidate who polled over 75 million votes before. But
Sleepy Joe Biden did.
And he did it hardly ever leaving his basement home studio, where he painfully struggled to
read an autocue even with an earpiece shrieking the words to him. When he did speak, it was
often gibberish that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. He oftentimes plainly didn't know
where he was, what office he was running for, which woman was his sister and which was his
wife.
When Boris Yeltsin was rattling down, the world endlessly amused itself at the sight of
Russia on its back, legs akimbo with thieves picking its pocket. With Joe Biden, though, the
political class and its media echo-chamber merely look the other way.
Despite Democratic Party control of all levels of Federal power, it seems unlikely we are
about to witness an FDR or a JFK barnstorming 100 days. It seems fair to wonder if Sleepy
Joe will even see out a hundred days in office. It is, however, certain that if he is in office
he will not be in power. Because power has already passed to the cavernous uncertainty of Vice
President Kamala Harris.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Mark Conley 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM
Thanks for reminding the world that the president of the USA including his puppet elected
office bearers has absolutely no power whatsoever. Well said. Thus you have answered your own
observation at the end. The future is indeed dark and uncertain with the only certainty that
nothing good can be expected from any USA government. Thus the onus is on the peaceful
majority to do what is necessary.
Atilla863 42 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:15 PM
One thing is certain in the new leadership - the debt will go on growing, perhaps reaching
40+ T dollars before the next elections. While this trend continues - the Chinese will be
laughing all the way running to their banks as their economy records fortune after fortune
proportional only inversely to the rate at which America recedes into superpower sunset.
JJ_Rousseau 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
I'm surprised at George Galloway's comments, as he is a former MP in British politics. Kamala
in charge? Don't make me laugh. The cabal is in charge, as they have been since Woodrow
Wilson. Before actually, as Garfield was assassinated for shedding light on the banker
machinations. Garfield knew that control of the nation's money was control of the nation. The
coup of America is complete. The POTUS is only the spokesman for the cabal, nothing else
Biden will be much easier to control and manipulate by the Jewish Banking Cartel, which
ultimately controls the US government and Wall Street. Trump was too unpredictable and would
have made it difficult for them to achieve their historical hope. "The Jews energetically
reject the idea of fusion with other nationalities and cling firmly to their historical hope
of World Empire." - Dr. Max Mandelstamm ***We should always listen to the doctors.
Not stolen.....50 states certified, 60 plus courts found nothing fraudulent, and the
electoral votes were confirmed by the House and Senate, with the Senate led by Pence. So, as
the world knows and anyone who knows election laws, the election was one of the most
legitimate ever held in the US.
KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:10 PM
The Jewish Banking Cartel is ultimately in control of the US government and Wall Street.
They've been in control for decades. Now they've obviously teamed up with the Jewish Big Tech
companies like Facebook and Google in order to gain even more control. Controlling the money,
money system, and the minds of the masses has been their goal. Two Jewish controlled
companies control over $9Trillion of American's wealth. (BlackRock Inc. & Goldman Sachs)
They've finally achieved their goal. The cartel is now in control of a country that is
completely out of control. Karma!
Daffyduck011 KarlthePoet 38 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:18 PM
Ashkenasty banking cartel.
JJ_Rousseau KarlthePoet 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:29 PM
It's not only the banking cabal, it's the media (which the same gang own, of course). This
cannot happen without a complicit media. This is a very old strategy
Blackace180 7 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:49 PM
He'll be impeached multiple times, along with his family. Removed and jailed. People need a
reminder of just how messed up Obama/Biden was and it is coming. The caravans are already on
the way and gas has jumped 55 cents a gallon since the election, for no reason other than it
is Biden. People will run the nutcracker right out of office, hopefully before the country
collapses from his nutcracker policies.
White Elk 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:45 PM
The press-elected.
Xilla White Elk 33 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:23 PM
How did the press elect him?
Franc 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Xilla/Herrbifi, you're not welcome here. We all know what your goals are, and we all know
you're just here to make a pointless mess.
5th Eye 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
An Italian bureaucrat once said, "Everything is changed, so that it remains the same." It
will be exactly like that under Biden to legitimate his regime.
The_Chosenites 51 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:06 PM
Since both Trump and Biden are proud zionists, the only thing I am certain of is Israel and
the Jewish community have won another election and we'll see many jewish politicians elevated
to positions of power in the Biden administration. Biden best do what's best for Israel if he
knows whats good for him and his health.
KarlthePoet The_Chosenites 16 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:40 PM
Maybe when Kamala becomes President she can get advice from her Jewish husband, who is a
lawyer. What a coincidence.
Enki14 9 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:48 PM
That Henry Kissinger, long time shadow government puppet endorsed demented biden is a clue as
to what might happen as they know in 2 years the masses will reinstate conservatives and in 4
years another trumpster. We may see sweeping changes, with some huge blowback.
The_Chosenites Enki14 4 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:53 PM
Kissinger has had a bed in the oval office for many a President, he must have been installed
by the Chosennites to stay in office forever. Presidents come and go, but Kissinger remains
to pull the strings. Goldman Sach's et al rule the roost.
Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:42 PM
Biden's 100 days are interesting. It's exactly 100 days from January 20 to May 1, which is
the communist May Day.
Skeptic076 Daniel Fernald 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:44 PM
Used to be the American May Day as well, you know? Interesting if you research why it is not
anymore.
Michael Knight 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:46 PM
Impossible to believe he'll be in charge????? That's probably because he won't be!
RCBreakenridge Mike Freeman 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:28 PM
Mike, seriously? What echo chamber are you living in? How can you look at Biden and not
understand that he's little more than a life-size cardboard cutout of the man that used to be
Obama's puppet? He'll be in office as long as they can continue to stand him up for photo ops
and he continues to do exactly what he is told. As soon as either of those conditions falter,
Nancy and friends will roll out the 25th amendment, show him the door and lead KH to the
presidents chair. But make no mistake, the only choices Sleepy Joe will be making are to do
as he is told.
"... "A month after the election, Biden's nominations make clear that the president-elect is most focused on trying to fulfill his ..."
"... to donors that nothing fundamentally changes. And yet, that tacit admission may have stunned those who keep hearing from liberal and progressive groups in Washington that, in fact, the left has been notching monumental victories in Biden's cabinet appointments ..."
"... What little organized left political infrastructure exists in Washington is largely valorizing or publicly defending swamp creatures who at minimum deserve a loyal opposition. The ..."
"... being done by a small handful of under-resourced groups to mount a real opposition is getting trampled by a culture of obsequiousness. This culture of acquiescence gives swamp creatures a free pass ..."
"... Despite Tanden's ..."
"... push for Social Security cuts ..."
"... , Beltway liberal groups whose mission is to defend Social Security ..."
"... . Despite Tanden having her organization ..."
"... rake in cash ..."
"... from Wall Street, Amazon, billionaires and ( ..."
"... ) foreign governments, a Ralph Nader-founded, all-purpose consumer advocacy group ..."
"... CAP as "one of our key partners in the fight to tax corporations and the rich, rein in monopoly power, tackle government corruption, and much more." Despite Tanden ..."
"... a union at CAP, ..."
"... union leaders ..."
"... in Washington lauded her. ..."
"... American Prospect ..."
"... "a President Biden would be in the business of confronting Mr. Putin for his aggressions, not embracing him. Not trashing NATO, but strengthening its deterrence, investing in new capabilities to deal with challenges in cyberspace, in outer space, under the sea, A.I., electronic warfare, and give robust security assistance to countries like Ukraine, Georgia, the Western Balkans ..."
"... "a President Putin would be in the business of confronting Mr. Biden for his aggressions (in Syria, or elsewhere), not embracing them. Not trashing the Warsaw Pact, but strengthening its deterrence, investing in new capabilities to deal with challenges in cyberspace, in outer space, under the sea, A.I., electronic warfare, and give robust security assistance to countries like Canada, Mexico, and other nations that are near the U.S. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Bernard Schwartz, ..."
"... a former Vice Chairman and top investor in Lockheed Martin ..."
"... (which is by far the largest seller to the U.S. Government, and also the largest seller to most of America's allied Governments), is one of Joe Biden's top donors. CNN headlined, on October 24th, ..."
"... "Biden allies intensify push for super PAC after lackluster fundraising quarter" ..."
"... , and reported that, "Bernard Schwartz, a private investor and donor to the former vice president's campaign, said he spoke with Biden within the last two weeks and encouraged him to do just that." It's not for nothing that throughout Biden's long Senate career, he has voted in favor of every U.S. invasion that has been placed before the U.S. Senate. ..."
That didn't take long. He's not even in office, and he has already surrounded himself, as
the incoming President, with individuals who derive their wealth from (and will be serving)
America's top defense contractors and Wall Street. The likelihood that these Government
officials will be biting the hands that feed them is approximately zero. Great investigative
journalists have already exposed how corrupt they are. For that to be the case so early (even
before taking office) is remarkable, and only a summary of those reports will be provided here,
with links to them, all of which reports are themselves linking to the incriminating evidence,
so that everything can easily be tracked back to the documentation by the reader here, even
before there are any 'Special Prosecutors' (as if those were serving anyone other than the
opposite Party's political campaigns, and, ultimately, the opposite Party's billionaires).
First up, is the independent investigative team of David Sirota and Andrew Perez. On
December 4th, they bannered "The Beltway
Left Is Normalizing Corruption And Corporatism" , and reported that "A month after the
election, Biden's nominations make clear that the president-elect is most focused on trying to
fulfill hispromiseto donors that nothing fundamentally changes. And yet, that tacit
admission may have stunned those who keep hearing from liberal and progressive groups in
Washington that, in fact, the left has been notching monumental victories in Biden's cabinet
appointments ."
Liberal (that's to say Democratic Party) U.S. media hide the corruptness of Democratic
politicians, and conservative (that's to say Republican Party) U.S. media hide the corruptness
of Republican politicians; and, so, the public today are getting corrupt leaders whichever side
they vote for. No mainstream 'news' media report what independent investigative journalists
such as Sirota and Perez report. Authentically good journalists use as sources -- and link to
in their articles -- neither Democratic nor Republican allegations, but instead are on the
margins, outside of the major media, and so rely on whistleblowers and other trustworthy
outsiders, not on people who are somebody's paid PR flacks, individuals who are being paid to
deceive. As Sirota and Perez state: " What little organized left political infrastructure
exists in Washington is largely valorizing or publicly defending swamp creatures who at minimum
deserve a loyal opposition. Thegood workbeing done by a small handful of under-resourced groups to mount a real opposition is
getting trampled by a culture of obsequiousness. This culture of acquiescence gives swamp
creatures a free pass ." It's all some sort of mega-corporate propaganda -- 100%
billionaire-supported on the conservative side, 100% billionaire-supported also on the liberal
side, and 0% billionaire-supported for anything that is authentically progressive (not
dependent, at all, upon the aristocracy).
That independent reporting team focused on Biden's having chosen an economic team which will
start his Administration already offering to congressional Republicans an initial Democratic
Party negotiating position that accepts Republicans' basic proposals to cut middle class Social
Security and health care benefits in order for the Government to be able to continue expanding
the military budgets and purchases from the billionaire-controlled firms, such as Northrop
Grumman -- firms whose entire sales (or close to it) are to the U.S. Government and to the
governments (U.S. 'allies') that constitute these firms' secondary markets. (In other words:
those budget-cuts aren't going to be an issue between the two Parties and used by Biden's team
as a bargaining chip to moderate the Republicans' position that favors more for 'defense' and
less for the poor, but are actually accepted by both Parties, even before the new
Administration will take office.) Obviously, anything that both sides to a negotiation accept
at the very start of a negotiation will be included in the final product from that negotiation;
and this means that during a Biden Presidency there will be reductions in middle-class Social
security and health care benefits in order to continue, at the present level -- if not to
increase yet further -- Government spending on the products and services of such firms as
Lockheed Martin and the Rand Corporation (firms that control their market by controlling their
Government, which is their main or entire market).
Sirota and Perez focus especially upon one example: Neera Tanden, whom Biden chose on
November 30th to be the White House Budget Director, and who therefore will set the priorities
which determine how much federal money the President will be trying to get the Congress to
allocate to what recipients:
Despite Tanden'spush for Social Security cuts, Beltway liberal groups whose mission is to
defend Social Securitylauded
herthink
tank. Despite Tanden having her organizationrake in
cashfrom Wall Street, Amazon, billionaires and (previously) foreign governments, a Ralph Nader-founded, all-purpose consumer
advocacy group
praisedCAP as "one of our key partners in the fight to tax corporations and the
rich, rein in monopoly power, tackle government corruption, and much more." Despite Tandenbustinga union at CAP,twonationalunion
leadersin Washington lauded her.
Next up: One of the rare honest non-profits in the field of journalism is the Project on
Government Oversight, POGO, which refuses to accept donations from "anyone who stands to
benefit financially from our work," and which states in its unique "Donation Acceptance Policy" that,
"POGO reviews all contributions exceeding $100 in order to maintain this standard." In other
words: they refuse to be corrupt. Virtually all public-policy or think-tank nonprofits are
profoundly corrupt, but POGO is the most determined exception to that general
rule.
On 20 November 2020, POGO headlined "Should
Michèle Flournoy Be Secretary of Defense?" and their terrific investigative team of
Winslow Wheeler and Pierre Sprey delivered a scorching portrayal of Flournoy as irredeemably
corrupt -- it ought to be read by everybody. It's essential reading throughout, and its links
to the evidence are to the very best sources. So, I won't summarize it, because all Americans
need to know what it reports, and to be able to verify, on their own (by clicking onto any link
in it that interests them), any allegation that the given reader has any question about.
However, I shall point out here the sheer hypocrisy of the following which that article quotes
Flournoy as asserting: "It will be imperative for the next secretary to appoint a team of
senior officials who meet the following criteria: deep expertise and competence in their areas
of responsibility; proven leadership in empowering teams, listening to diverse views, making
tough decisions, and delivering results." (Of course, that assertion presumes the
given 'expert' to be not only authentically expert but also honest and trustworthy,
authentically representing the public's interest and no special interests whatsoever -- not at
all corrupt -- which is certainly a false allegation in her own case.) She had urged the 2003
invasion of Iraq, and had participated in planning and overseeing both the war against Syria,
and the coup that destroyed Ukraine (and none of those countries had ever invaded, or even
threatened to invade, the United States); and, so, for her to brag about her
"delivering results" is not merely hypocritical, it is downright evil, because she is obviously
proud, there, of her vicious, outright voracious, record.
Her business-partner, Tony Blinken, has already received Biden's approval to become his
Secretary of State, and the first really good investigative journalist that American
Prospect magazine has had, Jonathan Guyer, headlined on November 23rd, "What You Need to Know About Tony Blinken" , and what Guyer
reports is just what any well informed reader would expect to see for a business
partner of Flournoy's.
Guyer's report closes by making passing reference to a CBS 'news' puff-piece for Blinken. In
that CBS
puff-piece , Blinken says, "a President Biden would be in the business of confronting
Mr. Putin for his aggressions, not embracing him. Not trashing NATO, but strengthening its
deterrence, investing in new capabilities to deal with challenges in cyberspace, in outer
space, under the sea, A.I., electronic warfare, and give robust security assistance to
countries like Ukraine, Georgia, the Western Balkans ." What would Americans think if
Russia were to have retained its Warsaw Pact, and "a President Putin would be in the
business of confronting Mr. Biden for his aggressions (in Syria, or elsewhere), not embracing
them. Not trashing the Warsaw Pact, but strengthening its deterrence, investing in new
capabilities to deal with challenges in cyberspace, in outer space, under the sea, A.I.,
electronic warfare, and give robust security assistance to countries like Canada, Mexico, and
other nations that are near the U.S. "? Guyer pointedly noted that "The [CBS News] podcast
was sponsored by a major weapons maker. 'At Lockheed Martin, your mission is ours,' read an
announcer." Tony Blinken's mission is theirs. These people get the money both coming and going
-- on both sides of the "revolving door." Today's American Government is for sale to
the highest bidders, on any policy, domestic or foreign. 'Government service' is just a
sabbatical to boost their value to the firms that will be paying them the vast majority of
their lifetime 'earnings'. This is the reality that mainstream U.S.-and-allied 'news' media
refuse to publish (or, especially , to make clear). Only an electorate which
is ignorant of this reality can accept such a government.
Back on 26 January 2020, I had headlined "Joe Biden Is as Corrupt as They
Come" and documented the reality of this, but America's mainstream media were hiding that
fact so as to decrease the likelihood that the only Democratic Party Presidential candidate whom no billionaire
supported , Bernie Sanders, might win the nomination. Perhaps now that it's too late, even
those 'news' organizations (such as CNN, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, New York Times ,
Washington Post , PBS, and NPR) will start reporting the fact of Biden's corruptness.
Where billionaires control all of the mainstream media, there is no democracy -- it's not even
possible , in such a country
Bernard Schwartz,a former Vice Chairman and top investor in Lockheed Martin(which is by far
the largest seller to the U.S. Government, and also the largest seller to most of America's
allied Governments), is one of Joe Biden's top donors. CNN headlined, on October 24th,"Biden
allies intensify push for super PAC after lackluster fundraising quarter", and
reported that, "Bernard Schwartz, a private investor and donor to the former vice president's
campaign, said he spoke with Biden within the last two weeks and encouraged him to do just
that." It's not for nothing that throughout Biden's long Senate career, he has voted in favor
of every U.S. invasion that has been placed before the U.S. Senate.
Near the end of the Democratic Party's primaries, on 16 March 2020, CNBC headlined
"Megadonors pull plug on plan for anti-Sanders super PAC as Biden racks up wins" , and
reported that Bernard Schwartz had become persuaded by other billionaires that, by this time,
"Biden could handle Sanders on his own." They had done their job; they would therefore control
the U.S. Government regardless of which Party's nominee would head it.
Biden -- like Trump, and like Obama and Bush and Clinton before him -- doesn't represent the
American people. He represents his mega-donors. And he is staffing his Administration
accordingly. He repays favors: he delivers the services that they buy from him. This is today's
America. And that is the way it functions.
"These leaders are trusted at home and respected around the world, and their nominations
signal that America is back and ready to lead the world, not retreat from it,"
Biden said on Saturday in a statement announcing his picks to fill top positions under his
nominee for secretary of state, Anthony Blinken.
Like Blinken, the five latest State Department picks are veterans of the Obama-Biden
administration. Nuland , a
neoconservative who was named undersecretary for political affairs, goes all the way back to
former President Ronald Reagan's administration and was a foreign policy adviser to former Vice
President Dick Cheney.
Other new re-hires include: Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state, who led the
Obama-Biden administration's negotiating team on peace talks with Iran; Brian McKeon, deputy
secretary for management and resources, who was a national security adviser to then-Vice
President Biden; Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary for arms control and international security,
who previously coordinated nonproliferation programs; and Uzra Zeha, undersecretary for
civilian security, who formerly was charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in Paris.
After four years of President Donald Trump's 'America First' policy, including efforts to
wind down foreign interventions and broker peace deals, Biden's declaration of "America is
back" portends a sharp contrast in foreign policy. He said his latest nominees will "use
their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America's global and moral
leadership."
Nuland, who studied Russian literature at Brown University, wrote last summer in Foreign
Affairs of how "a confident America should deal
with Russia " with a more "activist" policy, including "speaking directly to
the Russian people about the benefits of working together and the price they have paid for
(President Vladimir) Putin's hard turn away from liberalism." She added, "Washington and
its allies have forgotten the statecraft that won the Cold War and continued to yield results
for many years after."
Nuland perhaps was using such "statecraft" when, as assistant secretary of state in
December 2013, she handed out cookies
to protesters at Kiev's Maidan Nezalezhnosti square who were demanding the resignation of
President Viktor Yanukovich. An audiotape leaked in February 2014 showed that
her involvement in the uprising went well beyond cookies, as she spoke with US Ambassador
Geoffrey Pyatt about plotting to replace Yanukovich with Washington's chosen opposition leader,
Arseny Yatseniuk, and about involving the UN to "f**k the EU" by pushing through a
US-preferred Ukraine policy.
Ironically, Nuland's appointment comes just as politicians in Washington fret over this
month's storming of the US Capitol by pro-Trump protesters, which some called a
coup attempt.
"I knew it wasn't a real coup because Victoria Nuland wasn't handing out cookies,"
Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow said of the Capitol assault. "She'll be back
overthrowing governments in the Biden administration, so it remains a valid standard."
In light of Nuland's hawkish history, 25
anti-war groups have jointly called for the Senate to
reject confirmation of her nomination as undersecretary for political affairs.
"Victoria Nuland is returning to the State Department," one commenter wrote on
Twitter. "The United States is returning to the former Soviet republics with great strides.
A fierce struggle with Russia begins."
I am strongly against balkanization of the country. The example of the USSR shows where it
leads -- misery of common pople and dramatic drop of the standard of living, while new gand of
ruthless oligarchs emerge from the ruins.
Pushing the Trump-inspired populist movement underground may only cause it to resort to more
drastic measures. As the leftist libertarian reporter Glenn Greenwald observes ,
"these people know they are scorned and looked down upon... and the more you humiliate
and make them feel powerless, the more you take away their ability to organize and express
that rage, it's gonna find an outlet in more destructive ways."
As a former professor at a top-ranking university, I favored a Trump re-election, not
because I support Trump so much as abhor what the opposition represents and is proving itself
to be. In response to the social media threat to expression, I have inaugurated a new group on
Telegram called 'Thought Criminals'. There, fellow 'thought deviationists' like me are able to
express views that are effectively proscribed on mainstream social media platforms. No one
among us advocates violence or the overthrow of the government. None of us is 'racist'. We
advocate only the rights enshrined in the US Constitution.
But some groups, no doubt, are intent on violence. Yet the violent extremists consist mostly
of Antifa and related 'activists', who will unfortunately trick Trump supporters into another
error during the inauguration, like some appeared to do when involved
in the Capitol siege. It's not as if violent extremists among the Trump base were always there,
ready to pounce on any opportunity to express their "racist," "white nationalist"
views.
Rather, as the rising party has already demonstrated, these people stand to lose the most
under a Biden-Harris regime, whose Big Tech and mainstream media allies act as governmental
enforcement apparatuses.
Trump supporters have been hated and demonized simply for wanting to live without being
reprimanded and punished for their whiteness, their middle-Americanness, or their values. They
face an anti-white, anti-native, anti-middle-America extremism that is set to silence and crush
them into submission.
These and others will form a new underground under the prevailing ideological and political
hegemony. This banishment of millions, and not Trump, is why the nation will fall apart, if
indeed it does.
JJ_Rousseau 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:58 PM
The best thing that could happen is for USA to "balkanize". For the rest of the world, and
for Americans too. The founding fathers intentionally put restraints on the federal
government's power to prevent the situation we now face. Both parties (actually the duopoly)
are guilty of breaching the constitution, on so many levels we have lost count
Ronj14848 JJ_Rousseau 1 hour ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:23 PM
The USA have more American in uniform outside America than civilian Americans inside America.
You bleed yourself dry trying to be the boss of the world.
chert JJ_Rousseau 3 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:52 PM
Right, states should have more power than the federal government. Case in point: North Dakota
is trying to pass a law to sue Facebook and Twitter for those who have been censored on those
platforms. But federal law under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act will supersede
because federal law wins.
apothqowejh 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:17 PM
As an American, I can't say a reckoning hasn't been overdue. The myopia in this country, and
the tolerance for evil, was bound to rebound. From a refusal to honestly look at 9/11, a
refusal to accept responsibility for Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and a host of other
insanely brutal blunders, to an acceptance of such horrors as the USAPatriot Act and the
COVID scam, everyday Americans have obliviously sleepwalked into a totalitarian dystopia.
Tyranny abroad inevitably leads to tyranny at home, and we have well-earned it by refusing to
vote for peace and non-interventionism; for limited government, for responsible spending. Now
our votes no longer matter, and we are caught helpless in the whirlwind of our own
destruction.
newagerage apothqowejh 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:33 PM
The CIA, NSA, Pentagon... all these corporations lead to disaster as the employees have to
keep causing trouble to justify their jobs and spend, spend like crazy, the Army and
intelligence agencies spending the hard worked money from Silicon Valley and other sectors.
The country just doesn't make sense, first outsource jobs to China and then when they see
that Chinese people are smarter than them outsource those to India? are Indians idiots? I
don't think so... both countries will rule the World by the end of the century. And the most
important of all... where is your public education system? you can live without a proper
health system, China does, but without a decent public education system? most Americans don't
know where Portugal or Belgium is placed, no matter black or white...
ceshawn 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
Trump didn't do this. The irrational reaction to Trump did this. It started with the
now-fully mythological Russia-gate nonsense (that started with an almost ridiculously made up
FISA warrant application). Continued through constant over-the-top challenges by Democrats of
Trump following Obama-era laws (separation of children and adults for illegal border
crossings) and the clear obstruction used by opponents during his entire Presidency. Trump
was a disaster, Biden will be a nightmare (or a complete liar), but the left shouldn't be
complaining when the reaction to their candidate is equally as disturbing as their reaction
to the right (and yes, the circus that was the "raid" at the Capitol is just as bad as the
intel community doing shady things against a sitting President).
Ronj14848 ceshawn 1 hour ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:27 PM
Trump didnt start new wars......but he has created a situation that foriegn wars will spring
from his actions. He has created hate for a country that during the second world war was a
much loved country.
billy brown ceshawn 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:36 PM
What could the 'rioters' do? We aren't going to let them poison us anymore. This election
will not be stolen and the new patriot act isn't going to get passed quietly. They are going
to have to crush us or allow a partition of the country
ceshawn 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:36 PM
If I were Russia or China, I would be watching carefully. Biden almost HAS to go after Russia
over the Crimean disaster of Obama and China will be his easy-out enemy if things are
complicated otherwise. North Korea will somehow become a big deal again as well. Let those
missiles fly, because the incoming administration has a proven track record of blowing up
innocent women and children for "funsies" (drone strikes on "suspected" terrorists...oh and
their families) without any form of due process or care for the safety of collateral damage.
Ronj14848 ceshawn 58 minutes ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:36 PM
True...the media support the military industrial complex. Their friends own the miltary
industrial complex . See who they support politically and avoid them like the plague.
Ronnie Spelbos ceshawn 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:04 PM
if I was Russia or an Eastern European nation I would offer asylum to white heterosexual men
and their families who want to leave the US. Take advantage of the brain capital and work
ethic of this group. The US is no country for white men.
Ohhho 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 01:41 PM
The Evil empire felt vulnerable so it lashed out with vengeance! None if it helps to fix the
issues behind the problem so I expect to see more of it in the near future!
TheFishh Ohhho 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:32 PM
There are literally just a few things the US can do to rebound as a decent country, but the
establishment doesn't want to make those moves. They rather see everything collapse than see
their wealth and power decreased by any amount.
OneHorseGuy 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:17 PM
"79% of Americans think the US is falling apart" those not accounted for are possibly
homeless or illiterate and don't have the opportunity of putting their view forward.
Ronnie Spelbos OneHorseGuy 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:02 PM
102% think the US is falling apart - cites Dominion.
newswithoutbord OneHorseGuy 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
Spot on, mate!
RTaccount 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:22 PM
There will be no peace, no unity, and no prosperity. And there shouldn't be.
TheFishh RTaccount 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:38 PM
The US regimes past and present have worn out their bag of tricks. A magician is a con-man.
And the only way they can entertain and spellbind the crowd with their routines is if
everyone just ignores the sleight of hand. But people are starting to call the US out for the
tricks it is pulling, and that's where the magician's career ends.
omyomy RTaccount 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:54 PM
We the sane people know who is picking a fight. No matter what the propaganda outlets decree.
Tor Gjesdal 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:18 PM
79%,sure? OK. Very soon 85% of Westerners will understand their Countries are heading for
failures. They have been deceived for way too long.
Twenty Tor Gjesdal 5 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:23 PM
The alternative to western governments is dictators, one party rule. Yes, most western
governmental concepts are idealistic, but we wouldn't trade for anything else because we know
better.
JIMI JAMES Tor Gjesdal 6 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:31 PM
0 covid cases,i dont think so.
soumalinna1 4 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:36 PM
Correct. America will never be the same again. Democrats and CNN destroyed a once great
nation.
Ronnie Spelbos soumalinna1 2 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 06:06 PM
The 1965 Immigration Act destroyed the US. A country too diverse with little in common was
always bound the fall apart.
Drayk soumalinna1 3 hours ago 15 Jan, 2021 04:42 PM
In their efforts to expunge the Trump movement from memory let alone existence, these
neo-Stalinists are hellbent on nullifying constitutionally guaranteed rights – freedom of
speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms are under assault.
In place of the Bill of Rights, they would impose a Bill of Don'ts:
Don't say what we don't want to hear.
Don't gather where we don't allow, especially if you are a 'deplorable'.
Don't bother petitioning for grievances, because we don't care. Don't own weapons and don't
defend yourself when you or your property are attacked, even as the police are defunded.
Don't tell us about your right to privacy because our right to surveil you supersedes
it.
Don't tell us you have the right to confront the witnesses aligned against you, or see the
evidence alleged against you, or to present evidence and witnesses in your own defense. That's
your white privilege speaking, and we will not tolerate hate speech.
Don't expect us to be bound by due process or the rule of law. Feelings and desired outcomes
trump facts and rules, both of which are tools of oppression, relics of the fascist
patriarchy.
Don't object, or we will cancel you entirely from these Disunited States of Woketopia.
And first and foremost, don't dare have the temerity to question election results that have
handed us uncontested power.
Only authoritarians sanction this state of affairs. The harm they will do, as they neglect
and inflict further pain on the Republic, will be immeasurable. The nation is failing, not
merely because it is divided, but because a contingent has rejected its foundational
principles. That contingent is now in control.
"... , and author of several books, including ..."
"... Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran ..."
"... . @medeabenjamin; Nicolas J. S. Davies, an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of ..."
"... Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq ..."
"... . @NicolasJSDavies; and Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 Democratic delegate for Bernie Sanders,and is Coordinator of ..."
Yves here. Biden's nominees have skewed towards the awful, particularly on the foreign
policy front. But his plan to install Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland at State is a standout. For
those of you new to this site and not familiar with Nuland's sorry history, this post gives an
overview of her role in fomenting the coup in Ukraine and in putting relations with Russia on a
Cold War footing. The authors encourage readers to call their Senators and urge them to vote
against her nomination.
And before you get unduly excited by Biden nominating Gary Gensler to the SEC, I would much
rather have seem Gensler at Treasury. Gensler demonstrated at the CFTC that he's effective and
dedicated to combatting abuses by Big Finance. However, his best shot at making the SEC feared
and respected again is to appoint a tough head of enforcement, so keep an eye out for that
pick.
The problem that Gensler will have at the SEC is that it is the only Federal financial
services industry regulator that is subject to Congressional appropriations, rather that living
off its fees and fines (the SEC collects far more than Congress allows it). And Democrats, like
Joe Lieberman, then the Senator from Hedgistan, have been if anything more aggressive than
Republicans in threatening the SEC and in keeping it budget-starved.
I had said to Lambert that if Biden wanted to be Machiavellian, the way to pretend to reward
Elizabeth Warren while actually sandbagging her would be to make her SEC chair. Let's hope that
isn't his logic for appointing Gensler.
Photo Credit: thetruthseeker.co.uk Nuland and Pyatt planning regime change in Kiev
Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her because the U.S. corporate
media's foreign policy coverage is a wasteland. Most Americans have no idea that
President-elect Biden's pick for Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs is stuck in
the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an
arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia.
Nor do they know that from 2003-2005, during the hostile U.S. military occupation of Iraq,
Nuland was a foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney, the Darth Vader of the Bush
administration.
You can bet, however, that the people of Ukraine have heard of neocon Nuland. Many have even
heard the leaked four-minute audio of her saying "Fuck the EU" during a 2014 phone call with
the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.
During the infamous call on which Nuland and Pyatt plotted to replace the elected Ukrainian
President Victor Yanukovych, Nuland expressed her not-so-diplomatic disgust with the European
Union for grooming former heavyweight boxer and austerity champ Vitali Klitschko instead of
U.S. puppet and NATO booklicker Artseniy Yatseniuk to replace Russia-friendly Yanukovych.
The "Fuck the EU" call went viral, as an embarrassed State Department, never denying the
call's authenticity, blamed the Russians for tapping the phone, much as the NSA has tapped the
phones of European allies.
Despite outrage from German Chancellor Angela Markel, no one fired Nuland, but her potty
mouth upstaged the more serious story: the U.S. plot to overthrow Ukraine's elected government
and America's responsibility for a civil war that has killed at least 13,000 people and left
Ukraine the poorest
country in Europe.
In the process, Nuland, her husband Robert Kagan, the co-founder of The Project for a New
American Century , and their neocon cronies succeeded in sending U.S.-Russian relations
into a dangerous downward spiral from which they have yet to recover.
Nuland accomplished this from a relatively junior position as Assistant Secretary of State
for European and Eurasian Affairs. How much more trouble could she stir up as the #3 official
at Biden's State Department? We'll find out soon enough, if the Senate confirms her
nomination.
Joe Biden should have learned from Obama's mistakes that appointments like this matter.
In his first
term , Obama allowed his hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Republican Secretary
of Defense Robert Gates, and military and CIA leaders held over from the Bush administration to
ensure that endless war trumped his message of hope and change.
Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, ended up presiding over indefinite detentions without
charges or trials at Guantanamo Bay; an escalation of drone strikes that killed innocent
civilians; a deepening of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan; a self-reinforcing
cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism; and disastrous new wars in
Libya and Syria
.
With Clinton out and new personnel in top spots in his second term, Obama began
to take charge of his own foreign policy. He started working directly with Russia's President
Putin to resolve crises in Syria and other hotspots. Putin helped avert an escalation of the
war in Syria in September 2013 by negotiating the removal and destruction of Syria's chemical
weapons stockpiles, and helped Obama negotiate an interim agreement with Iran that led to the
JCPOA nuclear deal.
But the neocons were apoplectic that they failed to convince Obama to order a massive
bombing campaign and escalate his covert,
proxy war in Syria and at the receding prospect of a war with Iran. Fearing their control
of U.S. foreign policy was slipping, the neocons launched a
campaign to brand Obama as "weak" on foreign policy and remind him of their power.
With
editorial help from Nuland, her husband Robert Kagan penned a 2014 New Republic
article entitled "Superpowers Don't Get To Retire," proclaiming that "there is no democratic
superpower waiting in the wings to save the world if this democratic superpower falters." Kagan
called for an even more aggressive foreign policy to exorcise American fears of a multipolar
world it can no longer dominate.
Obama invited Kagan to a private lunch at the White House, and the neocons' muscle-flexing
pressured him to scale back his diplomacy with Russia, even as he quietly pushed ahead on
Iran.
The neocons' coup de grace against Obama's better angels was Nuland's 2014 coup
in debt-ridden Ukraine, a valuable imperial possession for its wealth of natural gas and a
strategic candidate for NATO membership right on Russia's border.
When Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych spurned a U.S.-backed trade agreement with
the European Union in favor of a $15 billion bailout from Russia, the State Department threw a
tantrum.
Hell hath no fury like a superpower scorned.
The EU trade
agreement was to open Ukraine's economy to imports from the EU, but without a reciprocal
opening of EU markets to Ukraine, it was a lopsided deal Yanukovich could not accept. The deal
was approved by the post-coup government, and has only added to Ukraine's economic woes.
The muscle for Nuland's $5 billion coup was Oleh
Tyahnybok's neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and the shadowy new Right Sector militia. During her leaked
phone call, Nuland referred to Tyahnybok as one of the "big three" opposition leaders on the
outside who could help the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Yatsenyuk on the inside. This is the same
Tyanhnybok who once
delivered a speec h applauding Ukrainians for fighting Jews and "other scum" during World
War II.
After protests in Kiev's Euromaidan square turned into battles with police in February 2014,
Yanukovych and the Western-backed opposition
signed an agreement brokered by France, Germany and Poland to form a national unity
government and hold new elections by the end of the year.
But that was not good enough for the neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing forces the U.S. had
helped to unleash. A violent mob led by the Right Sector militia marched on and invaded the
parliament building , a scene no longer difficult for Americans to imagine. Yanukovych and
his members of parliament fled for their lives.
Facing the loss of its most vital strategic naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, Russia
accepted the overwhelming result (a 97% majority, with an 83% turnout) of a referendum in which
Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, which it had been a part of from 1783 to
1954.
The majority Russian-speaking provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine
unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine, triggering a bloody civil war between U.S.-
and Russian-backed forces that still rages in 2021.
U.S.-Russian relations have never recovered, even as U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals still
pose the greatest single
threat to our existence. Whatever Americans believe about the civil war in Ukraine and
allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, we must not allow the neocons
and the military-industrial complex they serve to deter Biden from conducting vital diplomacy
with Russia to steer us off our suicidal path toward nuclear war.
Nuland and the neocons, however, remain committed to an ever-more debilitating and dangerous
Cold War with Russia and China to justify a militarist foreign policy and record Pentagon
budgets. In a July 2020 Foreign Affairs article entitled "Pinning Down Putin," Nuland
absurdly
claimed that Russia presents a greater threat to "the liberal world" than the U.S.S.R.
posed during the old Cold War.
Nuland's
narrative rests on an utterly mythical, ahistorical narrative of Russian aggression and
U.S. good intentions. She pretends that Russia's military budget, which is one-tenth of
America's, is evidence of "Russian confrontation and militarization" and calls
on the U.S. and its allies to counter Russia by "maintaining robust defense budgets,
continuing to modernize U.S. and allied nuclear weapons systems, and deploying new conventional
missiles and missile defenses to protect against Russia's new weapons systems "
Nuland also wants to confront Russia with an aggressive NATO. Since her days as U.S.
Ambassador to NATO during President George W. Bush's second term, she has been a supporter of
NATO's expansion all the way up to Russia's border. She calls
for "permanent bases along NATO's eastern border." We have pored over a map of Europe, but
we can't find a country called NATO with any borders at all. Nuland sees Russia's commitment to
defending itself after successive 20th century Western invasions as an intolerable obstacle to
NATO's expansionist ambitions.
Nuland's militaristic worldview represents exactly the folly the U.S. has been pursuing
since the 1990s under the influence of the neocons and "liberal interventionists," which has
resulted in a systematic underinvestment in the American people while escalating tensions with
Russia, China, Iran and other countries.
As Obama learned too late, the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time can, with a
shove in the wrong direction, unleash years of intractable violence, chaos and international
discord. Victoria Nuland would be a ticking time-bomb in Biden's State Department, waiting to
sabotage his better angels much as she undermined Obama's second-term diplomacy.
So let's do Biden and the world a favor. Join World Beyond War , CODEPINK and dozens of other
organizations opposing neocon Nuland's confirmation as a threat to peace and diplomacy. Call
202-224-3121 and tell your Senator to oppose Nuland's installation at the State Department.
Nuland has also been declared persona non grata by Russia, so she would not be able to go
with Biden, were he to visit Moscow. Russian foreign minister Lavrov, actually refused to
shake her hand when she attended a US-Russia meeting with Kerry. She is poison to any attempt
to peaceful relationships.
Yes, I remember that meeting clearly. Can't cite the network, but it covered her closely
– body language only. I wonder where Biden stood on that act of diplomacy given his own
corruption, and also what John Kerry's thinking is about now. John Kerry's stepson was in
cahoots with Hunter Biden. It looked like Kerry brought her along for some rehabilitation and
Lavrov was having none of it. Instead he went directly to the delegation from Ukraine and
they stood in a circle all with their backs turned to Vicky who had no choice but to wander
over to the coffee table and pretend she wasn't totally uncomfortable. Totally excluded. How
can she recover from that?
If there is one thing that Russia hates it is fascists and that is because of the enormous
damage caused by them in WW2. We call those invaders Nazis but the Russians seem to call them
fascists. I sometimes wonder if it is part of their mother's milk this hatred. For people
like Nuland to help topple the government of a large, bordering country like the Ukraine and
install people that were literally fascists was too much for the Russians. These were fascist
of a very low order that had the old 1930s routines down pat, including the torchlight
parades. And there was Nuland, handing out cookies to the rioters, many of whom had been
trained in rioting tactics in Poland and were being paid about $100 a day by the US if I
recall correctly. Of course Nuland was not alone as there was also a Representative from the
EU also handing out cookies. The only equivalent that comes to mind is a violent revolution
in Canada using professional rioters and having diplomatic representatives from the Russian
Federation and China handing out donuts to the rioter. I wonder what Washington would say
about a stunt like that.
Nuland is a disgusting human being. Since she is a right winger, regardless of what party
may be listed on her voter ID, I don't think Bettridge's law applies here at all.
So glad all these 'woke' people put good old Uncle Joe back in office. Wonder how many
realized they were supporting people being burned alive by actual Nazis in doing so?
Thanks for this. Our "learned nothing/forgot nothing" Bourbon restoration will be led by
one of the dimmer Bourbons who couldn't even set up a good grift in Ukraine without boasting
about it and then angrily denying it. Should the press finally, improbably turn on him it
should make for some fun news conferences. But perhaps he'll merely be moving to the White
House basement from his Delaware basement.
CFTC's budgets are also set through congressional authorization and appropriations. Yes,
the CFPB is not subject to Congressional appropriations, but for good reasons. However, all
financial regulation can be overturned by the Congressional Review Act.
As for the article, citation needed. Sort of a laundry heap of questionable material. Make
no mistake, the Russo-Ukrainian War is a real war. Uniformed Russian armored infantry of
331st regiment of the 98th Svirsk airborne division dropped into Ukraine territory on 24
August 2014. From 25 to 27 August, Russian troops in civilian clothing, backed up by an
armored column [not in disguise] took Novoazovsk. This is about Russia not being able to
station 25,000 troops in Crimea as they had under Yanukovych. US troop levels in Europe have
been at their lowest for the last 20 years. The US would like to [nay, needs to] keep it that
way. However, the erosion of territorial integrity is a touchy subject in Europe given the
lasting peace of the post-war period in a place where the wars have a pre-fix like "Hundred
Years".
President Arseniy Yatsenyuk is of Jewish origin so the claims of coordination with Nazi
sympathizers is dubious. Not even going to get the boycotted unconstitutional Crimean
referendum.
As for WW III, Obama's defense department made it a priority to recover all the MANPADS,
such as the Chinese-made FN-6 [via Qatar], Russian-made Strela-2's and Igla-S's [via Libya]
from the FSA without so much as a thank you from the Russian Air Force. [Turkey, on the other
hand, armed the FSA with Stinger's.] It should be noted that the Syrian conflict's death
toll, in just four years, surpassed the 19-year death toll in all the Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and Iraq war theatres combined.
Think about this way: who needs NATO and the EU more to maintain his power structure, Joe
Biden or Vladimir Putin. Isn't it clear Americans don't care, and American business does not
look to compete in Russian anytime soon. The geography is wrong. But Putin must find a way to
engender ethnicities who do not like the Russian Empire, who had been cleansed by Stalin. One
way is to sell energy below cost to the republics and buy in back from political allies in
the form of electricity. Something upon which the EU frowns. [Personally, I did not care for
the way Putin early on systematically and indiscriminately starved Chechen civilians for
years. It was cruel on a level unseen outside of the Rwandan genocide. More importantly, it
was the Russian Federation abdicating its authority by not providing for its own citizens and
not letting NGO's fill the calorie gap. I'd like to think had Putin's admin not been so
wobbly the first few years, he might've let the Red Cross feed the children.]
Russia was never going to permit a US orchestrated coup in Ukraine without resistance. The
idea that Putin needs NATO more than Biden does seems unreasonable.
Talking about "citations", perhaps you could supply the readership of this site with some
credible citations and links for a few of the far fetched claims you're making here. Most of
this comment reads like pro-Ukrainian propaganda.
I heard about Gary Gensler, Samantha Power, and Victoria Nuland, and I immediately
thought, "The good, the bad, and the ugly."
Gensler surprised everyone when he was at the CFTC by doing his job, and doing it well,
and his running the SEC is a good thing.
Samantha Power is an aggressive war monger, and in her position at USAID, she will likely
have her fingers in regime change pie, since USAID is part of the deep state regime change
apparatus..
I've long suspected that NATO has existed since 1991 to allow the US/EU axis to control
Middle-Eastern and African resources. For example, the Rammstein military hospital is where
every Gulf War soldier was airlifted for major treatment and convalescence.
Also, there is a huge international trade in opium. It's grown in Afpak and shipped out in
every direction. I suspect that a fair amount of that flows through Ukraine and Crimea. If
you look at a topo map of Crimea, there's a lot of seashore that could be good "smuggler's
coves". Following this line of argument, Russia grabbing it from Ukraine was a gimme to
Russia's gangsters. This, as well as the "Pipeline Wars", gives Russia a strong reason to
encircle Ukraine.
And that's what false flag with Capitol ransacking accomplished. It fives Clinton/Obama/Biden
clique card blank for suppressing the dissent
This false flag operation like shooting protesters by snipers during Ukrainian Maydan is a
logical end of American Maidan and pursued the same goals -- deposing the current president,
hijacking political power and consolidating it via repressions.
Notable quotes:
"... That is why we are witnessing the fussy, aggressive actions of the Democrats - a ridiculous re-impeachment of the president, who will leave the White House in a week, the most severe censorship and suppression of dissent. There is no need for the real winners of fair elections to behave like that, as they are aware of their legitimacy and are confident in themselves (relying on the real, not imaginary, support of the majority of the population). ..."
From the "Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains" article:
Joe Biden's own language certainly sounded less like a magnanimous winner uniting his
people than like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold onto power, argues Diana
Johnstone.
Diana Johnstone's opinion is quite reasonable. In fact, a "creeping"/"bureaucratic" coup
d'etat took place in the United States. And it wasn't Trump at all, but Biden & Co. The
fact that "Joe Biden's own language sounded like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold
onto power" is further confirmation of this.
If you are in the majority and you win the election honestly, then there is no need to act
the way the Democrats did. The current aggressive rhetoric of Biden (and other Democrats) is
evidence that the elections were stolen/falsified. Biden knows this very well, and therefore
his language is as cruel, irreconcilable and repressive as possible. After the illegitimate
elections, the task is to consolidate own's power and suppress all those who reject what
happened. In fact, this is what happened in Ukraine after the Maidan 2014.
That is why we are witnessing the fussy, aggressive actions of the Democrats - a
ridiculous re-impeachment of the president, who will leave the White House in a week, the
most severe censorship and suppression of dissent. There is no need for the real winners of
fair elections to behave like that, as they are aware of their legitimacy and are confident
in themselves (relying on the real, not imaginary, support of the majority of the
population).
Globalization has made the United States a hollow giant. It has produced an enormous
wealth gap, and this inequality is producing a breakdown in social cohesion. They have faced
crisis before in the form of political polarization, economic hardship and racial tensions,
but the situation now is a combination of every one of the mentioned before amplified by
orders of magnitude by the pandemic.
The power of the MIC, Wall Street and Big Tech along with their MSM minions acting in a
concerted way is the only thing preventing an implosion of the country. Either that or the
notion of "American Exceptionalism" is truly implanted in the hearts and minds of the people,
whether they realize it or not.
The apartheid settler gang is beneath contempt. It blocks supply of vaccines for covid to
the Palestinian people and blockades their trade and freedom of travel and navigation. Like
the USA they have totally filled up with hubris and lost their way in the world.
Biden has surrounded himself with dual allegiance appointees in the critical security
agencies so that he cannot achieve peace or make progress with any of his (foolishly)
perceived enemy nations. He will find it almost impossible to negotiate in any meaningful way
with Iran or China or Russia or Iraq or Syria or pretty much any other nation that is invaded
by his armies or sanctioned by his idiot decisions or threatened by Israel's
belligerence.
The tensions have been incredibly heightened in many nations due to the coronavirus
transmission within their populations and the persistent suspicion that it has a USA origin.
Any USAi pretense of negotiating in good faith in these circumstances is virtually
impossible. All the more so when reactionaries lead both Israel and USA.
Biden is right when he says nothing will change. His ally in the middle east, Israel, has
an arsenal of formidable power sufficient to command an uncomfortable peace in any
circumstance. Yet it has no integrity to clinch a deal with anybody such is the universal
distrust of their intentions. Time and again this illegal settler state has mauled every
neighbor in a most grievous way. Every week they attack Syria with missiles! The aggrieved
neighbors will not forget or forgive the treachery. That is just how it is.
There are no statesmen in the USA or Israel with the nous or capacity to find a way
out.
Few observations on Biden, Iran and the nuclear deal.
I don't know if US will or will not return to implement it's obligations under the UNSC 2231,
nor I know if US Jewish lobby will allow that. But for sure Iran will not renegotiate for new
terms or a new deal on nuclear program secondly under no circumstances Iran will negotiate
(with anyone) her conventional military capabilities or her policies and alliances toward her
allies in the region since these are real matter of national security for Iran. But also
there are signs from Biden that should be considered. Firstly almost all Biden's national
security team are diplomats with experience negotiating with Iran that could be a signal on
policy change, secondly I believe due to strategic failure of maximum pressure to subdue Iran
and more importantly due to US' own strategic necessity to keep China and Russia away from
ME, US and EU will want to decouple or even prevent Iran from a mutual strategic necessity or
alliance with China or and Russia for that reason IMO it might be possible US will adopt a
new posture toward Iran. I also believe Iran's foreign policy in ME is basically based on her
long term interests and security with her regional alliances, multipolarity, and stability in
her region, therefore any proposal by US or EU to agitate this policy will be rejected or not
adopted by Iran.
The apartheid settler gang is beneath contempt. It blocks supply of vaccines for covid to
the Palestinian people and blockades their trade and freedom of travel and navigation. Like
the USA they have totally filled up with hubris and lost their way in the world.
Biden has surrounded himself with dual allegiance appointees in the critical security
agencies so that he cannot achieve peace or make progress with any of his (foolishly)
perceived enemy nations. He will find it almost impossible to negotiate in any meaningful way
with Iran or China or Russia or Iraq or Syria or pretty much any other nation that is invaded
by his armies or sanctioned by his idiot decisions or threatened by Israel's
belligerence.
The tensions have been incredibly heightened in many nations due to the coronavirus
transmission within their populations and the persistent suspicion that it has a USA origin.
Any USAi pretense of negotiating in good faith in these circumstances is virtually
impossible. All the more so when reactionaries lead both Israel and USA.
Biden is right when he says nothing will change. His ally in the middle east, Israel, has
an arsenal of formidable power sufficient to command an uncomfortable peace in any
circumstance. Yet it has no integrity to clinch a deal with anybody such is the universal
distrust of their intentions. Time and again this illegal settler state has mauled every
neighbor in a most grievous way. Every week they attack Syria with missiles! The aggrieved
neighbors will not forget or forgive the treachery. That is just how it is.
There are no statesmen in the USA or Israel with the nous or capacity to find a way
out.
A new JCPOA will obviously have to eliminate all sanctions. But that might not be
enough. Iran might want compensation for the economic damage done, compensation from the UK,
France, and Germany as well as the US. Moreover, Iran will want to keep its now much larger
stockpile of low-enriched uranium. It might want an even larger stockpile, and the right to
enrich to 20%, which it is now doing. A breeder reactor and a plutonium stockpile would be
nice, too.
But there are even other demands that might be made: reduction or removal of
US/NATO/Israeli forces in the Gulf; reduction or elimination of Israeli nuclear
weapons.
That train left the station.
In the past 5 years Iran re-configured it's economy into an autarcic fully industrialized,
food secure, and diversified economy. It now earns more from the sale of manufactures and
foods than from petroleum. It now manufactures AfraMax tankers, general cargo vessels, and
naval vessels. It manufactures cars and trucks, and railroad rolling stock. It built hydro
and irrigation schemes. It launches satellites into orbit.
Iran is now pressing ahead with the Arak heavy water reactor.
Khameni just banned import of NATO vaccines, and ordered the country to be vaccinated with
Iran's own vaccine.
Khameni and the hard liners will not permit Iran to rejoin or to negotiate any agreements
with the "Great Satan". Their line will be the US must show itself to be agreement capable by
rejoining the JCPOA and removing any and all sanctions while paying damages too.
Iran will increase the amount of assistance given the Houthis. Trump's declaration of the
Houthis as terrorists, benefits the resistance by solidifying their adherence to it. The
Houthis must now "go for broke" or surrender. They will not surrender.
The harsh reality is Biden/Harris will be occupied at home suppressing the MAGA crowd.
Since this group is 74 million strong, and mostly white, in a country trying to make them
second class citizens, will be quite a challenge that. The jury is still out on that one.
Then there is the not so small matter of US oil production dropping like a stone from 12
mmBbl/day to 7 by July with further drops in the following 12 months. This coupled with and
likely due to bankruptcies of a large number of producers going forward.
@84:
As sometimes said: don't sweat the small stuff.
This "We are all Taiwanese now" stunt is Pompeo's act of petty spite for getting outfoxed in
the Hong Kong colour revolution play.
Empire's useful idiots were let loose to trash the hapless city, fired up by the Western
propaganda machinery.
Now Beijing is putting the stock on those pompous minions with the National Security Law, and
their foreign masters can't do nuffin' except squeal human rights and apply some nuisance
sanctions.
The West fails because it looks at China through ideological lenses and sees Communists, who
can fall back on 5000 years of statecraft to push back at interlopers.
Beijing's moves can be likened to two classic strategies.
1. Zhuge Liang fools the enemy to fire all their arrows at straw men, which become ammunition
against them.
2. The Empty City strategy. Invaders take over an ostensibly abandoned city, only to be
trapped inside.
Global Times is cantankerous and sometimes risible, but even a broken clock is right, twice a
day.
So when it says that crossing Beijing's red line on the Taiwan issue is not in the island's
best interests, the incoming BiMala administration should take note.
Definitely staged event, whether the protestors knew or didn't. Going forward, I'm
switching to Signal from WhatsApp and viber, have to rethink my use of Gmail as well. Don't
use faceborg or Jill Dorsey's twat. Enough is enough!
It's what I said would happen in the other thread:
Watching the spectacle from a far a couple of things stand out for me.
This event has really put the fear of God into the DC political class. When you see the
photos of the politicians during this event you see real fear. I bet not one of them ever
thought that the people would be so fed up with the DC political class that they would
storm the Capitol to show their frustration. Such behaviour was simply un-American. It was
things you saw on TV happening in far away places. Never would such scenes ever happen in
the good ole' USA.
The second thing that stands out for me is that the American people have reached their
wits end with the political class and are prepared to do what no-one ever thought they
would do. Storm the Capitol! Disorganised as it was. What can they achieve with real
organisation!
So now the people realise they have power in a collective and this power has put the
fear of God in the people they despise. This has truly been a transformative event both for
the political class and both for the people.
You can see this fear in the hysterical way the DC political class has reacted to this
event. I don't think this hysteria is fake. I think it is quite real. They are so desperate
to regain control of the "narrative" that they are flooding this forum (as pointed out
eloquently by William Gruff, and no doubt many other forums) with sock puppets to denounce
anyone who disagrees with the establishment view.
This hysteria is going to lead to an over reaction which will in turn spur these people
not just to lob a Molotov cocktail (politically speaking) at the DC political class but to
become one themselves.
There is nothing so dangerous as a person with nothing to lose and nothing so fearful as
a man with everything to lose.
How it will play out I don't know, but the old normal has been shattered.
That the USA is a single-party with two branches that play "good cop, bad cop" already
is consensus among serious historians, sociologists, political scientists etc. The news
here is that this system won't change with Biden.
The Vandal sack of Rome of 455 CE was a completely different scenario. By that time,
Rome had only symbolic importance to the Empire, and already was at an advanced stage of
economic decay. Indeed, that's the main factor that differentiates the High from the Late
Empire: the end of Italic hegemony, and the economic rise of the Eastern cities (Nicomedia,
Antioch, Constantinople, Nicephorum etc.). Or, on a second thought, is it? Is the USA in
really such advanced stage of economic decline? Only time will tell.
One last observation is that people usually confuse change with revolution. A given
society doesn't need to go through any revolution in order to change itself. On the
contrary: societal change is always happening, as we talk. What makes revolutions special
is the fact that the previously exploited class becomes the dominant class; they turn the
society upside down (hence the name).
But even a society that avoids any revolution will still change and eventually
degenerate and die. Personally, I like prof. Moniz Bandeira's "Mutazione dello Stato",
literally "mutation of the State", which describes a situation where the contradictions of
society (development of the productive forces and the relations of production) continues to
develop without a revolutionary situation or scenario. In this case, the USA is
"mutating".
We've been in this environment since 911. It's been one continual project, not something
new being being imposed. It's a continual tightening of society, including the
Pandemic.
It's all been allowed to happen for an obvious agenda of compliance and control. From
'riots' of BLM/Antifa to the 'insurrection' of Trumpeteers, the point is to narrow accepted
thought - to manufacture consent, which is much easier with an un or misinformed populace.
A social credit system is coming to the west - call it the Karen Revolution.
Democracy is not an option, and never has been. Time to network with slow-mail and smoke
signals, because as an organizing principle beyond sales and marketing, the internet's days
are numbered.
Yes, the only difference is that one side, the deplorables, are speaking truth to power.
The other side is conviently putting its head in the sand right now and begging for more
federal overreach.
I have tried to explain over the past while, that what we are seeing in the US is an
ongoing coup, This is a coup against the US people by the US corporate and financial
oligarchs. Clearly, they are benefiting by not simply enriching themselves at taxpayers
expense, but securing their own criminal amoral behaviour through the supression of human
rights and what is left of the freedom of speech in the US. This is accelaerating
exponentially and has been going on long before Trump came on the scene.
Avoid paying attention to the distractions, and keep your eye on the ball.
Stealing the election. Trying to remove Trump from office, with two weeks to go, and
'erase' him from the internet (and politics and whatelse?). Turning the U.S. into a
de-facto police state. And the rush to do this all very quickly.
This smacks of desperation.
What are their Dems (rather their Deep State and 'Globalist' bosses) afraid of?
I have tried to explain over the past while, that what we are seeing in the US is an
ongoing coup, This is a coup against the US people by the US corporate and financial
oligarchs. Clearly, they are benefiting by not simply enriching themselves at taxpayers
expense, but securing their own criminal amoral behaviour through the supression of human
rights and what is left of the freedom of speech in the US. This is accelaerating
exponentially and has been going on long before Trump came on the scene.
Avoid paying attention to the distractions, and keep your eye on the ball.
Nuland will be nominated for the position of under secretary of state for political affairs,
the US media said on Tuesday with Politico being the first to
drop the scoop. It's the highest-ranking post in the department after the secretary and deputy
secretary. During the Obama administration, Nuland served as assistant secretary of state for
European and Eurasian Affairs, and was a key official in formulating and implementing his
Russia policies. She also served as US envoy to the UN under George W. Bush and advised Vice
President Dick Cheney on foreign policy.
The news that the vocal Russia hawk was returning to the White House was understandably met
with loud cheering by the fans of Pax American on both sides of the Atlantic. Critics were
dismayed and somewhat horrified, considering her record.
Arguably the most publicly known episode of Nuland's Obama tenure came in 2014, when a tape
of her conversation with then-ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked. It happened
shortly after Ukraine's democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in a wave
of street protests culminating in an armed coup, which happened with much encouragement from
Washington.
Nuland and Pyatt were discussing who among the coup leaders should be in the upcoming
Ukrainian government, which indicated that Washington played a much bigger role in the crisis
than it publicly admitted. The infamous " F**k the EU" remark came as Nuland expressed
frustration with European nations, who were reluctant to lend legitimacy to the benefactors of
the events, and said UN officials could be called in to help "glue this thing"
instead.
The EU's skepticism at the time could have been due to the fact that President Yanukovich
was expelled under a threat of violence just hours after Germany and Poland helped seal a power
sharing
agreement between him and the opposition leaders, serving as guarantors of the deal. Her
return as a senior diplomatic official is likely to get on a few people's nerves in Europe,
which is ironic considering how the Biden administration is supposed to rebuild alliances
damaged by the Trump presidency.
While flying private in the world of academia and think tanks during the Trump years, Nuland
maintained her confrontational attitude to anyone challenging US dominance. Her recipe for
dealing with Russia, as outlined
in Foreign Policy magazine last summer, is more sophisticated weapons, permanent NATO bases on
the Russian border (which will require abolishing a key Russia-NATO agreement) and deniable
cyber operations against Moscow.
Nuland also played a
peculiar part in US domestic affairs, possibly having a hand in the promotion of the
notorious Steele dossier. The collection of opposition research and rumors was used by the FBI
to justify surveillance of the Trump campaign and fueled the endless flood of claims that the
incumbent president was somehow a Russian stooge.
An FBI memo released last
year revealed that Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson "and others were talking to Victoria Nuland
at the US State Department" about the file. The firm looked into Donald Trump for the
Hillary Clinton campaign and retained retired British intelligence agent Christopher Steele for
the job.
In multiple interviews, Nuland insisted that her role with the dossier was very limited
because it dealt with domestic politics. "[Steele] passed two to four pages of short points
of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction to that was, 'This is not in our
purview,'" she
told CBS News in 2018, adding that she advised him to go to the FBI. Some skeptics believe
her role in launching the Steele dossier may have been much more significant.
Nuland is one of many Obama-era officials tapped by Biden to serve again with him at the
helm. In addition to her, the latest reported batch includes Wendy Sherman, the former under
secretary of state for political affairs, Jon Finer, who had various roles under Obama, and
Amanda Sloat, ex-deputy assistant secretary for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean
affairs.
Victoria Nuland, wife of neoconservative Robert Kagan, is expected be nominated for under
secretary of state for political affairs
According to a report from
Politico , Joe Biden's transition team is expected to nominate Victoria Nuland to
be the under secretary of state for political affairs for the incoming administration's State
Department.
Nuland, who is married to neoconservative Robert Kagan, is known for her role in
orchestrating the 2014 coup in Ukraine while she was the assistant secretary of state for
Europe and Eurasian affairs in the Obama administration.
A recording of a phone call between Nuland and then-US
Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked and released on YouTube on February 4th,
2014 . In the call, Nuland and Pyatt discussed who should replace the government of former
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced to step down on February 22nd,
2014.
The US-backed coup sparked the war in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region and led to the Russian
annexation of Crimea. Both regions have a majority ethnic-Russian population who rejected the
nationalist, anti-Russian post-coup government that even had
neo-Nazis in its midst .
In a
2020 column for Foreign Affairs titled, "Pinning Down Putin," Nuland said Russian
President Vladimir Putin "seized" on the 2014 coup and other "democratic struggles" to "fuel
the perception at home of Russian interests under siege by external enemies." She also cited
the war in the Donbas and annexation of Crimea as examples of Russian aggression, as most in
Washington do.
Nuland worked in the Bush administration from 2005 to 2008 as the US ambassador to NATO.
From 2011 to 2013, she served as the spokesperson for Barack Obama's State Department, and from
2013 to 2017, Nuland was the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian affairs.
Politico also reported that the Biden administration is tapping Wendy Sherman to
work directly under Secretary of State-designee Anthony Blinken. Sherman worked in the Obama
administration's State Department and played
a crucial role in negotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Why the protégé of Cheney Nuland? Why now? Did Biden completely succumbs to
Alzheimer? Does Biden administration strive to be as dysfunctional, neocon-dominated and
destructive as Obama administration?
Politico reports Tuesday that President-elect Joe Biden is tapping former senior Obama
administration foreign affairs officials to serve in his cabinet.
Most notably among them is neocon Victoria Nuland, who has just been tapped as Biden's state
department undersecretary for political affairs .
Writes Politico :
"Another veteran diplomat, Victoria Nuland, will be nominated for the role of under secretary
of State for political affairs, one of the people said. Nuland also previously served in the
Obama administration, as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs."
Recall that in this capacity she ran point for Obama's regime change "democracy
promotion" efforts in Ukraine . In 2014 leaked audio clip posted to YouTube caused deep
embarrassment for the State Department amid accusations the US was coordinating coup efforts
using the ongoing "Maidan Revolution" to oust then President Viktor Yanukovych.
In that leaked
phone call Nuland told US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt "F*ck the EU" - for which
she was later forced to apologize. Here's some of the audio for a little trip down memory
lane.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2XNN0Yt6D8
She had also been instrumental in her prior postings at the State Department in Obama's
disastrous Libya intervention . After the Obama administration she's been part of various think
tanks, including the hawkish Brookings Institution, where she's been a fierce critic of Trump's
supposed "appeasement" of Putin. She's also argued for deeper military intervention in Syria
.
Politico in its description of the incoming Obama-era officials underscores they are
hawks on
Russia :
Nuland and [Wendy] Sherman, who entered academia and the think tank world after leaving
the Obama administration, have been outspoken critics of President Donald Trump's foreign
policy -- particularly his appeasement of Russian President Vladimir Putin .
On the National Security Council, former State Department official Jon Finer will be named
deputy national security adviser, the people said, reporting up to incoming national security
adviser Jake Sullivan. Finer, a former journalist, joined the Obama White House as a fellow
in 2009 and served in various roles throughout Obama's tenure, including as a foreign policy
speechwriter for Biden and a senior adviser to then-deputy national security adviser Blinken.
Finer had been working in political risk and public policy at the private equity firm Warburg
Pincus, which was co-founded by Blinken's father, since leaving government in 2017.
The key NSC role of senior director for European Affairs will go to Amanda Sloat, a
Brookings Institution fellow ...
As is the unfortunate norm in the Washington beltway, the Liberal hawks under Obama simply
went to who's who of neocon think tanks like Brookings, and have now been called back in
revolving door fashion for pretty much a return to Obama era foreign policy (and its
disasters ).
"Obama Official Ben Rhodes Admits Biden Camp is Already Working With Foreign Leaders:
Exactly What Flynn Did" [ Glenn Greenwald ]. "Any
doubts about how customary it is for such calls to be made by transition officials were
unintentionally obliterated on Monday night by former Obama national security official Ben
Rhodes, who is almost certain to occupy a high-level national security position in a Biden
administration. Speaking on MSNBC -- of course -- Rhodes, while amicably chatting with former
Bush/Cheney Communications Director turned-beloved-by-liberals-MSNBC-host Nicolle Wallace,
admitted in passing that ' foreign leaders are already having phone calls with Joe Biden
talking about the agenda they're going to pursue January 20 ,' all to ensure 'as seamless
a transition as possible,' adding: 'the center of political gravity in this country and the
world is shifting to Joe Biden.'" • Presumably the FBI should be interrogating Rhodes
about his guilty knowledge. Anyhoo, I'm so old I remember when IOKIYAR was current in the
blogosphere: "It's OK If You're A Republican." But now IOKIIOG: "It's OK If It's Our Guy."
>David Sirota – "That was enough to barely defeat Trump.."
I'm getting confused, was Trump officially defeated. If not why are all these folks making
these kinds of statements without any qualifications, none, zip. He could have said "most
likely" or some other qualifier. Am I missing something here? Let the legal process of
contesting the election play out for Pete's sake.
"... The Biden administration, staffed with Obama veterans , may be in effect a third Obama term. Biden may seek a détente with China on some issues. But Democratic foreign policy elites as well as Republicans view China more harshly than they did four years ago. The most likely scenario, then, is an attempt to restore Obama's trilateral strategy of building the biggest possible coalition of allies against China. ..."
"... Democratic foreign policy elites are much more Europhile and Russophobic than their Republican counterparts. ..."
Under Barack Obama, the containment of
China -- the "pivot to Asia" -- took the form of what might be called trilateralism, after
the old Trilateral Commission of the 1970s. According to this strategy, while balancing China
militarily, the United States would create trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic trade blocs with
rules favorable to the United States that China would be forced to beg to join in the future.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was intended as an anti-Chinese, American-dominated Pacific
trade bloc, while the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) sought to create a
NATO for trade from which China would be excluded.
Obama's grand strategy collapsed even before the election of 2016. TTIP died, chiefly
because of hostility from European economic interests. In the United States, the fact that the
TPP treaty was little more than a wish-list of giveaways to U.S. finance and pharma interests
and other special-interest lobbies made it so unpopular that both Hillary Clinton and
Trump
renounced it during the 2016 presidential election season.
Trump, like Obama,
sought to contain China , but by unilateral rather than trilateral measures. The Trump
administration emphasized reshoring strategic supply chains like that of steel in the United
States, unwilling to offshore critical supplies even to allies in Asia and Europe and North
America. This break with prior tradition would have been difficult to pull off even under a
popular president who was a good bureaucratic operator, unlike the
erratic and inconsistent Trump.
The Biden administration,
staffed with Obama veterans , may be in effect a third Obama term. Biden may seek a
détente with China on some issues. But Democratic foreign policy elites as well as
Republicans view China more harshly than they did four years ago. The most likely scenario,
then, is an attempt to restore Obama's trilateral strategy of building the biggest possible
coalition of allies against China.
An emphasis by the Biden administration on alliances may succeed in the case of the
U.S.-Japan-Australia-India "Quad" (Quadrilateral alliance). The UK may support America's East
Asian policy as well. But Germany and France, the dominant powers in Europe, view China as a
vast market, not a threat, so Biden will fail if he seeks to repeat Obama's grand strategy of
trilateral containment of China.
Democratic foreign policy elites are much more Europhile and Russophobic than their
Republican counterparts. In part this is a projection of domestic politics. In the
demonology of the Democratic Party, Putin stands for nationalism, social conservatism, and
everything that elite Democrats despise about the "deplorables" in the United States who live
outside of major metro areas and vote for Republicans. The irrational hostility of America's
Democratic establishment extends beyond Russia to socially-conservative democratic governments
in Poland and Hungary, two countries that Biden has denounced as "totalitarian."
In the Middle East, unlike Eastern Europe, a Biden administration is likely to sacrifice
left-liberal ideology to the project of
maximizing American power and consolidating the U.S. military presence, with the help of
autocracies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Any hint of retrenchment will be denounced by the
bipartisan foreign policy establishment that lined up behind Biden, so do not expect an end to
any of the forever wars under Biden. Quite the contrary.
Michael Lind is Professor of Practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of the University of
Texas at Austin and the author of The American Way of Strategy. His most recent book is The New
Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite.
Leaders in the House of Representatives announced on Friday a rules package for the 117th
Congress that includes a proposal to use " gender -inclusive language" and eliminate gendered
terms such as "'father, mother, son, daughter," and more.
James McGovern (D-Mass.) speaks during a meeting at the Capitol in Washington, on Dec. 21,
2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of
rule XXIII , the House's Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the proposed rules (
pdf
), include "father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew,
niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law,
brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother,
stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, [and] granddaughter."
Such terms would be replaced with "parent, child, sibling, parent's sibling, first cousin,
sibling's child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild,
stepsibling, half-sibling, [and] grandchild."
According to the proposed rules, "seamen" would be replaced with "seafarers," and "Chairman"
would be replaced with "Chair" in Rule X of the House.
... ... ...
The rules package will be introduced and voted on once the new Congress convenes.
bloostar 1 hour ago remove link
What gender was the pig's head? Is it correct to refer to it as a pig?
researchfix 1 hour ago
Well, my father and mother are dead already. So they will never know, that they are not my
father and mother.
Al Gophilia 1 hour ago
These idiots should no longer be honorably idenified with the noun Represtenative.
judgement put 29 minutes ago
Actually, 'repressed-tentative' isn't so bad.
Ms No PREMIUM 1 hour ago
I think it was Lenin that said "The last enemy of Marxism is the family"
Et Tu Brute 1 hour ago (Edited)
When politicians cannot deliver a $2K stimulus that affects 30%+ of the population but
have time to promote laws representing the interest of less than 0.6%* but still affecting
the over 95% who do or will have a family, you know it's not just a matter of ineffective
governance and culture wars, it is deliberate Psychological Warfare, coordinated through
Mainstream Media, aimed at dividing and demoralising the population.
"*******" is an appropriate non-gendered term referring to all the Democrats in
Congress.
St. TwinkleToes 1 hour ago
So now we're supposed to appease 1% of the population who are gender confused freaks by
removing thousands of years of family relationships?
RocketPride PREMIUM 1 hour ago remove link
Democratic Congress continues to endear themselves to true American values. F-ing idiots,
I hope they are all voted out in 2022
sgt_doom 1 hour ago remove link
On Dominion voting machines?????
sgt_doom 2 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Exactly why there should be laws against geriatric dementia-suffering twits who once were
financially connected to Saddam Hussein in congress.
The twitch Pelosi wants to destroy the family unit: Job #1 of the Maoist agenda!
Itinerant 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
Just look at how much they are improving the world, fueling inclusive economic growth
!!!
In France they've already moved to force you to fill in parent1 and parent2 instead of
mother and father.
Medical Experts are now saying that boy/girl should be removed from birth certificates as
clinically irrelevant.
Right, no need to check for descended testicles or abdominal hernia in little boys, or
anything else.
What you circumcise, may as well be your thumb, right?
I just had an operation on my testicle, of course it is clinically irrelevant to find the
right doctor for anything to do with your prostrate or testicles, or any gynecological
issues, for that matter.
We are going insane ... we are already in the lemmings rushing to the cliff stage.
You are talking about the democrat/marxists manifesto and its philosophy which was so
perfectly described by George Orwell and is as follows:
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully
constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be
contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate
morality while laying claim to it ( ) To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in
them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence
of objective reality" - George Orwell
chunga 31 minutes ago
I suspect the primaries are also completely rigged. It's bugging me now that it's really
setting in. The US is a failed state, bankrupt in every imaginable way.
Im4truth4all 24 minutes ago
"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." - George Orwell
"Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own
understanding of their history." - George Orwell
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every
picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has
been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has
stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right." -
George Orwell
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth." - George
Orwell
F ormer acting CIA Director Mike Morell, who has disingenuously argued for years that he had
nothing to do with the agency's torture program, but who continued to defend it, has
taken himself out of the running to be President-elect Joe Biden's new CIA director.
The decision is a victory for the peace group Code Pink, which spearheaded the Stop Morell
movement, and it's a great thing for all Americans. Now, though, we have to turn our attention
to Biden's nominee to be director of national intelligence (DNI), Avril Haines.
Haines is certainly qualified on paper to lead the Intelligence Community. A longtime Biden
aide, she has the president-elect's confidence. But that's not good enough. Haines is exactly
the kind of person who shouldn't be in a position of authority in intelligence. She is
the kind of neoliberal intelligence apologist whom so many of us have opposed for so many
years. Don't just take my word for it, though. Look at
her record .
Haines first began working for Biden when she served as deputy general counsel of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was its chairman. When Biden became vice president in
2009, Haines moved to the State Department, where she was the assistant legal adviser for
treaty affairs. After only a year, she moved to the White House, where she became deputy
assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs,
the National Security Council's chief attorney.
Avril Haines, at center facing, with President Barack Obama at right, and other aides, July
13, 2015. (White House Flickr, Pete Souza)
That's quite a position. What it means was that her job was to legally justify President
Barack Obama's decisions on such intelligence issues as drone strikes and whether to release
the CIA Torture Report. She served there under CIA Director John Brennan. Obama apparently
liked the job she did for him because in 2013, he named Haines deputy director of the CIA
(DD/CIA).
Haines was the first woman to be named DD/CIA, and she served again under Brennan, who
proved time and again that he was no fan of
congressional oversight . Haines's attitude was similar to Brennan's: The CIA was going to
do what it was going to do, and she would make no apologies for it.
Contribute to Consortium
News' Winter Fund Drive
There were three controversial areas where Haines made a name for herself and for which she
should have to answer in a confirmation hearing: The CIA's refusal to release the Senate
Torture Report and the decision to hack into the Senate Intelligence Committee's computer
system; the CIA's decision to not punish those officers who carried out the hack and who killed
and tortured prisoners beyond even what the Justice Department said was permissible; and the
government's drone program, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians were killed.
Drone "pilots" launch an MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle for a raid in the Middle
East. (U.S. military)
Haines' Torture Cover-Up
You may recall that in December 2014, the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee released a
heavily redacted version of the executive summary of the committee's torture report, the
result of years of investigation using primary-source CIA documents. The executive summary was
about 525 pages long, just a fraction of the nearly 6,000-page complete report. And the release
of the 525 pages was the result of protracted negotiations between the committee and the
CIA.
In the end, the public heard a few details of what the CIA's prisoners underwent at secret
prisons around the world. But the full story was never made public. It likely never will be.
And that's thanks to Avril Haines.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2010. (Steve Jurvetson, Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Earlier that year, then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein took to the
Senate floor in a very unusual display and accused CIA Director Brennan of spying on her
committee's staff members. Specifically, Feinstein said that CIA officers had hacked into the
Senate's computers to see what it was that committee investigators were focusing on.
The hacking was unprecedented, and Feinstein referred it to the Justice Department for
prosecution. Attorney General Eric Holder, however, chose not to pursue the case. Brennan took
responsibility for ordering the hacking and he made no apologies for it. But his top aide, his
assistant, his legal adviser through the episode was Avril Haines. She has never explained her
decisions in support of the hack.
Furthermore, it was Haines who
overruled the CIA's inspector general and who decided not to punish those CIA officers who
hacked into the committee's computers, or those CIA officers who had gone over and above what
the Justice Department had authorized in its "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" program,
killing and maiming prisoners.
In the end, not only were no CIA officers punished, but the leaders and most prominent
officers in the torture program were promoted, in some cases into some of the most sought-after
positions in the CIA. I know this to be true. I worked for them.
Haines and Drones
One area in which Haines has not received a great deal of media coverage has been her role
in the drone
program . When Haines was the National Security Council's top lawyer, Brennan was the
keeper of the so-called kill list. It was Haines who took phone calls in the middle of the
night asking her for legal authority -- permission -- to launch missile attacks from drones.
She has never answered for her actions.
Now is the time for Americans to put down their collective foot on Biden's national security
appointees. Morell was utterly inappropriate for a senior position in the Biden national
security apparatus. Haines is, too. She has, very simply, committed crimes against humanity.
I'm under no illusions that Biden is a progressive or that he will differ greatly from previous
Democratic presidents on national security.
But I do believe that wrong is wrong. Avril Haines is exactly the kind of person we
don't want running the Intelligence Community. This is the moment for opponents of her
nomination to lobby senators on the Intelligence Committee. There's still time to defeat
her.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the
Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture
program.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of
Consortium News.
Cadogan Parry , December 30, 2020 at 21:51
The Intercept (26-June-2020) reported Haines' consulting for controversial data-mining
firm Palantir. Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel is also an investor in Carbyne, co-owned by
the late Jeffery Epstein and members of the Israeli political and intelligence establishment.
Ties between Palantir and Carbyne were cemented when it opened a center in Israel in 2013.
Hamutal Meridor, Palantir Israel's current head, served as senior director of Verint, with
deep ties to Unit 8200. Verint was previously implicated in being one of two companies hired
by the NSA to put a backdoor into US telecommunication systems and popular applications,
ensuring it's immediate access.
I urge all who have read this article to watch "Silenced", a James Spione film about John
Kiriakou, Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack -- whistleblowers who paid a very high price for
their honesty and integrity (hXXp://silencedfilm.com). Mr. Kiriakou gave up a lucrative job
and almost two years with his family for sharing the truth. His voice needs to be heard now .
Avril Haines' record of ignoring tremendous human rights violations makes it clear that she
should not hold a position of power in the intelligence community of the upcoming
administration.
Anonymot , December 29, 2020 at 19:31
Mr. Biden is a male clone of Mrs. Clinton who is a mouthpiece for the CIA/MIC/WallSt. She
is still the person who controls the Democrat National Committee (DNC) via Tom Perez and they
control and advise old Joe. Joe is merely the puppet at the end of the inner organization's
strings. They are all yes-men/women in the service of the shadow's mindset.
We will have another Obama puppet show.
After 4 years of the unique societal insanity ward that destroyed a maximum of the little
remaining democracy, including the directorship and key personnel of every Washington bureau,
there is little improvement to expect under the Biden Harris clone team. In the stupid
intelligence area that Trump damaged even more deeply than is publicly known, Brennan and
Clapper are back as Biden advisors.
Once again, the eagles have died, replaced by beagles sniffing out more war, more oil, and
more empire.
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In his address to the IIEA, Professor Mearsheimer discusses the foreign policy agenda of the President Biden administration.
He shares his insights on the likely continuities as well as differences between the Biden administration's policies and the
policies pursued by President Trump over the past four years. About the Speaker: John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell
Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He
graduated from West Point (1970), has a PhD in political science from Cornell University (1981), and has written extensively
about security issues and international politics. Among his six books, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001, 2014) won
the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), made the New York
Times bestseller list. His latest book is The Great Delusion: Liberal Ideals and International Realities (2018), which won the
2019 Best Book of the Year Award from the Valdai Discussion Conference, Moscow. In 2020, he won the James Madison Award, which
is given once every three years by the American Political Science Association to "an American political scientist who has made
a distinguished scholarly contribution to political science." Recorded on the 17th of November 2020
His predictions here are coming true right now. I would also add that the polarization of politics in the US will have
continued unpleasant domestic social ramifications. Do I want to stay and endure it ? Trump did try like hell to back the
US out of long standing losing wars in the middle east. Nobody appreciates this though.
Mearsheimer expects the Dems to give up on the mindless saber-rattling directed at Russia for the last four years. He may be
right, the D's were likely cynically providing "boob bait for the bubbas." Taking a tough line vs China is more unlikely given
that PRC is so closely tied to the Silicon Valley and Wall Street plutocrats who are the real base of the Democrat Party.
Before our national self-inquest on Donald Trump has run its course, we will be prompted
to remember again that the world exists. President-elect Joe Biden's appointments at the
departments of defense, state, and the national security council are likely to include some
combination of Michele Flournoy, Jake Sullivan, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and others of the
globalization group around Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. These people believe in
the rightness of a world with the United States at its center, deploying commercial strength,
trade agreements, diplomatic suasion, and military alliances in a judicious synthesis. Armed
intervention, preferably multilateral, is held in reserve. They take on trust the global
politics of neoliberalism. For them, the Trump presidency, though unanticipated, was merely a
disagreeable hiatus. They have never stopped planning for their return.
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They did not study the catastrophe of Vietnam, and they have not learned from it. As
Gareth Porter showed in Perils of Dominance , that war, whose atrocities the world
remembers more vividly than Americans do, was protracted not from morbid credulity regarding
the domino theory but rather a primitive fear of losing face. It was carried forward through
presidencies in both parties with a maximum of deception. The War in Afghanistan has
similarly extended over three presidencies; and yet, to the neoliberal establishment,
Afghanistan in 2020 is a good deal like Vietnam in 1971. It must not be "abandoned." A recent
New York Times story praised some generals for "tempering" the rashness of Donald
Trump's attempt to withdraw once and for all.
For reasons of personality that hardly bear looking into, Trump in foreign policy
represented a break from the militarized globalism the United States had adopted with the
fall of the Soviet Union and the coming of a unipolar world. The laboratory for this approach
was the Yugoslavia intervention commandeered by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The madness
under the idealism was revealed in the bombing, invasion, and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
That seems a long generation ago, to the short memory of Americans. Even more thoroughly
forgotten has been the Libya War -- President Obama's disastrous bid to show support for the
Arab Spring -- with all the destruction it wrought: the civil war that followed, the swollen
mass migrations from North Africa to South Europe, the opening of slave markets in Libya
itself. After Libya came Syria, in which the United States supported an Al Qaeda offshoot in
another humanitarian cause. After Syria came the Obama-Trump support for the Saudi
obliteration of Yemen.
The United States has long faced the peculiar choice -- messianic on both sides -- of
serving the world as an exemplary nation or as an evangelical one. The former image was best
drawn by Abraham Lincoln when he said that the proposition "all men are created equal" was
meant as "a standard maxim for free society," which would be "constantly approximated" in the
United States itself, "constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the
happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere." By contrast, the
evangelical image was epitomized by John Kennedy's eloquent and dangerous inaugural address:
"we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any
foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." Lincoln's standard
maxim meant the force of our example. Kennedy's bear any burden meant the force
of our weapons.
A new Cold War with Russia was dragged onto center stage in 2013–2014. The process
began at the Sochi Olympics and was locked in by the American reaction to the Russian
reaction to the coup in Ukraine. The neoliberal elite is deciding, at this moment, whether to
prefer Russia or China as the number-one U.S. enemy on the horizon. But must we have one?
"Faith in a fact can help create the fact," said William James. A named expectation of
trouble creates the conditions for that trouble. And yet, informed citizens today in the
United States, in China, and in Russia all know that such a return to the inveterate habits
of the old Great Powers would be supremely irresponsible. Our most dire confrontation now is
with the natural world, which, in the form of climate change, is taking its revenge on
humanity for a century of abuse.
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If the fires and floods of the last many years, in Australia and California, in Prague and
Houston, have nothing to say to you, it is not clear what planet you are fit to live on. The
best thing the policy elite could do, for the United States and the world, would be to put
themselves out of business. Begin a series of international agreements to cooperate in
slowing the progress of climate change, and in anticipating and defending against the worst
of its effects. Practically speaking, as a matter of course, this will require a new ethic of
international cooperation. Not war, not even an enhanced trade war, and not with China and
Russia most of all.
David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. He is the author
of American Breakdown:
@Supply and Demand
'progressive' MeToo had disappeared. The MeToo activists love Bill Clinton and his various
acquaintances, such as the badly aged idiots of Russian Pussy Riot and the Maxwells family.
This is so progressive! See also the "progressive" Google/FaceBook/YouTube blanket censorship
over anything that can be qualified as 'antisemitic' by the ADL (created in memory of a
rapist and murderer Leo Frank). The 'progressives' have been taken for a ride by zionists.
The 'deplorables,' unlike Clintons, have a sense of dignity. As for the half-wit
'progressives,' they will undoubtedly have their chance to learn more about their most
important tutors, the Trotskyists.
The ascendancy of neoliberal forces to the executive branch of the U.S. state represents a
development that potentially will be even a more dangerous period of aggression from the U.S.
white supremacist settler state and its white supremacist colonial European allies.
Why is this so? The primary agenda of the right-wing neoliberal forces represented by the
Biden Administration is to reassert U.S. global leadership by reconsolidating a common
U.S.-European capitalist program of domination that was disrupted with the "America first"
positions of the Trump Administration.
The Biden Administration is animated by the belief that the objective logic of overall
Western hegemony is tied to finding a way for more effective collaboration around a common
imperialist agenda. This belief is shared by Angela Merkel of Germany, and despite some
contrary public declarations from French President Macron on issue of European independence,
Macron sees an effective Western alliance as critical, even if it is under U.S. leadership
once again.
The racialist character if these appeals are obvious to those of us who operate from a
critical anti-colonialist frame that centers race and violence as the essential elements of
the rise of the Pan-European white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchal project. The
commitment to continued white colonial/capitalist global hegemonic dominance is clear.
Biden's objective to revive a U.S. hegemonic role over the Western project of collective
domination must be seen as a race project.
Trump's plan from the beginning of his administration was to complete the Obama pivot to
Asia, but those efforts were undermined by the domestic political obstacles he faced in just
trying to gain full control of the Executive Branch. And while Trump was eventually
successful in winning over elements of the U.S. and European ruling classes to a more
aggressive stance against China, his short-sighted, erratic "America first" policies and his
inability to consolidate effective power over the U.S. state were a destabilizing force for
the continued hegemony of the Western colonial/capitalist project.
The U.S.-EU unity project with its NATO military wing in the service of collective
imperialism and under U.S. leadership is the neoliberal corrective strategy to
Trump.
Biden's Intersectional Imperialism is Exposed
Obama represented the last stage of what Gramsci called a passive revolution where
oppressive state mitigates the influence of antagonistic groups through "gradual but
continuous absorption."
The U.S.-EU race and class project of unity adopted by the Biden Administration will face
serious political and economic challenges. The clumsy attempt to utilize Obama's soft power
ideological mystifications in the present circumstances of capitalist crisis together with a
deep legitimation crisis will result in abject failure by the Biden administration on both
the global and domestic levels.
First among the challenges facing the incoming administration is the competing economic
interests among Western capitalists. The abrogation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPA) with Iran by the Trump Administration and the reimposition of sanctions that required
economic disengagement from Iran by many European firms, was a major fissure in the Atlanta
alliance.
The lost revenues by European firms as a result of economic disengagement with Iran and
the efforts to undermine the Russian NORD stream two pipeline that alienated significant
elements of German capital are just two of the issues that will weigh on the trust factor in
U.S. political leadership going forward.
Moreover, there are two interrelated contradictions of this unity strategy that the
Northern neoliberal capitalist class must confront but will be unable to resolve: first, the
impact of the capitalist crisis exacerbated by COVID that has unleashed forces disruptive to
the capitalist order from both the left and the right. And secondly, the attempt by the left
and social democratic movements and nations to develop, however tentatively, from the
obviously failed neoliberal capitalist model.
The U.S.-EU Unity Process Requires a Countervailing Peoples Unity Process
The strategic challenge for the left in Northern countries is countering these efforts
with a coherent anti-capitalist, internationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist
and pro-socialist popular movements and structures.
But in the U.S. and Europe, that is easier said than done. Along with the ideological and
organizational fragmentation of the left, one of the main issues that undermines the ability
for the left to cohere in the U.S. and Europe is the cultural and ideological influences of
white supremacist ideology.
The inability to reject the fiction of a "Europe" and its civilizational superiority has
thoroughly corrupted the worldviews and politics of Western leftism. In the face of the
U.S/EU/NATO attacks and subversion on Syria, Libya to Venezuela and Bolivia, instead of
anti-imperialist solidarity, the left engaged in torturous abstract "discussions" around the
merits and mistakes made by these various Southern nations, not recognizing the arrogant
white supremacist positionality of that approach.
Anti-imperialist marginalization is reflective of the shift in the consciousness not only
of the public in various Western nations but of the putative left as well. Even among Black
liberationist forces in the U.S., who have traditionally had internationalism and
anti-imperialism at the center of their worldviews and politics, a strange U.S.-centrism has
emerged. This tendency along with an ironic embryonic racial chauvinism that elevates a
distinctive "African American" construction of so-called global anti-blackness as an
intractable ontological phenomenon, has created serious ideological and political challenges
for anti-imperialist coalitional work.
Yet, those challenges must be met by African/Black left and left forces in general. It is
impossible for forces in the U.S. and Europe to avoid their unique responsibilities situated
at the center of the colonial empires, to the peoples of the world who have the knee of
collective imperialism on their necks.
Bringing this discussion closer to the territory referred to as the United States,
anti-imperialism, and the struggle against U.S. chauvinism among the left must be taken up as
an area of struggle. For African/Black revolutionaries, and indeed for the working and
laboring classes, our gaze must extend beyond our local and national realities. Not because
those realities are unimportant but because we are unable to understand local realities
without understanding the full constellation of class, race and material forces that shape
those structural realities nationally and locally.
Mobilizing our forces to confront and defeat the Pan-European project is not a call to
abstractionism. The organizational challenge is to answer the question of how does local
work, that is, building a real, concrete internationalism, look.
It is not enough to position ourselves in solidarity with the victims of U.S. imperialism.
The base-building work that we engage in must reflect that mutual connection with the
colonized.
That is why the Black internationalist stance is not some exotic addition to radical
organizing but must be seen as fundamental to our movement building work. Understanding that
we are immersed in a system of exploitation and oppression that is global, even though it has
local manifestations, is critical for us to effectively address that perennial task of
determining "what must be done" to advance our forces.
Confronting that question of what is to be done has become even more crucial today amid
the irreversible decline of the capitalist order. And while we commit to building a mass
movement of the exploited and oppressed, we must take account of some troubling developments
over the last four years.
The unveiling of the left patriots who were concerned with "our democracy" and who
enthusiastically propagated the talking points of neoliberalism while remaining silent on
U.S. imperialism, and entered the intra-bourgeois class struggle as junior partners to
neoliberal right, revealed once again that if the left is not prepared to defeat whiteness
and the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, it will join as the tail to the neoliberal right in
the cross-class white supremacist fascist project led by neoliberals.
Our survival demands that we remain "woke" to that possibility and plan accordingly.
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016
candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing
columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch
magazine.
The announcement drew praise from many professional climate activists and groups, perhaps
assuming that Kerry was taking his lead from Bernie Sanders, who has for years been saying
the same thing. Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash said his
statement was an "encouraging move," while 350.org's Bill McKibben, predicted Kerry would
be an excellent climate czar. Yet, as media critic Adam Johnson argued, Kerry's
proclamation should deeply concern progressive activists and will likely lead to expanding
the already bloated military budget.
Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank, the American Security Project
(ASP), whose board is a who's who of retired generals, admirals and senators. The ASP also
hailed the appointment of their man, explaining, in a little-read report, exactly what
treating the climate as a national security threat entails. And it is nothing like what
Sanders advocates.
For the ASP, climate change constitutes an "accelerant of instability" and a "threat
multiplier" that will "affect the operating environment," and notes that Kerry will have
three priorities in his role as President Biden's right-hand man. What were those three
priorities? Making sure people in the Global South could eat and have access to safe
drinking water? Reparations? Disaster relief or response teams? Cutting back on fossil fuel
use? Indeed not. For the ASP, the primary objectives were:
A huge rebuilding of the United States' military bases,
Countering China in the Pacific,
Preparing for a war with Russia in the newly-melted Arctic.
"... Last but not least, Exhibit D is the assertion that the "Democratic National Committee's computers were raided by Russian military intelligence to disrupt the 2016 election." That is another assertion, based on allegations listed in indictments by special counsel Robert Mueller. As a federal judge helpfully reminded Mueller in another 'Russiagate' case, which the government later dropped, allegations made in indictments aren't statements of fact. ..."
"... If the phrase "consistent with" jumps out at you here, that's no accident. Notice there is no actual evidence offered for any of these claims, only an insinuation that these alleged attacks would be "consistent" with what the US spies, anonymous sources and mainstream media think might be Russian objectives. That's exactly the claim made by the infamous January 2017 "intelligence community assessment," which the media falsely attributed to "17 intelligence agencies" instead of a hand-picked team involved in spying on the Trump campaign at the time. ..."
"... Now, the Post editors may be privileged people, living comfortably off of Jeff Bezos's Amazon fortune even as their country collapses under pandemic lockdowns. However, it would be a mistake to write off this editorial as a mere product of their vivid and feverish imaginations. After four years of Russiagate hysteria that even the Trump administration has internalized, this kind of rhetoric is actually dangerous . ..."
Democrat Joe Biden, anointed by the US mainstream media and Silicon Valley as the next
president, "must call out Putin's secret war against the United States" when he assumes
office, the Post's editorial board argued this week.
But this "secret war" exists only in their feverish imagination. Each and every one
of the things they list as examples of it consists of assertions based on insinuation at best,
or has otherwise been debunked as outright fake news.
Exhibit A is the "mysterious attacks" that supposedly "targeted" US diplomats
and spies in Cuba, China, Australia and Taiwan. This 'Havana Syndrome' was blamed on Russia last
week in a coordinated media campaign, but the "scientific" paper it was based on
carefully avoids actual attribution, saying only that the vague symptoms were
"consistent" with a posited microwave weapon.
This is an evolution of the original story, which claimed that Russia had used "sonic
weapons," not microwave ones. Even the New York Times later admitted
that the headaches, sleep deprivation and other problems were more likely caused by the loud
chirping of Cuban crickets.
Exhibit B is another doozy, the infamous "Russian bounties" story. The New York Times
claimed in June that
some money captured from local mobsters in Afghanistan was somehow proof that Russia was paying
the Taliban to kill US soldiers – again, not on the basis of actual evidence, but on
conjecture that this was "consistent" with what the CIA and US military said were
Russian objectives.
Thing is, neither the US
intelligence community nor the Pentagon were
ever able to confirm the story, having investigated it for months. It just so happened that it
was brought up just as the DC establishment sought to torpedo President Donald Trump's plan to
pull out of Afghanistan and end the 20-year war that has long since forgotten its
purpose.
Exhibit C is the "looting of valuable hacking tools" from the cybersecurity firm
FireEye, announced earlier this
week. FireEye itself never named the culprit, with its CEO Kevin Mandia only saying it was
"consistent with a nation-state cyber-espionage effort."
That didn't stop the Post from claiming that "spies with Russia's foreign intelligence
service" are "believed" to have hacked FireEye, citing "people familiar with the
matter." Well there you go, anonymous and unverifiable sources asserted it, therefore it
must be true!
Last but not least, Exhibit D is the assertion that the "Democratic National Committee's
computers were raided by Russian military intelligence to disrupt the 2016 election." That
is another assertion, based on allegations listed in indictments by special counsel Robert
Mueller. As a federal judge helpfully reminded Mueller in another 'Russiagate' case, which the
government later dropped, allegations made in indictments aren't statements of
fact.Another nail
in Russiagate coffin? Federal judge destroys key Mueller report claim
If the phrase "consistent with" jumps out at you here, that's no accident. Notice
there is no actual evidence offered for any of these claims, only an insinuation that these
alleged attacks would be "consistent" with what the US spies, anonymous sources and
mainstream media think might be Russian objectives. That's exactly the claim
made by the infamous January 2017
"intelligence community assessment," which the media falsely attributed to "17
intelligence agencies" instead of a hand-picked team involved in spying on the Trump campaign at the
time.
Keep in mind that these are the same spies and media that never saw the demise of the Soviet
Union coming, and have been predicting Russia's impending collapse any day now – for the
past 20 years. So much for their actual knowledge of Russian goals or thinking.
Speaking of 'Russiagate,' the Post has been on the leading edge of that conspiracy theory
from the start. It won Pulitzers for pushing it on the
American public. It also played a key role in smearing Trump's first national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn, so he would be fired – and later cheered his railroading by Mueller.
At least they're consistent , so to speak.
Now, the Post editors may be privileged people, living comfortably off of Jeff Bezos's
Amazon fortune even as their country collapses under pandemic lockdowns. However, it would be a
mistake to write off this editorial as a mere product of their vivid and feverish imaginations.
After four years of Russiagate hysteria that even the Trump administration has internalized,
this kind of rhetoric is actually dangerous
.
That's because the Post is literally in bed with what Trump called the Washington
"swamp," the entrenched US political establishment. What they print is what that
establishment thinks and wants Americans to believe. With Joe Biden in the White House, the
objectives of that establishment and the official US government would be, to use their own
phrase, consistent .
Which is why the Post's "secret war" fantasy is, shall we say, highly likely
to become an actual shooting war with Moscow. As the US and Russia have enough nuclear weapons
between themselves to destroy the world several times over, that can't possibly be good for
Amazon's bottom line. Someone ought to tell Bezos.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for
Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
or Donald Trump, truth is a matter of convenience, with facts entirely optional and plenty
of space allowed for make-believe. Yet in American public life, our current president is far
from being the sole purveyor of fictions and falsehoods. The very institutions that citizens
count on to distinguish between fact and fable engage in their own forms of mythmaking. While
they may steer clear of telling outright lies, they dispense no small amount of drivel,
concealing actual truth behind a veil of illusion.
Allow me to offer an illustrative example in the form of a recent column by the
Washington Post's David Von Drehle, a seasoned journalist now installed in that paper's
stable of political commentators and called upon twice weekly to reflect on the fate of
humankind.
The title of Von Drehle's essay poses a question: "Joe Biden says America is back. Back to
what?" Von Drehle then proceeds to spell out his own answer to that what. Yet in doing
so, he packages his views in a specific historical context. It's that context that is
instructive.
Let us acknowledge that the Biden team is no more likely to take its cues from some
garden-variety pundit than from members of the outgoing administration. Van Drehle's policy
recommendations -- that Biden should "end the mollycoddling" of Saudi Arabia, insist that China
"play by the rules," and knit "the Americas into a hemisphere of happiness" -- carry about as
much weight with the incoming administration as do Mike Pompeo's opinions, i.e. next to none
whatsoever.
Yet this is not to say that Von Drehle's column is just so much hot air. From his perch at
the Post, he is a small, but not inconsequential player in a grand project to which
members of the foreign policy establishment swear fealty. The aim of that project is to salvage
and rejuvenate claims of American Exceptionalism that Donald Trump mangled and trashed nearly
beyond recognition.
The establishment's preferred version of exceptionalism emphasizes not America as exemplar
-- that's for sissies -- but America as the instrument chosen by God or Providence to direct
history itself. Pumping new life into this hoary old notion requires persuading Americans today
that before Trump screwed things up, the United States had history well in hand, with the world
taking its cues from Washington.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.426.0_en.html#goog_738456037 Ad ends in
15s
Von Drehle purports to believe that such a world actually existed. Furthermore, he believes
that a sufficiently savvy U.S. president can restore that world -- all that's required is
assertive American leadership. Nor is he alone in entertaining the prospect of going "back" to
that triumphal time, before Trump appeared on the scene and messed everything up. Indeed, take
Biden's rhetoric at face value and our next president may well share in this fantasy.
So of considerably greater significance than Von Drehle's policy prescriptions is the
historical wrapping in which they arrive. It's history with a specific and carefully selected
time horizon. For Von Drehle (and probably for Biden), the history that matters begins with the
end of World War II, a moment that ostensibly inaugurated "seven decades of bipartisan [foreign
policy] consensus." Providing a foundation for that consensus was a "win-win view of America's
role in the world." Generations of postwar leaders, according to Von Drehle, understood that
"the long-term interests of Americans were best served by the gradual expansion of peace and
prosperity worldwide." The result was "an expansive, internationalist approach" to basic
policy. This, in sum, is the past that Von Drehle is selling as a roadmap to a happy
future.
Now such assertions may not qualify as bald-faced lies in a Trumpian sense, but taken
together they amount to a fairy tale. The postwar bipartisan consensus was never more than
partial and tentative at best. When put to the test -- with Vietnam as the most vivid example
-- it gave way. Nor did the Cold War and the accompanying nuclear arms race reflect a win-win
view of America's role in the world. The Cold War was a zero-sum game, pitting us against them
-- "better dead than Red," remember?
As for the United States promoting the gradual expansion of peace and prosperity worldwide,
that claim is difficult to square with Washington's marriages of convenience with sundry
dictators, involvement in numerous coups and assassination plots, and the U.S. penchant for
killing people in faraway places, unmatched by any other nation on the planet. Since 9/11 in
particular, war and disorder rather than peace and prosperity have been America's principal
exports. All of this predated Trump.
Von Drehle is eager for the United States to resume "its rightful place in the world order"
as "the friend of freedom and the scourge of tyrants." Forget just for a second that the United
States befriended a long list of tyrants: Batista, Somoza, Marcos, Noriega, the Shah of Iran,
Mubarak of Egypt, and, until 1990, Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Of greater relevance to the present
moment is this question: who or what assigns nations their rightful place in the world order?
This is not a matter upon which columnists in the employ of the Washington Post are
inclined to reflect, preferring to assume that history's decision is irreversible: we are
Numero Uno. Period. Full stop. Been that way forever.
Yet this is a form of madness, as utterly detached from reality as Trump's insistence that
he won Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Von Drehle is peddling tripe. He pays no price for doing so. In some respects, doing so
defines the essence of his job. In a couple of days, he will produce another column, further
embellishing the nation's achievements as friend of freedom and scourge of tyrants, as will his
various counterparts at the Post, the Times, the Wall Street Journal , and
other prestige outlets.
They will collaborate in minimizing the moral ambiguity that permeates America's past. They
will shrug off crimes or lock them away in a box labeled "Sorry. Didn't Mean To." They will
inhibit learning and bury truth.
And they will get away with it.
Andrew Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and TAC's
writer-at-large.
I'm not sure that "they" can continue to "get away with it." The US financial situation
is not good. The US government is dysfunctional, and US society as a whole, the combination
of capital and people, is no longer particularly competitive. No matter what Biden, et al,
think they are going to do with respect to leading the world, it's not clear that the world
will pay any attention, or that the the US can even afford it.
It's a tragic, in the classic sense, situation, as almost everything that has weakened the
US empire has been self inflicted.
All true. To see a better reflection of America, maybe one should read Serghei Lavrov's
interviews and press conferences:
https://thesaker.is/foreign...
or see how the Chinese are trolling Australia in the aftermath of the scandal of the
Aussie special forces killing (with intent) scores of civilians (probably far less than the
US troops) in Afghanistan - just as a fast track on how Americans are regarded outside
their border...
While Mr. Von Drehle sees and praises Dorian Gray, the world at large watches with
fascination another patch of horror coming up on his portrait...
I totally agree with Bacevich. There is really nothing that generates global more
resentment than this kind of American hubris, American arrogance:
The establishment's preferred version of exceptionalism emphasizes not America as
exemplar -- that's for sissies -- but America as the instrument chosen by God or Providence
to direct history itself.
"Yet this is a form of madness, as utterly detached from reality as Trump's insistence
that he won Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Von Drehle is peddling tripe. He pays no price for doing so. In some respects, doing so
defines the essence of his job. In a couple of days, he will produce another column..."
As will Andrew J. And you can be sure Bacevich will use any topic at hand to slip in as
many backhands against President Trump as he can muster. Once a RINO, always a RINO. But
despite all the snide slurs against the President here & elsewhere, Bacevich's
preferred candidate, stately Joe Biden may soon dignify the Oval Office (maybe); & then
Andrew can spend the next four years defending him, just like Von Drehle.
America HAS NO memory, particularly regarding the heinous aspects of its past. Who
remembers the Indian removals, Chinese and Japanese exclusion acts, or the Philippine
insurrection?
As success and comfort displace esteem and integrity and corruption turns pervasive the
virtuous order of society is overturned: independent, principled, talented spirits are
typically encountered only well away of the mainstreams of media while middling
obsequiousness and venality rise above their betters in pubic view.
Tripe, deception and corrupton are what one can expect from corporate governance no
matter which wing s dominant. We haven't seen the
worst of it yet, though we are getting there faster than we thought.
I agree w/Bacevich. I love how R's and D's pretend they are different.
'The America First policy is gone' scream the Laura Ingraham's as she (and the other
Republican Hawks) lament a possible decrease in hostility with China and Iran. The
Democrats pronounce, 'America is back, now we are really going to get tough with Russia and
do regime change in Venezuela right!'
Here is the new boss, same as the new boss. We will continue to waste our treasure and
energy harming other countries and neglect ourselves until we are spent.
Editor's note : US President-elect Joe Biden nominated Neera Tanden, a close ally of
Hillary Clinton and president of neoliberal DC think tank the Center for American Progress, on
November 29 to serve as director of his administration's Office of Management and Budget.
Tanden is notorious on Twitter for her aggressive attacks on the left.
In response to the nomination, The Grayzone is reprinting this
June 20, 2016 report by Ben Norton.
"Unless we take the oil from Libya, I have no interest in Libya," Donald Trump declared in
an April 2011 interview on CNN's "Newsroom."
The U.S. government was considering military intervention in the oil-rich North African
nation at the time. Trump said he would only participate if Washington exploited Libya's
natural resources in return.
"Libya is only good as far I'm concerned for one thing -- this country takes the oil. If
we're not taking the oil, no interest," he added.
NATO claimed its U.S.-backed bombing campaign was meant to protect Libyans who were
protesting the regime of longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi. Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, used NATO's own materials to show that this was false.
"In truth, the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start," Zenko
wrote in an exposé in Foreign Policy in March.
Trump was not the only figure to propose taking Libya's oil in return for bombing it,
however. Neera Tanden, the president of the pro-Clinton think tank the Center for American
Progress, proposed this same policy a few months after Trump.
"We have a giant deficit. They have a lot of oil," Tanden wrote in an October 2011
email
titled "Should Libya pay us back?"
"Most Americans would choose not to engage in the world because of that deficit. If we want
to continue to engage in the world, gestures like having oil rich countries partially pay us
back doesn't seem crazy to me," she added in the message, which was obtained and first
published by The Intercept .
Liberal hawkishness
Tanden is a close ally of Hillary Clinton, and is frequently named as a likely
chief-of-staff in a Hillary Clinton White House. The Center for American Progress, which Tanden
leads, was founded by John Podesta, a key figure in the Clinton machine.
Podesta is the chairman of
Hillary's 2016 presidential campaign, and he previously served as chief of staff under
President Bill Clinton. With his brother Tony, John also co-founded the Podesta Group, a public
affairs firm that has
lobbied for Saudi Arabia , among other countries.
Tanden has expressed hawkish views, although in a statement to Salon she strongly opposed
being described as hawkish. The New York Times has described Hillary Clinton as
more hawkish than her Republican rivals , although it still endorsed her for president.
The Center for American Progress president
invited hard-line right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in
Washington, D.C. in November, after he had spent months aggressively trying to jeopardize the
Iran nuclear deal.
Tanden does not comment on international affairs much, but her tweets provide some insight
into her hawkish views, which do not reflect the official policy of the Center for American
Progress.
In September 2013, when the Obama administration was preparing to bomb Syria, she tweeted support,
writing, "On Syria, while I don't want to be the world's policeman, an unpoliced world is
dangerous. The US may be the only adult in the room left."
Just over a week later, the administration
backed off of its plans, in response to enormous backlash -- and in fear that it would end
up with another Libya on its hands.
During the lead-up to the war in Libya, Tanden expressed support for military intervention.
She suggested that Americans should
be "chanting" for Qadhafi's ouster.
Days after the NATO operation was launched, she wrote , "To liberal friends
worried re Libya, is there better reason 4 use of US power than 2 protect innocent civilians
from slaughter by a madman?"
Like many liberal figures who supported the NATO bombing of Libya, she
stopped talking about the country between 2011 and 2014, while it was roiled by violent
chaos and extremism.
These tweets came before the October email in which Tanden suggested taking Libya's oil in
return for bombing it. Trump made the same proposal several months before, in April.
After this article was published, Tanden stressed in a statement to Salon that her views do
not reflect those of the Center for American Progress, which did not take a position on
Libya.
She claimed being labeled "a hawk is a ridiculous caricature," adding, "I opposed the Iraq
war from the beginning." Tanden noted that the Center for American Progress "was among the
first think tanks to lay out concrete plans for ending the war in Iraq." She also said that she
does not support putting U.S. troops in Syria.
"CAP is a think tank," Tanden stressed, referring to the organization by its acronym. "We
have internal discussions and dialogues all the time on a variety of issues. We encourage the
deliberation of ideas to spur conversation, push thinking and spark debate. We do this in
meetings, on phone calls and yes, over e-mail. One internal e-mail exchange among colleagues --
which was leaked to another organization -- or a few tweets does not constitute a published,
official policy position."
Salon never once stated that Tanden's views reflect the Center for American Progress'
official policy, but Tanden accused Salon of implying this.
Leftist critics have long lambasted the Democratic Party's militaristic foreign policy,
arguing it is not much different than the GOP's. This exploitative idea proposed by both Trump
and Tanden lends further credence to the argument that, when it comes to the U.S. empire, the
Democratic and Republican parties are much more similar than their adherents make them out to
be.
A strange mix
At the time of his April 2011 CNN interview, Trump was considering running as a Republican
in the 2012 election. His nationalistic rhetoric then was very consistent to that of today.
Trump lamented that the U.S. was "just not respected" and had become "a laughing stock
throughout the world." He hoped that he could reverse this supposed trend, just as he now
promises to "make America great again."
Trump's proposal on Libya was consistent with his views on Iraq. He
declared at the American Conservative Union's 40th Conservative Political Action
Conference, in 2013, that the U.S. should "take" $1.5 trillion worth of Iraq's oil to pay for
the illegal war.
In his presidential campaign today, Trump has made similar proposals. His foreign policy is
a strange mix of skeptical non-interventionism and hawkishness.
In the 2011 CNN interview, Trump expressed skepticism about the rebels in Libya. "They make
the rebels sound like they're from 'Gone With the Wind,' very glamorous," Trump said. "I hear
they're controlled by Iran. I hear they're controlled by al-Qaeda."
The rebels had very little to do with Iran. Iran did express support for the opposition to
Qadhafi's dictatorship, but it
staunchly opposed Western military intervention, which it warned was hypocritical,
neocolonial in nature and motivated by Libya's large oil reserves.
By no means were all of the rebels extremists, but there were al-Qaeda-linked elements in
the opposition to Qadhafi. Human rights groups documented atrocities committed by extremist
rebels, including
ethnic cleansing of black Libyans .
After the NATO war toppled Qadhafi, the country was thrown into chaos. Rivaled forces,
including extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia and eventually ISIS, seized control of
swaths of the country, and weapons from Qadhafi's enormous cache ended up in the hands of
extremist groups throughout the region. To this day, large parts of Libya are not under the
control of the internationally recognized government.
Disastrous Libya war
Hillary Clinton played the
leading role in rallying up U.S. support for the NATO war. Reports have since shown that
the Pentagon was skeptical of U.S. involvement at the time, but, under the leadership of
Secretary of State Clinton, the Obama administration portrayed it as a humanitarian
mission.
President Obama insisted at the beginning of the intervention, "Broadening our military
mission to include regime change would be a mistake." The State Department likewise said
"President Obama has been equally firm that our military operation has a narrowly defined
mission that does not include regime change."
Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates later told The New York Times, "I can't recall any
specific decision that said, 'Well, let's just take him out,'" referring to Qadhafi.
Micah Zenko, the Council on Foreign Relations scholar, showed this to be false. "This is
scarcely believable," Zenko rejoined in his detailed report
. "Given that decapitation strikes against Qaddafi were employed early and often, there almost
certainly was a decision by the civilian heads of government of the NATO coalition to 'take him
out' from the very beginning of the intervention."
"The threat posed by the Libyan regime's military and paramilitary forces to
civilian-populated areas was diminished by NATO airstrikes and rebel ground movements within
the first 10 days," he explained. "Afterward, NATO began providing direct close-air support for
advancing rebel forces by attacking government troops that were actually in retreat and had
abandoned their vehicles." The military intervention continued for more than seven months.
Rebel forces went on to brutally murder Qadhafi, sodomizing him with a bayonet. When
then-Sec. Clinton heard that he had been killed, she rejoiced in front
of TV cameras, joking, "We came, we saw, he died!"
In April, Obama singled out U.S. support for the NATO war in Libya as the worst decision of his
presidency.
Zenko warned that the "intervention in Libya shows that the slippery slope of allegedly
limited interventions is most steep when there's a significant gap between what policymakers
say their objectives are and the orders they issue for the battlefield."
"Unfortunately, duplicity of this sort is a common practice in the U.S. military," he
added.
Interestingly, Trump himself cautioned in an interview on Fox News' "Fox
& Friends" in March 2011 that U.S. intervention in Syria would be a "slippery slope."
"It is a slippery slope and more and more, you realize that we're over there fighting wars
to open up these governments and they would have opened up themselves," Trump said, expressing
skepticism about U.S. military involvement very early on in the war.
Clinton called for the exact opposite in Syria. She would go on to oppose diplomacy and
insist the U.S. should support the "hard men with the guns."
DNC hack
Trump's unusual mix of anti-interventionist and exploitative foreign policy views are
highlighted in the Democratic National Committee's alleged opposition research.
A hacker broke into the computer network of the DNC and leaked its opposition research on
Trump. A 210-page
document that appears to be this report highlights Trump's past remarks on Libya, Syria,
Iraq and more.
Also revealed in the report is that Trump bragged that he "screwed" Muammar Qadhafi with an
unfair business deal.
U.S. media outlets immediately blamed the DNC hack on the Russian government. Soon after,
however, they quietly backed away from the hasty conclusions they made based on what
progressive media watchdog Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting pointed out
was incredibly flimsy evidence.
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The
Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor
Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton .
P resident-elect Joe Biden's pick to run the Office of Management and Budget has a history
of defending British ex-spy Christopher Steele's
discredited anti-Trump dossier.
Years of controversial claims about the Trump-Russia controversy, particularly about the
dossier funded in part by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, presents one of several obstacles
for Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic operative, to achieve Senate confirmation next
year.
A significant question that remains is how the two Senate runoff races in Georgia shake out
in January, with control of the upper chamber hanging in the balance. Tanden is sure to meet
stiff opposition from Republicans, who will be led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom Tanden
derisively tweeted in August 2019,
"Stacey Abrams just called McConnell 'Moscow Mitch.' Love it."
In selecting Tanden on
Monday, Biden described the president
of the left-wing Center for American Progress as "a leading architect and advocate of policies
designed to support working families." Tanden worked on Bill Clinton's successful run in 1992
and Barack Obama's successful presidential run in 2008. She was also an adviser on Hillary
Clinton's successful Democratic primary effort in 2016 and the failed general election run that
November.
Not mentioned in her Biden transition team biography was the role Tanden played in promoting
unsubstantiated claims throughout the Trump-Russia controversy.
Tanden launched the
"Moscow Project" in 2017, and after Buzzfeed published Steele's dossier in January 2017,
Tanden's think tank released a
statement saying, "The intelligence dossier presents profoundly disturbing allegations;
ones that should shake every American to the core." Tanden went on to defend the Steele dossier
repeatedly on Twitter, attacking those who critiqued the FBI for relying on its claims to
obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority against former Trump campaign associate
Carter Page and implying that critics of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation were doing
Russia's bidding.
"Make Chris Steele the next James Bond," Tanden tweeted in January
2017.
In a tweet about Rep. Devin Nunes's FISA memo in February 2018, which criticized the FBI's
surveillance of Page and its use of the dossier, the Washington Examiner's Byron York
noted that "no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele
dossier information." Tanden responded by saying, "Even
if this is true, hasn't the dossier been mostly proven to be true? It's amazing how comfortable
the likes of Byron York are happy to run interference for Russians intervening in our
elections." Tanden followed up with another tweet claiming that the
"dossier has been mostly established as right."
Tanden's "Moscow Project" also
released a flawed critique of the Republican FISA memo, with Tanden defending the FBI's
surveillance. In addition, Tanden tweeted in April 2018 that
the dossier was "started with funding by a GOP megadonor."
Although the conservative Free Beacon had hired the
opposition research firm Fusion GPS, it said in October 2017 that it "had no knowledge of or
connection to the Steele dossier." It later emerged that Steele was not commissioned by Fusion
GPS (and did not begin compiling his dossier) until Clinton campaign lawyer
Marc Elias hired Fusion.
"What parts of the dossier have been disproven?" Tanden tweeted in January 2019.
"I will wait."
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December 2019 report and subsequent
declassifications undermined Steele's claims in the dossier. Horowitz said the Trump-Russia
investigation concealed exculpatory information from the FISA court, and he
criticized the Justice Department and FBI for at least 17 "significant errors and
omissions"
related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau's reliance on Steele.
Declassified footnotes show the FBI knew Steele's dossier may have been compromised by
Russian disinformation . Horowitz said FBI interviews with Steele's main source, U.S.-based
and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, "raised significant questions about the reliability
of the Steele election reporting."
FBI Director Christopher Wray called the FISA findings "utterly unacceptable" this
year and concurred with the DOJ's conclusions that at least two of the four FISA warrants
against Page amounted to illegal surveillance.
Nearly all the FISA signatories -- Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates , Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein , fired FBI Director
James Comey , and fired FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe -- indicated under oath they wouldn't have signed off on the surveillance if
they knew then what they know now, and a declassified FBI spreadsheet showed the
lack of corroboration for Steele's claims.
Other Russia-related claims Tanden has made could present sticking points during her
confirmation process.
She tweeted on Oct. 31, 2016,
that President Trump was a Russian "puppet" in part because there was a "Trump server connected
to Russian bank" and tweeted again in December
2016 that Trump may have gotten "talking points from the server at Trump Tower connected to
Russia."
The
claim that a Russian Alfa Bank server was secretly communicating with a server at Trump
Tower, also pushed by Steele, emerged in 2016, but Horowitz noted the FBI "concluded by early
February 2017 that there were no such links," and the Senate Intelligence Committee's August
report
did not find "covert communications between Alfa Bank and Trump Organization personnel." Jake
Sullivan, Biden's pick for national security adviser, also pushed the refuted Alfa
Bank claim in 2016.
The week after Trump's victory, following reports that Russian cyberactors had targeted a
number of state election systems, Tanden mused, "Why would hackers hack in unless they could
change results?" The next day, she pushed back against
criticism she received, tweeting, "Funny, I don't remember saying Russian hackers stole
Hillary's victory." There is
no evidence that Russian hackers changed any votes in 2016.
"Mueller found Russian interference in the election. He also found Trump coordinated with
Russia. These are facts," Tanden tweeted in October.
Although Mueller's investigation concluded in 2019 that the Russian government
interfered in a "sweeping and systematic fashion," the report "did not establish that
members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its
election interference activities."
After the report's release, Tanden tweeted that
"Mueller has failed the country" and "Adam Schiff > Robert Mueller." Earlier this year,
Schiff released dozens of House Intelligence Committee witness interviews that showed Obama's
top national security officials
testified they hadn't seen direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
Self-proclaimed President-elect Joe Biden has chosen a budget director, Neera Tanden, who
once argued the US should ease funding shortages for left-wing social programs by making
countries like Libya pay for being bombed. Biden's transition team on Monday announced its
nominations for the six people selected to fill key economic roles in the incoming
administration, led by former Federal Reserve Bank Chair Janet Yellen as treasury secretary.
Tanden, a Hillary Clinton loyalist who currently heads the Center for American Progress, will
be director of the Office of Management and Budget if Biden's media-declared election victory
withstands legal challenges from President Donald Trump.
This crisis-tested team will help lift America out of our current economic downturn and
build back better -- creating an economy that gives every single American a fair shot and an
equal chance to get ahead. https://t.co/F6JMBHUgVx
-- Biden-Harris Presidential
Transition (@Transition46) November
30, 2020
However, critics have already recalled an example of her unusual budgeting philosophy. In a
2011 email that was made public by WikiLeaks, Tanden said Libya should be made to pay for the
bombing campaign that helped to topple Muammar Gaddafi's government, which would help balance
the US domestic budget.
"We have a giant deficit, they have a lot of oil," Tanden said. "Most Americans
would choose not to engage in the world because of that deficit."
If we want to continue to engage in the world, gestures like having oil-rich countries
partially pay us back doesn't seem crazy to me.
With President Donald Trump all but conceding to the transition team that will take over
after January next year, interest now shifts to President-elect Joe Biden's choices for
cabinet. On the national security front, the imperial-military lobby will have reasons to be
satisfied. If Trump promised to rein in, if not put the brakes on the US imperium, Biden
promises a cocktail of energising stimulants.
While campaigning for the Democratic nomination, Biden tried to give a different impression.
Biden the militarist was gone. "It time to end the Forever Wars, which have cost us untold
blood and treasure," he stated
in July 2019. Pinching a leaf or two out of Trump's own playbook, he insisted on bringing "the
vast majority of our troops home – from the wars on Afghanistan and the Middle East".
Missions would be more narrowly focused on Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Support would also be withdrawn
from the unpardonable Saudi-led war in Yemen. "So I will make it my mission – to restore
American leadership – and elevate diplomacy as our principal tool of foreign policy."
This was an unconvincing display of the leopard desperately trying to change its striking
spots. During the Obama administration, the Vice-President found war sweet, despite subsequent
attempts to distance himself from collective cabinet responsibility. These included the current
war in Yemen, the assault on Libya that crippled the country and turned it into a terrorist
wonderland, and that "forever war" in Afghanistan. In 2016, Biden claimed to be the sage in the
administration, warning President Barack Obama against the Libyan intervention. An impression
of combative wisdom was offered. He had "argued strongly" in the White House "against going to
Libya," a position at odds with the hawkish Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who insisted
on something a bit more than going to Libya. After the demise of Muammar Gaddafi, what then?
"Doesn't the country disintegrate? What happens then? Doesn't it become a place where it
becomes a – petri dish for the growth of extremism?" So many questions, so few
answers.
The Iraq War is another stubborn stain on Biden's garments. His approval of the invasion of
Iraq has been feebly justified as benign ignorance. As he explained
to NPR in September last year, he had received "a commitment from President [George W.] Bush he
was not going to go to war in Iraq." Bush looked him "in the eye at the Oval Office; he said he
needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam
Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program." Then came the invasion: "we had a shock
and awe". For Iraqis, it was a bit more than shock and awe.
With the warring efforts of the US in Iraq turning sour, Biden entertained
a proposal reminiscent of Europe's old imperial planners: the establishment of "three
largely autonomous regions" for each of Iraq's ethnic and confessional groups, governed by
Baghdad in the execrable policy of "unity through autonomy". Not exactly an enlightened
suggestion but consistent with previous conventions of dismemberment that have marked Middle
Eastern politics.
In considering Biden's record on Iraq, Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast was
clear in describing an erratic, bumbling and egregious performance. "Reviewing Biden's
record on Iraq is like rewinding footage of a car crash to identify the fateful decisions that
arrayed people at the bloody intersection."
Now, we forward ourselves to November 2020. The
Trump administration has given a good cover to the incoming Democratic administration.
Considered putatively wicked, all that follows the orange ogre will be good. In introducing
some of his key appointments, Biden's crusted choices stood to attention like storm
troopers-elect, an effect helped by face masks, solemn lighting and their sense of wonder.
"America is back,"
declared Biden. A collective global shudder could be felt. The Beltway establishment,
mocked by Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes as "the Blob," had returned.
In the cast are such figures from the past as former Deputy Secretary of State and former
Deputy National Security Adviser, Tony Blinken. He will serve as Secretary of State. National
Security adviser: former Hillary Clinton aide and senior adviser Jake Sullivan. Director of
National Intelligence: Avril Haines ("a reliable expert leading our intelligence community,"
remarked CNN's unflinching militarist Samantha Vinograd of CNN, herself another former
Obama stable hand from the National Security Council). Secretary of Defence: most probably
Michèle Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defence for Policy.
Blinken, it should be remembered, was the one who encouraged Biden to embrace the
antediluvian, near criminal project of partitioning Iraq. This does not worry The Guardian,
which praises his "urbane bilingual charm" which will be indispensable in "soothing the
frayed nerves of western allies, reassuring them that the US is back as a conventional team
player." He is a "born internationalist" who likes soccer and played a weekly game with US
officials, diplomats and journalists before joining the Obama administration.
Johannes Lang, writing
in the Harvard Political Review, is a touch sharper, noting that Blinken "is a committed
internationalist with a penchant for interventionism." The two often go together. As Blinken
recently told
The New York Times (members of the UN General Assembly, take note), "Whether we like it or not,
the world simply does not organize itself."
Flournoy and Blinken have been spending time during the Trump years drawing sustenance
through their co-founded outfit WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm promising to bring "the
Situation Room to the Board Room." Revolving door rhetoric is used unabashedly: We knew power;
we can show you how to exploit it. Having served in a presidential administration, these
individuals are keen to use "scenario
development and table-top exercises to test ideas or enhance preparedness for a future
contingency". The consultants are willing to give their clients "higher confidence in their
business decisions," as Flournoy puts it, in times of "historic levels of turmoil and
uncertainty around the world".
The Flournoy set have also been the beneficiaries of the US defence funding complex,
fronting think tanks that have received generous largesse. In a
report for the Center for International Policy, Ben Freeman notes that, "Think tanks very
considerably in terms of their objectives and organization, but many think tanks in Washington
D.C. share a common trait: they receive substantial financial support from the US government
and private businesses that work for the US government, most notably defense contractors."
Flournoy's own Center for a New American Security now
ranks second to the RAND Corporation in the cash it gets from defence contractors and US
government sources.
Biden's Department of Defense agency review team, tasked with informing what is hoped will
be a "smooth transfer of power," has its fair complement of those from entities either part of
the weapons industry or beneficiaries of it. According to
In These Times , they make up at least eight of the 23 people in that team. Think tanks
with Biden advisory personnel include the militarily minded Center for Strategic and
International Studies, which boasts funding from Raytheon, Northrop Grumman Corporation,
Lockheed Martin Corporation and General Dynamics Corporation.
America – at least a version of it – is back, well and truly. The stench of wars
continuous, and interventions compulsive, is upon us.
David Hasakkuk,
I'd love to hear you what deeper psychological analysis you may have to offer on the
doublethink phenomenon.
Someone, a hardcore democrat, recently lectured to me that conservatives have no
principles evidenced by support for Trump. I responded that her party should not be lecturing
given their near worship of Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and apparent lust for killing the
unborn. She went psychotic on me. It seems like it's the same spell that people in cults fall
into - and I've seen some people that I thought were fairly smart and worldly fall into
it.
Symptoms appear to include a lack of ability to appreciate irony, lack of self-reflection,
loss of ability to reason, loss of all perspective and a tendency to see choices as between
an exaggeration of the ugliness of the reality that exists and a fantastical utopia or
idealized person that doesn't exist and never will.
t is an undeniable fact that the republic has entered one of the most dangerous crises of
its short existence. This is not only due to the disputed election results of November 3
rd , but also to a multitude of other factors beyond American borders, including the
global financial crisis which a certain pandemic has unleashed upon the world, and slide
towards a major world war between great powers that has accelerated chaotically in recent
years.
As unpopular as it might be to state in polite society, as of this writing it is still
impossible to state with 100% certainty that Joe Biden will in fact be inaugurated on January
20, 2021. The simple reason for this is that verifiable evidence of vast partisan vote fraud
tied to the highest echelons of British Intelligence have mounted with every passing day with
Dominion voting systems most recently accused of
erasing 2.7 million Trump votes across the nation , and giving 220 000 pro-Trump votes to
Biden in Pennsylvania (along with hundreds of other vote counting anomalies and technology
glitches across all major swing states).
These and other major signs of mass vote fraud have giving rise to reasonable questions of
the validity of the official results which will be taken to the courts as Gen. Michael Flynn's
Attorney Sidney Powell eloquently laid out recently.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFCXPw1t17o?feature=oembed TRUMP, BIDEN AND THE ONCOMING
MELTDOWN
By now most people reading this are aware (or should be aware) that the trans Atlantic
financial system has been set to melt down under a $1.5 quadrillion derivatives time bomb being
held together by a mix of wishful thinking, hyperinflationary money printing and vast unpayable
securitized debts waiting to default. It should also come as no surprise that the Great Reset
Agenda designed to coordinate the "post-COVID world order" has nothing to do with any actual
pandemic, and everything to do with imposing a new bankers' dictatorship onto the nations of
the earth.
Both Trump and Biden profess to support American leadership to the world going into this
storm, but both men operate on very much opposing paradigms of what this means, and what
foreign policy tradition should be activated.
Where Biden has championed the idea that "America should lead the world" in opposition to
the dangerous rise in "authoritarianism, nationalism and illiberalism" giving the reigns of
foreign policy over to a team packed with hawkish representatives of the Military
Industrial Complex, Trump has done something different.
On November 9 the incumbent president fired Mark Esper
(possibly to subvert a planned coup) and instated General Christopher Miller to the position of
Defense Secretary who has called for a total end to the 19 year Afghan war
stating :
we are not a people of perpetual war. It is the antithesis of everything for which we
stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end."
Having vocalized his desires to return the USA to its traditional protectionist,
non-interventionist agenda repeatedly over four years, Trump famously characterized the battle
at hand as one of "patriots against the globalists."
And yet, despite these facts, many apparently intelligent people have celebrated that the
"bad orange man" has finally been ousted and normality may once again occur.
Hogwash.
In an
April 2020 Foreign Policy article , Joe Biden called for the re-assertion of American
leadership of the world order stating that "for over 70 years, the United States under
democratic and republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules" of the
world order. Predicting the two possible scenarios that will befall the world should the USA
continue to "abdicate our leadership" as Trump has done, Biden says that either: 1)
Someone else takes America's place as global hegemon that doesn't "advance our interests and
values or 2) "No one will and chaos will ensue".
But wait a minute!
Shouldn't there be a third option in Biden's crystal ball? What about the option of a world
defined by sovereign nations working in win-win cooperation and mutual self interest? Sadly,
from a zero-sum mind that can only think in "balance of power" terms, this third scenario
cannot exist.
The paradox for such little minds, however, is that the very essence of America's emerging
from WWII in a leading position that Biden praises is entirely premised on the understanding
that the world is more than a zero-sum system.
THE FORGOTTEN MULTI-POLAR TRADITIONS OF
THE USA
From the drafting of the UN Charter in 1941, the formulation of the Bretton Woods system in
1944, to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there is no doubt that there is very
little that America has not directly influenced.
While this leadership is undeniable and often objectively destructive as sin, it is too
easily forgotten that the UN Charter, as outlined by Franklin Roosevelt was premised on the
belief that America must never become an empire but merely help those in need by providing the
means of industrial development. This was essentially understood as the internationalization of
the New Deal which included social safety nets, bank regulation, productive work guarantees and
infrastructure projects to all other nations aspiring independence across Africa, Asia and the
Americas or struggling the heal from the destructive effects of the war.
FDR's vision for the IMF/World Bank mandates were never to reconquer poor nations under a
new system of debt slavery and conditionalities, but to extend productive credit for long term
megaprojects that were in the common aims of mankind and which
angered Churchill immensely.
Most importantly, this vision was premised on the need for a trust-based U.S.-Russia-China
alliance that never would have permitted the emergence of a bipolar Cold War.
Working alongside such anti-imperial co-thinkers as Republican leader Wendell Willkie, Vice
President Henry Wallace, economist Harry Dexter White, confidante Harry Hopkins, Asst.
Secretary of State Sumner Welles and Attorney General Robert Jackson (to name a few), this
small but powerful group of patriots representing both parties, worked vigorously to ensure not
only that the Wall Street/City of London Frankenstein Monster of Nazism would be put down but
that Churchill's vision of a restored British Imperial system would not succeed.
THE TRUE
SPIRIT OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Unlike the earlier "League of Nations" which intended to destroy all national sovereignty in
the wake of WWI, the United Nations was always meant to become a platform for dialogue, and
economic multilateral trust-building much more in harmony with the multipolar alliance now
sweeping the world (and scaring the hell out of the thing that controls Joe Biden).
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective
measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of
acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in
conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of
international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen
universal peace;
To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic,
social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human
rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or
religion; and
To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common
ends.
These principles were expanded even further to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on
December 10, 1948 which re-iterated the founding principles of America's Declaration of
Independence- extending those unalienable rights to all mankind as FDR envisioned stating in its
preamble :
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all
members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have
outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy
freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest
aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort,
to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule
of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between
nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in
fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights
of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in
larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United
Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental
freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance
for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as
a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every
individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall
strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by
progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective
recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the
peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
These were the ideas that were meant to give life to the "Four Freedoms" first enunciated by President
Roosvelt in 1941 and re-asserted by his anti-imperial Vice President Henry Wallace in
1942.
Now admittedly this positive American foreign policy outlook which launched the post-war age
is a far cry from anything the world has come to recognize in the USA since the emergence of
the Cold War and especially since the murder of John F Kennedy who had done much to resist
America's full takeover by this newly revised British Empire (which some have chosen in recent
years to label "the deep state").
Much like the US Constitution itself, these principles largely remained ink on parchment as
a new age of Cold Warriors, Rhodes Scholars and Fabians directed from
British Intelligence created NATO , divided the world among the lighter skinned haves and
darker skinned have nots while unleashing a system of endless wars onto the earth under a new
Pax Americana.
Today a small window is still open for a renewal of the forgotten traditions of the American
republican traditions that were upheld by such leaders as John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Grant,
Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR and JFK. President Trump has clearly taken a stand in
opposition to the reconquest of the republic by the deep state and it remains to be seen if the
American people have the fortitude to do everything in their power to organize themselves in
defense of the republic and civilization more generally.
"OR"
There are also middle ways: my ideal would be a real United Nations without dominant bullies,
capable of reigning in globalist MNCs, governments or religions.
Population numbers will have to weight in much more for voting power and no SC privileges for
amassing nuclear bombs.
Melvin Logan , Nov 23, 2020 1:08 PM
This essay includes McKinley as a defender of "Republican traditions," and of course it's
hard to argue against that position, seeing as how McKinley was a tool of the Big City
corrupt political system. That he fraudulently used the sinking of the "Maine" to declare war
on Spain, and then put down an insurgent revolt by natives of the Philippines by allowing
U.S.soldiers to garott them, is simply in the tradition of Republicans. We agree.
Paul Vonharnish , Nov 23, 2020 1:02 AM Reply to
Doctortrinate
Excellent scripting in the court scene. I remember seeing this film when it was first
released. Made goose bumps
The public has been drummed down to the point where they refuse to question what props up the
fake wigs on the court jesters
yes, It was an eclectic time examination post experimentation perhaps .and there was room
for it, uncrowded by the weight of obligation – keeping it at distance was comfortable
even held the sense that the destructive order was being outrun, until..the reconditioning
ascent of a harpy and it's handbag,
The cess-pit beneath our seeming foundation, is become a source for self-righteous
vengeance – coming into our very private chambers after we seemed to 'save face' or
raise it over and against the hateful in conquest.
The presumption to be free of the evil that one has set ones face against is the
generating of the 'cess-pit' as something to be eradicated, lidded over, cancelled, such as
to preserve the 'order' that runs above its denial.
Self-revulsion as a concept, can be opined about, but human self-hatred is a hell indeed
if not a final fact.
The revealing of us to ourselves can be the dis-illusioning of what we thought to be and
truly believed but was never true – even though lived.
or the tarrying in such illusion as the exploiting of its underlying themes of 'getting' for
a self set apart from the life it represents.
richard , Nov 22, 2020 9:02 PM
"THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Unlike the earlier "League of Nations" which intended to destroy all national sovereignty in
the wake of WWI, the United Nations was always meant to become a platform for dialogue, and
economic multilateral trust-building much more in harmony with the multipolar alliance now
sweeping the world "
Oh really? hear are some U.N. quotes:
"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their
individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas."
– Brock Adams, Director UN Health Organization
"A world government can intervene militarily in the internal affairs of any nation when it
disapproves of their activities." – Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General
"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order
[referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if
they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an "extraterrestrial"
invasion], whether real or *promulgated* [emphasis mine], that threatened our very existence.
It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one
thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this *scenario*, individual rights
will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the
World Government."
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991
"No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship
Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation."
David Spangler, Director of Planetary Initiative, United Nations
"The UN is but a long-range, international banking apparatus clearly set up for financial
and economic profit by a small group of powerful One-World revolutionaries, hungry for profit
and power.
"The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers,
triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market
.The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control
of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal
Reserve Bank."
Curtis Dall, FDR's son-in-law as quoted in his book, My Exploited Father-in-Law
"The planning of UN can be traced to the 'secret steering committee' established by
Secretary [of State Cordell] Hull in January 1943. All of the members of this secret
committee, with the exception of Hull, a Tennessee politician, were members of the Council on
Foreign Relations. They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the
[State] Department's Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all
the State Department's postwar planning."
Professors Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, writing in their study of the CFR, "Imperial
Brain Trust: The CFR and United States Foreign Policy." (Monthly Review Press, 1977).
"The most powerful clique in these (CFR) groups have one objective in common: they want to
bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the U.S. They
want to end national boundaries and racial and ethnic loyalties supposedly to increase
business and ensure world peace. What they strive for would inevitably lead to dictatorship
and loss of freedoms by the people. The CFR was founded for "the purpose of promoting
disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an
all-powerful one-world government." Harpers, July l958
Paul Vonharnish , Nov 23, 2020 12:47 AM Reply to
richard
Hello richard: Excellent listing of verifiable quotes. Thanks!
The establishment of the United Nations has done more to dis-unite the world than any
other singular effort. Yet civilians are still looking for some daddy authority to straighten
out the sticky fuzz they found in their navels
I don't know, I think the US going around the world for the last 100+ years bombing anyone
who threatened their capitalist hegemony can pick up a pretty good share of the blame for an
unstable world
paul , Nov 22, 2020 6:02 PM
Neither will win. As always, the only real winners will be a certain Levantine minority.
Heads they win, tails you lose.
The great mock battle to choose Israel Puppet 46 will play out over the next few weeks as
pure theatre, with Creepy Joe picking up Trumpo's somewhat tarnished crown in due course. For
all the difference it makes. Creepy Joe will be marginally even more of a puppet than
Trumpo.
The court challenges are going nowhere. Some have already been dropped or dismissed, and the
rest soon will be, irrespective of vote rigging and ballot stuffing on an epic scale.
Likewise, there will be no attempt to reverse the current outcome at the electoral college
next month. Nothing's going to happen. Nada. Zilch. It's all pure kabuki.
Clowns and court jesters like Alex Jones or Giuliani will caper about making an exhibition of
themselves, peddling their vitamin supplements and lining their pockets.
Trump will squeeze whatever cash he can from his gullible base to pay off his campaign debts.
But none of this is serious. Trumpo has gone AWOL. He is not holding any public events. The
lawsuits have been dropped. He is not putting any of his own money into them. The electoral
college delegates will not go rogue to keep him in power. Georgia is gone. He is not going to
flip Michigan or Pennsylvania.
Trumpo deserved to lose, whether he actually did or not. He abandoned his base the minute he
was elected, and served out his time as a Zio Shill.
He built a grand total of 4 miles of his Big Beautiful Wall. Some of it has already fallen
down. That only leaves 1,996 miles for the Beaner Illegal Immigrant Hordes to walk through.
Obomber deported far more illegal immigrants than Trumpo, 1.1 million v. 800,000. His idea of
draining The Swamp was to appoint Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo, Haspel, and half of Goldman Sachs
to all the senior posts in his administration. The same goes for Bringing The Troops Home.
None will actually be withdrawn from Afghanistan, despite the latest announcement. Like
Rebuilding The Infrastructure.
Trumpo is a con man, a Bunko Artist. He achieved nothing. Because he never intended to. He
never even tried. He was just another Mitt Romney.
Trumpism will just provide him with a meal ticket for some time to come. He needs to find
another $400 million from somewhere to pay off his debts. The GOP will go full on Zionism,
Globalism, Faggots, Trannies, Globo Homo, Open Borders, Amnesties.
One of Trumpo's last of many favours for Israel is to pardon the traitor and Israeli spy
Jonathan Pollard. He will soon be on his way home to a hero's welcome in Kosherstan.
Biden's new administration will be virtually 100% kosher, apart from a few token black/ gay/
trannie/ vagina/ shabbos goys.
Chief of staff, Attorney General, Treasury, all Chosen Folk.
Trumpo was never more than a Zionist puppet, just like Wilders, Orban, Salvini, AFD, Duterte.
All 100% Faux Right Controlled Opposition created by the Chosen Folk.
Thanks Paul, for that excellent description of Trump and what we can expect from Biden
until he leaves/dies and we have Kamala. The policies will remain virtually unchanged as the
President is irrelevant.
Researcher , Nov 22, 2020 5:58 PM
Bankers have been running the world for centuries, not empires, not presidents, not
parties, not nations.
They provide nation states with two (or more) parties with seemingly oppositional values,
but who are controlled behind the scenes by the same banking cabal. Trump is working with the
cabal, just as closely as his predecessors, Obama, Bush, Clinton etc., to create the illusion
of opposition, the illusion of difference, the illusion of choice and the illusion of
hope.
Just as the election was obviously stolen, so too it was planned to create internal
conflict and violence. Both parties play the game of electioneering to obfuscate the theft of
civil rights and assets from the populace without opposition. The media enhances the process
of obfuscation. The voters are too busy fighting amongst themselves to see the outright theft
of their real assets.
There are no individuals or groups who attain positions of power in any government or
nation who oppose the banking cartel that rules the world, owns and controls all the largest
corporations, security state apparatus, the militaries and defense sectors of all
nations.
There are no heroes coming to anyone's rescue. No white hats, no black hats. They are all
agents of the cryptocracy, because the goal has always been the enslavement of humanity, and
that goal was attained long ago and has never wavered.
The New World Order was achieved with the formation of the United Nations as a front for
the cryptocracy (banking cartel) to further its objectives through the cooperation of
governments individuality and collectively controlling their populations.
Whether our enslavement was achieved using a kindler, gentler slavery called "capitalism",
based on the consumption of poorly made goods exploiting cheap labor by corporate entities
majority owned and controlled by the cryptocracy, in faux democracies, using the fake two
party system, or whether slavery was achieved by force through communism where an appearance
of state ownership obfuscated cryptocracy ownership and control, so wages could be lowered
and people more tightly controlled, both political systems were a sham. Both systems were
always controlled by the same cryptocracy; the banking cartel.
The cryptocracy ruled the capitalist West and the communist Eastern bloc with ease.
Researcher , Nov 22, 2020 6:06 PM Reply to
Researcher
Just as all political parties are false enemies who work together behind the scenes, so
too is the enmity between nation states and the supposedly opposed political and nation state
blocs and alliances.
Opposition is created as a facade and pretext to facilitate immensely profitable
skirmishes, occupations, hot wars, cold wars and civil conflicts. These methods of
manufactured conflict accomplish control and ownership for the cryptocracy of large tracts of
land with rare earth minerals and energy reserves as well as the labor and industry of large
and small populations plus access to the taxes and wealth of all nation states.
These faux oppositional forces whether they be internal or external, create an illusion of
a divided, hostile and fractured world for the unknowing and distracted public, who have had
their history altered and rewritten, indoctrinated with propaganda in a Prussian model of
education as 'learning by rote' instead of learning through exploration, reason, logic,
invention and experimentation. As such, 'educated' populations have become another tool of
the controllers where they are largely ignorant of the inextricable links between politics,
energy, economies, the monetary system, wars, governments, crime, industry and human
enslavement.
The false appearance of separation of these issues into compartmentalized subjects,
compartmentalized thinking, are further enhanced and driven through sound bites using the
cryptocracy owned corporate media.
Binary choices, compartmentalized issues, and supposed random events are sold to humanity
to corral thinking, coerce conformity, limit options and choices within illusory paradigms
where full spectrum dominance is fulfilled. Subsequently, all resources on earth including
populations can be easily exploited for the purpose of profiteering, while simultaneously
inflicting unnecessary misery and suffering through the leverage of usury and forced taxes
within the monetary system.
Researcher , Nov 22, 2020 6:10 PM Reply to
Researcher
The banking cartel (BIS, IMF, World Bank) own the major energy corporations, green and
carbon based and that is why there has been a decades long push for carbon control and
capture, using climate change pseudo science and propaganda as a way to control and limit our
individual, national and collective energy consumption and output.
Since energy is the real currency that runs the world, and energy is also the way which we
as humans and living creatures survive, innovate, create and function – as electrical
and energetic beings – the cryptocracy believe that all energy, including our physical
and neuronal bodily functions be wholly controlled by them, and them only. The cryptocracy
already control our external energy and power systems and grids, and all oil, coal, gas,
wind, hydro, nuclear, solar and hydrogen, which fuel human and economic activity.
The cryptocracy are not content to let us decide our own fates, occupations, business
dealings, economies, health or lives using our inherent freedom as thinking, sentient and
independent beings who are born free. They seek to further enslave our every thought,
function and action through the technocracy and the biometric control and data grid they have
built around us for the last century.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the banking cartel through their control of the
chemical industry, extended their model of human slavery to include profiteering from
destroying people's health, by controlling genetic and epigenetic expression through
increased toxic exposure to external radiation, a poisoned and altered food chain, deficient
soil, a poisoned fluoridated water supply, increased exposure to carcinogens, endocrine
disruptive chemicals and unnecessary vaccines that wrought irreversible, long term negative
effects.
The medical industrial complex and vaccine industry sought to claim credit for the
eradication of diseases that had already been quelled through proper sanitation, plumbing,
better nutrition and improved living conditions.
The control grid of populations through the economic system, military industrial complex,
monetary system, faux governments, and the medical industrial complex has merged into a
totalitarian model of complete control of all human behavior, health and bodily functions
using faux pandemics, where governments coordinate terror operations against the
citizenry.
The bankers are transitioning away from the current monetary, economic Ponzi scheme using
the US petro dollar fractional reserve banking system, which could only function for a
limited time, in a debt expansionary environment, underpinned by constant economic expansion
and population growth.
Researcher , Nov 22, 2020 6:13 PM Reply to
Researcher
A number of factors including increased standards of living, women entering the workforce,
contraception and immunocontraception and cultural changes have inhibited population growth
in developed nations, so that expansionary model has reached its 'limits of growth'.
Governments have been hiding the lack of population growth using immigration. They've been
hiding the contracting economic activity in developed nations by creating fake financial
products and accounting frauds, banking fraud, rigged market indices and markets. The
cryptocracy knowing this economic model would eventually collapse at their discretion,
created unseen enemies to unite us against, be it a fictional virus, or fictional global
warming, the result being a coordinated, top-down authoritarian monitoring, control of
populations, economies and individuals.
The bankers, governments and industrialists are forcing humanity to transition to a
technocracy controlled economy based on humans as capital, the collection, collation and
control of all organic and non organic resources on earth including our biometric data and
behavioral obedience, while they simultaneously enforce a liquidation of assets phase.
We are their assets and we are being liquidated.
At the end of every transitory economic cycle or created currency or financial crisis, the
banking cartel and their minions facilitate a global catastrophe, whether that's a planned
war between nations, civil unrest or a manufactured terror event. This serves as a cover for
the harm that their planned economic transition (and failure) creates. These planned failures
of economic systems created by the cryptocracy provide additional profits for the banking
cartel where real assets are stripped from citizens in the form of savings, land, property,
assets, businesses and redistributed by force, upwards to the oligarchs and cryptocracy.
That is the purpose of the lockdown and the faux pandemic. A continued and further
redistribution of the global wealth of the majority of citizens to the 0.01% so that bankers,
industrialists and governments who already control our food and energy supply, can force the
majority into compliance with the vaccine program. The vaccine program creates a legal and
cost efficient liquidation of the majority of humanity and the biometric enslavement of the
remaining youth who manage to survive, while transitioning to the new economic model of a
global digital currency based on physical human enslavement, human data management, with
central command control using Artificial Intelligence.
Jean Wilson , Nov 22, 2020 8:07 PM Reply to
Researcher
Thank you Researcher. Brilliant writing!
Lost in a dark wood , Nov 22, 2020 4:41 PM
No wonder the CIA hates Trump!
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/361227-us-begins-bombing-taliban-opium-plants-in-afghanistan
US begins bombing Taliban CIA opium plants in Afghanistan
11/20/17
The U.S. military has begun bombing opium production plants in Afghanistan as part of a new
strategy targeting Taliban revenue, a top general said Monday. "Last night, we conducted
strikes in northern Helmand [Province] to hit the Taliban where it hurts, in their narcotics
financing," said Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support in
the country.
--
What has happened to people? If the U.S. says it is bombing an opium production plant,
that means they're lying. First thing I think of is who did the U.S./CIA/Trump want killed
and why? But you interpret it as Trump trying to stop the opium business of the CIA?
And then you follow it with Trump, after four years of bombing Afghanistan, is somehow
being pressured by Germany to continue bombing Afghanistan?
Frankly, I don't think we have any idea what the CIA thinks of Trump.
Researcher , Nov 22, 2020 7:32 PM Reply to
wardropper
They must think he's the greatest actor on earth, since apparently some who understand the
bankers are in league with and controlling governments, the UN, WHO and the WEF against
humanity, yet they also believe that Trump is standing up for the Constitution against the
banking cartel, the military and the vaccine industry.
Except he isn't and hasn't.
By declaring a fake emergency and continuing that emergency, while creating OPERATION WARP
SPEED, he handed the country over to the military, PhRMA and FEMA.
He has no intention of handing it back to the citizens and he's had every means and every
opportunity.
I think a great majority of people are simply in denial on the left and the right because
they don't want to believe they've spent their entire lives being conned by bankers,
politicians and oligarchs using cheap tricks, third rate acting, fake science and obvious
monetary fraud and gangster governments.
The veil of their human enslavement has been lifted off their faces and they still refuse
to see the obvious truth.
Instead they hide behind masks, false enemies and the lies they tell themselves. It'd be
sad if it wasn't so pathetic.
wardropper , Nov 22, 2020 7:58 PM Reply to
Researcher
I agree with all that, but the CIA is not renowned for advertising what it 'thinks'
Moneycircus , Nov 22, 2020 11:08 PM Reply to
wardropper
The CIA does not 'think'. It was set up by Wall Street and the bankers as the muscle of
Wall Street and the bankers
Trumpo deserves to be put on trial and executed after a suitably fair trial if only for
his actions in Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Palestine and elsewhere. For the murder of General
Soleimani and 30 others, for all the children who have died in those countries as a result of
US economic terrorism and actual terrorism on his watch. It doesn't matter if he failed to
control others who were allowed to pursue their own agenda. A commander who loses control of
his troops is fully liable when they run amok.
Their is very little to be said in his favour. We have come very close to war on a colossal
scale on several occasions over the past two years as a result of his actions. The fact that
this did not come to pass and disaster was avoided in no way goes to his credit. This should
be attributed to the Grace of God or my lucky rabbit's foot. And the fact that Russia, China,
and even Iran and North Korea have incomparably better and more responsible leadership than
we do.
Western leadership, Obama, Clinton, Trump, Sarkozy, Macron, Merkel, May, Cameron, Johnson, is
the worst in its history. Arrogant, venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, delusional and
ideologically driven.
So can anything positive at all about Trump's legacy?
Biden may be even worse.
Clinton, rabid and deranged, and even more dishonest, certainly would have been.
But we deserve something better than the choice between a dogshit sandwich or a catshit
sandwich.
Trump has at least exposed the MSM for what it is, and forced the deep state to take off the
mask of sham democracy and reveal its true ugly face.
But it's not much of a legacy for four years.
John Goss , Nov 22, 2020 1:08 PM
The Second World War was the turning point here in the UK and in the US, When the war
finished there was a Labour Party which was actually a Labour Party. For some years before
that the US Democratic Party had been and was a Democratic Party, When paper ballots
mitigated against fraud Franklin D, Roosevelt was elected for an amazing 4 terms. He died
days before the end of the war having introduced welfare reforms that endeared him to
people.
It has been pretty much downhill since then, ending up with Keir Starmer at the head of
the Labour Party and Joe Biden at the head of the Democratic Party. Need I write more?
el Gallinazo , Nov 22, 2020 3:19 PM Reply to
John Goss
Problem>reaction>solution. The Great Depression in the USA was triggered by
the banksters being instructed to create a vast credit bubble in the 20's with their
fractional reserve system (being able to lend 9 fake dollars for every one they actually
owned) and then instructed to withdraw credit very rapidly, creating a cascade of defaults..
That is a historical fact easily researched.
This article's view of recent history is among the most superficial I have ever read. I do
not believe in democracy being an Agorist, because democracy is a trick of the predator
class. When I see a government which does not enforce its rules through the barrel of a gun
and cages, I may be tempted to re-evalute my views. Still waiting however. That said, the one
thing that I agree with in this article is that Trump won the election handily based on legal
and valid votes and the apparent Biden win was based on huge fraud. One should never
underestimate Sydney Powell, even with her sweet Georgia Plantation accent. She may be the
first competent snd trustworthy hire Trump has ever made in the last four years, and one may
ask why this is. On one level, the fraud was designed to put Biden in the White House. On a
deeper level, it was designed to rip the country apart. I would recommend that the American
people rushing to the giant box stores (which are permitted to stay open while the various
governors' blatantly illegal EO's have shut down their mom and pop competitors) to buy toilet
paper for the coming Darkest Winter of the fake scamdemic, would be wise to load up also on
beer and popcorn so they can watch this shitshow on their giant plasma TV's from the
sofa.
Melvin Logan , Nov 23, 2020 1:34 PM Reply to
el Gallinazo
The notion of "fraud" in the election is a charade. Research the Dominion voting system
and you will discover that Ms. Powell, despite the high regard she has attained, is blowing
smoke. Her entire case against Dominion from Chavez to German vote counting is a fat joke. On
her, and on us. Why is she doing this? We will find out in due time.
hroughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump's 'America First' foreign policy,
claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray.
He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America's reputation.
While Donald Trump called to make America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American Empire
Great Again.
Among the president-elect's pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the
decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush
administration.
Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will task ending them to the
most neoconservative elements of the Democratic party and ideologues of permanent war.
Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden's thousands-strong foreign policy brain
trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war going back to the Clinton
administration.
In the Trump era, they've cashed in, founding Westexec Advisors – a corporate
consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to
government.
Flournoy is Biden's leading pick for secretary of defense and Blinken is expected to be
national security advisor.
Biden's foxes guard the henhouse
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD's,
Flournoy remarked that "In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary's [weapons of
mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic
attack against the United States."
Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate foreign relations committee chair Joe Biden,
who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush's
illegal invasion of Iraq.
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's
most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to
defend our interests anywhere in the world."
With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the
sidelines.
In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one
of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a
New American Security (CNAS).
CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech
giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big banks.
Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for
policy, the position considered the "brains" of the Pentagon.
She was keenly aware that the public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial
Defense Review, she crafted a new concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state
while giving the appearance of a drawdown.
Flournoy wrote that "unmanned systems hold great promise" – a reference to the CIA's
drone assassination program.
This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called for the U.S. to be able to
simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare, clandestine weapons
transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all buttressed with propaganda
campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and corporate news
media.
Architects of America's Hybrid wars
Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key
architect of Obama's disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body
bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she
deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the
tide against the Taliban.
Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban
back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into
the future.
Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued
to argue against a U.S. withdrawal.
That's the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in
Biden's own words, he'll "bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan" implying
some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele
Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a
presence.
In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO
regime-change war on Libya.
Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had
given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.
Flournoy, Hillary Clinton's State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they
waged an extensive propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi's soldiers were
on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.
All of this was based on a report from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by
the Qatari monarchy that was arming extremist militias to overthrow the government.
Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims "hysteria." Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.
Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi's forces committing
rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war.
Tony Blinken, then Obama's deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change
in Libya. He became Obama's point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called "moderate rebels"
that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a
full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn't anything like the other wars the
U.S. had waging for more than a decade.
Despite Blinken's promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its
ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is
facing famine,
Largely thanks to the policy of using "wheat to apply pressure" – a recommendation of
Flournoy and Blinken's CNAS think tank.
When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a
chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass
destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of
Defense James Mattis admitted.
While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria,
Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d'etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government
overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the
ground.
At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for
economic pressure.
Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine's armed forces. And Tony
Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.
Trump obliged.
The Third Offset
While the U.S. fuelled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift
called the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S.
used to maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.
The Third Offset strategy
shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition
against China and Russia, seeking to ensure that the U.S. could win a war against China in
Asia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities, development of
futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones, hypersonic weapons,
cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence making unimaginably
complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind. All of this would
be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley giants that it
birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.
The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner
of Flournoy and Blinken's at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of
this dangerous new escalation.
In June, Flournoy published a lengthy commentary laying out her strategy called "Sharpening
the U.S. Military's Edge: Critical Steps for the Next Administration".
She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and
reversing that must be the Pentagon's priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might
not be able to defeat China in Asia.
While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied
forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive
capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the
entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea. Not only a blatant
war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.
At the same time, Biden has announced he'll take an even more aggressive and confrontational
stance against Russia, a position Flournoy shares.
As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast.
The end of forever
wars?
So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the
public doesn't even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.
In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and
parcel of the Pentagon's shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power
competition.
The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that "Long-term strategic competitions with
China and Russia are the principal priorities" and the U.S. will "consolidate gains in Iraq and
Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach."
As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he'll end U.S. support, but in 2019,
Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations.
However, Trump's withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek
engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the
devil.
In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used
as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.
His Venezuela policy will be almost identical to Trump's – sanctions and regime
change.
In Central America, Biden has proposed a 4 billion dollar package to support corrupt
right-wing governments and neoliberal privatization projects that create even more
destabilization and send vulnerable masses fleeing north to the United States.
Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global
supremacy, escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of
humanity. That's what Joe Biden calls "decency" and "normalcy."
Feature photo | Graphic by Antonio Cabrera for MintPress News
Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports
and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and
tweets at @ DanCohen3000
.
This is nothing new, the war machine keeps going and going. I actually found an individual
that has the same outlook on stopping the behavior of the United States as I do.
International lawyer Christopher Black in this interview had the following to say.
Question: What in your view needs to change in order to make U.S. foreign conduct abide by
international law and therefore enhance the prospects for world peace?
Christopher Black: It will require a revolution in the United States to do that, an
overthrow of the economic powers that control the machinery of the state, but there is no
prospect of that happening. There is really no effective opposition to these policies in
the U.S. The peace movement is weak and fragmented, dominated by the "cruise missile
liberals". The voices of reason have no power, no real influence among the masses of the
people which are dominated by a sophisticated propaganda machine known as the "media".
Censorship is increasing and the few critical voices that exist are being silenced.
It will take, in my view, a military defeat of the United States in order to bring
about the conditions necessary for the required changes. And, perhaps that will happen,
as China has stated time and again, that if Washington decides to take direct control of
their island of Taiwan and the Americans interfere or if they are attacked in the South
China Sea, they will defeat the U.S. But such a war would have world consequences and would
cause realignments of power not only in the USA, if we all survive it.
Biden is a tent revival for the aptly named "cruise missile liberals" and some of the more
shadowy neo-conservative forces in retreat and determined to bring democracy building home
after their colonial expeditions extinguished it at home, hastening the rise of America's own
Saddam in Trump. Biden's own instincts may be decisive, however, and he was against war in
Libya while also in favor of splitting Iraq. The dementia rumors are nonsense; Biden is a
canny and often mendacious operator, and while I think Trump is a fascist and quite possibly
a Russian mafia sub-boss, Biden may well be the restoration of more homegrown, American mafia
rule. An argument that Giuliani has made in so many words, standing as he does on the Russian
side and yelling into the shifting parapolitical winds.
It's not really that complicated for China. They have no interest in or need to strike the
American mainland. That would only be necessary if they were seeking global hegemony like the
US, which they are not. Their strategic nuclear capabilities are strictly deterrence. All
China has to do is survive the coming conflict arising from the Thucydides Trap that the US
and China are caught in with minimal damage to their industrial capacity, infrastructure, and
population.
That I specified "survive" and not "win" is not a mistake. The default
outcome if nothing is done is that China ascends to uncontested sole global economic
superpower status. That is not necessarily their intention but rather the natural outcome of
China continuing the development of their domestic human capital and quality of life for 1.4
billion people. China doesn't have to take the fight to the US to end up on top, and the US
has no choice but to somehow turn back the economic clock in China to keep its position as
global imperial hegemon. Color revolution attempts, trade war, and bioweapon attacks have all
failed the empire miserably, so all the US has left is to go kinetic.
The "US aircraft carrier force projection model" is effectively nullified by China,
but those assets are still protected by America's delusional reality exclusion zone:
"Destroying our carriers is unthinkable! No one would ever dare do that!" . That
defense will prove inadequate against China's variety of "carrier killer"
missiles.
As for America's stealth aircraft, China's defenses will likely be a surprise to many in
the American empire. Furthermore, America's only stealth aircraft with sufficient range to
reach China's mainland on anything other than a one way suicide mission would be the B-2
bomber, of which America only has 21. Those 21 will not last long in a kinetic conflict.
Quite a few will likely simply be destroyed on the runway in Diego Garcia while the survivors
will get to find out how well China's nifty new quantum radar works. The F-22 and F-35 would
require refueling to get from carrier stand-off distance to the mainland and refueling again
to get back, with America's aerial tankers needing to loiter within range of China's air
defenses... not a good battle plan for the empire. Those stealth aircraft will not shift the
advantage in the empire's favor, and attrition will be much higher than expected among
them.
It must be repeated that China doesn't need to destroy the United States. They are not
playing the board game "Risk" after all. China just needs to defeat the American
empire's military force projection capabilities in their own neighborhood, and China already
has that capacity right now. Every day that elapses shifts the advantage further into China's
favor, so the empire needs to act while they still have the ability to do so. Trump's
unwillingness to do more than bark loudly and his resistance to going kinetic is why the
imperial elites had to fraud the elections so openly to get a more compliant figurehead into
office ASAP. That the empire couldn't wait another four years means that we will see
"interesting times" (yeah, even more interesting than the preceding twelve months!)
real soon now.
"A cornered dog will bite, even if it is obvious that it cannot win."
So will I, so what?
"It was never China's nor Iran's intention to "corner" the empire. That is simply the
situation that America finds itself in now that its economy is in "late capitalism" decline.
It is really not even anyone's fault, not even Trump or Reagan or any of the other usual
suspects."
I agree, but again, so what? I'm not concerned with who is morally correct, I'm mainly
concerned with whether there is going to be a big war and what happens if there is, that's
not a moral question. I've been waiting around 40 years to watch our collapse, and I still
think there is enough that is/was good here to be worth hoping for a soft landing. That's
probably better for the rest of the planet too, but it's arguable.
Neither Iran of China is cornered, they are well-prepared, well-supported by "partners",
and on their home turf. WE are not ready. We are vunerable. But we are not cornered either,
nobody is going to come over here and interfere while we fight among ourselves.
Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 25 2020 13:10 utc | 109
What scares me about Blinken and Sullivan is the career trajectory. Both had completely
unearned and unreasonable success every step of their lives. There is never any explanation
for this manner of success but family connections. Neither has done anything of note other
than to occupy positions of power.
Sullivan is all of 43 years old, has been a mover and shaker since his twenties. Any who
have never read Halberstam's Best and Brightest might look at that now. We are in for a shit
show. Biden is not going to do anything but take his meds and take a lot of naps. Already he
is not to be seen. The crew named so far will steamroller Kamala, she is no more than a
figurehead.
Likely she won't even stay in the room when it gets serious. Best possible outcome is that
kids who have never done anything but suck up won't know what to do when they are left in
charge with no adult supervision. Or there will be shadowy figures in background who steady
the rudder.
Yes, it is not a moral question, it is an economic one. Wars have never been about
morality.
That said, China has for a number of years now been preparing for a minimally damaging
escape from the Thucydides Trap, and by "minimally damaging" I mean for the US as
well. As I said above the Chinese are not at all interested in hurting the US.
The plan is to "spring" the Thucydides Trap in the South China Sea and hopefully
confine most of the damage to that area. If successful then the empire gets its soft landing
(albeit with significant amounts of military materiel and personnel sacrificed) and humanity
moves beyond the Trap.
@ PB 75
visible costs of vassaldom . . costs of American presence....decreasing the national
security. . .participating in sanctions
Yes, plus a primary reason . . .Cost of buying US military junk like F-35. Foreign military
sales is a mainstay of the US economy.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 25 2020 3:43 utc | 83
When you add the numbers, "military junk" has notable prestige -- with matching prices,
but the total loot of American companies is probably many times larger. For example, Trump
waged a series of trade wars to perpetuate negligible taxation of "technology giants" like
Google or Amazon. "Intellectual property" was a stumbling block in the trade war with China,
with dire consequences for soy growing farmers in USA (and a boon to their colleagues in
South America). Then there is pharma. It seems that the really big companies are comfortable
being in relative shadow behind arms makers, and discourse on security threats and needs
--because Russian use trolls to interfere with elections, we (all countries that cherish what
is good and precious) need new generations of nukes, planes, ships and toilet seats. However
illogical, it is more noble sounding than preventing the likes of Apple from more than
nominal taxation.
"... Because people are a lot more likely to click, read and share information which validates their pre-existing opinions and follow people who do the same, social media is notorious for the way it creates tightly insulated echo chambers which masturbate our confirmation bias and hide any information which might cause us cognitive dissonance by contradicting it. Whole media careers were built on this phenomenon during the years of Russiagate hysteria, and we see it play out in spheres from imperialism to Covid-19 commentary to economic policy. ..."
"... Someone benefits from this dynamic, and it isn't you. As we've discussed previously, we know from WikiLeaks documents that powerful people actively seek to build ideological echo chambers for the purpose of propaganda and indoctrination, and there is surely a lot more study going into the subject than we've seen been shown. Splitting the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even communicate with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace impotent, ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful. ..."
"... It's just people manipulating you away from your natural, healthy inclination toward peace. Get out of your echo chamber, look at the raw information instead of the narratives, and stop letting the sociopaths manipulate you. ..."
"... Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces. ..."
This complete schism from reality, where you've got an incoming administration stacked with
Beltway insiders who want to attack Chinese interests running alongside an alternate imaginary
universe in which Biden is a subservient CCP lackey, is only made possible with the existence
of media echo chambers. It's the same exact dynamic that made it possible for liberals to spend
four years shrieking conspiracy theories about the executive branch of the US government being
run by a literal Russian agent even as Trump advanced mountains of world-threatening cold war
escalations against Moscow in the real world.
You see this dynamic at work in conventional media, where
plutocrat-controlled outlets like Breitbart are still frantically
pushing the Russiagate sequel narrative that Hunter Biden's activities in China mean that
his father is a CCP asset. You also see it in social media, where, as explained by journalist
Jonathan Cook in an article about the
documentary The Social Dilemma , "as we get herded into our echo chambers of
self-reinforcing information, we lose more and more sense of the real world and of each
other."
"We live in different information universes, chosen for us by algorithms whose only
criterion is how to maximise our attention for advertisers' products to generate greater
profits for the internet giants," writes Cook.
Because people are a lot more likely to click, read and share information which validates
their pre-existing opinions and follow people who do the same, social media is notorious for
the way it creates
tightly insulated echo chambers which masturbate our confirmation bias and hide any information
which might cause us cognitive dissonance by contradicting it. Whole media careers were built
on this phenomenon during the years of Russiagate hysteria, and we see it play out in spheres
from imperialism to Covid-19 commentary to economic policy.
Someone benefits from this dynamic, and it isn't you. As we've
discussed previously, we know from WikiLeaks documents that powerful people actively
seek to build ideological echo chambers for the purpose of propaganda and indoctrination, and
there is surely a lot more study going into the subject than we've seen been shown. Splitting
the public up into two oppositional factions who barely interact and can't even communicate
with each other because they don't share a common reality keeps the populace impotent,
ignorant, and powerless to stop the unfolding of the agendas of the powerful.
You should not be afraid of your government being too nice to China. What you should worry
about is the US-centralized power alliance advancing a multifront new cold war conducted
simultaneously against two nuclear-armed nations for the first time ever in human history.
There are far, far too many small moving parts in such a cold war for things to happen in a
safely predictable manner, which means there are far, far too many
chances for something to go very, very wrong.
Whenever someone tells you that a US president is going to be "soft" on a nation the
US government has marked as an enemy, you are being played. Always, always, always, always.
It's just people manipulating you away from your natural, healthy inclination toward peace. Get
out of your echo chamber, look at the raw information instead of the narratives, and stop
letting the sociopaths manipulate you.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
USA-MA BIN LADEN / NOVEMBER 25, 2020
America desperately needs its Two Minutes of Hate against other countries like a meth
addict needs his next hit.
For Democrats and their ilk, Hate Russia was their unifying and mobilizing ideology.
For Republicans and their ilk, Hate China is their unifying and mobilizing ideology.
Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces.
Deep down, Americans know that – and that is why they so readily engage in these
spittle-flecked campaigns.
Welcome to the Orwellian world of America where the same American Empire that bombs,
invades, sanctions, regime changes, encircles, or colonizes multiple nations around the world
whines like a triggered little snowflake that poor innocent war criminal America is being
"threatened"!
Truly pathetic.
CHRISTIAN J. CHUBA / NOVEMBER 24, 2020
There are many good websites (in addition to this one of course). I'd always tell someone,
just look to see what speaks to you my list some are 'out there' I'll summarize.
https://www.antiwar.com/ –
Kind of like a drudgereport for decent people on world events. They go through the effort of
summarizing AP and other official news outlet stories rather than mindlessly link to them.
Just hearing the same stories minus the slavish propaganda will deprogram many people.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ – M.E., Yemen, if
your friend is very sensitive to anything that insinuates that Israel is not the celestial
city he might be offended.
https://southfront.org/ – Ah
.. on our State Dept list of Russian disinfo. Discuss military conflicts, sympathetic to the
countries at the receiving end of our attention.
http://thesaker.is/ – Saker was an
intel guy from the 'other side' during the Cold War, values decency, Orthodox Christian, only
site that regularly publishes speeches from Nasrallah, does military analysis, arrogant but I
always feel like I learned something.
http://www.moonofalabama.org
– anonymous analyst, German Intel guy, writes very well. I put him last because he has
been on a pro-Trump binge lately. I think they are secret lovers. Given what he normally
writes about I have no idea what he sees in him.
Vicky left fake democracy promotion was always about expanding and sustaining controlled
from Washinton global neoliberal empire. It is a part and parcel of Full Spectrum Dominance
doctrine implementation. So it will lean to further drop of the standard of living on the
majority of US people.
Biden is a tent revival for the aptly named "cruise missile liberals" and some of the more
shadowy neo-conservative forces are in retreat and determined to bring democracy building
home after their colonial expeditions extinguished it
"... Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces. ..."
America desperately needs its Two Minutes of Hate against other countries like a meth
addict needs his next hit.
For Democrats and their ilk, Hate Russia was their unifying and
mobilizing ideology. For Republicans and their ilk, Hate China is their unifying and
mobilizing ideology.
Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two
Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces.
You can't find better smarter neocons to pursue the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine to the
total decimation of the standard of living of ordinary Americans ;-)
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
... During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President
Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction"
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's
most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to
defend our interests anywhere in the world."
... In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
Joe Biden's national security adviser pick defended the anti-Trump dossier in 2018 as
"perfectly appropriate."
Many news outlets have declared Biden the president-elect. Newsmax has yet to project a
winner, citing legal challenges in several key battleground states.
Jake Sullivan, who worked for Biden when he served as vice president in the Obama
administration and as a senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton during her
presidential race in 2016,
made the comments on a podcast interview with David Axelrod, the chief strategist for
Obama's presidential campaigns.
"I mean, I believe that it is perfectly appropriate and responsible if we get wind, or if
people associated with the campaign get wind, that there may be real questions about the
connections between Donald Trump, his organization, his campaign and Russia that that be
explored fully," he said at the time, The Daily
Caller reported.
Sullivan worked for Clinton when a law firm representing her campaign hired an opposition
research firm to investigate Trump's possible ties to Russia. The firm hired Christopher
Steele, the author behind the dossier alleging a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation
between the Trump campaign and Russian government."
Special counsel Robert Mueller later found those claims to be unfounded during his probe
into Russian interference in the election, writing in his
report "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or
coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
ELECTION 2020: What President Biden Won't Touch November 24, 2020 Save
Considering the think-tank imperialists in the bunch Biden is naming to direct U.S. foreign
policy, Danny Sjursen expects little to change in the essence of the war-state.
Military aircraft streaming red, white and blue during the welcoming ceremony for President
Donald Trump, May 2017, King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (White House,
Andrea Hanks)
I n this mystifying moment, the post-electoral sentiments of most Americans can be summed up
either as "Ding dong! The witch is dead!" or "We got robbed!" Both are problematic, not because
the two candidates were intellectually indistinguishable or ethically equivalent, but because
each jingle is laden with a dubious assumption: that President Donald Trump's demise would
provide either decisive deliverance or prove an utter disaster.
While there were indeed areas where his ability to cause disastrous harm lent truth to such
a belief -- race relations, climate change, and the courts
come to mind -- in others, it was distinctly (to use a dangerous phrase) overkill. Nowhere was
that more true than with America's expeditionary version of militarism, its forever wars of
this century, and the venal system that continues to feed it.
For nearly two years, We the People were coached to believe that the 2020 election would
mean everything, that Nov. 3 would be democracy's ultimate judgment day. What if, however, when
it comes to issues of war, peace, and empire, " Decision 2020 " proves barely
meaningful?
After all, in the election campaign just past, Donald Trump's sweeping war-peace rhetoric
and Joe Biden's hedging aside, neither nuclear-code aspirant bothered
to broach the most uncomfortable questions about America's uniquely intrusive global role.
Neither dared dissent from normative notions about America's posture and policy "over there,"
nor challenge the essence of the war-state, a sacred cow if ever there was one.
U.S. presidential debate, Sept. 29, 2020.
That blessed bovine has enshrined permanent policies that seem beyond challenge: Uncle Sam's
right and duty to forward deploy troops just about anywhere on the planet; garrison the globe; carry out aerial
assassinations; and unilaterally implement starvation
sanctions . Likewise the systemic structures that implement and incentivize such
rogue-state behavior are never questioned, especially the existence of a sprawling
military-industrial complex that has infiltrated
every aspect of public life, while stealing money that might have improved America's
infrastructure or wellbeing. It has engorged
itself at the taxpayer's expense, while peddling American blood money -- and blood -- on absurd
foreign adventures and autocratic allies, even as it corrupted nearly every prominent public
paymaster and policymaker.
This election season, neither Democrats nor Republicans challenged the cultural components
justifying the great game, which is evidence of one thing: empires come home, folks, even if
the troops never seem to.
The Company He Keeps
As the election neared, it became impolite to play the canary in American militarism's coal
mine or risk raising Biden's record -- or probable prospects -- on minor matters like war and
peace. After all, his opponent was a monster, so noting the holes in Biden's block of Swiss
cheese presumably amounted to useful idiocy -- if not sinister collusion -- when it came to
Trump's reelection. Doing so was a surefire way to jettison professional opportunities and find
yourself permanently uninvited to the
coolest Beltway cocktail parties or interviews on cable TV.
George Orwell warned of the dangers of such "intellectual cowardice" more than 70 years ago
in a
proposed preface to his classic novel Animal Farm . "At any given moment," he wrote,
"there is an orthodoxy that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not
exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it Anyone who
challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness."
And that's precisely what progressive paragon Cornel West warned against seven months ago
after his man, Sen. Bernie Sanders -- briefly, the Democratic frontrunner -- suddenly proved a
dead candidate walking. "Vote for Biden, but don't lie about who he really is," the stalwart
scholar suggested .
It seems just enough Americans did the former (phew!), but mainstream media makers and
consumers mostly forgot about the salient second part of his sentiment.
Cornel West speaking at a house party for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 15,
2020. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
With the electoral outcome now apparent -- if not
yet accepted in Trump World -- perhaps such politeness (and the policing that goes with it)
will fade away, ushering in a renaissance of Fourth Estate oppositional truth-telling. In that
way -- in my dreams at least -- persistently energized progressives might send President Joe
Biden down dovish alternative avenues, perhaps even landing some appointments in an executive
branch that now
drives foreign policy (though, if I'm honest, I'm hardly hopeful on either count).
One look at Uncle Joe's inbound nieces and nephews brings to mind Aesop's fabled moral: "You are judged by the company you
keep."
Think-Tank Imperialists
One thing is already far too clear: Biden's shadow national security team will be a
distinctly status-quo squad. To know where future policymakers might head, it always helps to
know where they came from. And when it comes to Biden's foreign policy crew ,
including a striking number of
women and a fair number of Obama administration and
Clinton 2016 campaign retreads -- they were
mostly in Trump-era holding patterns in the connected worlds of strategic consulting and
hawkish think tanking.
In fact, the national security bio of the archetypal Biden bro (or
sis ) would go something like this: she (he) sprang from an Ivy League school, became a
congressional staffer, got appointed to a mid-tier role on Barack Obama's national security
council, consulted for WestExec
Advisors (an Obama alumni-founded outfit linking
tech firms and the Department of Defense), was a fellow at the Center for New American Security
(CNAS), had some defense contractor ties , and
married someone
who's also
in the game .
It helps as well to follow the money. In other words, how did the Biden
bunch make it and who pays the outfits that have been paying them in the Trump years? None of
this is a secret: their two most common think-tank homes -- CNAS and the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) -- are the second- and sixth-highest recipients, respectively,
of U.S. government and defense-contractor
funding . The top donors to CNAS are Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and the Department of
Defense. Most CSIS largesse comes from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and
Raytheon.
How the inevitable conflicts of interest play out is hardly better concealed. To take just
one example, in 2016, Michèle Flournoy, CNAS co-founder, ex-Pentagon official, and "
odds-on favorite " to become Biden's secretary of defense,
exchanged emails with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador in Washington. She pitched
a project whereby CNAS analysts would, well, analyze whether Washington should maintain
drone-sales restrictions in a non-binding multilateral " missile technology control "
agreement. The UAE's autocratic government then paid CNAS $250,000 to draft a report
that (you won't be surprised to learn) argued for amending the agreement to allow that country
to purchase American-manufactured drones.
Michèle Flournoy, at right, on front of WestExec Advisors homepage.
Which is just what Flournoy and company's supposed nemeses in the Trump administration then
did this very July past. Again, no surprise. American drones seem to have a way of ending
up in the hands of Gulf theocracies -- states with abhorrent
human rights records that use such planes to surveil and brutally bomb Yemeni civilians
.
If it's too much to claim that a future Defense Secretary Flournoy would be the UAE's
(wo)man in Washington, you at least have to wonder. Worse still, with those think-tank,
security-consulting, and defense-industry ties of hers, she's anything but alone among Biden's
top
prospects and nominees. Just consider a few other abridged resumes:
Tony Blinken, on left, with President Barack Obama, on WestExec Advisors homepage.
Tony Blinken , [named
secretary of state on Monday] a longtime foreign policy adviser, to serve as secretary of
State; frontrunner for national security adviser: CSIS; WestExec (which he co-founded with
Flournoy); and CNN analyst. Jake Sullivan , [named
national security adviser on Monday]: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
("peace," in this case, being
funded by 10 military agencies and defense contractors) and Macro Advisory Partners, a
strategic consultancy
run by former British spy chiefs. Avril Haines [named
director of national intelligence on Monday]: CNAS-the Brookings Institution; WestExec; and
Palantir
Technologies , a controversial, CIA-seeded, NSA-linked data-mining firm. Kathleen Hicks , probable deputy
secretary of defense: CSIS and the Aerospace Corporation , a
federally funded research and development center that lobbies on defense issues.
An extra note about Hicks: she's the
head of Biden's Department of Defense transition team and also a senior vice president at
CSIS. There, she hosts that think tank's "Defense 2020" podcast. In case anyone's still
wondering where CSIS's bread is buttered, here's how Hicks
opens each episode:
"This podcast is made possible by contributions from BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman, and the Thales Group."
In other words, given what we already know about Joe Biden's previous
gut-driven policies that pass for "middle of the road" in this anything but middling
country of ours, the experiences and affiliations of his "
A-Team " don't bode well for systemic-change seekers. Remember, this is a president-elect
who
assured rich donors that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he were elected. Should he
indeed stock his national security team with such a conflicts-of-interest-ridden crowd,
consider America's sacred cows of foreign policy all but saved.
Biden's outfit is headed for office, it seems, to right the Titanic, not rock the boat.
Off the Table: A Paradigm Shift
President Barack Obama meeting with his national security team, April 25, 2011.
Michèle Flournoy, as under secretary of defense for policy. is on the president's right,
seated against wall. (White House, Flickr, Pete Souza)
In this context, join me in thinking about what won't be on the next presidential menu when
it comes to the militarization of American foreign policy.
Don't expect major changes when it comes to:
One-sided support for Israel that enables
permanent Palestinian oppression and foments undying ire across the Greater Middle East. Tony
Blinken
put it this way: as president, Joe Biden "would not tie military assistance to Israel to
things like annexation [of all or large portions of the occupied West Bank] or other decisions
by the Israeli government with which we might disagree." Unapologetic support for various Gulf
State autocracies and theocracies that, as they cynically
collude with Israel, will only continue to heighten tensions with Iran and facilitate yet
more grim war crimes in Yemen. Beyond Michèle Flournoy's professional
connections with the UAE, Gulf kingdoms generously fund the very think tanks that so many
Biden prospects have populated. Saudi Arabia, for example, offers annual donations to
Brookings and the Rand Corporation; the UAE, $1 million for a new CSIS office building ; and Qatar,
$14.8 million to Brookings. America's historically unprecedented and provocative
expeditionary military posture globally, including at least
800 bases in 80 countries , seems likely to be altered only in marginal ways. As Jake
Sullivan put it in a June CSIS interview : "I'm
not arguing for getting out of every base in the Middle East. There is a military posture
dimension to this as a reduced footprint."
Above all, it's obvious that the Biden bunch has no desire to slow down, no less halt, the "
revolving door " that
connects national security work in the government and jobs or security consulting positions in
the defense industry. The same goes for the think tanks that the arms producers amply
fund to justify the whole circus.
In such a context, count on this: the militarization of American society and the
"thank-you-for-your-service" fetishization of American soldiers will continue to thrive,
exhibit A being the way Biden now closes almost any speech
with "May God protect our troops."
All of this makes for a rather discouraging portrait of an old man's coming administration.
Still, consider it a version of truth in advertising. Joe and company are likely to continue to
be who they've always been and who they continue to say they are. After all, transformational
presidencies and unexpected pivots are historically
rare phenomena. Expecting the moon from a man mostly offering MoonPies almost guarantees
disappointment.
Obama Encore or Worse?
Tony Blinken, at right, as deputy national security advisor, with President Barack Obama,
Sept. 19, 2014. (White House, Pete Souza)
Don't misunderstand me: a Biden presidency will certainly leave some maneuvering room at the
margins of national security strategy. Think nuclear
treaties with the Russians (which the Trump administration had been systematically tearing
up) and the possible thawing of at least some of the
tensions with Tehran.
Nor should even the most cynical among us underestimate the significance of having a
president who actually accepts the reality of climate change and the need to switch to
alternative energy sources as quickly as possible. Noam Chomsky's
bold assertion that the human species couldn't endure a second Trump term, thanks to the
environmental catastrophe, nuclear brinksmanship, and pandemic negligence he represents, was
anything but hyperbole. Yet recall that he was also crystal clear about the need
"for an organized public" to demand change and "impose pressures" on the new administration the
moment the new president is inaugurated.
Yet, in the coming Biden years, there is also a danger that empowered Democrats in an
imperial presidency (when it comes to foreign policy) will actually escalate a
two-front New Cold War with China and Russia. And there's always the worry that the ascension
of a more genteel
emperor could co-opt -- or at least quiet -- a growing movement of anti-Trumpers, including
the vets of this country's forever wars who are increasingly
dressing in antiwar clothing.
What seems certain is that, as ever, salvation won't spring from the top. Don't count on
Status-quo Joe to slaughter Washington's sacred cows of foreign policy or on his national
security team to topple the golden calves of American empire. In fact, the defense industry
seems bullish on Biden. As Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes recently put it ,
"Obviously, there is a concern that defense spending will go way down if there is a Biden
administration, but frankly I think that's ridiculous." Or consider retired Marine Corps major
general turned defense consultant Arnold Punaro who recently said
of Biden's coming tenure, "I think the industry will have, when it comes to national security,
a very positive view."
Given the evidence that business-as-usual will continue in the Biden years, perhaps it's
time to take that advice from Cornel West, absorb the truth
about Biden's future national security squad, and act accordingly. There's no top-down
salvation on the agenda -- not from Joe or his crew of consummate insiders. Pressure and change
will flow from the grassroots or it won't come at all.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and contributing editor at antiwar.com . His work has appeared in the LA Times ,
The Nation , Huff Post , T he Hill , Salon , Truthdig ,
Tom Dispatch , among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance
units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the
author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders
of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His latest book is
Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War. Follow him on Twitter
at @SkepticalVet . Check out his
professional website for contact info,
scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
The choices the incoming president Joe Biden has made so far are not great at all. The
people he so far selected are staunch interventionists who will want to continue the wars
they have started during their previous time in office.
Tony Blinken will become Secretary of State. (It was probably thought to be too hard to
get Senate confirmation for the similar bad
Susan Rice.) In 2013 the Washington Post
described his high flying pedigree :
Blinken is deputy national security adviser to President Obama, who has also invoked the
Holocaust as his administration wrestles, often painfully, with how to respond to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. One of the government's key
players in drafting Syria policy, the 51-year-old Blinken has Clinton administration
credentials and deep ties to Vice President Biden and the foreign policy and national
security establishment in Washington. He has drawn attention in Situation Room photos,
including the iconic one during the May 2011 raid of Osama bin Laden's compound, for his
stylishly wavy salt-and-pepper hair. But what sets him apart from the other intellectual
powerhouses in the inner sanctum is a life story that reads like a Jewish high-society
screenplay that the onetime aspiring film producer may have once dreamed of making. There's
his father, a giant in venture capital; his mother, the arts patron; and his stepfather,
who survived the Holocaust to become of one of the most influential lawyers on the global
stage. It is a bildungsroman for young Blinken -- playing in a Parisian jazz band, debating
politics with statesmen -- with a supporting cast of characters that includes, among
others, Leonard Bernstein, John Lennon, Mark Rothko, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Abel
Ferrara and Christo.
The man is a war mongering psycho:
Blinken surprised some in the Situation Room by breaking with Biden to support military
action in Libya, administration officials said, and he advocated for American action in
Syria after Obama's reelection. These sources said that Blinken was less enthusiastic than
Biden about Obama's decision to seek congressional approval for a strike in Syria, but is
now -- perhaps out of necessity -- onboard and a backer of diplomatic negotiations with
Russia. While less of an ideologue than Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations (a job for which he was considered), he not surprisingly shares her belief that
global powers such as the United States have a "responsibility to protect" against
atrocities.
He has since shown
no remorse about those foreign policy failures:
Blinken maintains that the failure of U.S. policy in Syria was that our government did not
employ enough force. He stands by the false argument that Biden's vote to authorize the
invasion of Iraq was a "vote for tough diplomacy." He was reportedly in favor of the Libyan
intervention, which Biden opposed, and he was initially a defender and advocate for U.S.
support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. In short, Blinken has agreed with some of the
biggest foreign policy mistakes that Biden and Obama made, and he has tended to be more of
an interventionist than both of them.
If you can't quite place Jake Sullivan, he's was a long-serving aide to Hillary Clinton,
starting with her 2008 race against Barack Obama, then serving as her deputy chief of staff
and director of the State Department's Office of Policy Planning when Clinton was Obama's
secretary of state. (...) In 2016, during her failed presidential campaign, Sullivan once
again teamed up with Clinton, and he was widely expected to have been named to serve as her
national security adviser or even secretary of state had she won.
Since 2016, and since the creation of NSA, Sullivan has emerged as a kind of foreign
policy scold, gently -- and sometimes not so gently -- criticizing those who reflexively
oppose American intervention abroad and who disparage the idea of American
"exceptionalism." Indeed, in an article in the January-February issue of The Atlantic,
"What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America," Sullivan explicitly says that
he's intent on "rescuing the idea of American exceptionalism" and presents the "case for a
new American exceptionalism".
Sullivan
send classified documents to Hillary Clinton's private email server. He wrote to her that
Al Qaida is "on our side in Syria." He also hyped fake Trump-Russia collusion
allegations.
It is yet unknown who will become Secretary of Defense. Michèle Flournoy is the
most named option but there is
some opposition to her nomination :
[B]ackers of Michèle Flournoy, his likely pick for defense secretary, are trying to
head off a last-minute push by some left-leaning Democrats trying to derail her selection,
with many progressives seeing her nomination as a continuation of what critics refer to as
America's "forever wars."
I expect that the progressive will lose the fight and that either Flournoy or some other
hawkish figure will get that weapon lobbyist position.
Progressives also lost on the Treasury position. Biden's nomination for that is Janet
Yellen who is known to be an inflation hawk. She is unlikely to support large spending on
progressive priorities.
As usual with a Democratic election win the people who brought the decisive votes and
engagement, those who argue for more socialist and peaceful policies, will be cut off from
the levers of power.
In three years they will again be called upon to fall for another bait and switch.
Posted by b on November 24, 2020 at 16:32 UTC | Permalink
There are so many creatures that the swamp holds. Don't be surprised by what comes
next.
The entire project for Democrats in this election cycle was to get rid of Trump. There was
never any vision for the future or a presentation of policy to gain voters. It was all "Trump
is an existential threat and the only priority is to defeat him at the polls." Bernie Sanders
made this all quite clear as he again led his legion of lemmings off a cliff and into an
ocean of Neoliberal/neoconservative Forever Empire.
But hey, it's all worth it to get rid of The Man With The Golden Toilet.
Meanwhile, yeah, it's back to future with more of the same as far as the eye can see.
Which, with an economy in shambles, and a populace with a death wish, might not be as long as
one thinks.
At the very least "gravitas" will have been restored to its venerable and "sacred"
institution. And a good portion of the american population can heave a huge sigh of relief,
and go about their business of profound ritualistic conformity.
Gravitas restored by an aging old man, potentially on the verge of dementia, which is a
sad condition by any measure. A collection of Human beings about as bereft of solutions of
philosophy of spiritual comprehension as possible, at this point in human history. We all
have an enormous amount to look forward to!
It's a veritable who's who of the same criminals who instigated and executed the covert (and
sometimes overt) military and economic aggressions across several regions of the globe, to
include North Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
"US multinationals aim to clear away a stumbling block, the Trump administration's
protectionism and anti-globalism, to push forward their international plans, in particular
their exploration of the Chinese market, experts said. They made the comments in response to
news that New York business leaders signed a letter urging the Trump administration to start
the power transition to the incoming Biden administration.
"They also predicted that many of the prejudicial and disruptive policies launched by the
Trump administration against China, like sanctions on Huawei and tariff hikes, will be
corrected once Biden becomes the new US president.
"More than 160 top US executives have signed a letter pressing the Trump administration to
acknowledge Joe Biden as the president-elect and begin the transition to the new
administration, according to a report by The New York Times. Most of the executives come from
US multinationals including Mastercard, Visa, Condé Nast, WeWork and American
International Group.
"Many top executives from US financial companies have signed the letter, including David
Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs and Jon Gray, Blackstone's president."
Such an attitude might sway Biden away from a confrontation first policy with China since
the overall balance of power has changed greatly since he was Vice-President. Perhaps the
Neocons will finally learn Peace is more profitable than war.
@ karlof 73 Trump's draconian trade restrictions will soon be lifted
wiki: The trade war has negatively impacted the economies of both the United States and
China. In the United States, it has led to higher prices for consumers and financial
difficulties for farmers. In China, the trade war contributed to a slowdown in the rate of
economic and industrial output growth, which had already been on a decline. Many American
companies have shifted supply chains to elsewhere in Asia, bringing fears that the trade war
would lead to a US-China economic 'decoupling'. In other countries the trade war has also
caused economic damage, though some countries have benefited from increased manufacturing to
fill the gaps. It has also led to stock market instability. Governments around the world have
taken steps to address some of the damage caused by the economic conflict.//
As on war, and many other issues, the corrupt US Congress has allowed "executive
privilege" to enact measures and programs that would never be allowed in a real "democratic"
country, governed by citizens with availability to a free press.
Edward Abbey: "Democracy--rule by the people--sounds like a fine thing; we should try it
sometime in America."
The incoming Biden administration's cabinet carries a strong whiff of deja vu, and that's no
accident – the uninspiring president-elect is staking everything on evoking a lost utopia
that never existed under ex-president Obama.
The Biden campaign's rule of thumb for his cabinet appointments seems to be to channel the
Obama administration – with an extra helping of wokeness where possible. This has seen
him float Pentagon veteran and dyed-in-the-wool megahawk Michele Flournoy as the first-ever
female Secretary of Defense and former DACA czar Alejandro Mayorkas as the first Latino-Jewish
head of the Department of Homeland Security.
There's also the rumor he's planning to pick Obama's former Fed chair
Janet Yellen as the first-ever female Treasury Secretary – but even if she's not the
lucky lady, fellow former Clinton adviser Lael Brainard could get the nod, or one of two black
candidates – one of whom happens to be gay. Whoever he picks, they'll be a "first"
– and, given their institutional history as reliable servants of the ruling class under
Obama, a dependable source of more-of-the-same fiscal policies.
Lest all this wokeness turn off the Republicans who defected to Biden out of distaste for
President Donald Trump's determination to upset the military-industrial applecart, the presumed
president has also brought back ex-Secretary of State John Kerry, who'll be returning to
Washington to serve as a 'climate czar' on the National Security Council. While Kerry would be
the first person to hold such a position, which will allow him to skip a Senate confirmation
that could be unfriendly given the chamber's Republican control, Kerry's time at the head of
the State Department saw the Obama administration continue digging the US deeper into its
portfolio of ill-advised wars. And Kerry was the man who signed the Paris Climate Accords on
behalf of Washington in 2016, a treaty President Donald Trump wasted no time removing the US
from. He should go down plenty smooth indeed.
Most of the Biden picks were second-stringers during the Obama years and thus haven't quite
become household names yet. This is likely to be a point in their favor – if the history
of would-be Secretary of State Antony Blinken is any indication, Biden has good reason for
picking relative unknowns. A report from the American Prospect revealed Blinken had spent the
post-Obama years getting rich quick at consulting firm WestExec – which coincidentally
(or not) was co-founded by
would-be Pentagon chief Flournoy after her most recent stint at the Pentagon. The firm focuses
on "helping new companies navigate the complex bureaucracy of winning Pentagon
contracts" – suggesting a Biden presidency won't just deliver a fatter Pentagon
budget, but new wars to go with it.
It's no surprise, then, that Washington-watchers are sinking into deja vu. Biden was elected
as the "anti-Trump," a return to some vague fantasy of "normalcy" . Except the
nostalgia for the Obama era that helped shoehorn Biden into office earlier this month was based
on a wholly synthetic reimagining of the eight years in which the career politician served as
vice president.
Obama may have inherited George W. Bush's financial crisis in 2008, born of rapacious
investment banks that mistook people's life savings for free chips from a casino, but the "
recovery " he claimed as his own never bothered to lift up
most working- and
middle-class Americans . Many of these lost their homes, and if they didn't, their children
"failed to launch," in no position to strike out on their own. The younger generation
were either mired in student debt or merely unable to afford even the cheapest 'starter homes'
due to an absence of living-wage jobs open to young adults entering the
workplace.
Biden made it clear repeatedly in the run-up to this month's election that he had no
interest in feeling these people's pain. "I have no empathy for it – give me a
break," he said,
complaining that millennials had been given everything by his own generation, the Baby
Boomers. In reality, those "whiners" so loathed by the president-to-be made 20 percent
less than Biden's generation at the same age at best – assuming they were lucky enough to
have a job at all. Back when it was still considered acceptable to trash Biden, most
establishment outlets raked him over the coals for such tone-deaf comments. But such negativity
was memory-holed when the Democrats crowned Biden their pick to run against Trump –
speaking ill of the anointed one got progressives labeled Trump supporters or Nazis or
worse.
Those whose rose-colored glasses let them see Biden as the second coming of Obama forget
that "Bush in a black-man suit" turned two wars into seven, allowed Citibank – one
of the worst offenders of the 2008 financial crisis – to shape his cabinet, and passed a
mockery of "universal healthcare" that forced the lower-middle-class to purchase health
insurance they couldn't afford or shoulder a tax penalty they also couldn't afford. Biden has
promised to reignite the war in Syria, veto the actual universal healthcare policy that is
Medicare for All, and ensure nothing will fundamentally change for his fat-cat Wall Street
donors – and those
donors seem to be picking
his cabinet just like they did his boss' in 2008.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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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.
82
Robin Olsen 13 hours ago 23 Nov, 2020 10:23 PM
Restarting the war in Syria will take a major false flag that is bullet proof in order to get
Russia to withdraw...not one false flag chemical attack staged by Obama and Biden actually
worked in the past. Trump's failed too. The world is onto America's false flag strategy...To
get Americans behind another 20 years of forever wars is also gonna take significant false
flag. Americans will fall for it, they always do...but no one else will...not this time.
Without international support he cannot restart anything, the British are not enough to
counter Russian interference and I don't think Bojo will survive the next election anyways.
HypoxiaMasks 17 hours ago 23 Nov, 2020 06:17 PM
With any luck he will bless us with Hillary, Comey, Brennan, the corpse of McCain and as an
added bonus Lil Bush and both Obamas
DukeLeo HypoxiaMasks 9 hours ago 24 Nov, 2020 02:50 AM
Biden has not officially been pronounced winner in the elections, and he already has picked a
neocon team. What a big surprise. Makes you wonder how many people who voted for him really
knew what they were doing.
Ibmekon 17 hours ago 23 Nov, 2020 06:34 PM
When Trump got into power he soon overtook Obama record of 26171 bombs in 2016. Trump since
2015 has dropped over 133,000 bombs . Trump tried to get troops out - the MIC just sent them
back in. Joey Biden and new secretary of state are committed to keep the troops out occupying
countries around the world - which requires the bombs to keep falling, one every 12 mins.
Because nobody actually wants the USA military in their country (apart from a few well bribed
military/religious dictators) We have no number for those murdered - the USA refuses to keep
any count.
And that coming from Trump who put APARTHEID Israel first
and did more for that racist country than he did for America.
whether underground , 5 hours ago
Exactly. And biden will for sure, 110% COMPLETELY END any idea of putting Americans first
in anything other than shackles. F all of them.
Mr Poopra , 5 hours ago
People still think Biden will actually assume office? If Trump won't win in the courts,
he's going to burn the entire thing down on his way out. Full Declass coming. Swamp creatures
tremble!
SurfingUSA , 4 hours ago
Problem is the agencies are openly defying him on declass (and have been). Would have to
send in U.S. marshals.
CJgipper , 4 hours ago
trump will do nothing. he should have already done the declassifications.
FingerInTheDarkness , 4 hours ago
Dropping the Biden laptop after most of the mail in ballots were already in the mail is
all you really need to know. Biden was installed. The only question is what to do next? He
will come for the guns and he will force the poison shots. Options are few.
cankles' server , 4 hours ago
He's already tried the declass route regarding Russia hoax and was thwarted by swamp
creatures.
"Means and methods" will be the mantra for obstructionists.
FingerInTheDarkness , 4 hours ago
Just like he declassified the JFK stuff, err wait a damn minute. We been had!!!
eatapeach , 3 hours ago
Even if it's released, you can bet Israel's complicity in the murder/coup will be omitted,
despite the fact that Jack Ruby (Rubinstein) was a Mossad asset and AIPAC got the massive
benefit of NOT having to register as a foreign agent.
Dragonlord , 5 hours ago
I am more amazed that the left love wars more than Trump and thats after the former
accused the latter of starting WWIII
Herodotus , 5 hours ago
They made sure that Goldwater was defeated so that they could build up the war there and
insure that 58,000 Americans would die in Vietnam.
Fizzy Head , 4 hours ago
...Once they had JFK out of their way.
BarnacleBill , 4 hours ago
For as long as Americans honour the 58,000 invaders more than the 2,000,000 victims of the
invaders' activities, there is no hope for the USA. And no respect, either. Sorry! I wrote
this post (link below, "The war against women") eight years ago, and it's still sadly
relevant.
You really have to wonder about an American generals loyalties when they do not like or
recommend an America first policy. Who exactly is the guy Gen. Mattis working for?
Rich Stoehner , 5 hours ago
Mattis is working for a globalized cartel of ho-mos.
"America First" was a con. What we got is a 'J3w5 First' foreign & domestic
policy.
Biden's isn't hiding his ''J3w5 First' foreign & domestic policy.
The only difference between the two are stylistic, the goal is the same.
Haboob , 3 hours ago
The difference is how they operate.
Trump wants peace through business and Mattis wants peace through war?
frontierland , 3 hours ago
Peace has nothing to do with it.
Trump conned White America with his pro-White dog-whistles, a tactic developed by his
mentor Arthur Finkelstein. The establishment doesn't like this approach as it woke the
sleeping giant, White America, while delivering no pro-White policies... Which made White
America self-aware, with expectations raised, awake and pissed off with Trumps failure to
deliver.
The "Left" arm of the neoLiberal establishment prefers an honest, open anti-White
approach... The long, slow-boil of White America.
Seal Team 6 , 4 hours ago
Mattis also threw in a dig at Trump's coronavirus response, noting "The pandemic should
serve as a reminder of what grief ensues when we wait for problems to come to us."
Really now? It seems to me that the US did exactly what Mattis says by the Obama
administration helping to fund the level 5 Wuhan lab, along with the French and the
neo-marxist government in Canada.
Does anyone in the MSM ever ask any of these turds questions that are actually relevant,
or do they give them an open mike to fabricate history however they like?
Max21c , 4 hours ago
Mattis is a product of the Deep State and an agent of the Deep State. He's been
brainwashed by the Deep State and his loyalties are to the Pentagon Gestapo and CIA and Deep
State. His loyalties are not to the American nation, American citizenry, Constitution and
Bill of Rights. He works for and sides with the secret police and state security
apparatus.
d_7878 , 4 hours ago
Ron Paul: "Trump Does The Bidding of the Deep State".
"... U.S. cabinet positions are positions of power that can drastically affect the lives of millions of Americans and billions of our neighbors overseas. If Biden is surrounded by people who, against all the evidence of past decades, still believe in the illegal threat and use of military force as key foundations of American foreign policy, then the international cooperation the whole world so desperately needs will be undermined by four more years of war, hostility and international tensions, and our most serious problems will remain unresolved. ..."
"... Medea Benjamin is ..."
"... of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection . Nicolas J. S. Davies is a writer for Consortium News and a researcher with CODEPINK, and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq ..."
Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as America's next president! People all over
this pandemic-infested, war-torn and poverty-stricken world were shocked by the brutality and
racism of the Trump administration, and are anxiously wondering whether Biden's presidency will
open the door to the kind of international cooperation that we need to confront the serious
problems facing humanity in this century.
For progressives everywhere, the knowledge that "another world is possible" has sustained us
through decades of greed, extreme inequality and war, as U.S.-led neoliberalism has repackaged and force-fed
19th century laissez-faire capitalism to the people of the 21st century. The Trump
experience has revealed, in stark relief, where these policies can lead.
Joe Biden has certainly paid his dues to and reaped rewards from the same corrupt political
and economic system as Trump, as the latter delightedly trumpeted in every stump speech. But
Biden must understand that the
young voters who turned out in unprecedented numbers to put him in the White House have
lived their whole lives under this neoliberal system, and did not vote for "more of the same."
Nor do they naively think that deeply-rooted problems of American society like racism,
militarism and corrupt corporate politics began with Trump.
During his election campaign, Biden has relied on foreign policy advisors from past
administrations, particularly the Obama administration, and seems to be considering some of
them for top cabinet posts. For the most part, they are members of the "Washington blob" who
represent a dangerous continuity with past policies rooted in militarism and other abuses of
power.
These include interventions in Libya and Syria, support for the Saudi war in Yemen, drone
warfare, indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo, prosecutions of whistleblowers and
whitewashing torture. Some of these people have also cashed in on their government contacts to
make hefty salaries in consulting firms and other private sector ventures that feed off
government contracts.
– As former Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor to Obama,
Tony Blinken played a
leading role in all Obama's aggressive policies. Then he co-founded WestExec Advisors to
profit
from negotiating contracts between corporations and the Pentagon, including one for Google
to develop Artificial Intelligence technology for drone targeting, which was only stopped by a
rebellion among outraged Google employees.
– Since the Clinton administration,
Michele Flournoy has been a principal architect of the U.S.'s illegal, imperialist doctrine
of global war and military occupation. As Obama's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, she
helped to engineer his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and interventions in Libya and
Syria. Between jobs at the Pentagon, she has worked the infamous revolving door to consult for
firms seeking Pentagon contracts, to co-found a military-industrial think tank called the
Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and now to join Tony Blinken at WestExec
Advisors.
– Nicholas
Burns was U.S. Ambassador to NATO during the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Since
2008, he has worked for former Defense Secretary William Cohen's lobbying firm The Cohen Group, which is a major global
lobbyist for the U.S. arms industry. Burns is a hawk on Russia and China
and has condemned
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a "traitor."
– As a legal adviser to Obama and the State Department and then as Deputy CIA Director
and Deputy National Security Advisor, Avril Haines provided legal cover and worked
closely with Obama and CIA Director John Brennan on Obama's
tenfold expansion of drone killings.
– Samantha
Power served under Obama as UN Ambassador and Human Rights Director at the National
Security Council. She supported U.S. interventions in Libya and Syria, as well as the Saudi-led
war on Yemen . And despite her human rights portfolio, she never spoke out against Israeli
attacks on Gaza that happened under her tenure or Obama's dramatic use of drones that left
hundreds of civilians dead.
– As UN Ambassador in Obama's first term, Susan Rice obtained UN cover for his
disastrous intervention in Libya. As National Security Advisor in Obama's second term, Rice
also defended Israel's savage
bombardment of Gaza in 2014, bragged about the U.S. "crippling sanctions" on Iran and North
Korea, and supported an aggressive stance toward Russia and China.
A foreign policy team led by such individuals will only perpetuate the endless wars,
Pentagon overreach and CIA-misled chaos that we -- and the world -- have endured for the past
two decades of the War on Terror.
Making diplomacy "the premier tool of our global engagement."
Biden will take office amid some of the greatest challenges the human race has ever faced --
from extreme inequality, debt and poverty caused by neoliberalism , to intractable wars and the
existential danger of nuclear war, to the climate crisis, mass extinction and the Covid-19
pandemic.
These problems won't be solved by the same people, and the same mindsets, that got us into
these predicaments. When it comes to foreign policy, there is a desperate need for personnel
and policies rooted in an understanding that the greatest dangers we face are problems that
affect the whole world, and that they can only be solved by genuine international
collaboration, not by conflict or coercion.
During the campaign, Joe
Biden's website declared, "As president, Biden will elevate diplomacy as the premier tool
of our global engagement. He will rebuild a modern, agile U.S. Department of State -- investing
in and re-empowering the finest diplomatic corps in the world and leveraging the full talent
and richness of America's diversity."
This implies that Biden's foreign policy must be managed primarily by the State Department,
not the Pentagon. The Cold War and American post-Cold War
triumphalism led to a reversal of these roles, with the Pentagon and CIA taking the lead
and the State Department trailing behind them (with only 5% of their budget), trying to clean
up the mess and restore a veneer of order to countries destroyed by
American bombs or destabilized by U.S. sanctions
, coups
and
death squads .
In the Trump era, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reduced the State Department to little more
than a
sales team for the military-industrial complex to ink lucrative arms deals with India,
Taiwan , Saudi
Arabia, the UAE and countries around the world.
What we need is a foreign policy led by a State Department that resolves differences with
our neighbors through diplomacy and negotiations, as international law in fact requires , and a
Department of Defense that defends the United States and deters international aggression
against us, instead of threatening and committing aggression against our neighbors around the
world.
As the saying goes, "personnel is policy," so whomever Biden picks for top foreign policy
posts will be key in shaping its direction. While our personal preferences would be to put top
foreign policy positions in the hands of people who have spent their lives actively pursuing
peace and opposing U.S. military aggression, that's just not in the cards with this
middle-of-the-road Biden administration.
But there are appointments Biden could make to give his foreign policy the emphasis on
diplomacy and negotiation that he says he wants. These are American diplomats who have
successfully negotiated important international agreements, warned U.S. leaders of the dangers
of aggressive militarism and developed valuable expertise in critical areas like arms
control.
William
Burns was Deputy Secretary of State under Obama, the # 2 position at the State Department,
and he is now the director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As Under
Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs in 2002, Burns gave Secretary of State Powell a prescient
and detailed but unheeded
warning that the invasion of Iraq could "unravel" and create a "perfect storm" for American
interests. Burns also served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan and then Russia.
Wendy Sherman was
Obama's Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, the # 4 position at the State
Department, and was briefly Acting Deputy Secretary of State after Burns retired. Sherman was
the lead
negotiator for both the1994 Framework Agreement with North Korea and the negotiations with
Iran that led to the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015. This is surely the kind of experience
Biden needs in senior positions if he is serious about reinvigorating American diplomacy.
Tom
Countryman is currently the Chair of the Arms Control Association . In the Obama administration,
Countryman served as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs, Assistant
Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, and Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs. He also served at U.S. embassies in
Belgrade, Cairo, Rome and Athens, and as foreign policy advisor to the Commandant of the U.S.
Marine Corps. Countryman's expertise could be critical in reducing or even removing the danger
of nuclear war. It would also please the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, since Tom
supported Senator Bernie Sanders for president.
In addition to these professional diplomats, there are also Members of Congress who have
expertise in foreign policy and could play important roles in a Biden foreign policy team. One
is Representative Ro
Khanna , who has been a champion of ending U.S. support for the war in Yemen, resolving the
conflict with North Korea and reclaiming Congress's constitutional authority over the use of
military force.
If the Republicans hold their majority in the Senate, it will be harder to get appointments
confirmed than if the Democrats win the two Georgia seats that are
headed for run-offs , or than if they had run more progressive campaigns in Iowa, Maine or
North Carolina and won at least one of those seats. But this will be a long two years if we let
Joe Biden take cover behind Mitch McConnell on critical appointments, policies and legislation.
Biden's initial cabinet appointments will be an early test of whether Biden will be the
consummate insider or whether he is willing to fight for real solutions to our country's most
serious problems.
Conclusion
U.S. cabinet positions are positions of power that can drastically affect the lives of
millions of Americans and billions of our neighbors overseas. If Biden is surrounded by people
who, against all the evidence of past decades, still believe in the illegal threat and use of
military force as key foundations of American foreign policy, then the international
cooperation the whole world so desperately needs will be undermined by four more years of war,
hostility and international tensions, and our most serious problems will remain
unresolved.
That's why we must vigorously advocate for a team that would put an end to the normalization
of war and make diplomatic engagement in the pursuit of international peace and cooperation our
number one foreign policy priority.
Whomever President-elect Biden chooses to be part of his foreign policy team, he -- and they
-- will be pushed by people beyond the White House fence who are calling for demilitarization,
including cuts in military spending, and for reinvestment in our country's peaceful economic
development.
It will be our job to hold President Biden and his team accountable whenever they fail to
turn the page on war and militarism, and to keep pushing them to build friendly relations with
all our neighbors on this small planet that we share.
Background: Burns, a career diplomat who has served as ambassador to Russia and as
deputy secretary of state, gets particularly high marks for cognitive empathy -- understanding
the perspectives and motivations of international actors.
Few if any contenders for foreign policy positions in the Biden administration surpass Burns
when it comes to appreciating one tenet of progressive realism: military interventions have a
way of leading to bad things. In a ten-page memo Burns wrote to
Secretary of State Colin Powell, then his boss, during the runup to the Iraq War, he laid out a
cornucopia of possible unintended consequences, including some that became all too real. (Like:
Iran feels threatened and acts accordingly.)
Even highly surgical uses of violence, Burns recognizes, can have blowback. Last year he
wrote
that, during the Obama administration, as "drone strikes and special operations grew
exponentially," they were "often highly successful in narrow military terms" but at the cost of
"complicating political relationships and inadvertently causing civilian casualties and fueling
terrorist recruitment."
So it's not surprising that Burns has often pushed for non-military solutions to foreign
policy problems. Still, he has supported dubious interventions -- such as America's joining
allies in arming Syrian rebels, a policy hatched while Burns was deputy secretary of state in
the Obama administration.
In retrospect, it's not shocking that this policy only succeeded in amplifying the killing
and chaos, given the conflicting agendas of our allies and the divergent aims of the various
rebel groups -- not to mention the aforementioned inherent unpredictability of military action.
Yet, even with years of hindsight, Burns confined his criticism of this proxy intervention to
matters of timing and execution. In his 2019 book The Back Channel , he said we should
have given more aid to the rebels earlier. But Burns does, at least, get credit for considering
Obama's public demand for regime change ("Assad must go") unwise, and for having initially
hoped for more open-ended negotiations than that demand permitted.
Cognitive empathy (A)
Burns is adept at seeing the perspectives of international actors, as demonstrated in
particular by his views on Russia. He has a history of dealing effectively with the country,
and he takes Moscow's interests seriously. Unlike many in the foreign policy establishment,
Burns doubts the wisdom of NATO expansion -- including its early phases but especially its
later ones. When the US "pushed open the door for formal NATO membership for Ukraine and
Georgia," he has
said , "I think that fed Putin's narrative that the United States was out to keep Russia
down, to undermine Russia and what he saw to be its entitlement, its sphere of influence."
Burns believes that, though Putin
clearly sees the US as an adversary, he doesn't see the US-Russia relationship in purely
zero-sum terms; Putin is capable of seeing "those few areas where we might be able to work
together. He is capable of juggling apparent contradictions."
Burns is very aware -- as many US officials over the years have not been -- that hectoring
foreign countries about how they should behave can be counterproductive. "I've always felt we
get a lot further in the world with the power of our example than we do with the power of our
preaching," he
said in a New Yorker interview. "Americans can sometimes... be awfully patronizing
overseas."
Respect for international law (B)
Burns is generally a strong advocate of international law. And in the course of his career
he has often had occasion to invoke it -- as when, in 2014, he
said disputes over islands in the South China Sea should be resolved via adjudicatory
mechanisms outlined in the Law of the Sea Convention. (Had he not been speaking for the US
government, he might have added that, regrettably, America itself has not ratified that
convention.)
Unfortunately, Burns seems to have adopted the habit, widespread in the foreign policy
establishment, of being more fastidious in applying international law to adversaries than to
the US. In The Back Channel he offers some practical criticisms of America's 2011
intervention in Libya, but he doesn't note that when the mission shifted from defending
imperiled civilian populations to overthrowing the regime, it arguably
violated the letter of the authorizing UN resolution and certainly violated its spirit.
Similarly, his discussion in that book of Obama's arming of Syrian rebels evinces no concern
about the fact that this intervention, according to common
legal reckoning , violated the UN Charter.
Support for international governance (A)
Burns certainly supports international governance of a progressive sort -- agreements and
institutions that address climate change and arms control, for example, and the inclusion of
labor and environmental provisions in trade agreements. And he has been deeply involved in
multilateral problem solving, such as the Iran nuclear deal.
But what sets Burns apart from your typical progressive supporter of international
governance is his understanding of the need to expand it beyond these traditional areas. He
recognizes, for example, that if work in artificial intelligence and genetic engineering
proceeds without restraint in a context of intense international competition, bad things could
happen. So he wants to
"create workable international rules of the road" in these areas, and he wants the US State
Department to "take the lead -- just as it did during the nuclear age -- building legal and
normative frameworks."
Universal engagement (A-)
As a quintessential diplomat, Burns believes that the U.S. should be open to relations with
any country willing to talk. He is especially emphatic about the importance of maintaining
diplomatic and economic engagement with China; he
criticizes those who "assume too much about the feasibility of decoupling and containment
-- and about the inevitability of confrontation. Our tendency, as it was during the height of
the Cold War, is to overhype the threat, over-prove our hawkish bona fides, over-militarize our
approach, and reduce the political and diplomatic space required to manage great-power
competition." And Burns recognizes one of the biggest payoffs of engagement with China: to
"preserve space for cooperation on global challenges."
Burns eschews a Cold War not just with China but with authoritarian states more broadly. He
is refreshingly
skeptical of proposals -- fashionable in neoconservative and some liberal circles -- to
form a "league" or "concert" of democracies that would fight "techno-authoritarianism."
Burns doesn't seem to have expressed the degree of skepticism about America's promiscuous
use of economic sanctions that a progressive realist might like. But he gets points for at
least recognizing the inconsistency of their application. "We focus our criticism on Maduro, in
Venezuela, who richly deserves it, and then pull punches with Mohammed bin Salman, in Saudi
Arabia," he
said in a New Yorker interview.
Burns also recognizes that the foreign policy establishment's obsession with Iran is, well,
obsessive. Tehran has "an outsized hold on our imagination," he
says . Yes, he believes, Iran poses threats to American friends and interests, but those
threats are manageable, in part because, contrary to a common American view, Iran is "not 10
feet tall."
Miscellaneous
(1) After leaving the government, Burns became president of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. That's a highly and rightly respected position. But it should be noted --
since any good progressive realist wants to root out the influence of the military industrial
complex -- that Carnegie has taken money from Northrup Grumman
( as well as
from such foreign countries as Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates and from NATO).
(2) Burns deserves credit for seeing that the foreign policy establishment, confronted by
Trump's jarringly disruptive policies, is in danger of mindlessly retreating to pre-Trump
policies that in fact need sharp revision. Recounting (and embracing) the bipartisan opposition
to Trump's abrupt withdrawal of military support for Kurds in Syria, he
adds , "If all this episode engenders, however, is a bipartisan dip in the warm waters of
self-righteous criticism, it will be a tragedy We have to come to grips with the deeper and
more consequential betrayal of common sense -- the notion that the only antidote to Trump's
fumbling attempts to disentangle the United States from the region is a retreat to the magical
thinking that has animated so much of America's moment in the Middle East since the end of the
Cold War." This magical thinking, he continues, involves "the persistent tendency to assume too
much about our influence and too little about the obstacles in our path and the agency of other
actors."
Full spectrum dominance theorists are dusted off and put in key positions in new
administration. Instead of punishment and jail terms Russiagaters got promotion.
Biden signals US return to full-on globalism and foreign meddling by picking interventionist
Anthony Blinken as secretary of state
Joe Biden has named Anthony Blinken – an
advocate for isolating Russia, cozying up to China and intervening in Syria – as
secretary of state, cementing a foreign policy built on military forays and multi-national
motivations.
Biden, the nominal president-elect, announced his selection of
Blinken along with other members of his foreign-policy and national-security team, which is
filled with such veteran Washington insiders as John Kerry, the new climate czar and formerly
secretary of state in the Obama-Biden administration.
Blinken, a long-time adviser to Biden and deputy secretary of state under President Barack
Obama, has been hailed by fellow Democrats and globalists, such as retired General Barry
McCaffrey, as an experienced bureaucrat with "global contacts and respect." Enrico
Letta, dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, called Biden's choice the "right
step to relaunch transatlantic ties."
He was even praised for a 2016 appearance on the Sesame Street children's television
program, where he explained to the show's 'Grover' character the benefits of accepting
refugees.
While some critics focused on how Blinken " got rich working for corporate
clients " during President Donald Trump's term in office, the new foreign-affairs chief's
neoconservative policy recommendations might be cause for greater concern. He advocated for the
Iraq War and the bombings of such countries as Libya and Yemen.
Blinken is still arguing for a resurgence in Washington's
military intervention in Syria. He lamented in a May interview that the Obama-Biden
administration hadn't done enough to prevent a "horrific situation" in Syria, and he faulted
Trump for squandering what remaining leverage the US had on the Bashar Assad regime by pulling
troops out of the country.
"Our leverage is vastly even less than it was, but I think we do have points of leverage to
try to effectuate some more positive developments," Blinken said. For instance, US special
forces in northeast Syria are located near Syrian oil fields. "The Syrian government would
love to have dominion over those resources. We should not give that up for free."
Blinken also sees Biden strengthening NATO, isolating Russia politically and " confronting
Mr. [President Vladimir] Putin for his aggressions."
As for China, Blinken has said Washington needs to look for ways to cooperate with Beijing.
Reinvesting in international alliances that were weakened by Trump will help the Biden
administration deal with China "from a position of strength" as it pushes back against
the Chinese Communist Party's human-rights abuses, he said.
Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump's 'America First' foreign
policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. "Donald Trump's
brand of America First has too often led to America alone," Biden proclaimed.
He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America's reputation.
While Donald Trump called for making America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American
Empire Great Again .
Joe Biden: "Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America
is a beacon for the globe. We will lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power
of our example."
Among the president-elect's pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the
decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush
administration.
"It's long past time we end the forever wars which have cost us untold blood and treasure,"
Biden has said.
Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will delegate that duty to the
most neoconservative elements of the Democratic Party and ideologues of permanent war .
Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden's thousands-strong foreign policy brain
trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war dating back to the Bill Clinton
administration.
During the Trump era, they've cashed in through WestExec Advisors – a corporate
consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to
government.
Flournoy is Biden's leading pick for Secretary of Defense and Blinken is expected to be the
president's National Security Advisor.
Biden's foxes guard the henhouse
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ivFFZ95EQvY
This video report was originally published at Behind The Headlines .
Support the independent journalism initiative here .
As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD's,
Flournoy remarked that "In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary's [weapons of
mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic
attack against the United States."
Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joe Biden,
who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush's
illegal invasion of Iraq.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President Bush
is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction."
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war . The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the
world's most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using
it to defend our interests anywhere in the world."
With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the
sidelines.
In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one
of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a
New American Security (CNAS). CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms
manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big
banks.
Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for
policy, the position considered the "brains" of the Pentagon. She was keenly aware that the
public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, she crafted a new
concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state while giving the appearance of a
drawdown.
Flournoy wrote that "unmanned systems hold great promise" – a reference to the CIA's
drone assassination program. This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called
for the U.S. to be able to simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare,
clandestine weapons transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all
buttressed with propaganda campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and
corporate news media.
Architects of America's Hybrid wars
Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key
architect of Obama's disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body
bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she
deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the
tide against the Taliban: "We are beginning to regain the initiative and the insurgency is
beginning to lose momentum."
Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban
back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into
the future: "We are not leaving any time soon even though the nature and the complexion of the
commitment may change over time."
Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued
to argue against a U.S. withdrawal: "I would certainly not advocate a US or NATO departure
short of a political settlement being in place."
That's the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in
Biden's own words, he'll "bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan" implying
some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele
Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a
presence.
Michele Flournoy: "If we are fortunate enough to see a political settlement reached, it
doesn't mean that the US role or the international community is over. Afghanistan without
outside investment is not a society that is going to survive and thrive. In no case are we
going to be able to wash our hands of Afghanistan and walk away nor should we want to. This is
something where we're going to have to continue to be engaged, just the form of engagement may
change."
In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO
regime-change war on Libya.
Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had
given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.
Flournoy, Hillary Clinton's State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they
waged an elaborate propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi's soldiers were
on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.
Fox News: "Susan Rice reportedly told a security council meeting that Libyan troops are
being given viagra and are engaging in sexual violence."
MSNBC jumped on the propaganda bandwagon, claiming: "New reports emerge that the LIbyan
dictator gave soldiers viagra-type pills to rape women who are opposed to the government."
So did CNN.
As the Libyan ambassador to the US alleged "raping, killing, mass graves," ICC Chief
Prosecutor Manuel Ocampo claimed: "It's like a machete. Viagra is a tool of massive rapes."
All of this was based on a report
from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by the Qatari monarchy that was arming
extremist militias in Libya to overthrow the government.
Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims "hysteria." Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.
Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi's forces committing
rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war: "I supported the
intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. I think we were right to do it."
Tony Blinken, then Obama's deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change
in Libya. He became Obama's point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called "moderate rebels"
that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a
full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn't anything like the other wars the
U.S. had waging for more than a decade.
Tony Blinken: "We are doing this in a very different way than in the past. We're not sending
in hundreds of thousands of American troops. We're not spending trillions of American dollars.
We're being smart about this. This is a sustainable way to get at the terrorists and it's also
a more effective way."
Blinken added: "This is not open-ended, this is not boots on the ground, this is not Iraq,
it's not Afghanistan, it's not even Libya. The more people understand that, the more they'll
understand the need for us to take this limited but effective action ."
Despite Blinken's promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its
ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is
facing famine.
Largely thanks to the policy of using "wheat to apply pressure" – a recommendation of
Flournoy and Blinken's CNAS think tank.
When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a
chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass
destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of
Defense James Mattis admitted: "So I can not tell you that we had evidence even though we had a
lot of media and social media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used ."
While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria,
Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d'etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government
overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the
ground.
At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for
economic pressure.
Tony Blinken: "We're working, as I said, to make sure that there's a cost exacted of Russia
and indeed that it feels the pressure. That's what we're working on. And when it comes to
military assistance, we're looking at it. The facts are these: Even if assistance were to go to
Ukraine that would be very unlikely to change Russia's calculus or prevent an invasion."
Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine's armed forces. And Tony
Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.
But Trump obliged.
The Third Offset
While the U.S. fueled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift called
the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S. used to
maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.
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The Third Offset strategy
shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition
against China and Russia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities,
development of futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones,
hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence
making unimaginably complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind.
All of this would be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley
giants that it birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.
The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner
of Flournoy and Blinken's at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of
this dangerous new escalation .
She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and
reversing that must be the Pentagon's priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might
not be able to defeat China in Asia: "That technological investment is still very important for
the United States to be able to offset what will be quantitative advantages and home theater
advantages for a country like China if we ever had to deal with a conflict in Asia, in their
backyard."
While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied
forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive
capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the
entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea . Not only a blatant
war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.
At the same time, Biden has announced he'll take an even more aggressive and confrontational
stance against Russia , a position Flournoy shares: "We need to invest to ensure that we
maintain the military edge that we will need in certain critical areas like cyber and
electronic warfare and precision strike, to again underwrite deterrence, to make sure Vladimir
Putin does not miscalculate and think that he can cross a border into Europe or cross a border
and threaten us militarily."
As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast: "Large scale, open-ended
deployment of large standing US forces in conflict zones with no clear strategy should end and
will end under his watch . But we also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless
wars with the large scale open ended deployment of US forces with, for example, discreet,
small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors In
ending the endless wars I think we have to be careful to not paint with too broad a brush
stroke."
The end of forever wars?
So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the public
doesn't even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.
In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and
parcel of the Pentagon's shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power
competition.
The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that, "Long-term strategic competitions with
China and Russia are the principal priorities" and the U.S. will "consolidate gains in Iraq and
Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach."
As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he'll end U.S. support; but in 2019,
Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia .
Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations.
However, Trump's withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek
engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the
devil.
In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used
as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.
In Central America, Biden
has presided over a four billion dollar package to support corrupt right-wing governments
and neoliberal privatization projects, fueling destabilization and sending vulnerable masses
fleeing north to the United States.
Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global
supremacy , escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of
humanity. That's what Joe Biden calls "decency" and "normalcy."
naughty.boy , 14 hours ago
deep state will bankrupt the USA with forever wars.
Distant_Star , 14 hours ago
Yes. As a bonus neither of these Deep State wretches has even seen a shot fired in anger.
They are too "important" to be at risk.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is reportedly set to announce this week that Tony Blinken,
who supported the idea of "Russia collusion," would be his Secretary of State.
President-elect Joe Biden intends to name his longtime adviser Antony Blinken as secretary
of State, according to three people familiar with the matter, setting out to assemble his
cabinet even before Donald Trump concedes defeat.
In addition, Jake Sullivan, formerly one of Hillary Clinton's closest aides, is likely to
be named Biden's national security adviser, according to two people familiar with the matter.
An announcement is expected Tuesday, the people said.
Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security advisor under
President Barack Obama, has also been a New York Times
opinion writer and a "global affairs analyst" for CNN. In that capacity, he supported the
"Russia collusion" hoax.
As Breitbart News reported in 2017, Blinken
told CNN: "The president's ongoing collusion with Russia's plans is really striking,
intentional or not." He said that Russia had sown doubt about American elections and
institutions.
(Subsequently, an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of any
collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.)
Blinken also
apologized earlier this year to left-wing anti-Israel radical Linda Sarsour, regarded by
many critics (
even on the left) as an antisemite, after the Biden campaign tried to distance itself from
her views.
He is also married to Evan Ryan, a former aide to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. Ryan
worked for Clinton at a time when Clinton's chief of staff, Margaret Williams, acknowledged
accepting a campaign donation from entrepreneur Johnny Chien Chuen Chung.
Chung said that the donation was meant to help Clinton pay for Christmas receptions for the
Democratic National Committee at the White House, in exchange for "VIP treatment for a
delegation of visiting Chinese businessmen," according to the
Los Angeles Times .
Biden is expected to name several potential Cabinet nominees in the coming days.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart
News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7
p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The
Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump's Presidency . His recent
book,RED
NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a
conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship.
Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak .
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 21 Nov, 2020 13:52 Joe
Biden thinks he can save America and the world from four years of Donald Trump. Instead, Biden
will find himself in a foreign policy trap where his tough guy rhetoric compels him to finish
what Trump started.
If one listens to Joe Biden and his closest national security advisors, all it will take to
undo four years of Trump-era foreign policy is a few dozen strokes of the pen. According to the
plan, the presumptive president-elect will sign off on a series of executive orders which
reverse the course charted by Trump, returning America back to the path of greatness derived
from undisputed global leadership that had been the trademark of the Obama years, when Biden
reigned as vice president and Barack's right-hand man.
Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear agreement and the World Health
Organization are all actions Biden can take as soon as he takes office. Reversing Trump's troop
withdrawal from Afghanistan and halting the redeployment of US forces from Germany are also
high on Biden's 'to do' list. However, simply reversing a decision made over the course of the
past four years does not reset the clock; for example, the world has moved on regarding climate
change, with nations like China taking the lead in promulgating plans for reaching a "carbon
zero" posture by 2060. Biden claims he can do this by 2050, but American domestic political
reality, shaped by an economy fine-tuned by Trump and inherently resistant to the kind of
economic change that would need to occur to make the Biden climate change plan viable, may have
something to say about that timetable.
The Iran deal
The Iran nuclear deal finds Biden trapped by his own hardline rhetoric, setting conditions
that are as unrealistic as they are unobtainable (for instance, requiring Iran to renegotiate
key aspects of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, as a pre-condition for
the US rejoining that pact). Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, recognizing the bad
position Biden's mouth has placed its owner in, has wisely noted that Iran can return to its
JCPOA commitments simply by Biden signing an executive order cancelling the Trump sanctions.
This is one executive order Biden likely will not sign, because it requires him to certify the
JCPOA as being good as written, something he has already articulated against.
One of the first decisions Biden will be compelled to make upon assuming the presidency is
how to proceed on the issue of US troops in Afghanistan. If the Trump reductions are completed
as planned by January 15 (a big 'if', given the proclivity of the US military to
lie to Trump about actual troop deployments), Biden will be pressured by the Pentagon to
immediately redeploy up to 5,000 troops in order to create the force structure the Pentagon
believes necessary to ensure stability while Afghanistan transitions to peace. This, of course,
would kill the peace plan the US has in place with the Taliban, setting the stage for even more
'forever war'.
Regime change and more war
Other regional issues jump out – the ongoing effort to oust Nicolas Maduro in
Venezuela, and the ongoing Saudi-led war in Yemen, to name two. Biden's anti-Maduro rhetoric is
every bit as strong as Trump's, meaning there is little chance of a policy re-direct on this
front. Likewise, if Trump fulfils threats to name the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist
organization, it will be difficult for Biden politically to reverse that decision, or else be
doing the bidding of Iran. Yemen will become another example of a 'forever war' living up to
its name.
Awkward in Europe
Another issue Biden will be called upon to deal with is the ongoing American redeployment of
troops out of Germany. Trump has committed to sending thousands of these redeployed troops to
Poland, a move Biden will have difficulty reversing. In the end, Biden will be pressured to not
only halt the withdrawal of US forces from Germany, but also find fresh troops to replace those
headed for Poland. But such a commitment must be measured in relation to the ongoing
controversy over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia with Europe. Trump has put in
place sanctions designed to halt the pipeline from being completed; Biden is likewise opposed
to the pipeline reaching fruition. Getting Germany to commit to taking in US troops while
blatantly interfering with German economic sovereignty is a balancing act Biden may not be up
to carrying out.
Arms control deadlock
Likewise, Biden has indicated that he would be inclined to sign an extension to the
soon-to-expire New START Treaty. Russia has long insisted that future arms control agreements
must consider missile defense issues. The Trump administration has just tested a missile
interceptor integral to the Aegis Ashore anti-missile system deployed in Romania and Poland in
an anti-intercontinental ballistic missile configuration. The likelihood of Russia agreeing to
any new arms control measures without a commitment on the part of a Biden administration to
reduce and/or eliminate European-based missile defense systems is zero. So, too, is are the
odds of a Biden administration doing away with missile defense in Europe. The result is an
expensive arms race at a time when the US can afford it least.
Finally, Biden inherits a policy posture toward both Russia and China which is as hostile a
relationship as has existed since the Cold War. Russia's force posture in Europe is such that
NATO would need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to be in a realistic position to take
on the Russian military in any conventional ground war in Europe. Moreover, it is unlikely
Europe will agree to either the formal endorsement of such an objective, or the economic
commitment needed to underwrite it. Complicating matters further is that China and Russia have
reacted to the aggressive policies of the US, which pre-dated the Trump era, by considering the
possibility of a formal alliance against what they term "western hegemony." Such an alliance
would complicate any effort on the part of a Biden administration to back up the
president-elect's pusillanimous rhetoric with actual muscle, since any conflict in Europe would
automatically trigger a Pacific response, and vice versa.
China's dominance
Regardless of anything else, perhaps the biggest challenge facing a Biden administration
will be in dealing with the consequences of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Obama-era
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an abortive free trade agreement designed to keep China out
while promoting American economic leadership. China, together with 14 other Asia-Pacific
nations, recently signed what amounts to the world's largest free trade agreement. The
signatories to this agreement, known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),
include the 10 countries comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), along
with China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia, and together account for around 30
percent of global GDP. The RCEP cements China's status as the dominant economic power in the
Asia-Pacific regions, and represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the US, whose
precipitous withdrawal from the TPP in 2017 paved the way for China's stunning diplomatic
coup.
The collapse of the TPP, when combined with the economic crisis brought on by the Covid-19
pandemic, made the RCEP attractive to nations who looked to trade with China as the only viable
means of rebuilding their stricken economies. The RCEP helps solidify the regional geopolitical
objectives of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative by opening the economies of the Asia-Pacific
region to Chinese-funded development projects. The diplomatic victory of China in bringing the
RCEP to fruition represents a stunning defeat for the US, which had been seeking regional
support in its ongoing trade war with China. Moreover, given the linkage between economic and
security issues, the fact that major regional allies such as Japan, South Korea, New Zealand
and Australia have so decisively joined their economies to China's undermines ongoing US
efforts to build a regional coalition designed to contain and eventually roll-back China's
presence in the South China Sea. While President-elect Joe Biden has reached out to Japan and
South Korea in an effort to reassure them of his administration's commitment to their security,
a future Biden administration is ill-positioned to counter the economic influence China has
locked itself into through the RCEP. From an economic perspective, the US 'pivot to Asia' has
been effectively halted, with the Asia-Pacific nations now firmly in China's court.
From Europe, to South America, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and on to the Pacific,
President Joe Biden will be inheriting a world transformed by four years of Trump policies.
While Biden has indicated that he is inclined to reverse many, if not all, of the Trump foreign
policy "disasters" as soon as practical after assuming office, the reality is that he
will find his hands tied by the combined impact of his own aggressive rhetoric, which in many
instances paralleled the policies undertaken by Trump, or the fact that the geopolitical
situation that exists today does not permit a return to the foreign policy of yore.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
An eye-popping array of corporate consultants, war profiteers, and national security hawks
have been appointed by President-elect Joe Biden to agency review teams that will set the
agenda for his administration. A substantial percentage of them worked in the United States
government when Barack Obama was president.
The appointments should
provide a rude awakening to anyone who believed a Biden administration could be pressured to
move in a progressive direction, especially on foreign policy.
If the agency teams are any indication, Biden will be firmly insulated from any pressure to
depart from the neoliberal status quo, which the former vice president has pledged to restore.
Instead, he is likely to be pushed in an opposite direction, towards an interventionist foreign
policy dictated by elite Beltway interests and consumed by Cold War fever.
Robert Gates, who served as defense secretary for the Obama administration, paused for a
moment and said "I don't know" in an interview Sunday when asked if he thinks former VP Joe
Biden would be a good president.
CBS's "Face The Nation" host Margaret Brennan asked Gates if he stood by a statement from
his memoir that Biden has "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national
security issue over the past four decades." Recommended
MARGARET BRENNAN: I was rereading your memoir before we sat down to talk and you said in your
memoir, Joe Biden is impossible not to like.
Quote: "He's a man of integrity, incapable of hiding what he really thinks, and one of
those rare people you know you could turn to for help in a personal crisis. Still, I think
he's been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the
past four decades."
Would he be an effective commander-in-chief?
ROBERT GATES: I-- I don't know. I don't know. I-- I think I stand by that statement. He
and I agreed on some key issues in the Obama administration. We disagreed significantly on
Afghanistan and some other issues. I think that the vice president had some issues with the
military. So how he would get along with the senior military, and what that relationship
would be, I just-- I think, it-- it would depend on the personalities at the time.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He's a peer of yours. Does that mean you're older?
ROBERT GATES: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You think he's right for this moment?
ROBERT GATES: I think I'm pretty busy and pretty active but I think-- I think having a
President who is somebody our age or older, in the case of Senator Sanders, is- I think it's
problematic. I think that you don't have the kind of energy that I think is required to be
President. I think-- I'm not sure you have the intellectual acuity that you might have had in
your sixties. So, I mean it's just a personal view. For me, the thought of taking on those
responsibilities at this point in my life would be pretty daunting.
American libs are just as fundamentally imperialist as the right, and their obsession with
IdenPol garbage is just a smokescreen to pretend that they aren't.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote about
the banality of evil , and there's never been a more banal bunch than the foreign policy
and security state crew Barak Obama surrounded himself with for eight years beside the possible
exception of
Bush's own Neocons .
Now after three years screaming about
"Russian collusion" it appears the Evil Empire is about to regain its lost ground,
championing new wars and more interventionist expansionism with a much greater role for the US
military in the world.
Let's name names.
Pentagon
For the defense chief post, the Washington Post has portrayed the banal face of Michele
Flournoy as the pick to
'restore stability' to the Pentagon , an entirely false assertion. Recall that Fluornoy
promotes unilateral global US military intervention, and advocated the destruction of Libya in
2011. By the
military-industrial revolving door , Flournoy enabled many Corporate weaponry contracts
amounting to tens of millions. Likewise Fluornoy is on the Booz-Hamilton board, where the swamp
cannot get any deeper. As if this wretched example of an agent-provocateur for war and
destruction were not bad enough, Biden is reportedly considering Lockheed-Martin banal kingpin
Jeh Johnson for the DoD position, too.
Lockheed director Johnson was employed by Rob Reiner and Atlantic editor arch-Neocon
David Frum to run
the Committee to Investigate
Russia which mysteriously blew up as soon as the Mueller Report was released. Jeh Johnson
has continued to warn of "Russian interference" in the US presidential election until now.
Biden's anointing as president-elect has ended that. As Homeland Security head, Johnson
authorized cages for holding immigrant children. He also supported the assassination of General
Suleimani, and has voiced support for US wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
State
From Libya to Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and beyond, the banality of evil is perhaps best
personified by Susan Rice – apparently Biden's premiere pick for Secretary. Rice was an
abject failure at the United Nations, but all seems forgiven, probably at the behest of Biden's
donors. After her failure at the UN, Obama kicked Rice upstairs to be his National Security
Advisor, a position that does not require Senate approval.
An obvious war hawk in the mold of the Democrat's donor class, a Rice appointment could
reinforce the liberal mantra that women can be just as good at interventionism as men, and
ensure full re-establishment of the Neoliberal agenda in Washington. John Kerry has been
flagged as a potential for State (again) too, but at age 77 and subsequent to the failure
of the
JCPOA Kerry is an unlikely pick.
Another potential pick among the banal Daughters of Darkness is Victoria Kagan-Nuland ,
architect of the 2014 debacle in Ukraine (among other things). Outed at State in an
embarrassing act of what she called impressive statecraft and other
embarrassing incidents, Nuland seems an unlikely choice. But Kagan-Nuland is as banal as banal
can be, and Biden may somehow wish to reinforce his solidarity with the JTF and his donor class, on
Israel.
National Security Advisor
Banality is certainly the mark of the beast here, in the form of Tony Blinken. Well in with
Michele Flournoy (above) Blinken typifies
the type of banality the Deep State engages in to promote its evil, with Blinken as successful
as any other Deep State actor. A major hawk on Russia and war hawk in general, Blinken is an
apologist for Israel . Blinken is a war hawk on Afghanistan and Syria too, and Blinken was
directly
involved in CIA operation Timber Sycamore . Oh, the banality.
Another model of banality is Leon CIA Panetta who so far claims that cruising the Monterey
peninsula is more fun that being in Washington. But we know that's false and Panetta would be a
logical pick. Besides being a hawk on everything, and laughing about the fact he has no idea
how many wars Obama's America was fighting – because he lost count – Panetta is
simply another sycophant for evil like Hannah Arendt portrayed in her study of Adolf
Eichmann.
CIA
Banal of the banal is of course Mike Morell. This incredibly vacuous excuse for a human
being has been hate-mongering for years. Beside his
blatant pandering support for another banal and brutal warmonger – Hillary Clinton
– Mike Morell is one Neoliberal who still maintains that Saddam Hussein actively
aided and abetted al Qaeda with regard to the 911 attacks. But Morell simply and ultimately
represents the banality of evil, just as Arendt depicted Adolf Eichmann, but in Morell's case
succinctly summarized here by
Ray McGovern .
United Nations
Outing the banality of the banal would be incomplete without mentioning Jen Psaki . Although a potential pick for
White House Communications Director, why not promote an accomplished liar to a venue where
accomplished lying really matters?
Conclusion
There is no indication that the United States as an entrenched warfare state will ever
change its course until forced to. Mr Trump was incapable of enforcing that change. Sidelined
by
Russiagate psychosis , as a Beltway Neophyte and his own worst enemy at times, that sank
Trump's agenda. The actions of Mr Trump now – to end the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan
and Yemen -- should have been undertaken in earnest and without compromise years ago. Point
being that Mr Trump's new appointments to the Pentagon – and let's hope CIA – will
hopefully blunt the efficacy of Biden's bad actors going forward.
Regardless, characters the same or similar to the ones listed above will definitely infest
Washington's infernal Beltway cesspool once again via Joe
Biden make no mistake. And they will be meaner and nastier than ever before!
Guaranteed.
Creative_Destruct , 2 hours ago
And the same old swamp slime (Morell, et al) waits eagerly to burst back in through the
doors of power. New boss, same as the old(er) boss(es). Uuuuuuggh.
EndofTimes , 5 hours ago
Obama's 3rd Term. Swamp will grow like a tumor. These demons are shaking with excitement
to get into office and fulfill the desires of the founders of the UN. Kill off America and
establish a global government
truth or go home , 4 hours ago
Biden is 100% deep state puppet. He will say and do whatever they tell him to.
Dominion = Scytl = CIA = Deep State = Swamp
CIA threw the election. Trump team caught them.
Trump has already cut the CIA off at the knees. Getting ready to fill up Guantanamo
again...
Giant war going on inside the gov right now - Biden enjoying the limelight before he is
retired to his rocking chair.
CatInTheHat , 5 hours ago
NICE JOB Biden voters!!
You MORONS electing Obama 2.0 on STEROIDS is WHY we got a Trump in the first place
To Hell In A Handbasket , 4 hours ago
The USSA electorate are idiots, and divided idiots at that. You got Trump because the
electorate was desperate, and you got Biden because the other half was desperate. That adds
up to a desperate population. Your enemy is not voters from the other side of the Uniparty.
Please get off the GOP vs DEMOCRAT horse$h1t.
Bay of Pigs , 3 hours ago
Quite an impressive list of Neoliberal globalist ****bags.
SabOObas , 3 hours ago
The establishment demonizes Trump for 4 years.
The sheeple voted to put the guy with 40 years of corruption under his belt in office,
because the establishment said its good for you.
Jgault , 2 hours ago
It is always the small man, the inept man, the insecure man who has a need to demonstrate
to the world his bravado with reckless and senseless gestures.
Biden and his brothel of advisors he surrounds himself with have perhaps the worst track
record of international policy since Jimmy Carter, absolute proven failures and disasters in
Ukraine, Syria, Lybia, and Egypt. This is the group that laid the intellectual groundwork for
what would become the largest refugee crisis and humanitarian disaster in nearly 50
years.
Laughably, now the MSM is doing a complete 180 in their editorial view of troops in
Afghanistan and Syria...what a shock!
Lacking foresight, insecure, lacking ethical standards and being given the ability to
order troops, how could this possibly go wrong?
Trump was the first President in 30 years not to provoke any new millitary interventions,
yet the world criticized him for his style. Let's see how long it takes for the world to
start looking back to a more stable past.
ReadyForHillary , 3 hours ago
The Democrat party is the WAR party.
RumbleGuts , 4 hours ago
Another article that doesn't realize red and blue are the same team. Make no mistake, big
baby bonespurs is in deep with the deep state. Think epstein. ;-)
Someone Else , 2 hours ago
Mike Morell, the most evil man to ever draw a breath, as CIA Director?
A Biden Presidency can never be allowed to happen.
flawse , 2 hours ago
There will not be a Biden presidency. There is obviously some other plan.
DebbieDowner , 3 hours ago
This author's last paragraph fails to acknowledge that the CIA and FBI has not obeyed
Trump's (or any President's) orders in quite some time. Now is the time for someone to
finally make a change and it took such a massive plan to expose them all to drain the
swamp.
Was Trump an isolationist? Not really, though it's easy to see how he got this reputation,
at first glance of his foreign policy.
He had an aggressive posture
against Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, with his illegal sanctions policy against these countries.
He demonstrated total fealty to the Israeli project to
annihilate Palestine. His "trade war" against China is sold as a way to rebuild the U.S.
economy, but it is also about maintaining U.S. power; for what other purpose could instruments
such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation and América Crece be used when they have
been
designed to advantage U.S. companies around the world?
Trump certainly attacked the Western military alliance system, trying to force NATO members
to spend more on their military. But at the same time, Trump developed other military
alliances: one of these, first developed by George W. Bush in 2007, is the Quadrilateral
Security Dialogue, or Quad, which draws Australia, India, and Japan into a military alliance
against China. At the same time, Trump drove an agenda in Latin America -- through the
Lima Group (established in 2017) -- to create an alliance against Venezuela.
Why Biden Is Not a Multilateralist
The liberal media portrays Biden as a multilateralist -- but the evidence for this
speculation on the president-elect's foreign policy is problematic, to say the least.
Biden wants to rebuild the Western military alliance system that Trump has eroded. An
indication of Biden's enthusiasm was an early phone
call to French President Emmanuel Macron, to suggest that the United States is back as a
player in Europe. This is not an advance toward a multilateral world order, but rather a return
to the old alliance system where the United States (with its Canadian and European allies)
attempts to dominate the world system by the use of its military, diplomatic, and economic
power.
Further evidence offered for Biden's multilateralism is his commitment to return the United
States to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or the Iran deal) and the 2016 Paris
Agreement.
Why does Biden wish to return the United States to its commitments toward Iran? Obama
entered this deal because the Europeans were desperate for a source of energy after the United
States and France destroyed access to Libyan oil in NATO's 2011 war and hurt access to
Russian natural gas because of the Ukraine conflict in
2014. Obama agreed to the Iran deal because the Europeans were desperate, not to line up with
the demands of international law; Biden will give the Europeans this gift, welcomed by the
Iranian people, in order to cement the Western alliance system. Meanwhile, Biden continues to
talk
about suffocating the Iranian people.
On climate, during the negotiations that resulted in the Paris deal during Obama's
presidency, the United States
watered down the text of the agreement, preventing a truly multilateral deal that would
have accepted Western responsibility for a century of fossil fuel use. Again, there is no major
commitment to save the planet in Biden's pledge to return to the Paris Agreement; the main
agenda is to strengthen and subordinate the European countries to the U.S.-led alliance
system.
Primacy Remains the U.S. Goal
The U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff wrote in the early years of the
Cold War, "To seek less than preponderant power would be to opt for defeat. Preponderant power
must be the object of U.S. policy." This desire for primacy remains the explicit U.S. policy.
Trump, in his four years as president, did not depart from this policy. Nor has Biden in his
five decades in public office. They might differ in their tone or in their strategy, but not in
the pursuit of this goal. Biden's adviser Charles Kupchan has written a new book called
Isolationism , which offers a clichéd view of U.S. foreign policy, and then
concludes, "[T]he United States must reclaim its exceptionalist mantle"; this means that the
United States must continue to seek primacy.
This goal of primacy has made it difficult for the U.S. elites to come to terms with the
fact of the slow attrition of U.S. power since the illegal war on Iraq (2003) and the credit
crisis (2007). Failure to acknowledge that the world will no longer tolerate one single
superpower has led the United States to impose a warlike situation against China. This
begins with Obama's "pivot" to Asia in 2015, and intensifies with Trump's "trade war."
Cold War on China Looms
Since 2015, not one U.S. Silicon Valley CEO has made a robust statement for comity between
the United States and China. Apple's Tim Cook held a
meeting with Trump in August 2019 merely to allow Apple to better compete with Samsung,
which was not hit by the U.S. tariffs. There was no broad statement about Trump's "trade war,"
with which Cook seemed quite pleased.
Silicon Valley firms know that on certain technological developments -- such as 5G,
robotics, GPS, and soon microchips -- Chinese firms have clearly produced next-generation
technologies, and in many cases have leapfrogged over their U.S. counterparts. Silicon Valley
companies are quite happy for the U.S. government to put the entire weight of the state against
Chinese firms. This includes using the security apparatus to accuse Huawei of being involved in
Chinese government espionage. It is a curiosity that none of the Silicon Valley firms worry
about privacy per se, because -- according to the Edward Snowden revelations -- the
National Security Agency uses the PRISM program to collect data freely from Silicon Valley
internet firms; but the U.S. uses the privacy and espionage arguments to try to hurt Chinese
tech firms and protect the intellectual property and market advantages of Silicon Valley. Since
this is the real cause of the trade war, there is every likelihood -- and Biden has said so --
that a Biden administration would continue to prosecute the trade war.
In 2013, the Chinese government set up the One Belt, One Road (now Belt and Road Initiative,
or BRI) to extend its commercial links across the world. The Obama administration responded in
2015 with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a platform to break China's commercial ties
along the Pacific Rim. Trump jettisoned the TPP and went for a more direct trade war. To
counter the trillions of dollars that China will mobilize for the BRI, the United States used
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (set up in 2004) and América Crece (2019) to funnel
billions of dollars to countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. All of this is a desperate
attempt to undermine China and maintain U.S. primacy.
The United States is not yet prepared to acknowledge the changed world situation. This will
take time. Short of that, it is important for people to speak up against an escalation of hostilities.
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
Vijay Prashad's most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism (New
Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015).
The US military establishment will breathe a sigh of relief at Joe Biden's victory in the
presidential election. Nearly 800 former high-ranking military and security
officials penned an open letter in support of the Democratic candidate during the campaign.
A who's who of former generals, ambassadors, admirals and senior national security advisers --
from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to four-star admiral and Bush-era Deputy
Homeland Security Advisor Steve Abbot -- backed Biden as the best bet to revive US power. A
month earlier, 70 national security officials who served in Republican administrations threw
their weight behind Biden (the list soon grew to 130), arguing that, on foreign policy, Trump
"has
failed our country" .
Why was Biden the war criminals' candidate of choice? The foreign policy chaos and
controversy of the Trump years were a symptom of a global superpower in relative decline, with
no real strategy out of the quagmire.
The US empire is at a turning point. It is the world's undisputed superpower; its reach is
global, both militarily and economically . The US has been the world's largest economy since
1871, and its military has close to 800 installations in 80 countries around the world. But
today, it is facing a growing economic rival in China, and several lesser powers challenging
its ability to call the shots in every corner of the globe, most notably Iran and Russia.
The War on Terror, launched by the administration of George W. Bush , resulted in the
invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It killed more than a million people and
cost upwards of US$2.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For the people
of the Middle East, it was a massacre. For US empire, it was a disaster. The destabilisation of
Iraq led to the expansion of Iranian influence across the region, rather than the regime change
in Tehran the Pentagon dreamed of. The intervention in Iraq was meant to secure US dominance.
It instead exposed the weaknesses and limits of US power right at the moment when China's
dramatic economic expansion was beginning.
Tensions between the US and China have been increasing for years. Since its accession to the
World Trade Organization in 2001, China has built its economic power, its diplomatic power and
its military power, while the US became bogged down in endless wars and suffered economic
crisis and depression with the 2008 financial crisis.
Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia", with its plan to increase US naval forces in the
Asia-Pacific, was a signal that the US ruling class wanted to contain and encircle China.
Obama's then classified Air-Sea Battle doctrine was an effort to create an operational plan for
a possible military confrontation. Leaked cables made public by WikiLeaks reveal that Australia
was in lockstep with US imperial strategy. In conversation with Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton in 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd confirmed Australia's willingness to "deploy force
if everything goes wrong". But Obama's strategy was too little too late for containment. China
became more aggressive in pressing claims in the South China Sea while beginning to close the
enormous gap in military capabilities with the United States, engaging in the most rapid
peacetime arms build-up in history.
Under Trump, these tensions further increased. Trump's confrontational rhetoric and trade
war were a sharp break from the decades-long US strategy of integrating China into the
international liberal order. Since the Republican administration of Richard Nixon -- who in
1972 became the first US president to visit Beijing -- the US ruling class thought it could
ensure global supremacy by incorporating China into the world system. For a while, it appeared
to work. China became the world's sweatshop and a key site of investment for US companies such
as Apple and General Motors. But the strategy could be mutually enriching for only so long.
Today, China is leveraging its meteoric growth to challenge the United States' leadership in
the Asia-Pacific.
Obama's signature containment strategy was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP
would have been the largest free trade deal in history, lowering tariffs and other non-tariff
barriers to trade between eleven Pacific countries and the US. Its goal was to lock out China
and further integrate Pacific countries with the US economy. Obama's Defense Secretary Ashton
Carter said that the TPP was "as important as another aircraft carrier".
But just a few years later, Donald Trump tore up the TPP. The move was at odds with the
consensus among the US economic and military elite, but the new president had his own ideas
about how to contain China. Trump railed against the US trade deficit, accused Beijing of
currency manipulation and, as Obama did, of stealing technology from US companies. In the 2019
State of the Union address he said, "We are now making it clear to China that after years of
targeting our industries and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and
wealth has come to an end".
By August this year, Trump had slapped tariffs on $550 billion of Chinese goods, with a
targeted campaign against tech giant Huawei, which had been tipped to overtake Apple in global
phone sales. While Republican and Democratic politicians have backed a hardline approach to
China, Trump's erratic protectionist approach to trade has alienated large sections of the
capitalist class otherwise happy with domestic tax cuts and deregulation. A Bloomberg Economics
report, released before the pandemic gripped the country, estimated that the escalating tariffs
on China would cost the US economy $316 billion by the end of this year.
More worryingly for the US establishment, Trump adopted a dismissive attitude towards US
allies, particularly the European Union. Trump prided himself on his ability to cut deals with
other nations that favoured the US. He signalled that the multilateral approach to trade was
over when he tore up the TPP, and followed that by applying tariffs on German cars, Canadian
steel and French luxury goods. For much of the US elite, these moves have simply created a void
that Beijing is attempting to fill with its own free trade deals and the $1 trillion Belt and
Road initiative, which aims to incorporate more than 138 countries into trade routes and
production chains centred on China.
The International Monetary Fund, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the UN and other
international institutions project US dominance by drawing allied nations behind US leadership.
Trump's presidency delegitimised or sidelined those institutions as he focused on an "America
first" posture. The military establishment believes that this has threatened, rather than
strengthened, US power -- although there is now an acknowledgement that those institutions
failed to keep China in check, something a Biden presidency will also grapple with.
The war criminals hope that Biden will restore political legitimacy to the office by
rehabilitating the liberal ideology that manufactures consent for American imperialism,
pitching US aggression as necessary to "make the world safe for democracy" and defending the
"rules-based liberal world order". Above all, the US establishment hopes that Biden will
restore relationships with US allies and construct a coalition of nations to confront China,
after a disastrous four years that called into question US global leadership. As the National
Security Leaders for Biden open letter bemoaned: "Our allies no longer trust or respect us, and
our enemies no longer fear us".
Biden has a proven record as a hawkish proponent of US empire. For decades, he served on the
Senate foreign relations committee. He was an early proponent of the expansion of NATO to
project US influence into the former eastern bloc after the fall of the USSR. He backed US
intervention in the Balkan war, supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, voted for the
war on Iraq in 2003 and, as vice president, backed the US intervention in Libya.
There is consensus within the US ruling class over the need to "get tough" with China. The
military establishment expects Biden to turn the screws. On the campaign trail, he accused
Trump of "getting played" by Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he called a "thug". This is
consistent with Democratic Party practice in the Congress, which is to criticise Trump for not
being tough enough. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, for example, accused Trump of
"selling out" by cutting a trade deal with China. Schumer also spearheaded legislation to
implement bans on Huawei when Trump appeared to back down.
Since his first days in Congress, Biden has also made a name for himself as a staunch
supporter of the apartheid state of Israel. According to Israeli publication Haaretz ,
Biden is said to have a "real friendship" with Israel's far-right president, Benjamin
Netanyahu. He was vice president when the US signed a $38 billion military aid deal with
Netanyahu, which the State Department called the "single largest pledge of bilateral military
assistance in US history". So while Trump pushed pro-Israeli rhetoric far to the right,
abandoning any pretence of support for Palestinian statehood, Biden put his money where his
mouth is when it came to propping up Israeli apartheid in Palestine.
On Afghanistan, Biden may prove to be to the right of Trump. As vice president, he supported
an enduring US military presence in the country. Trump, by contrast, shocked the US military
when he announced on Twitter that he wants all troops out by Christmas. In contrast, Biden in
an interview with Stars and Stripes , a military newspaper, said he would maintain a
troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Anti-imperialists need to judge Biden by his blood-soaked record in Congress and by the
company he keeps. The bulk of the US military establishment has backed Biden precisely because
they think his multilateral approach will restore credibility to US interventions. It's for
this reason that Forbes magazine senior contributor Loren Thompson predicted last month:
"A Biden presidency would be more likely to use US military forces overseas than President
Trump has been".
Global capitalism is facing a profound crisis that is reshaping international relations and
putting pressure on the fault lines of existing conflicts. Open imperialist rivalry will be a
feature of the coming period, along with wars over regional disputes. There is no length to
which the US ruling class won't go to safeguard its position as global superpower. And Joe
Biden is the commander-in-chief. He is now the most dangerous man in the world.
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While probably "less aggressively nasty" than Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden is still a
"conventional politician," but it won't be easy for him to dismiss his party's progressive
wing, Larry Sanders told RT's Going Underground.
Brother to US Senator Bernie Sanders and the Green Party Spokesperson on Health and Social
Care (England & Wales), Larry Sanders told RT's Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi that
while Biden was not his "choice" for president, he prefers him over the current
incumbent, President Donald Trump.
... ... ...
As a fixture of the establishment, Biden will follow the interests of corporate money and
the military-industrial complex rather than anybody else's, Sanders noted.
"Biden is a conventional politician, he is beholden to big money, he is beholden to
defense industries,
joe_go 13 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 07:03 AM
If no one in America went to vote the country would still look the way it looks today. The
big money and military industry would run the country the way it runs it when people vote and
think it matters.
Spirgily_Klump 20 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 12:46 AM
Do you know after Biden was out of the VP office the Chinese communist party had donated $70
million to one of his foundations at the University of Pennsylvania from which Joe drew a
salary of over $900,000 per year? With his benefiting from the hundreds of millions his
family took in from foreign powers and persons how can he gain the security clearance
necessary for the presidency? The president needs the highest clearance. Even an applicant to
the CIA get polygraphed.
shadow1369 Spirgily_Klump 9 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 11:00 AM
Just one of many skeletons jangling in Bidet's closet, they will be used by his controllers
to keep him on track.
Iwanasay 19 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 01:22 AM
It doesn't matter who is in power, America's destiny has been chosen by other behind the
scene faces
RedDragon 15 hours ago 19 Nov, 2020 05:27 AM
All USA presidents are beholden to big money entities, inclusive incoming Biden presidency.
Trump is beholden to the Jewish money powers etc..
Beware savvy, sophisticate liberals bearing gifts of evasive and ethically empty prose.
Having, for my sins, spent a few weeks reading just about everything on offer from what
unrepentant neocon zealot – and born-again Washington Post columnist – Max
Boot
dubbed Joe Biden's foreign policy "A-Team," I can vouch for the new transition team's
vapidity and verisimilitude. Put another way, Boot's favored Biden Posse – the Iran
nuke channeling , P4
(Tony Blinken, Avril Haines, Jake Sullivan, and Nicholas Burns) +1 (Michèle Flournoy)
– have a rare gift for typing tons but saying little.
Worse still, what they do let slip drips with subtext of status quo-hawkishness
– Biden's shadow team of five ground hogs spotting their shadows and predicting four
more years of warfare winter. Moreover, these aren't just any Washington lowland creatures
– they're being groomed
, respectively, for national security adviser, director of national intelligence, a
senior
diplomatic role,
possible secretary of state, and probable secretary of defense.
Only you're not supposed to look under the lid of Biden's national security transition
team, because, well uh, Trump was worse, and there's, like, lots of ladies in the lineup. No
really, "serious" people are saying that . With straight faces. And clear consciences.
With no consequences. What a world!
This column's immediate genesis, though, was Glenn Greenwald 's vicious and vital
responsive -evisceration of
MSNBC contributor – and self-described "thriver on chaos"
– Mieke Eoyang's recent nonsense Newspeak tweet . Here's her attempt
to silence through shaming – and signaling by buzzword:
If the Chinese decide to really mess with the Biden administration, I'd imagine they would
do something like build a road or even a pipeline in Afghanistan, even though it is
completely unnecessary, simply to force the US to stay longer. Doesn't seem like their style,
though.
In regards to Russia, same as most of the last 100 years, really. If anything big happens
at all, it would be Putin retiring. In that case, CNN will have wild fantasies about Boris
Yeltsin 2.0, while in reality Russian oligarchs may have some kind of trial moment to figure
out whether his successor can continue to enforce a balance or not, which is a big question.
Team Biden brings nothing to the table in that situation other than talking sh#t and creating
confusion. The EU on the other hand could, but it's looking less and less likely. Especially
as they will likely be immersed in a post covid political crisis and renewed challenge from
right wing parties.
Last but not least, look for Biden to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize before lunch on
his first day in.
here will be much pressure from the liberal hawks to finish the war they had launched
against Syria by again intensifying it. Trump had ended the CIA's Jihadi supply program.
The Biden team may well reintroduce such a scheme.
Susan Rice has criticized Trump's Doha deal with the Taliban. Under a Biden
administration U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan are therefore likely to again increase.
One possible change may come in the U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen. The
Democrats dislike Mohammad bin Salman and may try to use the Yemen issue to push him out of
his Crown Prince position.
Biden and his team have supported the coup attempt in Venezuela. They only criticized it
for not being done right and will probably come up with their own bloody 'solution'.
After four years of Russiagate nonsense, which Susan Rice had helped to launch, it is
impossible to again 'reset' the relations with Russia. Biden could immediately agree to
renew the New START treaty which limits strategic nuclear weapons but it is more likely
that he will want to add, like with Iran's nuclear deal, certain 'amendments' which will be
hard to negotiate. Under Biden the Ukraine may be pushed into another war against its
eastern citizens. Belarus will remain on the 'regime change' target list.
China would heave a big sigh of relief if Biden picks Rice as his secretary of state.
Beijing knows her well, as she had a hands-on role in remoulding the relationship from
engagement to selective competition, which could well be the post-Trump China policies.
For the Indian audience, which is obsessive about Biden's China policy, I would
recommend the following YouTube on Rice's oral history where she narrates her experience
as NSA on how the US and China could effectively coordinate despite their strategic
rivalry and how China actually helped America battle Ebola.
Interestingly, the recording was made in April this year amidst the "Wuhan virus"
pandemic in the US and Trump's trade and tech war with China. Simply put, Rice
highlighted a productive relationship with Beijing while probably sharing the more
Sino-skeptic sentiment of many of America's foreign policy experts and lawmakers.
All together the Biden/Harris regime will be a continuation of the Obama regime. It's
foreign policies will have awful consequences for a lot of people on this planet.
Domestically Biden/Harris will revive all the bad feelings that led to the election of
Donald Trump. The demographics of the election
show no sign of a permanent majority for Democrats.
It is therefore highly probable that Trump, or a more competent and thereby more
dangerous populist republican, will again win in
2024 .
Obama-Biden 3.0 as Pepe Escobar put it with an added twist
I do not agree with the assumption that the new administration (either Biden or Trump)
will start more wars, as you call them. I posit that Trump would have had his war if it
were possible but we are in a MAD phase of a civilization war and Biden will be just as
neutered as Trump.
We are not going back to Obama 3.0. That ship sank when Russia stymied Obama empire in
Syria. We are in a brave new world that is unfolding before our eyes....the future is all
around us but just not evenly distributed.
The Atlantic council this morning ("The way forward for transatlantic sanctions") is
already discussing new sanctions the Biden Administration will bring in against Russia over
the failed revolution in Belarus and the Navalny fraud. I'm amazed at how
self-congratulating these fools are, they truly are blind both to the problems the US is
facing and how the US is creating new international crisis that will destroy the
nation.
I can not understand why you insist here that Trump ended jihadist´s support in
Syria, when it was these past days that we knew by US envoy there, Jeffries, that the
troops not only were not decreased, by augmented.
Anyway, I guess we can conclude that if not directly, jihadists support continues
through Turkey, as we have witnessed in the past conflict in the Caucasus.
An article in Foreign Policy from a Bush era neo-con tells you what to expect:
Russia under Putin poses an existential threat to the United States and other countries of
the West, Russia's neighbors, and his own people. Biden seems to understand that, not least
because he has been the target of Russian interference in the 2020 election, including a
disinformation campaign tied to Russia that was designed to smear him and his son Hunter.
Earlier this year, Biden wrote, "To counter Russian aggression, we must keep [NATO's]
military capabilities sharp while also expanding its capacity to take on nontraditional
threats, such as weaponized corruption, disinformation, and cybertheft." He continued: "We
must impose real costs on Russia for its violations of international norms and stand with
Russian civil society, which has bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir
Putin's kleptocratic authoritarian system." In an interview with CBS News' 60 Minutes
before the election, Biden said he considered Russia "the biggest threat to America right
now in terms of breaking up our security and our alliances."
These instincts are sound, and Biden likely will appoint officials who think the same
way he does when it comes to Putin's Russia.
The more articles and postings that I see that bemoan the Deep State restoration (horror!)
and return of business-as-usual (horror!), the more I think that we are being set up for an
eventual Trump win.
Recent history tells us that Republican Presidents do BIG WARS (invoking Republican's
claim to patriotism and a strong military) and Democratic Presidents do small, covert
wars.
Why else would Trump fight an EMPIRE-FIRST establishment that he largely agrees with (as
demonstrated by his actions while President)?
Mr Wabbit - as I've written before (here and elsewhere): there is NO really existing
difference between the which colored face(s) hang out in the WH (or in Congress) because they
all belong to the same political stratum and, essentially, hold exactly the same positions,
worldviews, attitudes, perspectives. All (aside from a tiny handful on occasion) support the
MICIMATT, are intrinsically part and parcel of it. All get to fatten their bank accounts, get
to revolve twixt this post and that in the MIC/TT/MA. At base most if not all (Blue/Red, it
matters not at all) work for/along with/are part of the corporate-capitalist-imperialist
plutocratic ruling elite.
Thus the warmaking will NOT stop without serious and continuous effort on the part of a
large part of this country's population - and that isn't likely to happen: lots of folks earn
their nice livelihoods in the MICIMATT industry; and most - overwhelmingly most - of the US
population do not give a fuck what this country does to any other around the world, so long
as a) doesn't affect them; b) their pension plans benefit; c) they can go back to sleep. How
many even know where Syria, Libya, Iran, Ukraine ARE????
And they do not care - except when there is the occasional blowback - which is viewed as
(what else?) terrorism, not simply retaliation. The real terrorism being projected, inflicted
by guess which nations?
Kevin Gosztole on Grayzone; Patrick Lawrence on Consortium News; Danny Sjursen on Anti-war
- all pieces give one despair, sheer and utter despair at the so-called electoral "choices"
we had and the reality of the continuation of the imperial war machine, run by the utterly,
completely grotesque, barbaric usuals (whatever their bloody sex, skin hue).
While lecturing the world over "international norms", the deliberate obliviousness over
the astonishing rolling humanitarian disasters initiated by the USA is beyond disturbing.
Watch out for Eliot A Cohen and what Phil Geraldi coined as "Kaganate of Nulandia" ilks in
that FP Team. In Obama's first year we had Dennis Ross at the WH and Jeffrey Feltman at
Turtle Bay whilst the R2P women were at Foggy Bottom : we got the Arab Spring followed by the
demise of Ghaddafi and the havoc in Syria.
Who will Susan Rice put in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to give the middle finger to
Abu Mazen?
While The Dem party is strongly anti-Russia, connected at it is to the Atlantic Council
and NATO, the probable next SecDef Flourney is throwing down the gauntlet on China.
...from TaiwanNews:
Flourney assessed that China is starting to believe it can achieve a quick strike that
would disable all U.S. defenses in the region, paving the way for an invasion of Taiwan.
"China's theory of victory increasingly relies on 'system destruction warfare' -- crippling
an adversary at the outset of conflict, by deploying sophisticated electronic warfare,
counterspace, and cyber-capabilities," wrote Flourney.
To boost deterrence capabilities, Flourney asserts that the U.S. must modernize and
strengthen its forces in the region to raise the cost of "Beijing's calculus." Such is the
buildup that Flourney is advocating, that it would enable the U.S. military to "credibly
threaten to sink all of China's military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the
South China Sea within 72 hours" . . here
This is quite a change from the current administration, which has followed the Taiwan
Relations Act in stressing that the break-away province is responsible for its own defense,
with no mention of US support. In fact the US does not have a mutual defense treaty with this
Chinese province. Normally these treaties only include countries of course, and while Taiwan
claims to be a country of course it isn't.
On the question of war, it's no secret that Biden is likely to prove more hawkish than
Trump, though Biden himself is a diplomatic man. However the world has changed since the days
of Obama. The Middle East has ground to a stalemate, and there are no objectives to achieve
by putting in more troops or air-strikes. Trump just tried and failed to bomb Iran. The
military advice to Biden won't be different.
With regard to the "pivot to Asia", I doubt that the Chinese are much afraid of a US
attack.
...Abstracting the factor of a new party naturally being inclined to reinitialize all the
wars abandoned or paralyzed by the previous party at a first glance...
1) Venezuela: I would bet Biden should have learned from Trump's mistake, but fact on the
field is the Southern Caribbean nation is a too appetizing target for him to to revisit it
and do a real invasion with Colombia through the land as an auxiliary;
2) South China Sea/Taiwan: Susan Rice's little story is touching, but the Western-backed
Asian MSM (SCMP, Asia Times etc.) is already preparing the psychological/ideological field
for a hot war between China and the USA there, which means they were already briefed by
Biden's team it will happen;
3) Afghanistan: at the heart of Central Asia (Heartland) + CIA opium = a matchstick will
rule over the Cocytus before the USA abandon its occupation of that country;
4) Yemen: the war pays for itself as the Saudis are recycling USDs into American weapons,
so I think inertia will prevail. When the Saudis say it's over, it's over;
5) Syria: game's over for the Americans there. The Russians imposed a no-fly zone to
NATO/USA. Most they can do is to prop up Turkey (which they don't like right now) to fund
terrorists in Idlib to try to drain the Russian coffers a little bit more but the Kremlin can
push the nuclear button anytime if it really comes to that point (if ever);
6) Belarus: it was more a German affair than an American affair. Doesn't apply;
7) Ukraine: unfinished business will probably lead to another ramping up over the Dnieper,
but the Donbassians have the geographical advantage and will never lose their territory as
long as they have full-fledged support from Russia;
8) Russia: the problem here is the USA is in a position it has to choose - Russia or the
European Peninsula? Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has already stated Germany's unconditional
loyalty to the USA is directly linked to the continuation of NATO. If NATO's gone, then the
European Peninsula may become a second Southeast Asia.
If ... Tom Cotton is the Republican nominee, a Dem Presidential victory in 2024 will make
Biden's 2020 landslide look like the small mound of sand sliding into the bottom half of an
hourglass.
Citibank's foreign policy Team would be much more accurate wouldn't it ?
That's like saying Obomber or Bush had their own foreign and economic policy.
The only reason DC puts on this shit show is to protect the owners from
accountability.
No matter who the "president" is there will be more war, sanctions, and coup attempts
because that's what the money/power cult needs to obtain more power and control.
These assholes successfully perpetrated a coup of the US government, why would they worry
about which flunky gets (s)elected ??
"Hillary Clinton at the UN? Whether or not Biden appoints her, things are getting very
brazen and very bitter, very fast."
Lawrence opines:
"Let us now send this conscienceless liar to the UN to make sure the world knows we're all
for international cooperation so long as all others submit to our dictates and don't get in
our way when we invade other countries, foment coups or otherwise breach international
law.
"I confess to longstanding animosity toward the odious Clinton. In truth she is merely the
apotheosis of what we've known for some time about the incoming regime's character.
"Biden's army of foreign-policy transition advisers -- 2,000 in number -- is chock-a-block
with warmongers, Russophobes, Sinophobes, Iranophobes, exceptionalists, puppets of apartheid
Israel, humanitarian interventionists, and others promising nothing but trouble. We've known
this for some time."
Lawrence did some great digging to complement the work done by other investigators. The
following is excellent:
"The Democratic 2020 platform published on the eve of Biden's nomination last summer,
intended to bring Bernie Sanders' supporters on board, included these commitments on the
foreign-policy side:
•"Bringing our forever wars to a responsible end."
•"Rationalizing the defense budget."
•Ending covert "regime change" operations in favor of "more effective and less costly
diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement tools."
•"Right-sizing our counterterrorism footprint."
•Scaling back U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in favor of "a durable and inclusive
political settlement" with a residual role for special operations forces.
"Didn't President Donald Trump attempt to achieve various of these objectives? Didn't
hawks in his administration and at the Pentagon vigorously and illegally subvert these
attempts? Didn't the mainstream press cheer on these subversions while lambasting Trump daily
for jeopardizing "national security" as he tried (however inconsistently) to bring troops
home, settle up in Afghanistan, negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and other
such things?...
"Those who expected the Biden regime to give Americans a thoughtful, informed,
post-exceptionalist foreign policy -- and I am not among these people -- are in for too many
disappointments to list over the next four years. Let us consider a few of the more
consequential."
Lawrence goes on to detail why there'll be no peace in Eurasia and no reduction in the
Imperial Budget. I agree 100% with his summation:
"One principle will guide the Biden regime's foreign policies. Biden is a man of empire
and those around him empire's lieutenants. This will determine all of what is to come."
Realistically that means the Outlaw US Empire will continue to drown as it spins around
and slowly descends down the toilet bowl. Nowhere in anyone's analysis of this issue is there
any mention of the fact that great domestic strength and vitality are a prerequisite for any
attempt at Imperial Dominance, and nowhere in Bidenland is there any policy proposal to
rehabilitate that fact. Sure, all sorts of hawks will populate the Pentagon and continue at
the State Dept, but they might as well be doves since the Empire's industrial base can no
longer support an aggressive Imperial Policy. Then there's the Human Capital that's in just
as dire a condition as the Industrial Plant. Biden in many respects faces the same set of
problems Trump was confronted with and allowed to fester/worsen. Plus, half the nation is
dead-set against him and his regime, perhaps even more so than with Trump since there'll be
no constant BigLie Media smearing.
The gap between the Outlaw US Empire and those nations it's chosen to demonize as
competitors and worse continues to grow daily. The RCEP is only one manifestation. A second
is the continuance of BRICS, which just held a Summit. If Biden launches an attack against
Iran, he'll suffer a massive defeat for the same reasons as Trump. Same with North Korea.
Same as with the South China Sea. Same as with Taiwan. Same as with Syria. And I'd say the
last bullet within the Color Revolution gun available for use in Eurasia was recently fired
to no effect. Latin America is rebounding again. In almost every respect, the Outlaw US
Empire is weaker now than in 2017 when Trump took over. IMO, Biden's #1, most important and
difficult job will be domestic since his donors will insist they be allowed to continue to
eat away at the vitals that are the fundamental basis of support for the Empire--Following in
the footsteps of Rome.
Russia will be the main target of the new US regime, expect to see the russian underbelly
in flames in the Caucasus, in Central Asia and of course in Ukraine and Syria.
The russian regimen change project will be at full speed, economically, politically,
domestic and external insurgencies, all in order to bleed to death the Bear that they see as
a cultural, military, industrial and natural resources rival that has to be fully destroyed
and reduced to smithereens, divided in corrupt satrapies much smaller and easy dominate
"à la ukrainien" or georgian, to extract, on the cheap, all their natural resources
with nice fees for the Biden family or many others american plutocrats. Win-win
situation.
One of the pieces to "bleed the beast" project was the Pashinyan sororite hiper-corrupt
regime, who sell large amounts of weapons to the jihadis in Syria to kill russians and
syrians soldiers, this was the last straw for the russkies with them:
So the DoD just announced that Trump is drawing down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to
2500 for each by January 15th 2020, and there are about 5,000 private military contractors in
each which will probably increase to compensate. Easy call for Trump.
Yes, I saw McConnel plead to be able to stay and "finish" Afghanistan. Such a tired show
now. The same ol' tune, spoken a thousand times on that senate floor.
But to your point, not all Republicans are non-interventionists. There are many, many
RINOs amongst them who actually loathed the idea of Trump as POTUS in 2015, so much so that
it took the groundswell of support for DJT that these RINOs relented and hopped aboard the
Trump-train.
Now that he has lost, they want to revert back to their prior and favored position as
controlled opposition to the Dem establishment. It will at first be subtle, with feigned
support for outgoing POTUS, but gradually, they will cease mentioning him at all.
It remains to be seen whether the constituents in these RINOs' districts will not see
through the subterfuge.
As I have mentioned before, I think they will come for the RINOs if they disembark the
Trump-train. They are sowing wind.
As we move forward resistance to American hegemony becomes stronger, more broad and a more
viable counterbalance to the western hegemony on world affairs. This is while US and her
allies have and are becoming weaker and therefore more unbalanced. Political and economic
unbalance as seen during the pandemic is much more difficult and costly for developed
nations as would be for the third world.
As has been seen in past few years this shifting power balance will naturally make the losing
power, more reactionary and more violent to preserve and restore her power, both domestically
and externally.
As this giant corpse start decaying her parasites start chowing more and demanding more to
save themselves, which makes this dying giant even more unpredictable, and perhaps more
reactionary and violent regardless who's the president and in power, Trump or Biden has not
and will not make any change difference for the Deep state policies.
Fortunately this is, and has been, the trajectory we are on for some time now, and IMO this
is unstoppable, no matter who and how much propaganda is leveled inside and outside of
west.
Biden has said that he will re-instate the nuclear agreement with Iran but with
'amendments'.
Wishful thinking by Biden and his faction, if he get into white house at all. The greatest
obstacle for any US president to get back to JCPOA is the general disqualification of US
governments to be part of any international agreement.
Obama signed, Trump teared in pieces, Biden signing again (are we in a Kindergarten?), who is
going to guarantee that the next republican president (in 4 years?) doesn't tear it in pieces
again or even the to-be president Kemala Harris (in 2 years?) doesn't trigger the snap back
as a friendly pay back gesture to the Zionist Apartheid regime for getting the job as
president?
Although Rouhani government has sent strong signals that they are ready for a new round of
negotiation, with less then 9 months to the next elections in Iran, almost no chance that the
next winner come from technocrat camp, theocracy not ready to support technocratic efforts
for new negotiations and finally wide popular resistance to continue the JCPOA even in the
current format. It would be more then a wounder to encounter JCPOA 2.0
What occupies the fantasies of the populace does matter to the oligarchs who run the show.
If it didn't matter to the elites they would not spend so much time and energy trying to
shape those fantasies...
The elites are going to support the politicians that are most accomplished and adept at
bolstering the fantasy of the two party system and American democrazy. There is no doubt that
Donald Trump is the salesman of the year for the smoke the elites are blowing up your ass.
There is no other politician that could get 150 million americans sucked into the
fantasy.
And what that means is they will do whatever they can to make sure trump gets another four
more years.
Can't say I disagree with much of this when taken at face value, but I'd appreciate some
backing to this assertion, for which it's quite uncharacteristic of b not to provide right up
front.....if true.
Biden and his team have supported the coup attempt in Venezuela. They only criticized it
for not being done right and will probably come up with their own bloody 'solution'.
I should note, and most MoA readers will agree, that it's nearly impossible to find any
Western media organization - including erstwhile progressive outlets - who don't agree with
the alleged status quo that Maduro is a "dictator" and "has to go."
So what WOULD a Biden administration do differently? All's I can find of substance is that
they'd use sanctions in a more precise manner, not the blunt force instrument that Trump has
applied - and - that they would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans wishing to
flee (I'd bet there's a good mix of the Mestizo and Moreno poor, as well as the trust fund
descendants of the colonial elite) to the United States whereas Trump refused or dragged his
feet to the point that it didn't matter.
I think, then, that the decisions made will be less to do with Biden being a bad man
(which, like Trump, he is), but instead all grounded in the accepted "reality" that "Maduro
must go" and there must be a "peaceful democratic transition" (back to right-wing colonialist
descendants from whom (some of) their stolen land and oil leases were stolen back under
Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. This falsehood has been cemented as truth and reality
across both sides of the U.S. political spectrum as well as that of the UK, Canada and
France: Maduro = Commie Dictator and Brutal Humanitarian Abuser. There is absolutely ZERO way
that Joe Biden would go against it in any meaningful way. He'll just do it a little less
roughly and mean spiritedly as Trump and Bush before him had done (no coups and fewer
sanctions under Obama).
This is a good article on the
intricacies of the politics of food (and resources - a good history lesson all the way
around and recommended - written in June of 2018 and looking back not only on the Chavez
years, but the colonial history that preceded him. I think it's required reading for anyone
who wants to get into a debate or discussion (here or elsewhere) about Chavez and Maduro.
Trump is war monger lite compared to Biden that is war monger/criminal heavy. Greater
chaos is coming inside and outside the US while liberals go back to sleep comfortable that
another Obama like admin is in charge.
My prediction: in the next four years it will be near impossible to paper over the
objective collapse of the US Empire of Insanity.
Biden's campaign said he "was among the first Democratic foreign policy voices to
recognize Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate leader and to call for Maduro to
resign."
Even socialist Sanders, who refused to call Maduro a "dictator", is anti-Maduro:
Sanders called Maduro a "vicicious tyrant" and said there should be "international and
regional cooperation for free elections in Venezuela so that the people of that country can
make -- can create their own future."
there's plenty of countries in the world where the US will continue and/or try to regime
change legitimate governments.
some of these were already started by Mr. Hope and Change, and will continue or be ramped
up by Mr. Sleepy/Rice/Flournoy - like Ukraine, a perfect pretext to irritate Russia with. And
poor Venezuela, which both current and past administrations have attempted to strangle to
death
Some of these came to fruition under Pompeo/Haspel/Trump like Armenia (2018); and some
like Belarus have survived, so far.
some where successfully changed under Trump, like Brazil.
some were temporarily regime changed, like Bolivia (2019), but are now back in the hands
of the real Socialists and indigenous peoples.
some were successfully carried out under Obama, like in Honduras and Paraguay.
The chinese finally learned and took action in Hong Kong which is now essentially out of
the regime change column. Iran will never be regime changed either, nor Syria.
And some like Lebanon are still in play.
I expect economic sanctions/warfare to be increasingly used by this incoming democratic
administration as much as the outgoing republican.
The way for all this nefarious and despicable activity by the US and the West to end
is....??
Trump just didn't have the same amount of low hanging fruit that Obama did . . .like
Ukraine and Syria
low hanging fruit: a thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little
effort.
Let's be clear that Obama's "fruit" turned out to be rotten apples (losses in Ukraine*
& Syria**), plus Mr Hope & Change foolishly sent 70,000 more troops to Afghanistan,
destroyed one of the leading countries in Africa (Libya) for no reason, threatened Iran every
fortnight with his "all options on the table" BS then did an 'agreement' with Iran that was
easily overturned,. .the list goes on.
*NATO wanted Russia's only warm-water port in Crimea, and didn't get it.
**Russia stepped in to prevent US-supported regime change
All of the linear and conventional predictions about the next administration's foreign
policy will be proven wrong, because they neglect the near-fatal deterioration of the US
economy and its social fabric in the last 4 years. In short, any return to the pre-Trump
status quo is simply impossible. That ship sailed forever.
What is pretty much guaranteed, however, is significant and irreversible ratcheting up of
economic tension between America and the rest of the world. The approach may undergo some
finessing, but substance will not only remain but acquire additional urgency. The US is in
desperate need of reducing its current account deficit, and that can't be accomplished
without more threats, more brinkmanship, and more unilateral impositions. You can say goodbye
to any prospect of international harmony, it won't happen. Sure, Democrats may attempt
softening of rhetoric at first, but it will be proven counterproductive and abandoned rather
quickly.
The only reason the Deep State brought Biden back to political life, is because he is one of
the few remaining old Cold Warriors capable of achieving normalization of relations with
Russia. It's of overarching importance at this point, as without it nothing really works for
America and all possible geopolitical equations simply fall apart right away. It's also
pretty clear that because Biden's mental and physical condition is in rapid decline, such
normalization will be proceeding at breakneck speed. Expect Biden-Putin summit in first 6
months of the inauguration, ostensibly to sign new Start Treaty or prolong the old one. After
that, "the dialogue" will kick into overdrive.
All in all, modeling next 4 years of US foreign policy based on op-ed articles in American
MSM is just silly. These are written not to enlighten but to obfuscate. Expect secret
entreaties to Moscow literally within hours of January 20, 2021.
There may be some small cookies thrown Russia's way, but that country as a serious threat
must remain. The 500,000 person US ground force, modernly equipped, depends upon it. There is
no other justification, only a "dangerous" Russia.
Look at Zionist-imperialist bitch Susan Rice berating the UN General Assembly for its
overwhelming vote in 2012 on according Palestine non-member observer status:
Just as the US must have enemies, because there's so much money in it, it must also (for
the same reason) continue to have Israel calling the signals in the Middle East.
By "low hanging fruit" (or poisoned apples), what I meant was from the PR angle.
Situations in those places - by the CIA's making or not - were being reported in the West in
such a manner so that they were more easily than usual sold as "humanitarian interventions"
to "help democracy flourish" and the like. Whereas Bush had his 9/11 and fake WMD threats
from Saddam, Obama had the "organic" "grassroots" uprisings in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Tunisia
and other places which would be used as excuses to go in and steal gold, wreck nations who
were a threat to the Franco or American post-colonial control structures, and otherwise
instill chaos, which is one major goal of EVERY U.S. intervention - especially in the ME.
But yeah, what was done to Libya, Syria and the Ukraine is unforgiveable. I'm just saying
that TPTB when Trump was in office didn't have the easy, made-for-humanitarian intervention
news stories to excuse the next round of destruction. That's one reason they had to try so
hard with Iran - going as far as designating their military and its leaders as terrorists and
all that shit so they could bomb Soleimani while he was on a diplomatic mission. Can't have
an outbreak of peace, now, can we? That is, unless it's a carefully scripted PR version of
"peace" such as what we saw recently with the gulf monarchies and Israel.
Gonna have to say target numero uno has got to be Syria. Finishing off Syria, and chasing
the Russians home will be the lynchpin to the rest of Biden's Middle East Policy. Once Syria
is collapsed into chaos and ethnic cleansing, Lebanon/Hezbollah become much easier to deal
with. Iran becomes further isolated and it's ability to project power seriously reduced. The
whole point of JCPOA IMO was a delaying tactic, keeping Iran on the back burner while Iranian
Proxies and Regional Influence are mopped up.
I expect the Mighty Media Wurlitzer of Pro-War Propaganda will soon begin spinning up and
focusing on the brutality inflicted on the moderate head-choppers by the Assad
Regime...another chemical weapons attack anyone?
The Russian presence in Syria is actually quite precarious, despite their military gains
they don't project power very efficiently beyond their borders. The Biden Regime will
therefore turn up the heat, possibly with a No-Fly Zone over both Idlib and Southern Syria/Al
Tanf in conjunction with a well armed proxy offensive backed by air-support. DNC Dems/Deep
State/NeoCon believe Russia to be bluffing and will either back down or be rolled over in
short order.
Strange IMO.
Most everyone here is talking like it will be business as usual on foreign policy.
I am not so sure. I think that Covid19 has pricked the phony bubble created after the 08/09
collapse. I know the stock market is right back and everything looks fine but I think there
is deep rot beneath.
Couple that with a lot of draws in their latest endeavours and I doubt that the machine can
keep operating with such confidence/arrogance.
Do you also remember how the 2000 presidential campaign played out? Gore was characterized
by the MSM, straight up, as an "interventionist" while Bush - eager to distance his own
foreign policy from the Balkan wars and Clinton/Gore tried to walk a fine line between
isolationism (of which he was accused) and non-interventionism.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush announced that he would pursue a
"distinctly American internationalism" in foreign policy (Bush i999a), largely in contrast
to the liberal internationalism of the Clinton administration. He initially sought to have
a foreign policy that placed greater emphasis on American national interests than on global
interests.
(look up George W. Bush and "classical realism")
So what do Trump and Bush II have in common? How about Trump and Obama? I'll tell you: The
preceding administration of the opposite political party had a history of military
interventions that were quite unpopular with the public, which was looking for a change. And
guess what Obama said when he first stepped into office. That's right - he'd pursue a
retrenchment based foreign policy dedicated to fighting existing terror threats in places and
places near where the previous administration had already placed American troops - AND to
wrap up the already existing wars. From the Atlantic's retrospective:
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Although Obama never presented himself as a pacifist
candidate, his 2007-2008 presidential campaign was predicated in part on the promise to end
the war in Iraq and properly prosecute the war in Afghanistan. In March 2008, he declared
of Iraq, "When I am commander in chief, I will set a new goal on day one: I will end this
war." Later that year, he listed his first two priorities for making America safer as
"ending the war in Iraq responsibly" and "finishing the fight against al-Qaeda and the
Taliban." The president also promised a foreign policy that relied more on diplomacy and
less on military might in his first inaugural address, telling his audience that "our power
grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the
force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint." Well before the
tumult of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Obama famously offered to extend a hand to
those willing to unclench their fist. (there are links embedded there)
Here's what Brookings has to say:
I do not mean to overstate. Obama's presidency will not go down as a hugely positive
watershed period in American foreign policy. He ran for election in 2007 and 2008 promising
to mend the West's breach with the Islamic world, repair the nation's image abroad, reset
relations with Russia, move toward a world free of nuclear weapons, avoid "stupid wars"
while winning the "right war," combat climate change, and do all of this with a
post-partisan style of leadership that brought Americans themselves together in the
process.[1] He ran for reelection in 2012 with the additional pledges of ending the
nation's wars and completing the decimation of al Qaeda. Six years into his presidency,
almost none of these lofty aspirations has been achieved.[2] There has not been, and likely
will not be, any durable Obama doctrine of particular positive note. The recent progress
toward a nuclear deal with Iran, while preferable to any alternative if it actually
happens, is probably too limited in duration and overall effect to count as a historic
breakthrough (even if Obama shares a second Nobel Prize as a result).
And before you start to think that Trump said much different, here's a blurb from your own
article:
"We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we
shouldn't be involved with," Trump said. "Instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism
and destroying ISIS, and we will."
Hence, there hasn't been a President for the last 50 years that has campaigned on, or
entered office with a PUBLIC plan to engage in foreign regime change activities. But nearly
every one of them, especially since Ronald Reagan, have had "excuses" crop up for
"humanitarian interventions" and that includes Bush II and Obama. The so-called Arab Spring
began in earnest in mid- to late 2010 and Syria and Libya were in mid to late 2011 during
their peak, at which point the U.S. and France got involved under the auspices of
"humanitarian intervention."
So more than 3 years into his first term, Obama still hadn't "started any new wars." Three
years is an incredibly short period of time when looking at history, even the history of the
United States. Trump's only been in office for about 3 years and 9 months. Nothing like the
Arab Spring has happened so far while he's been there. That is indisputable. What is also
indisputable is that Trump DID try to spark a war by assassinating General Soleimani. Whether
there was any plan AT THE TIME to end up invading Iran (a total fool's errand as you know
well), I doubt, but the goal of that assassination was to prevent an organic, non-U.S.
brokered peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which at the very least was a threat to Trump's
precious arms sales, but also very much in line with his Zionist friendly Israel policy. At
worst, who knows, but you can't make an unchallenged assumption that Trump and his advisors
had fully thought through all possible Iranian retaliation options and concluded that there
was no way the assassination would cause Iran to do something so bad that a new war was
justified regardless of the cost. Sorry, but you just can't.
Yeah, yeah, Trump hasn't started any "new wars" but his rhetoric and public facing stated
foreign policy goals were virtually the same as Obama's. Trump just didn't get any 9/11s,
Eastern European or Middle East uprisings that would have been sufficient for him or ANY
previous president to attempt to justify "humanitarian interventions" abroad. As I've said
for a while, if he had a second term, there would have been a new war - even if it was the
"deep state" and CIA who created the astroturf casus belli.
...Trump has also unleashed a mass proto fascist movement, which is based amongst the
lowest scum of the working class, various billionaire factions, and the white suburban middle
class and small business owners.
These genies will not go back into their bottles. Neoliberal hegemony is shattered.
All of this is the result of the 1% sucking the blood of the working class for the past
four decades. 2008 was the spark. Covid was the explosion.
I see this every damn day in the US, even in a wealthy liberal city. The social fabric has
largely fallen apart. Living in the US is daily suffering, dashed hopes, sadness, and rage.
It is awful.
Biden won't have any room for major wars abroad. He might try to rebuild liberal alliances
but he won't have any capacity to overthrow Asad or Maduro or to reverse the objective trends
of global capitalism. How can he reboot US primacy if China and Asia account for 90 percent
of world economic growth?
Covid has revealed the US as a paper tiger with little institutional capacity to manage
itself or the world. It is in fact a threat to the world.
Biden and his neoliberal coterie will act like arrogant pricks. They are arrogant pricks.
But we can laugh at them. They have a limited shelf life.
Well of course it will be awful. There has never been an administration in American
history that hasn't been awful on foreign policy. We've always been an empire.
Biden will find a world different than the one he remembers from four years ago. The
blustering incompetence of the Trump administration was the world's cue to move on. And the
empire now has a lot of issues in the home territory that need immediate and drastic
attention.
Few empires survive long after being forced to turn inward after a long period of
expansion. We're beyond things that can papered better with a glorious little war.
Biden likely takes power with a collapsed health care sector and a real economy of misery
for most. He'll have a federal government riddled wholly unqualified ideologues in a country
that went ahead and delegitimized it's own elections for one man's vanity. Where half the
country doesn't believe in the virus that crushed the health care system and wrecked the
economy. It will all be terrible because the US has reached the historical point where
terrible describes all the options.
"... There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. ..."
That Israel would blatantly and openly interfere in the deliberations of Congress raises
some serious questions which the mainstream media predictably is not addressing. Jewish power
in America is for real and it is something that some Jews
are not shy about discussing among themselves. Jewish power is unique in terms of how it
functions. If you're an American (
or British ) politician, you very quickly are made to appreciate that Israel owns you and
nearly all of your colleagues. Indeed, the process begins in the U.S. even before your election
when the little man from AIPAC shows up with the check list that he wants you to sign off on.
If you behave per instructions your career path will be smooth, and you will benefit from your
understanding that everything happening in Washington that is remotely connected to the
interests of the state of Israel is to be determined by the Jewish state alone, not by the U.S.
Congress or White House.
And, here is the tricky part, even while you are energetically kowtowing to Netanyahu, you
must strenuously deny that there is Jewish power at work if anyone ever asks you about it. You
behave in that fashion because you know that your pleasant life will be destroyed, painfully,
if you fail to deny the existence of an Israel Lobby or the Jewish power that supports it.
It is a bold assertion, but there is plenty of evidence to support how that power is exerted
and what the consequences are. Senators William Fulbright and Chuck Percy and Congressmen Paul
Findlay, Pete McCloskey and Cynthia McKinney have all experienced the wrath of the Lobby and
voted out of office. Currently Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is running against Georgia
Loeffler for a senate seat in Georgia demonstrates exactly how candidates are convinced to
stand on their heads by the Israel Lobby. Warnock was a strong supporter of Palestinian rights
and a critic of Israeli brutality.
He said as recently as 2018 that the Israelis were shooting civilians and condemned the
military occupation and settlement construction on the Palestinian West Bank, which he compared
to apartheid South Africa. Now that he is running for the Senate, he is saying that he is
opposed to the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to what he calls the
movement's "anti-Semitic overtones." He also supports continued military assistance for Israel
and believes that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, both of which are critical issues
being promoted by the Zionist lobby.
There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior
Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor
famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their
support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. Just
how Israel gains control of the U.S. political process is illustrated by the devastating
insider tale of how the Obama Administration's feeble attempts to do the right thing in the
Middle East were derailed by American Jews in Congress, the media, party donors and from inside
the White House itself. The story is of particularly interest as the Biden Administration will
no doubt suffer the same fate if it seeks to reject or challenge Israel's ability to manipulate
and virtually control key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
The account of Barack Obama's struggle with Israel and the Israeli Lobby comes from a
recently published memoir written by a former foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. It is
entitled
The World As It Is , and it is extremely candid about how Jewish power was able to
limit the foreign policy options of a popular sitting president. Rhodes recounts, for example,
how Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once nicknamed him "Hamas" after he dared to speak up for
Palestinian human rights, angrily shouting at him "Hamas over here is going to make it
impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel."
Rhodes cites numerous instances where Obama was forced to back down when confronted by
Israel and its supporters in the U.S. as well as within the Democratic Party. On several
occasions, Netanyahu lecture the U.S. president as if he were an errant schoolboy. And Obama
just had to take it. Rhodes sums up the situation as follows: "In Washington, where support for
Israel is an imperative for members of Congress, there was a natural deference to the views of
the Israeli government on issues related to Iran, and Netanyahu was unfailingly
confrontational, casting himself as an Israeli Churchill . AIPAC and other organizations exist
to make sure that the views of the Israeli government are effectively disseminated and opposing
views discredited in Washington, and this dynamic was a permanent part of the landscape of the
Obama presidency."
And, returning to the persistent denial of Jewish power even existing when it is running
full speed and relentlessly, Rhodes notes the essential dishonesty of the Israel Lobby as it
operates in Washington: "Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions
to defeat the Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported
the war in Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way
for people to avoid accountability for their own positions."
Many Americans long to live in a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of
the sovereignty of foreign nations. Alas, as long as Israeli interests driven by overwhelming
Jewish power in the United States continue to corrupt our institutions that just will not be
possible. It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign
country that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences. The United States
does not exist to bail Israel out or to provide cover for its bad behavior. The so-called
"special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis as they would with any
other country based on America's own self-interests. Those interests definitely do not include
funding the Israeli war machine, assassinating foreign leaders, or attacking a non-threatening
Iran while continuing an illegal occupation of Syria.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email isinform@cnionline.org .
Threat inflation is like Apple pie among Washington swamp national security parasites
Notable quotes:
"... The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist. ..."
"... Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of "threat-size" . . . ..."
Applying any logic to the "threats" against the US "national security" AKA world hegemony
becomes much simpler with recognizing two simple facts:
1. The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no
diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist.
2. Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of
"threat-size" . . .
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, & African
"terrorists" -- did I miss anyone?
US president-elect Joe Biden's approach to diplomacy is diametrically opposed to that of the outgoing Donald Trump, known as he
was to levy undiplomatic salvos at foreign leaders via social media. But one shouldn't expect a wholesale revamp in substance
when the veteran Democrat takes office in January. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at Biden's foreign policy agenda.
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The former
US
vice
president brings a wealth of foreign policy experience, expertise and, not insignificantly, genuine interest in global affairs
to the White House. The Democrat served as chair of the
Senate
Foreign Relations Committee
, readily making
trips
to Iraq and Afghanistan
to gather the facts on the ground, prior to spending eight years as President
Barack
Obama
's right-hand man from 2009 to early 2017.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday reflected fondly on her regular meetings with VP
Biden
under
Obama. "He knows Germany and Europe well. I remember good encounters and conversations with him," Merkel said as she
underlined Biden's "decades of experience in foreign policy" and "very warmly" congratulated him on his election win.
The transatlantic conversation is indeed likely to mellow amid a promised early flurry of multilateral moves on Biden's part
that dovetail with key European priorities and reverse the sorts of
Trump
manoeuvres
that boggled European capitals.
Biden
has
said
his foreign agenda would "place the United States back at the head of the table, in a position to work with its
allies and partners to mobilise collective action on global threats". The operative word there may be "table" -- Biden recognises
there should be one. After four years of "America First", with the erratic Trump toppling proverbial roundtables with an
iconoclastic flourish, Biden will be conspicuous about putting the pieces back together.
"For 70 years, the United States, under Democratic and Republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules,
forging the agreements, and animating the institutions that guide relations among nations and advance collective security and
prosperity -- until Trump," Biden wrote in a Foreign Affairs piece last spring that
reads
like a foreign policy manifesto
. "If we continue his abdication of that responsibility, then one of two things will
happen: either someone else will take the United States' place, but not in a way that advances our interests and values, or no
one will, and chaos will ensue. Either way, that's not good for America."
Biden says he will rejoin the
Paris
Climate Agreement
"on day one" and, "in his first 100 days in office", he will convene a global summit on climate to press
the world's top carbon-emitters to join the US in making national pledges more ambitious than the ones they made in the French
capital back in 2015.
On the campaign trail, the president-elect also pledged to rejoin the
World
Health Organization
on his first day in office -- after Trump eschewed and quit the Geneva-based institution in the midst of
the
Covid-19
global
public health crisis. "Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health," Biden reasons.
During his first year in office, the president-elect has also pledged to host "a global Summit for Democracy to renew the
spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World". The gathering's stated aim is to obtain commitments toward
fighting corruption, countering authoritarianism, notably through election security, and advancing human rights globally.
Biden has also pledged to rejoin the United Nations Human Rights Council.
As a presidential candidate, Biden stumped for renewing America's support
NATO
,
calling his country's commitment to the 70-year-old political and military alliance "sacred, not transactional", in contrast
to his predecessor's vision of the body as a protection club with dues.
"NATO is at the very heart of the United States' national security, and it is the bulwark of the liberal democratic ideal -- an
alliance of values, which makes it far more durable, reliable, and powerful than partnerships built by coercion or cash," the
lifelong transatlanticist wrote. Cue the sigh of relief in Baltic capitals.
Countering 'Russian aggression'
Naturally, part of Biden's argument for bolstering NATO is the message it will send
Moscow
.
"To counter Russian aggression, we must keep the alliance's military capabilities sharp while also expanding its capacity to
take on nontraditional threats, such as weaponised corruption, disinformation, and cyber-theft," Biden explained in Foreign
Affairs.
He was vice president in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, sinking ties between Moscow and Washington to a
post-Cold War low.
Observers note that Washington has not been complacent with Moscow in the intervening years, imposing sanctions on Russia
during Trump's term in office even as the man behind the desk in the Oval Office seemed keen to look the other way. But under
Biden, the mixed message of friendliness to Vladimir Putin conveyed by Trump -- who declined to address such affronts as the
bounties Moscow allegedly put on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan -- will likely be a thing of the past.
"We must impose real costs on Russia for its violations of international norms and stand with Russian civil society, which has
bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir Putin's kleptocratic authoritarian system," Biden has pledged.
Despite his wariness of Moscow, Biden has promised to pursue an extension of the New START Treaty, which his campaign called
"an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia" and use that nuclear arms reduction agreement as a
foundation for future arms control arrangements.
Coalescing allies to confront China
Biden sees
China
,
meanwhile, as the most pertinent threat to US interests long-term, a stance that enjoys rare relative bipartisan agreement in
Washington, meaning the shift on relations with Beijing will primarily be one of tone and method.
Biden has slammed China for stealing US firms' technology and intellectual property and for giving its state-owned firms an
unfair advantage with subsidies.
Instead of addressing US concerns unilaterally as Trump has, Biden has proposed building a coalition of allies to confront
China where the nations disagree (unfair commercial practices, human rights abuses) and to engage in cooperation where it is
needed (climate issues, global public health, nonproliferation, not least vis-à-vis North Korea).
"On its own, the United States represents about a quarter of global GDP. When we join together with fellow democracies, our
strength more than doubles. China can't afford to ignore more than half the global economy," wrote Biden in Foreign Affairs.
"That gives us substantial leverage to shape the rules of the road on everything from the environment to labour, trade,
technology, and transparency, so they continue to reflect democratic interests and values," he reasoned.
The Delaware Democrat has blasted Trump's propensity for designating imports from the European Union and Canada, America's
"closest allies", as national security threats, damaging long-entrenched relationships with "reckless tariffs".
"By cutting us off from the economic clout of our partners, Trump has kneecapped our country's capacity to take on the real
economic threat," he wrote, pointing to China.
No more 'forever wars' in the Middle East
Biden has pledged to "re-enter" the Iran nuclear deal, "negotiated by the Obama-Biden administration alongside our allies and
other world powers" -- namely France, Germany, the UK, the EU, China and Russia. He credits the accord with having blocked
Iran
from
obtaining a nuclear weapon and blames Trump's decision to cast it aside for prompting Iran to rekindle its nuclear ambitions
and adopt a more provocative stance. Biden has pledged to rejoin the agreement "if Tehran returns to compliance" and use
"hard-nosed diplomacy and support from our allies to strengthen and extend it, while more effectively pushing back against
Iran's other destabilising activities".
Meanwhile, the former vice-president has also said he would "end our support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen".
Although he has said Trump's unilateral approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has made the two-state solution for
Israel that Biden backs more difficult, he has said he
would
keep the embassy
Trump moved to Jerusalem in 2018 where it is. Biden has welcomed the normalising of relations the Trump
administration helped negotiate
between
Israel and Gulf states
in recent months.
The Democrat has pledged to sustain "an ironclad commitment to Israel's security". He has also cautioned the country over its
treatment of the Palestinian territories,
saying
earlier this year
, "Israel needs to stop the threats of annexation and stop settlement activity because it will choke off
any hope of peace."
In terms of US military commitments in the region, Biden has advocated bringing home the vast majority of American troops in
the Middle East and Afghanistan, in favour of narrowing the focus to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group. He wants to end the
"forever wars" the US has waged in the region.
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"We must maintain our focus on counter-terrorism, around the world and at home, but staying entrenched in unwinnable conflicts
drains our capacity to lead on other issues that require our attention, and it prevents us from rebuilding the other
instruments of American power," he wrote in Foreign Affairs.
No hard-border Brexit
It would be a misnomer to count
Brexit
as
among Biden's hot-button policy issues. Indeed, while Trump ally Boris Johnson and his Conservative leadership in London once
looked forward to negotiating an "ambitious" post-Brexit trade deal with the US, neither Biden's campaign website's outline of
his foreign policy priorities nor the former vice president's quasi-manifesto in Foreign Affairs makes any mention of the
United Kingdom per se or its divorce proceedings from the EU. What is clear is that Biden is not poised to cater to the
so-called "Special Relationship" at any cost.
"We can't allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit," the
president-elect, a noted Irish-American,
tweeted
in September
. "Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the
return of a hard border. Period."
Not quite Twitter diplomacy as Trump might conduct it, but the president-elect's sentiment won't have escaped Downing Street's
attention as it turns the page on Europe.
Independent commentator Caitlin Johnstone is raining on the parade of Liberals and
Progressives who are hailing "barriers being broken" merely because Joe Biden is expected to
pick a woman for the top Pentagon post in a historic first, blasting
the spectacle as "Imperialism in Pumps" given presumed top choice Michele Flournoy hails
from deep within the heart of the hawkish military-industrial complex .
"President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head
the Pentagon for the first time, shattering one of the few remaining barriers to women in the
department and the presidential Cabinet," the
Associated Press reported gushingly this weekend.
Seen as a steady hand who favors strong military cooperation abroad , Flournoy, 59, has
served multiple times in the Pentagon, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the
undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. She serves on the board of Booz Allen
Hamilton , a defense contractor...
This word "moderate" which the AP news agency keeps bleating is of course complete
nonsense. Standing in the middle ground between two corporatist warmongering parties does not
make you a moderate, it makes you a corporatist warmonger. Flournoy is no more "moderate"
than the "moderate rebels" in Syria which mass media outlets like AP praised for years until
it became undeniable that they were largely Al Qaeda affiliates ; the
only reason such a position can be portrayed as mainstream and moderate is because vast
fortunes have been poured into making it that way.
She highlights the nauseating spectacle of MSNBC and others attempting to frame it as a
great achievement for feminism:
"White progressives training their fire on women and women of color who are under
consideration to lead the nat sec departments makes me deeply uncomfortable about their
allyship for those communities," tweeted MSNBC contributor
Mieke Eoyang. "Especially when the nat sec community is dominated by white men."
It's only going to get dumber from here, folks.
Let's clear this up before the girl power parade starts: the first woman to head the US
war machine will not be a groundbreaking pioneer of feminist achievement. She will be a mass
murderer who wears Spanx. Her appointment will not be an advancement for women, it will be
imperialism in pumps.
Glenn Greenwald also pointed out the obvious in terms of what's really going on here,
deriding "the neoliberal scam of exploiting identity politics" .
Greenwald came under attack for so much as daring to question Flournoy's potential
appointment on the mere basis that one supposedly can't possibly question the choice when
"barriers are being broken" (and nevermind that a woman, Gina Haspel, currently runs the most
powerful spy agency in the world).
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Greenwald wrote of this tactic: "It belongs as a Hall of Fame exhibit showing why Democratic
Party neoliberals and militarists are indescribably deceitful and repulsive."
During his election campaign, Biden has relied on foreign policy advisors from past
administrations, particularly the Obama administration, and seems to be considering some of
them for top cabinet posts. For the most part, they are members of the "Washington blob" who
represent a dangerous continuity with past policies rooted in militarism and other abuses of
power.
These include interventions in Libya and Syria, support for the Saudi war in Yemen, drone
warfare, indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo, prosecutions of whistleblowers and
whitewashing torture. Some of these people have also cashed in on their government contacts to
make hefty salaries in consulting firms and other private sector ventures that feed off
government contracts.
As former Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor to Obama,
Tony Blinken played a
leading role in all of Obama's more aggressive policies. Then he co-founded WestExec Advisors
to profit
from negotiating contracts between corporations and the Pentagon, including one for Google
to develop artificial intelligence technology for drone targeting, which was only stopped by a
rebellion among outraged Google employees.
Since the Clinton administration,
Michele Flournoy has been a principal architect of the U.S.'s illegal, imperialist doctrine
of global war and military occupation. As Obama's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, she
helped to engineer his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and interventions in Libya and
Syria. Between jobs at the Pentagon, she has worked the infamous revolving door to consult for
firms seeking Pentagon contracts, to co-found a military-industrial think tank called the
Center for a New
American Security (CNAS), and now to join Tony Blinken at WestExec Advisors.
Nicholas Burns
was U.S. Ambassador to NATO during the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2008, he
has worked for former Defense Secretary William Cohen's lobbying firm The Cohen Group, which is a major global
lobbyist for the U.S. arms industry. Burns is a hawk on Russia and China
and has condemned
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a "traitor."
As a legal adviser to Obama and the State Department and then as Deputy CIA Director and
Deputy National Security Advisor, Avril Haines provided legal cover and worked
closely with Obama and CIA Director John Brennan on Obama's
tenfold expansion of drone killings.
Samantha Power
served under Obama as UN Ambassador and Human Rights Director at the National Security Council.
She supported U.S. interventions in Libya and Syria, as well as the Saudi-led
war on Yemen . And despite her human rights portfolio, she never spoke out against Israeli
attacks on Gaza that happened under her tenure or Obama's dramatic use of drones that left
hundreds of civilians dead.
As UN Ambassador in Obama's first term, Susan Rice obtained UN cover for his
disastrous intervention in Libya. As National Security Advisor in Obama's second term, Rice
also defended Israel's savage
bombardment of Gaza in 2014, bragged about the U.S.'s "crippling sanctions" on Iran and
North Korea, and supported an aggressive stance toward Russia and China.
A foreign policy team led by such individuals will only perpetuate the endless wars,
Pentagon overreach and CIA-misled chaos that we -- and the world -- have endured for the past
two decades of the War on Terror.
Making diplomacy "the premier tool of our global engagement."
Biden will take office amid some of the greatest challenges the human race has ever faced --
from extreme inequality, debt and poverty caused by neoliberalism , to intractable wars and the
existential danger of nuclear war, the climate crisis, mass extinction, and the Covid-19
pandemic.
These problems won't be solved by the same people, and the same mindsets, that got us into
these predicaments. When it comes to foreign policy, there is a desperate need for personnel
and policies rooted in an understanding that the greatest dangers we face are problems that
affect the whole world, and that they can only be solved by genuine international
collaboration, not by conflict or coercion.
During the campaign, Joe
Biden's website declared, "As president, Biden will elevate diplomacy as the premier tool
of our global engagement. He will rebuild a modern, agile U.S. Department of State -- investing
in and re-empowering the finest diplomatic corps in the world and leveraging the full talent
and richness of America's diversity."
This implies that Biden's foreign policy must be managed primarily by the State Department,
not the Pentagon. The Cold War and American post-Cold War
triumphalism led to a reversal of these roles, with the Pentagon and CIA taking the lead
and the State Department trailing behind them (with only 5 percent of their budget), trying to
clean up the mess and restore a veneer of order to countries destroyed by
American bombs or destabilized by U.S. sanctions
, coups
and
death squads .
In the Trump era, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reduced the State Department to little more
than a
sales team for the military-industrial complex to ink lucrative arms deals with India,
Taiwan , Saudi
Arabia, the UAE and countries around the world.
What we need is a foreign policy led by a State Department that resolves differences with
our neighbors through diplomacy and negotiations, as international law in fact requires , and a
Department of Defense that defends the United States and deters international aggression
against us, instead of threatening and committing aggression against our neighbors around the
world.
As the saying goes, "personnel is policy," so whomever Biden picks for top foreign policy
posts will be key in shaping its direction. While our personal preferences would be to put top
foreign policy positions in the hands of people who have spent their lives actively pursuing
peace and opposing U.S. military aggression, that's just not in the cards with this
middle-of-the-road Biden administration.
But there are appointments Biden could make to give his foreign policy the emphasis on
diplomacy and negotiation that he says he wants. These are American diplomats who have
successfully negotiated important international agreements, warned U.S. leaders of the dangers
of aggressive militarism, and developed valuable expertise in critical areas like arms
control.
William
Burns was Deputy Secretary of State under Obama, the No. 2 position at the State
Department, and he is now the director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As
Under Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs in 2002, Burns gave Secretary of State Colin Powell a
prescient and detailed but unheeded
warning that the invasion of Iraq could "unravel" and create a "perfect storm" for American
interests. Burns also served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan and then Russia.
Wendy Sherman was
Obama's Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, the No. 4 position at the State
Department, and was briefly Acting Deputy Secretary of State after Burns retired. Sherman was
the lead
negotiator for both the1994 Framework Agreement with North Korea and the negotiations with
Iran that led to the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015. This is surely the kind of experience
Biden needs in senior positions if he is serious about reinvigorating American diplomacy.
Tom
Countryman is currently the Chair of the Arms Control Association . In the Obama administration,
Countryman served as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs, Assistant
Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, and Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs. He also served at U.S. embassies in
Belgrade, Cairo, Rome, and Athens, and as foreign policy advisor to the Commandant of the U.S.
Marine Corps. Countryman's expertise could be critical in reducing or even removing the danger
of nuclear war. It would also please the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, since Tom
supported Senator Bernie Sanders for president.
In addition to these professional diplomats, there are also members of Congress who have
expertise in foreign policy and could play important roles in a Biden foreign policy team. One
is Representative Ro
Khanna , who has been a champion of ending U.S. support for the war in Yemen, resolving the
conflict with North Korea, and reclaiming Congress's constitutional authority over the use of
military force.
If the Republicans hold their majority in the Senate, it will be harder to get appointments
confirmed than if the Democrats win the two Georgia seats that are
headed for run-offs (or than if they had run more progressive campaigns in Iowa, Maine, or
North Carolina and won at least one of those seats).
But this will be a long two years if we let Joe Biden take cover behind Mitch McConnell on
critical appointments, policies, and legislation. Biden's initial cabinet appointments will be
an early test of whether Biden will be the consummate insider or whether he is willing to fight
for real solutions to our country's most serious problems.
Conclusion
U.S. cabinet positions are positions of power that can drastically affect the lives of
millions of Americans and billions of our neighbors overseas.
If Biden is surrounded by people who, against all the evidence of past decades, still
believe in the illegal threat and use of military force as key foundations of American foreign
policy, then the international cooperation the whole world so desperately needs will be
undermined by four more years of war, hostility, and international tensions -- and our most
serious problems will remain unresolved.
That's why we must vigorously advocate for a team that would put an end to the normalization
of war and make diplomatic engagement in the pursuit of international peace and cooperation our
number one foreign policy priority.
Whomever President-elect Biden chooses to be part of his foreign policy team, he -- and they
-- will be pushed by people beyond the White House fence who are calling for demilitarization,
including cuts in military spending, and for reinvestment in our country's peaceful economic
development.
It will be our job to hold President Biden and his team accountable whenever they fail to
turn the page on war and militarism, and to keep pushing them to build friendly relations with
all our neighbors on this small planet that we share.
Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School
of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More
War: How the West Violates International Law by Using "Humanitarian" Intervention to Advance
Economic and Strategic Interests. You might have noticed something curious following
Biden's apparent election win – liberal politicians and media are sounding the alarm that
Trump may use his remaining months in office to draw down our troops from Afghanistan.
For example, the New York Times ran a piece on
November 12 claiming that " both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of
security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out
troop withdrawal in his final days in office " before the more "responsible" Biden can take
over and try to stop or at least slow this. It is clear now that it is the liberal
establishment, and the Democratic Party, which is more wedded to war than their counterparts
across the aisle, and that should be disturbing to people hoping for progressive change with
the incoming Administration.
First of all, we must start with this discussion with the undisputed fact that our leaders
do not know, and have not known for some time, what the US' goals and strategy in Afghanistan
even are. One would be forgiven for not knowing, or for forgetting this fact because the
incontrovertible evidence of it – the so-called "
Afghanistan Papers " – received scant and only momentary attention when they were
exposed last year by the Washington Post.
As these documents, consisting of interviews with hundreds of insiders responsible for
prosecuting the war show, the American public was intentionally lied to about the alleged "
progress " of this war, even as our leaders were unsure what " progress "
meant.
As the Washington Post noted, the US government never even decided who it was really
fighting there: " Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban? Was Pakistan a friend or an
adversary? What about Islamic State and the bewildering array of foreign jihadists, let alone
the warlords on the CIA's payroll? According to the documents, the US government never settled
on an answer ." Almost to a person, everyone involved in this morass agreed that the
billions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, have been in vain. It has all been a
colossal waste.
Now, however, we are being told to panic that Trump may end this disastrous conflict. For
example, the quite liberal and almost blatantly pro-Biden news outlet, National Public Radio
(NPR) ran segments all last week about
female soccer teams in Afghanistan. The message of these segments was clear – these
soccer teams are (allegedly) proof of women's advances in Afghanistan as a result of the US'
intervention since 2001, and these advances are in jeopardy if Trump ends this
intervention.
Such manipulative stories of course obscure the real fact that the US has been undermining
women's rights in Afghanistan since it began intervening there in 1979, and Afghanistan
still
ranks at the very bottom of all countries for women's rights. But there is no doubt that
such stories will warm the hearts of many Biden supporters to continue war there.
Meanwhile, it is not only Afghanistan which is the focus of the liberal enthusiasm for war.
Thus, as the Grayzone
has reported , Dana Stroul, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressionally-appointed Syria
Study Group, recently outlined the plans for even deeper US intervention in Syria – an
intervention which Trump has at least paid lip service to ending.
Specifically, Stroul emphasized that " one-third of Syrian territory was owned via the US
military, with its local partner the Syrian Democratic Forces, " that this territory
happened to be the richest in Syria in terms of oil and agriculture, and that the US would
intensify its intervention in and against Syria to keep its control of this territory and its
resources. Of course, taking over other nations' resources is a violation of international law,
including the Geneva Conventions prohibition against "plunder," but that seems to be of no
concern.
The liberal media is also elated by the prospect of a Biden White House being more
aggressive in its foreign policy towards both Russia and China.
As CNBC explains
, " Now there is likely to be a change in the air when it comes to U.S.-Russia relations. At
the very least, analysts told CNBC before the result that they expected a Biden win to increase
tensions between Washington and Moscow, and to raise the probability of new sanctions on
Russia...Experts from risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence said they expected more cooperation
between Biden and Europe on global issues such as 'countering China, Russia' ."
While one might think that increased tensions with two major nuclear powers would not be a
welcome development, years of the false Russiagate narrative have groomed liberals for such
tensions.
Incredibly, Trump has been portrayed as being soft on Russia, even as he backed out of a
major
anti-proliferation treaty (The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) which had been
signed with the Kremlin back in 1987, and even as he
sent the largest contingent of US troops (20,000) in a quarter of a century to train with
European soldiers on the Russian border. I must note here that the converse – Russia's
sending tens of thousands of troops to the border with the US – is simply inconceivable
and would indeed be seen in Washington as an occasion for war. I, for one, am quite alarmed to
think of what a Biden policy of "getting tougher" with Russia would look like, and what kind of
catastrophe it could bring about.
Regretfully, I now live in a country in which liberals outflanking conservatives in terms of
their tolerance and even eagerness for aggression and war, especially when that aggression and
war is being led by officials who, as I'm sure we will see in the new Biden Administration,
happen to be women or people of color. For the first time recently, I have seen the concept of
"intersectional imperialism" being used to describe this situation, and I believe this to be a
very real phenomenon; to be but another means of making war that much easier to swallow for
broad swaths of the American public.
The irony, of course, is that the bombs dropped by the US in war, no matter who happens to
be in charge of the US government at the time, disproportionately fall upon women and children
of a darker skin hue, and they maim and kill just as much as those dropped by old white male
Republicans. Sadly, few seem to understand or care about this.
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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.
benalls 31 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:27 AM
It's not the "left" or "right", republicans or democrats, but a new American movement,,,,
CBM,,, wich usually means 'silent but deadly' but in this case it stands for "CEO's Bonus
Matters" . The movement congressional members from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing vowed to
support. Its time for us to grab our shields, helmets, and frozen water bottles and travel to
a new neighborhood to loot and burn. Israel has given Harris and JOJO their instructions.
razzims 49 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:10 AM
same ol empire of chaos and their eternal war. no matter which party wins election
HypoxiaMasks 1 hour ago 16 Nov, 2020 09:42 AM
Other than the Bush and lil Bush, every war from the beginning of the 20th century was
started with a Democrat president. Tell me again how the Republicans are the party of war
MarkG1964 5 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:54 AM
The democrats and republicans are two wings on the same bird.
Worth the Price? Joe Biden and the Launch of the Iraq War is a documentary short
reviewing the role of then-Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) in leading the United States into the most
devastating foreign policy blunder of the last twenty years.
Produced and directed by Mark
Weisbrot and narrated by Danny
Glover , the film features archival footage, as well as policy experts who provide insight
and testimony with regard to Joe Biden's role as the Chair of the United States Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations in 2002.
Lawrence Wilkerson
, Former Chief of Staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell; Distinguished
Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary;
U.S. Army Colonel, Retired
https://www.youtube.com/embed/vhcuei8_UJM
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The possibility of eased sanctions with Iran, while extremely important, is not guaranteed
and will be offset by Biden's own commitment to imperialist plunder in the region. One cannot
forget that Biden helped the Obama administration increase U.S. wars
from two to seven. In eight years, Biden assisted in the
coup of Honduras , the overthrow of Libya , and
the ongoing proxy
war in Syria . Biden's commitment to the WHO should not negate his firm opposition to any
single-payer model of healthcare and the large sums of
money he receives from the very healthcare industry which has ensured the U.S. is without a
public health system all together.
"Biden helped the Obama administration increase U.S. wars from two to seven."
Biden and the Democratic Party are joint partners with the GOP in the facilitation of the
ongoing Race to the Bottom for the working class. Wall Street
donated heavily to Biden with full knowledge that his administration will continue to
support the right of corporations to drive down wages, increase productivity (exploitation),
and concentrate capital in fewer and fewer hands. Boeing's CEO stated clearly clear that his
business prospects would be served
regardless of who won the election . Prison stocks rose after Biden announced Kamala Harris
as his
vice president . On November 4th, Reuters announced that the lords of capital were
quite pleased that
no major policy changes were likely under the new political regime elected to Congress and
the Oval Office.
Biden will inevitably rule as a rightwing neoconservative in all areas of policy. His big
tent of Republicans and national security state apparatchiks is at least as large as Hillary
Clinton's in 2016. Over 100 former GOP war hawks of the national security state endorsed
Biden in the closing weeks of the election. Larry Summers, a chief architect of the
2007-2008 economic crisis,
advised his campaign . Susan Rice and Michele Flournoy are likely to join Biden's